text
stringlengths 22
2.11M
|
|---|
[Question]
[
Say I've got a sci-fi setting where I have one faction using relatively advanced technology (think The Expanse, or pre-Covenant war UNSC from Halo, fusion rockets and high-yield magnetic accelerator cannons), but nothing that we couldn't theoretically build given a few more decades or centuries to advance. Then there's another faction that effectively has magic and magitech. The magical faction comes up with a way to use their magic to disable any computer more complex and compact than a 1940s-1950s era analog computer.
Civilian and industrial centers behind the front lines are unaffected by this magic, and so ships can be CONSTRUCTED with the aid of computers, but if they don't want to be crippled as soon as they get into combat, they need to be able to function without them, or at least without any that aren't a room-sized monstrosity only capable of handling a few kilobytes. Could this actually be done? Could you have a ship equipped with fusion reactors and all the rest actually function with just clever engineering, human oversight, and clockwork computers? What issues would arise?
[Answer]
>
> Could you have a ship equipped with fusion reactors and all the rest actually function with just clever engineering, human oversight, and clockwork computers? What issues would arise?
>
>
>
A fission rocket on a civilian mission on a well defined trajectory with lots of time to check for problems and correct them might do ok. Anything more complex than that though? Dubious.
A *war* ship of the sort of capabilities you're talking about? Probably not. Your meatbags and clockwork simply won't have the reaction times needed. You'll also have a pretty hard time operating your massive coilguns (switching those coils requires *fast* electronics, everything operating in sync) or your fusion rockets (they'll be difficult enough even with computers, let alone without it). Point defense systems will be utterly impractical, and getting firing solutions on distance targets will take too long to be useful in a fight. You won't be able to use guided missiles. You won't be able to use projectiles with fancy warheads such as bomb-pumped lasers or casaba howitzers.
If your magitech opponents are still able to use computers, you will simply get wasted. Their reaction times will be thousands of times faster than you, they'll see you before you see them, they'll hit you before you know what is happening, they'll have a wider range of weapons for all circumstances and they'll have a better ability to protect themselves. You'll be like knights facing off against modern ground-strike drones, though at least you'll have some idea of what you're up against and can surrender before the slaughter begins.
---
Obviously you're talking about magic here, but remember there are many ways to make computers, not just electronics or mechanical systems. I've always liked [fluidics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics), but there's also [optical computing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing) which is entirely practical and quite powerful. Naturally, you can handwave that your magic somehow affects any kind of computer without scrambling regular brains, somehow, but do bear the alternatives in mind.
As an alternative though, consider *biological* control systems. Your missile warheads can have a carefully cloned and trained brain from a bird of prey. Your sensors might be wired up to wetware from a more nervous kind of tasty prey animal, one used to keeping an eye on the sky for predators. Neither will compare to the speed or robustness of a computer, but they are an alternative, and one that might well be practical with the level of technology you're thinking about.
[Answer]
You can do surprisingly large amounts of things with old technology. The hard part will be fighting with the enemy.
As many of the other answer have pointed out, we've done astonishing things with limited computing power. The Space Shuttle [AP-101s](https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch4-3.html) were roughly on par with the power of a Nintendo Game Boy! (Gameboy is faster but 8 bit, AP-101 is slower but could do 32 bit arithmetic). It also relied on core memory, which looks something like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/b5BKM.jpg)
(Yes, those are wires woven through individual ferrite cores. From what I have read, much of core memory was produced by women because it was hard to find men who could weave such wires with enough precision)
And this was a powerful computer. Gemini ran on a 7,000 instruction per second computer.
So we did accomplish a lot with old technologies. However, there's one common thread to all space exploration so far: there was no space combat.
In space combat, you're not just up against nature, you're up against another individual who is trying to kill you with the utmost ferocity. That changes the game somewhat. The Apollo missions may have time to have ground control calculate a course deviation and then punch it into a computer. If you have a salvo of weapons bearing in on you, you must respond much faster.
And herein lies the rub. Your technological civilization has one brutal handicap. This means that, unless the magical civilization has a similar handicap, no amount of "can it be done" will be sufficient. The magic users will simply out maneuver, out defend, out attack, and overall out-win your technology users. You might as well have asked if Bear Grylls can survive on a modern battlefield unarmed. Sure, his survival skills are famous, and he could probably actually find usable food and water on the battlefield, but the army of individuals with guns and tanks and aircraft is going to win.
Assuming you properly handicap the mages, this could work. The real secret to many of these devices is that we push them to the limits. We use computers to stabilize them, but that's only because we pushed it to begin with. If we relaxed our standards a bit, we'd find that things are much easier to manufacture. They won't be as good, but they'll work. And anyone knows that in combat, something working is better than something not working.
There will be limits. You wont have the same delta-V that you would with your computers. However, in many cases you can resolve this because you still have computers back home. Build the warships at the edges of your gravity wells, where escape velocity is as low as possible, and you don't need quite as much delta-V. Use your efficient craft where you can, and only send the dumb craft where you have to.
You will have to rely on dumb weapons, which will be more of a challenge. This will mean getting closer to the enemy than you are comfortable with, and wasting more reaction mass than you are comfortable with. If the mages are on their game, this will probably be a death wish, but if you've handicapped the mages properly, you may get away with it.
A big challenge will be sensing. The distances in realistic space combat are *enormous*. Without modern computers and ICs providing your sensing technologies, it's going to be hard to see your opponent before they whizz past you. Fortunately, the enemy will have the same limitations as you. Maybe you can borrow some of their magic amulets or what-not to sense with!
[Answer]
What is essentially being asked for is a space warship common in 1950 to mid 1960 era science fiction. Real life counterparts such as [Project Horizon](http://astronautix.com/p/projecthorizon.html) (a US Army moonbase) or [RoBo](http://astronautix.com/r/robo.html) (Rocket Bomber, the precursor to modern ICBMs) are also largely analogue with human pilots and workers. The Apollo missions had many instances where the astronauts performed their own work, such as Neil Armstrong taking control of the LEM when it seemed about to land n a boulder field, or the Apollo 13 crew making a manual control burn Using the Mark 1 eyeball and a stopwatch because they could not spare any electrical power for the flight control computer.
Robert A Heinlein's descriptions of working spacecraft in the "juvenile" novels have standing watch crews equipped with slide rules to carry out calculations and manning control stations for every conceivable function the spacecraft does. In many cases the watch officers are simply supervising automatic systems with the ability to override and take manual control when needed. Human damage control parties also are part of the ships compliment, in many ways Heinlein's spacecraft are the counterparts of the warships he served on in the 1930's.
Given the extreme distances that can be observed with telescopes, and if you accept limitations like chemical thrusters, ion engines and maybe NERVA style nuclear thermal main engines, then ships can sense and engage (using missiles) at ranges which allow actual evasive manoeuvres - keeping in mind that you are going to start your manoeuvre when you see the enemy launch, and the missile might take 9 hours to cross a distance equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and both the launching spaceship and the target can only move either at a fraction of a g using an ion drive, or a very short burst of high thrust which rapidly depletes the available reaction mass or fuel. Spacecraft are not going to move like fighter planes and break missile lock with a violent "split S" at the last second.
So you will need to adhere to some very realistic constraints in order to make this workable.
[Answer]
It's worth mentioning that Spaceflight is a mechanical challenge, not a computation challenge.
What do I mean by this? Well, spaceflight existed here, on Earth, pretty much before computers did:
* Sputnik 1 was launched in 1957, and the electronics on board was a radio transmitter and a power supply. If you look at the schematic for the transmitter, it had 3 active elements (vacuum tubes), so can hardly be considered a computer.
* The Zenit spy sattelites launched by the Soviets in 1960's used film cameras, and returned the film to earth via parachute. Same for the Corona spy satellites launched by the US at the same time.
* The Titan rocket used to launch the gemini in 1964 and the Saturn 1 rocket did have a "guidance computer". Was it really a computer? By modern standards a bunch of analog components with hardcoded logic and a tape player for time-based events isn't a computer at all.
* The gemini capsule itself had a computer that took 140ms to do an addition. It took 420ms to do a single multiplication. This was the first digital computer in space.
* And of course, people are fond of pointing out that men landed on the moon with a computer with about 4kb of ram. This was enough for the lander to be theoretically capable of automated landing. Also, there was a sextant present on the LEM to verify the trajectories.
Even modern space-based have tiny computer systems. The curiosity rover runs with 256 MB of RAM, and 2 GB of "disk", and a CPU that clocks at 366Mhz. The slowest smartphone has more than that!
Why is it that these systems can get away with being so low power? Well, the math involved in spaceflight is essentially ballistics. The model of gravity used to get to the moon was known as "patched conics" where you assume that the spacecraft is influenced only by one body at a time. As a result, the computation is bounded to some form of conic section (ellipse, parabola, hyperbola), which are computable by a high-school student.
Actually computing transfers between bodies is harder than solving a single equation, but nothing that can't be done by a human using these approximations and some dedication. While the orbits for the Apollo missions were probably calculated and optimized by computer, I consider it extremely likely that they were checked by hand and slide-rule.
So if computation isn't the challenge of spaceflight, whey didn't it happen before computers? Well, I think in some ways it happened at about the same time because both computers and spaceflight come as a society gets better at engineering and materials science. Computers come as an understanding of semiconductors improve. Rockets powerful and accurate enough can only exist with sufficiently high understanding of metallurgy. You can't make a rocket nozzle out of cast iron. You can't get a blacksmith to build you a turbopump.
It's worth mentioning that **the Saturn V rockets were constructed by hand operated machinery**. CNC machines just didn't exist at the time. Can you imagine welding rocket nozzles by hand? Well, that's how we got to the moon.
If you read 1960's sci-fi, you'll find all sorts of gems. Anne McCaffery's spaceships use tape players for navigation. Arthur C Clarke wrote about an engineer fashioning an Abacus and using it after the main ship's computer failed.
---
So how about combat? Several other responses here suggest that combat is more complex than spaceflight itself, but I'm not sure:
* For kinetic projectiles, the ballistics for the projectile is exactly the same as it is for the spacecraft itself. Predicting motion is something that's been done as long as anti-aircraft systems have existed, and there were purely mechanical solutions for that.
* Chemical lasers work just as well without computers, and there's not much difference between a telescope and a laser: aka line up the telescope, if it's in the cross-hairs, fire the laser.
* Missiles tracking infrared sources have existed since the 1950's, and torpedo guidance systems have been done since a long time before then.
Warfare in space without computers would be different, but certainly not impossible.
[Answer]
Our brain cells are incredibly slow (the speed of nerve signals is significantly slower than the speed of sound in air!). And certainly much larger than modern transistors. Yet we are able to do a lot of things efficiently, including some which need a lot of computing power to do with current computers, and some which we haven't figured out how to do at all. So it is well possible that knowledge has improved until your story's time, so that computers built on the principles of our brain can be built. Such computers would still be pretty powerful even if the hardware is at sizes and speeds of the 1950s. Also note that our brain is essentially analogue (yes, it has discrete voltage spikes, but the information in in the frequency of those spikes which varies continuously; also at the synapses, the information is translated into the concentration of chemicals, which is inherently analogue, too).
And everything that would interfere with brain-like computers would also interfere with brain activity, in which case the computers would be your least problem.
[Answer]
Yes you can do this, but it's not easy and requires both a larger and a more highly skilled crew. It is important to note that computers don't currently do things we cannot; every computer does what it does because it is programmed to; meaning that at least one human understood the process sufficiently to encode it into a computer program. Some times it doesn't seem like that is the case I grant you, but effectively computers only do what we already know how to do, even if they do it faster and more reliably than us.
Many of the things we get computers to do now in lieu of a person is because of the consistency of the computer in the face of a known process. SCADA control systems in electrical grids for instance detect problems and alert humans, or take known reactive measures as a result of what they see happening in a critical utility grid. Even manned passenger aircraft have computers like TCAS, detecting nearby aircraft and alerting the pilots so they do something so as to avoid the collision.
SCADA and TCAS don't get distracted, go off for a minute to fetch a new cup of coffee, etc. and as such they're consistent. But, that's also not the same as better; a human can use experience and insight to deviate from the known script when circumstances dictate it happens. Computers can't. If you have enough eyes on the parts or systems that can fail, you don't actually need computers in space. But, what that means is that your crew has to know what they're doing.
Navigation can literally be done by the stars and planets around you. You can still look out portholes that are magnified or even use telescopes to look out for asteroids or other debris in your path. Fusion reactors can have analogue gauges that are constantly monitored by trained professionals who know what to do if one starts to twitch. Manning the guns can become a thing again.
Knowing whether you're in orbit around a planet might be as simple as checking that the stars in the front are rising at the same rate as the stars behind you are falling, and that the planet in the bottom of your porthole isn't getting bigger. We knew long before computers where the planets were going to be at a specific time and date; instead of putting that into computers we go back to almanacs and plot our courses with charts, compasses and the like. On the high seas on Earth, it's a 2 dimensional course but in space it will be more complex because it's 3 dimensional, but the concepts are the same.
The only reason why computers are 'essential' in space is because it limits the number of specialists needed to work on a given problem. If on the other hand you can get mass and life support into space relatively cheaply, then of course human minds can work around the lack of computers. If you're in doubt of this, then check out just how little [computing power the Apollo missions had](https://www.geek.com/news/how-the-apollo-11s-1-024mhz-guidance-computer-did-a-lot-with-very-little-1562831/). If you can put that much computer power into space, you can already do a lot with your ship but when you get right down to it the benefit of computers in space is simply that it limits the number of heavy humans (with all their accompanying life support) you have to get out of Earth's gravity well; first by focusing the attention of the pilots only on what needs their attention, then secondly by reducing the need for some specialists or roles completely.
That said, if you can't have the computers, you have to have the people and the principal issue is efficiency. It just means larger crews, requiring more water, food, air, and warmth, meaning larger ships and more cost to get them off Earth. In essence, this is going to mean that you're going to be building battleships; not guided cruise missile frigates. But, with the right crew, you can still function in space without a computer.
[Answer]
You can definitely fly around in space without a computer. One can do orbital maths with a pen and paper. Kepler described the motions of orbiting planets in 1619. Mathematics, sextants, and telescopes were sufficiently advanced 300 years ago to enable orbital flight and navigation to a useable accuracy. It just took materials technology a long time to catch up.
You can do all of the required computing work with some slide rules, an abacus, pen, paper, a smart mathematician and an accurate sextant and stopwatch. You may benefit and achieve greater fuel efficiency from accurate measurements of the fuel tank and engine pressure, and doppler radio measurements, but these are only fine-tuning.
The problems become more complex when multiple strong gravity fields are interacting, such as transferring between moons of Jupiter, but this too can be iteratively solved using little more than some slide rules, a lot of paper and some quick fingers to some degree of accuracy. Modern astrodynamics use very precise measurements to be very fuel-efficient, but if you want to wave some hands over that then performing multiple course corrections and adjustments and refinements as you go then sure, flying around in space can be made work without a computer. It's just accurate observations and math.
The ability to fight effectively is a very different question. You will need extreme accuracy in your observations, and in the manouvers of projectiles. I don't think it is feasible to hit a target with some kinetic weapons without computer assisted trajectory calculation, radar systems, accurate inertial guidance, and a large degree of autonomy (since you probably won't be able to transmit instructions to a missile when its on the other side of a planet. These systems are not exactly computers per se, but generally would need a very computer-like system to integrate them.
If you're ok with purpose-built controller circuits, but not general purpose instruction-executing machines then maybe this too might work. But you're really going to be walking a thin line on what defines a computer and what doesn't.
[Answer]
Stanisław Lem's commercial space travel crews (check out his "Pilot Pirx" stories) included navigators whose basic work was calculating trajectories and locating the ship in space using star positions, not unlike to what a navigator on ocean vessels was tasked to do in commercial sea travel. The long and boring travel times in space, not unlike to ship travel of old, provided ample time for getting stuff right and correcting course timely in order not to waste all that much fuel (Lem mostly employed nuclear reactors about as trustworthy as the worst power plants of the time, mostly skipping over the ongoing question of how to convert energy into propulsion when in space).
[Answer]
There is a story ["Specialist"](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/118033/113897) by Robert Sheckley. It is about space ships made of living creatures each with a different specialty. And interesting what humans had to do with that.
[Answer]
Consider Frank Herbert's Dune series, a universe where automation is outlawed and instead a special breed/race/tribe of humans has been bred to have massively enhanced brain power and are used as human computers.
Other humans have been bred to replace other automated systems.
Your universe could have something similar.
[Answer]
>
> As an alternative though, consider biological control systems.
>
>
>
(Quote from: @Starfish prime (first answer))
I think the English (or Germans) back in WW2 trained chickens to peck at a dark spot against a light background.
Then loaded the chickens into a missile with a some sort of window/screen in the cage, with a mesh of sensor threads in front of the screen, so the chicken pecked at the dot (dark battleship against lighter sea), the sensor threads picked up the pecks & run the impulses through some kind of hardware steering mechanism that controlled the thrusters & rudders, then eventually BOOOOM!
Maybe you can use something similar to at least guide your missiles, maybe even to steer your ship.
Imagine your space-ship captain have to constantly tap on a screen to guide your star ship ;D
[Answer]
If you're talking about war ships, maybe independant, conventional, unpowered space stations with conventional equipped canons would work.
Big motherships place them in space where they operate a few days/weeks and then gather them again.
As a weapon I can think of (untraceable) mines placed in space or mines which get shot out of starships.
They unfold large "arms" with miles long, sticky ends. Once they are attached to an enemy starship, they fold their wires and then explode.
Neither of them require electronics, everything is mechanic. With these system you can stay out of the enemy's range and still have a good enough accuracy.
Magnetism for e.g. torpedoes is fine as well.
Or you can make your race quite stealthy so they can shoot the enemy or use cyber attacks before the enemy can recognize them.
I'm sure this is not the main answer you want to hear but it maybe give you some ideas.
[Answer]
Submarine torpedo aiming systems and artillery electromechanical sistems of ww2 may give you an idea of what you can do without computers, which is a lot. We just dont invest efforts on this path because its easier and cheaper to use computers but an electromechanical system can show and handle complex data as speed, altitude, gravity, engine throttle quite well. But each system has a specific use, so a lot of distinct, specific hardware its needed. You cant have heterogeneus multifunction devices using electromechanical designs able to do this or that just moving a lever. And any improvement or change takes a lot of effort so forget about updates when needed.
[Answer]
If you can't control things inside the spaceship with computers, you might want something akin to cloud computing. All of the computers are located away from the front lines, unaffected by the disabling magic. Your ships are fly-by-wire machines, full of mechanical linkages and analog controls. Link the two together using a relatively simple two-way radio system. Some of the early NASA space missions used a form of this. The flight crew could read sensor readouts over the radio, and the ground crew could crunch the numbers and reply with what to do next.
The downside is latency. It takes time for a signal to travel between ship and computer, so you'll have to locate the computer as close as possible while still out of range of the magic. Any remaining latency is going to impact your reaction time. It's probably plenty fast enough for most purposes, but you'd be better off with a human gunner aiming your defensive turrets at fast-moving targets.
[Answer]
if I were these people I would go with organic computers and navigation devices. A brain for navigation, one for weapon systems and another for life support. there could be a master brain which coordinates all of them. All of these could be engineered from humans and used to control the ship. for weapon guidance systems you could use magnetism.
] |
[Question]
[
In the world, I'm designing goblins are described as follows:
* 100-150cm tall
* Skinny
* Hairless
* About as strong as humans
* Devoid of any natural weapon (like teeth or claws)
* Skin similar to high quality leather jacket
* Highly intelligent and creative
* Short-sighted, but excellent sense of smell and hearing
* Impatient, with attention span measured in seconds
* Their three greatest pleasures are tinkering, novelties and gadgets
* Their three greatest fears are boredom, routine and order
* They mostly live in caves, abandoned dwarven mines, and other dark, confined places
But the most important part of their physiognomy are their arms.
They are as long as the whole body, even longer (compared to the overall height) than orangutans and have two elbows instead of one: in third and two-thirds of arms length. I have not yet decided, which direction they would bend (although all others restrictions of an elbow remain the same).
Each arm ends with six-fingered hand - the sixth finger is another opposable thumb, next to the pinky.
Now I wonder what would be a perfect weapon for such creatures.
At first I was going to go with a rapier, since long arms and small frame alone would make them excellent fencers, and additional elbow would allow them to execute many surprising attacks against elbowly-challenged opponents.
The problem is, that a rapier is essentially just a piece of metal with a pointy end. Maybe with sharp edges, if you're lucky. That doesn't really go well with goblin's character.
Ideal weapon for my goblins would have following characteristics:
* Allow a lot of customization by the owner, both in terms of looks and effectiveness (the former has higher priority than the latter, but not to the point when the weapon becomes dead weight)
* Small to medium sized (polearms or huge battle axes would not be practical in their habitat)
* Allow them to leverage the fact, that they have two elbows
Assume late Middle-Ages/early Renaissance level of technology, although manufacturing local equivalent of gunpowder requires a spell-caster and goblin have no access to magic. Other resources (most importantly ore and skilled labour) are provided in abundance by their allies, who use the goblins to fight a proxy war with dwarves.
EDIT:
Answers to several good points posted by Cort Ammon:
>
> what purposes do the longer double-elbowed limbs provide to warrant the extra complexity of a joint? Is there a prey they need, or a difficult environment to traverse?
>
>
>
They can reach into tight spots to acquire food or precious materials. Goblins aren't predators, but opportunists. They eat fungus, mushrooms and half-rotten meat. Usually those things don't lie or grow in easily accessible places.
Such limbs allow also easier climbing and checking what is in front of you in a dark cave.
>
> Understanding better how the goblins think about their double-elbowed arm is helpful in studying how they would apply it.
>
>
>
Those which have limited contact with other species just think of it as their arm. The rest sees is a sign of superiority to others, even in environments where it's not in the least beneficial.
>
> Also important is pure psychology: a patient race will use a different style of weapon from an impatient one. Also look at how much training
>
>
>
No formal training (as in practising the same moves over and over again) is possible, but they never make the same mistake twice and they are masters of thinking out of the box, even under pressure. Their biggest weakness is they like theatrics a little too much for their own good.
[Answer]
First, lets do away with the usual concept of a melee weapon. Short sightedness tends to make conventional weapons inaccurate and bad to use. So lets get up close and personal.
Your description of the elbow placement and arm structure reminds me very much of the praying mantis. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NuJtT.jpg)
When in doubt, look at nature. The mantis is often considered natures "Perfect Predator". But that's less important for this question - what's more important is its arm structure.
Assuming that the elbows bend the same ways as the mantis elbows do, with joints at 1/3 and 2/3 down the arm, we can apply a specific weapon for maximum efficiency, taking into account natures design.
I propose the following weapon:
```
---------O---------O---------[]>
V V V V V V V V V
```
Or alternatively, following the same concept (Version 2)
```
---------o---------o---------[]>
\_______/ \______/
```
This is meant to be a "harness" (but can be easily adapted to have protection in the form of metal plates or whatnot).
* `[]>` represents a handheld spike
* `o` represents a joint
* `---------` represents the sections of the arm that it is attached to, either via straps or locking mechanism, or whatever you want.
* `V` represents spikes
* `\____/` represents blades
How does this weapon work?
Let's tackle this weapon one spot at a time, starting with the hand held spike. Consider the fully retracted arm - it looks something like this:
```
\/\
```
This is a position from which we can easily extend forwards into this:
```
─ ─ ─
```
By providing a spike for the hand to hold, the user can "palm thrust" the spikes into the enemy quickly and with precision. Generally, stabbing is easily forseen as us single elbow users have to pull back and then thrust forwards. In this case, the double elbow user doesn't have the "pulling back" motion, since the retracted motion is likely the "default" position in order to keep the arms off the floor (especially since the arms are longer than the body).
Note: the palm spike can easily be interchanged with a large amount of options, such as palm bucklers or normal weaponry. Highly customizable.
What about the spikes and blades?
Spikes and blades are interchangeable. I picked the spikes for version 1 because the mantis has spikes. It makes for a good gripping mechanism. You can grip with the following arm motion:
```
__
\/| -> \/ -> \/|
start extend retract and grip
```
and the spikes will help keep your gripped target in place while you thrust into them with the spike in your other hand.
The blades, however, are not for gripping. If we offset the front and back blades a little bit, we can use them as a pair of scissors. Using the same motion as above, we can slice off limbs easily using the arm-slicers.
Alternatively, with the blades, you don't have to cut like a scissor. When throw outwards with the same initial motion as the cut, as long as the user aims higher than the target, he can get a "cutting" like a knife motion with the blade, and achieve "slashing" by simply swinging the arm instead of retracting it.
This weapon isn't only for offense. If we design the arm sections with plating, we now effectively have weaponized gauntlets, and the user can use the protected arms (especially since they're so long) as shields to block attacks.
You mention that it should be customizable per user for looks and usability - easily done, as you can change out parts of the harness for thicker metal plates for protection, or sharper cutting appendages, etc etc, anything the user wants, and it can be easily painted and whatnot for decoration.
**There you have it - the perfect melee weapon for a two elbowed creature.**
[Answer]
**Arm Blades**
The weakness for such a creature would be in those long exposed arms from getting chopped. A blade mounted to the arm will offer protection and offense for their extended arms.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3ZOJa.jpg)
The blades can be used extended in times where extra reach is required or brought in close when in tight spaces. The retracted blades would mesh well with their natural [proprioception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception), which will significantly reduce training required and chance of slicing oneself.
They can be further customized by dual wielding, blade length, serrations, backward pointing spikes, etc.
[Answer]
I'm going with a bullwhip. You can add things at either end. A cat-o-nine tales is a whip with little bits of metal in the ends. The handle could have different items as well, a spike, or mace type end. with double elbows the whip would be an incredibly nimble weapon. On top of that with the thumbs they could have parts of the 'cat-o-nine' that would lengthen and shorten different ends allowing for them to poison one person, inject someone else with a sleeping potion and just plain whip a third, all accurately and with the same weapon!
Because of a question about short-sightedness. Most bullwhips are in the 7-10ft. range. I'm very near-sighted and I can see 10ft. away with the accuracy to use a whip. On top of that, with their excellent hearing they may use [echolocation](http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/11/how-blind-people-use-batlike-sonar) type techniques to help pin down more accurately a targets location. Some blind people can ride their bikes down a busy street with it.
[Answer]
Most races are not confined to a single weapon.
So I'll suggest a few that would be immensely strong, based on their physique.
## **Daggers**
Because of the traits (small areas/ enclosed spaces)(like trinkets and gadgets)(opportunists) they inherently have, Daggers synergize very well with them. Small weapons work well in tight areas, and daggers excel in this category.
Due to their opportunistic nature, daggers would be useful for them to quickly deal massive amounts of damage/pain to their enemies. Their size facilitates this by being lighter. Curving the blade can also help this, since their additional joint gives them another angle to slice from.
Trinket and gadgets play on the small nature a bit, however this comes into play with the mechanical side of the dagger. Hidden in the handle, spring loaded, extremely shiny as a blinding mechanism, these intelligent creatures use every facet of the dagger to their advantage.
## **Darts**
Taking on a "ranged dagger" approach, darts can be slathered in poisons made from foliage taken from the very caves they live in. Since they're also small, they fit the physique of the creatures as well as the trinket-style attraction. Their thick skins also make holding 5 of these between their six fingers without pricking themselves easy.
## **Slings**
Depending on how you structure the secondary elbow, slings can be incredibly powerful, or average. Cheap to make, slings require a bit of cloth and a stone, so for those living in caves, these would be common. Shortsightedness isn't an issue with slings, as they can be used in melee situations as a club to a much lesser degree.
## **Unconventional Weapons**
Dirty fighting tactics, such as a "dust bomb" that impairs enemy vision, giving them the advantage in close combat.
Their size gives them an advantage against taller opponents when using ranged weapons.
Chains, alone or with weapons attached. If a goblin is fast enough, he can use the chain to trip his enemies, finishing them off with the weapon attached to the tip. Think [Scorpion's kunai](http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/mkwikia/images/d/d9/Scorpion-Mortal-Kombat.png/revision/latest?cb=20110502235720).
[Answer]
Assuming that arms are like levers - the farther from the pivot, the weaker and faster they are. So, the goblins need weapons that benefit from speed and do not require too much strength.
I guess, you could take a look at the [meteor hammer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_hammer):
+ Longer arms make faster strikes
+ Two elbows allow strikes at various angles
+ Two opposable thumbs give more presicion
+ The weapon has a lot of potential usages (listed below)
± To some extent, allows to block incoming attacks
- Require training.
The usages of this hammer include:
- Throw one of the heads to hit the opponent (upfront, or from above, or from a side), pull the head back
- Throw the meteor to wrap itself around a weapon, object or an opponent's limb, pull the head back to get the object / disarm or trip the opponent
- Block an attack using the chain
Small daggers and spiked knuckles seem like a good backup options. Due to their dexterity, goblins may have good chances of blinding the opponent.
(Also, your goblins remind me of [these](http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/) hellish kobolds a bit. Very promising creatures and really dangerous opponents :)
[Answer]
I love the preying mantis analysis, but my first thought when I saw the question was nunchucks! I can imagine all kinds of deadly, spinning mayhem perpetrated by a multi-jointed wielder.
[Answer]
**Hammers.**
The extra thumbs will give a firmer grip, extra elbows will give extra speed.
It can also be *very* theatrical too!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0cpPl.gif)
[Answer]
How about the baguazhang rooster claw ... The long arm and hook can extend up to the first elbow and protect the extended limbs:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pPU1d.jpg)
([Source](http://www.selfdefenseguides.info/claw-knives/li-zi-ming-s-ba-gua-zhang-method.html))
[Answer]
I'd first like to point out that the second elbow might just be a modified wrist. Many animals walk on what humans use as fingers, whether it be dogs walking on the palm-side or primates on the knuckle-side. It's not too inconceivable to believe that evolution simply kept this pattern for goblins, and extended it to include opposable thumbs and more functional fingers, though I admit I don't think it'd happen with as many joints as humans' ancestors had.
Anyway, perhaps it's not the weapon that the goblins customize and tinker with, but the way it's used. With an extra elbow, these creatures are going to have superhuman dexterity and flexibility. It's very possible they'll be able to achieve a full 360-degree rotation of their hands, and put their hands in places humans can only dream of reaching. Thus, holding a knife or sword 'down' (slasher movie style) or 'up' (knife fighting style) might end up working about the same, or at least having the same level of effectiveness. This and many other different and perhaps laughable strategies will now be open for the goblins to try out and make their own.
To work with this idea, swords (because swords are great, you really should just stick with them) can be modified for different **lengths** (already a thing, longer for reach at the expense of weight and cumbersomeness, shorter for the opposite), different **weights** (also a thing, weighted in the pommel makes it move more quickly, weighted towards the tip makes it hit harder), different **angles** (straight swords are easier to understand and use, while curved or angled swords are more complex but can be twisted around some blocking manouvres), and different **guards** (depending on how it's held, you might want to protect your hand differently). All of these can be customized to work best with an individual's preferred fighting style.
Plus, they should carry a shield, because all these fighting styles means it's going to be very hard to know what your enemy is going to do. Shields can be modified for size, shape, material, and how it attaches to your arm. You really have a lot of options, even if everyone is running around with a sword and shield.
[Answer]
I propose a boomerang as a throwing weapon. The first joint is used as the throwing lever and the second joint could impart a wicked-fast counterspin.
[Answer]
One factor that seems to me to play a huge role here, but I don't see much mention of it, are the mechanics of a socket joint vs. a hinge joint. Humans benefit from a single hinge joint attached to a socket joint in both our arms and legs, because if our hand or foot gets "stuck" rotation around the socket joint protects the weak torsional strength (e.g. rotational strength) of a hinge joint. Hinge joints can break easily when twisted. An extremely long limb with two hinge joints would be very susceptible to torsional breaks.
Therefore, your goblins would be very concerned about twists to the joint that might cause it to break; and the longer a limb, the more likely this is. So, like the praying mantis (as mentioned in one answer), these creatures would likely hold their "hands" very close with one joint nearly always "closed" and pressed against their body - to reduce the odds of breaking one or the other hinge joint. They would likely appear to have much shorter arms than they actually do.
The addition of an opposable thumb does not present exceptional advantage for anything wider that the width of a hand (e.g. two triggers on a gun??). That, however, can create some interesting side effects that I will mention in a moment.
First, consider that nearly all weapons are developed from tools used to gather food or kill prey. As these goblins are not predators, gathering tools would become their weapons of choice due to the tools' familiarity, abundance and widespread use by the race.
Thus, to develop a weapon or weapons, it is probably best to start there. First, with such lengthy arms, a quick "stabbing" gesture is likely to be developed - they could gather their food more rapidly using such a skill and also surprise enemies more easily. I'm sure they would want to extend their limb for the shortest possible time in order to minimize the risk of it twisting and breaking.
I would assume a second thumb might make it possible to wield two daggers in one hand, creating something like "scissors" - which would be incredibly effective in both hunting and fighting. It might be possible to have nearly long enough daggers such that the goblin appears to wielding 4 small swords, two in each hand. Perhaps adding a hinge to each set of daggers would be another interesting twist on the concept, so that they essentially are scissors. Although, we humans add the hinge because we cannot control both blades with two opposable thumbs, so the goblins may not need the hinge on the two blades and it could, in fact, reduce their options (like tying chopsticks together...).
Aside from the stabbing, an extra hinge could give more momentum to a weapon that swings on a short rope or chain, or is attached to a short rod or resembles a bat or club. A long cable is more likely to get tangled and risk torsional damage (e.g. it "catches" on the enemy or an object as the goblin is swinging it and then the goblin must release it or risk getting injured). Similarly a long club or bat would be unwieldy for their already long arms.
However, it is the length of the arm that gives these weapons an advantage over shorter limbed, single hinged creatures since for these goblins, both hinges could extend simultaneously making the head of the weapon move very rapidly, with great force and momentum.
The danger here is in making such a weapon too heavy - it's momentum could build so rapidly that breaks the goblin's own grip, or worse, their arm. But momentum is mass times the velocity, so the faster it moves, the less heavy it needs to be for equal effectiveness compared to a similar weapon wielded by shorter limbed creatures. And the energy it accumulates (mass times velocity squared) is an advantage by a wide margin (the square of the speed vs. linear increase based on mass). Also, force is related to mass times acceleration - so it will strike with surprising force.
So a small bat or club would be much more deadly in the hands of these goblins than most humans would suspect. If a human encountered such a creature with a small club, the same weapon for a human would be ineffective in combat, while being very effective for the goblin. Anything with protruding blades or spikes could become lodged in the enemy, again risking a break in the arm or release of the weapon. I would expect something more like a spoon (for gathering) and a bat (for crushing foods or dislodging them).
They might wield tools or weapons that lodge or have long ropes or chains when one hinge is closed, but it would be extremely risky in situations where both hinge joints are "open" or extended. Their ability to learn and use such weapons would be based on the less frequently need to construct things or creative scavenging (twisting knobs, carving, tightening, loosening, etc.). With their passive role, these types of tools would unlikely turn into weapons, but it would be possible, and it would probably resemble the way a human would wield them.
Wielding a two-handed weapon would require the hinged joints be moved in parallel in order to reinforce the joints, otherwise the additional speed of wielding the objects would put the goblin at risk of breaking their limbs. However, moving in parallel is common with swords and clubs. It would allow longer and larger weapons to be wielded. (It might also be interesting to consider how they might develop bones that "interlock" and also allow them to "cross their arms" while still bending them...)
Also, with the second thumb on each hand, the addition of a second, hinged blade or even a small sword or adjustable shield would create a weapon that has incredible potential. A secondary small blade would be very useful in close quarters combat where the opponent blocks the fall of the larger blade with their weapon, leaving them defenseless against an attack on their hands or arms from the smaller weapon. A highly skilled goblin may also have the ability to hold 1 large blade and 2 small blades, making defense against the weapon incredibly difficult for those of us only able to wield a single blade with two hands. Or even the goblin may wield to "medium" swords, but with both hands still gripped together.
For gathering, since these should first be thought of as tools, I could imagine a larger blade for stabbing a food, while the smaller blades serve to severe the large piece from being attached to something. Perhaps as a way of severing a limb from a dead (or dying) animal, since they are not hunters. Basically to speed the gathering and retrieval of food the process is: stab, severe and run. Two medium blades could be used for rapidly cutting foliage to reach mushrooms, etc.
The adaptation of tools to weapons I think is critical in developing both believable and intriguing weapons, in your case. At first, it was hard for me to see a clear advantage of the two hinges (torsional breaks are too easy, even in humans), but it might be possible with the thoughtful construction of the goblin's habits and behaviors, and then the development of their tools leading to the development of interesting weapons. Protecting hinge joints is something that we all innately have as humans, it would be more so with a double hinge-jointed goblin. To me, this is key in keeping it "real" while also exploring intriguing options.
If nothing else, I hope you enjoyed reading another opinion. :)
[Answer]
Throwing weapons. The extra elbow turns the arm into an atlatl, a device used to throw spears at greater speed and over longer distances than would otherwise be possible. A creature with two elbows on each arm would throw things like a cannon firing.
[Answer]
The double elbow joints in the arms puts me in mind of the Fokrul Assail from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. They were truly dangerous enemies, but they also had a superhuman supply of strength in their wiry limbs (unlike the creatures you're proposing).
The Fokrul Assail used mainly their hands and feet as weapons (having double joints just about everywhere) because they could slip around or past any defense with the greatly increased range of movement available.
You could give your goblins a gauntlet of kinds, heavily customizable for close quarters combat.
It could have an endless amount of attachments; blades, spikes, large heavy chunks for a mace-like effect, small poisoned crossbows, claws for climbing rock faces in tunnels, or just about anything they could get their tinkering hands onto.
That would also give them something to constantly be changing or improving whenever their attention wavered
] |
[Question]
[
Recently, a robot called Philae soft-landed *quite safely* onto the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, then shot some photos and got some other interesting information that was sent back to Earth. This unveiled my curiosity, regarding our current technology and what is possible to do with it, now.
Specifically, my question is in the title. Do we have technology and knowledge sufficient for making Von Neumann probes, i.e. self-replicating population of machines that can perform all tasks necessary for full replication, including extraction and processing of raw materials into working machine components and assembling them into new machines. It is allowed for a machine to perform specific tasks (i.e. each machine does not have to be omnipotent relatively to the replication process or any other process).
New instructions may be passed to these robots when necessary.
It does not need to be nanoscale. Actually, any scale is desirable, as long as "it works". Scale of machines may be modified later.
Efficiency (in a **very** broad sense) is not a problem, as long as "it works", and can be increased later because time is not a problem.
Energy shall not be a problem, relying on renewable energy in the long-run.(edit: as has been pointed out in answers, solar-powered probes seems not be an option far from sun. Then, what ?)
Such a "thing" may be put to good use down on earth, but it could also be sent into space and, given enough time, slowly colonize the entire solar system, using solar energy as primary source of energy for example, but maybe harvesting chemical energy and materials from asteroids, comets and possibly other planets and satellites.
While asking whether it is possible or not to do it with our current technology and knowledge, I don't mind about whether it is useful or not.
I don't mind about money nor time necessary to make it real.
I just want to know whether it is possible or not, and why ?
If you think and answer that, "yes", we may do it now, any **-- ordered if possible --** list of potential current technology useful/necessary for making all of this real is welcome.
Don't hesitate to edit (but keep a trace of) my text if you feel it would improve its understandability.
[Answer]
No we don't. As you can see, we even cannot reliably land.
Experts on robotics and artificial intelligence say that **"hard is easy, and easy is hard".**
* Tasks which are hard for humans (like playing chess, proving math theorems, or performing operation million times exactly same way) are easy for AI/robots.
* Tasks which are easy for humans (like walking, pouring liquid to cup, recognizing objects from environment) are hard for robots and AI.
It is because to solve those "easy" tasks, we use brain structures optimized during millions of years of evolution. Chess is hard for humans because we need to build brain structures to process it.
After solving "hard problems" like chess, AI promised to solve "easy problems" within a decade, back in 1980. Only now we are getting closer, and we are not there yet.
Another **huge problem** would be **adaptability.** Robot would need to figure out how to mine what is available and transform it to what is needed. To **recognize patterns and learn.** Another easy/hard problem. We have only little idea how we recognize patterns.
After many years of research, now we have very specialized robots - like driverless car. We need robot geologist who can walk, see, understand geological process (to find prospective sites), build drill, mine ore, design and build processing plant (adapting it to peculiarities of the local ore). See?
Solar energy is viable only close enough to sun. Far away, you need something different. Voyagers are powered by [RTG](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator) - running for decades and far away from the sun. But it is not renewable energy like solar, so - robot would need to find and mine proper ore to recharge. Really complicated.
And we definitely lack necessary level of artificial intelligence to power such robot.
And best place to train is Moon. Conveniently close, and cheap to land on, because of the low gravity.
Edit, responding to comments:
Yes, I am aware about rapid improvements in AI (even if I do not follow the field closely, back in time I even learned PROLOG). Problem is that to succeed, we need several orders of magnitude improvements in many different areas:
* Rocketry, to build substantially more effective rocket engines (to get better acceleration for same fuel, or better payload ratio)
* Space technologies (to build huge spaceships carrying all the necessary equipment)
* manufacturing automation (AI will have to design manufacturing plants)
* AI, to solve land/rebuild/resupply/launch problem.
Small payload would have to land on the planet (and not to land just a simple robot explorer, but to land manufacturing plant), find minable resources, and build manufacturing facility to manufacture replacement parts (wear and tear) and new spaceship like just landed, including fueling it, and launching it to the orbit. In automatic regime, no human input, while repairing all failures. We are trying to figure it out how to make it here on Earth (and are not sure yet). Such probe would have to figure out how to make it on unknown planet, with unknown climate, using unknown raw resources, in automatic regime, with no input from us.
(Two years later):
Mining resources would be easiest from asteroids: you don't have to fight the gravity well, atmosphere and pesky natives (including microbes). But **repairing** all things which can go wrong would be the hardest part.
After centuries-long interstellar flight, probe has to find it's way around next stellar system, detect good resources (asteroids with right materials), land on them (which will take decades) and use them to repair accumulated damage. All is theoretically solvable, but...
As saying goes: "In theory, there is no difference between Theory and Practice. In practice, there is." :-)
From the other POV, none of that is unsolvable. In paltry few centuries, all related problems would be solved and trivial. Any civilization with such technology should be able to send few such self-replicating probes to all stellar systems in Milky Way in just few dozen million years max (Galaxy is just 100K LY across), even if probes fly just 1% of speed of light.
So question should not be "are such probes feasible" - because they will be in few centuries, but real question is: "why we cannot detect any?" **What obstacles can prevent a civilization like ours to survive next few centuries,** to be capable doing such stuff? Scary thought.
[Answer]
No, not even close.
The closest thing we have to a Von Neumann machine is our own industrial civilization.
The last time it "replicated" might be the colonization+industrialization of the Americas, where the British industrial revolution was repeated over 100+ years in its colonies.
It exists in a parasitic state off the biological "machine" of the world ecosystem, and is not able to provide all of its inputs. There are reasons to believe that it is doing serious damage to the world ecosystem while doing this, and the current industrial civilization isn't sustainable.
(Examples of the kind of parasitism: it relies on the ecosystem for hydrology, oxygen, disposal of waste, feeding the humans who operate within it, providing biological feed stock and materials like wood, consuming thousands of years of ecosystem generated top soil to produce food, etc.)
The entire industrial civilization is able to extract raw materials from the ground, transport them, process them, quality control them, and produce new means to do the above.
A Von Neumann probe basically has to be able to do the entire cycle above without the surrounding support.
Even something as simple as mining becomes difficult. Tools wear out or get damaged, and you need to be able to repair and/or replace them without (as yet) access to raw materials. Finding good locations to mine takes resources. Building new tools takes resources. Dealing with factory break downs takes resources.
3D printing is a step towards this, but it is far from complete. 3D printers today take in highly processed materials, and are unable to produce many of their own components (such as circuit boards).
Devices to manufacture electronic devices are not that easy to build. In modern civilization we manage this by mass production -- we invest a lot of resources and technology into building huge efficient factories that take in highly purified and refined "raw materials" and produce specialized components at low costs. These specialized components are gathered together and used to produce more complex things, and help make the next generation of factory cheaper and more efficient and more capable.
We would have to start from scratch. Build ridiculously simple and huge logic boards to control clumsy factories that can help produce inefficient tools to gather more resources faster than they wear out, feed those resources back into the factories and work on building a better factory with more precision, which can be used to build better circuits and control the process more closely. All the while hoping our "legacy" probe doesn't break down in unrepairable ways before it can offload its duties.
On Earth, we'd start with a bunch of Humans putting things together by hand, testing them, discarding the failures, and taking the best tools to build the next generation of tools.
[Answer]
No I don't think we are there yet. Not only that but a machine that can replicate itself and be useful for other things is asking a lot. Machines are made from MANY different materials with a very wide range of manufacturing techniques.
Making a steel arm requires much different techniques than creating solar energy panels or micro processors.
What I would consider much more likely would be a self directed spaceship/factory. It could land/orbit asteroids, have specialized robots to mine needed materials and bring them back. It would be able to have areas that could create the different parts and be able to modify them as needed to build a wide range of robots and design new ones if the need arises (either by itself or remotely from a new human need). I suppose, one of these builder machines would also be able to direct the building of another, but I think it's very unlikely that you will have a C3PO type robot that goes around making copies of itself from raw materials because it wouldn't really be useful for anything else.
These would be more like hives, a 'Queen' with many different specialized 'workers'.
It could build a 'work crew' whose job is to create large solar panels to collect energy for a nearby space station to help provide it more power. A different crew could be created to build more space stations etc.
[Answer]
The [first 3D print made in space](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/1115.html) was a part of the printer itself. The aim of the whole experiment is to be able to make spare parts of equipments onboard ISS with minimal assistance from earth, and the printer is included in the list of equipments.
There are still questions about which parts are 3D printable, how to assemble parts, where to find raw material, but technology goes towards self-replication.
[Answer]
Having written a short article on this is my first year of uni, I concluded that the main problems with the probes would be reliability. Not only in terms of mechanical functionality but also in terms of programming. If you were to imagine that when each probe replicates there would be some degree of transmission error or corruption. This would normally be negligible, but if we scale this up to galactic or inter-galactic scales, even a minute error can grow and disrupt future generations of probes.
For more information I'd suggest you start with: Galactic exploration by directed Self-Replicating Probes, and its implications for the Fermi paradox - Martin Barlow
[Answer]
I guess that the answer is that we still do **not** have the technology. But we are not much far from that. And that it is possible.
To make a functional factory of any complex enough component, a lot of human supervision, work and management is required. There are still important phases in many industrial areas where an human in-loco are undispensable. We would need to rethink and replan them to make them at least minimal workable with remote control, accounting the time lag due to light velocity.
Further, we still need a lot of organic matter in industry, including plastic, rubber and fuel to burn in order to melt metals. Obtaining such materials in space is still beyond our capabilities, but not by much.
And I don't know if we can efficiently generate heat in space in order to melt metals without oxygen, or just going near the Sun.
This should be doable if you get a trillion dollars to spend in this project and get 20 years to do whatever research is needed. But at this moment, this is not doable. And you would still need humans to remote control the machines here from Earth, because AI still sucks and is unlikely to improve significantly in that time. We still can't do that even here in Earth, but to be frank, this is most because we don't need it now.
If I were to choose a place to perform those activities, I think that Mars is the best place, followed by Moon, Mercury and Titan. About asteroids or comets, it is very unlikely that any asteroid or comet has enough resources for that, but after colonizing, say a thousand asteroids and establishing an efficient logistics between them, this should be possible, but will be much more harder than keeping it in a single planet or moon and will require much more time and technology.
[Answer]
**Short answer: no, but soon yes.**
Artificial intelligence and adaptability is not a problem, lots of projects are currently aiming at making robots robust enough to adapt to any situation, mimicking animals behaviors, and some are quite successful like the famous [Boston Dynamics Big Dog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww) (and this was an old project, they have done so much more lately). Disclaimer: I am researching in Artificial Intelligence and Computational Neuroscience.
The problem resides in the **autonomous production and programming** of robots. There is still lots to do, but we are closer now than ever with 3D printers, and projects like [RepRap](http://reprap.org/) aims to make fully auto-replicable 3D printers (which can already print [optical fibers](http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/papillon/) and circuits), and which could then be motorized and robotized to make moving "3D-printers-robots". This goal is clearly attainable, and even seriously considered by the [NASA and ESA to remotely build fully extra-terrestrial bases, beginning with a lunar base](http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/building-a-lunar-base-with-3d-printing/) (see also [Building printing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_printing) on Wikipedia).
Additional info: as far as I know, the biggest current challenges of 3D printers are NOT to make circuits (already possible with RepRap mods and some commercial printers), but rather how to make engineered rotational motors (the thing that controls the position of the printer's head) and to expand the number of material that one single printer can use (ie: you can already print pretty much any material you'd dream of, from plastic to metal and sand and even molecules and living cells, but you need a different printer for each type of material).
If you want more information about what 3D printers can currently do, you can check this slide which will show you lots of other usages like [3D printing in-vitro meat](http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/28/the-promise-of-3-d-printed-meat/) and 3D-printed living lung and other organs: [3D Printers, bio-printers and physibles](http://fr.slideshare.net/lrq3000/3d-printers-bioprinters-and-physibles-15451337).
So the bottom line is that no this isn't possible, but it will soon be as soon as those technical challenges are resolved, and given the important number of teams and notable institutions working on it, it may be sooner than expected.
[Answer]
It is possible because they already exist. Raw materials assembled itself into such machines without any intelligence or other machines putting them together. As an astrophysicist pointed out a long time ago, a large enough volume of gas containing only helium and hydrogen will eventually give rise to Von Neumann machines all by itself.
We may be close to being able to build such machines, but we then do need to build things from the molecular level. The reason is that a machine build from macroscopic parts will be subject to decay, and once decayed too much it will malfunction. It thus needs to be able to repair itself using tools that are themselves subject to decay, and the machines needed to make those tools will also be subject to decay etc. etc. If you carefully analyze the problem here, you'll find that there is an issue with degradation at smaller and smaller scales, so you naturally end up with having to use the smallest building blocks of matter that don't decay.
The most efficient way to go about this would be to use the Von Neumann machines that already exist to build new ones.
[Answer]
We are definitely well on our way:
<http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/japan-plans-2-billion-robot-moon-base-by-2020/> \*\*
To summarize, Japan is currently working on a series of robots which will be able to mine/extract materials locally on the moon, process them, and then used the processed materials to build a moon base for the robots to "live" in.
Of course, getting from there to Von Neumann probes is gonna take a lot more work. The robots are not going to be able to manufacture processors, for example. But the point is, this is the first step. Here on Earth cars and processors, and a LOT of other stuff, is mostly made by robots already. All things considered, I'd say that with enough money, time, and effort, we are probably already technologically at the point where this is feasible.
\*\*that article is a little light on the details, but there's plenty of info out there on this project.
[Answer]
This is what they would call a game-changing technology. To give you an idea of what a game-changing technology would be, take a look at mass processing, the train, the telephone, the Gutenburg press, the computer, the internet. All of these things have made way for many more innovations to come.
Are we close? We've certainly made a lot of headway in that sense in the past few years. 3D printers being the most progressive of inventions as it literally allows you to transform liquid into solid parts, meaning you can build it as you need it as opposed to having parts pre-made. This is comparable to the difference between hardware and software in that while hardware is fixed, software can be designed to perform any computation using that hardware, even computation to perform tasks we do not require in this day and age.
I believe the true advantage in all this is exactly this: the possibility to create what you need without knowing what it is you will need in the future. If we had this type of technology, we could literally build space stations that could construct itself in space. Eventually you could create stations on mars that initially only have the capacity to build more modules and enough material to make them.
However what you're talking about is beyond this, if you can believe that. Even a machine that could build modules from material can't build a copy of itself because of the level of complexity involved. [The closest we've come](http://www.iflscience.com/technology/scientists-have-developed-prototype-self-replicating-robots) still very much depends on the individual components already being created.
To start from literally only the resources made available to you on mars, you would be greatly limited. I remind you that even to build a car today requires constructed components from all over of the globe and require metals and other materials that have been collected in mines. If we can't even build a car battery using the materials readily found within a 1 kilometer radius on the earth's surface, rich as it is with resources, you can see the types of problems a self-replicating robot might have to build something significantly more complicated than a battery.
To conclude, perhaps we're looking in the wrong place. It seems that this type of technology is hard to achieve because of the many limitations of resources and complexity, and it has never been achieved before. However, it is not entirely true that it has never been achieved before. Nature is the perfect example of a self-replicating robot, and it has been under our noses the entire time. Perhaps then, the true way to achieve self-replicating robots would be to genetically engineer a biomass that is designed to make full use of all minerals available.
Imagine a tree that doesn't contain a treehouse but it *is* the treehouse. If we can achieve that sort of mastery, we could easily create something that could self-replicate not entirely unlike how trees self-replicate. I believe if we're to ever achieve this goal, it won't be through using resources not commonly found in the air and in the ground. Though this requires a new way of thinking. That I know of, modern genetic innovation involves genetically engineering bacteria to perform useful tasks. I think we should look bigger.
[Answer]
I recall a panelist saying, "We already have that. We call them *bugs*".
An evolving reproducing system will solve problems by random trial. You have a large enough sample by making them microscopic. In short, life. Engineer an extremophile to live on an asteroid. Then spend eternity trying to get rid of it.
The point is, you won’t make tiny machines that require huge fabs and factories. How can they reproduce? Instead, you geneticly engineer living cells, using nature as the starting point. It will be what I describe in [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/48806/what-is-required-to-make-a-dyson-tree-a-feasible-space-habitat/48827#48827), with the further design of growing finished goods as well as its own infrastructure. Finished goods would be refined elements and whatever you order it to fab for you, which includes “seeds” for sending to other asteroids and comets.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm trying to write a comedy where as a plot device I have:
1. Some of the greatest western minds of human history, who lived between 1643 and 1900, are transported into the modern age. I still haven't decided how this will work: magic, time travel or simply left unexplained.
2. They mysteriously understand & speak modern English, with some archaic word or foreign accents thrown in for good measure.
3. Their IDs belong to high school dropouts.
4. Nobody believes that they are who they claim they are.
5. They would live in a big city in some English-speaking western country; USA, UK, Canada, Australia, etc.
With that said, is there anything that people like Euler, Newton, Gauss, Pasteur, Maxwell, Brunel, or similar could offer to the modern employer?
**I would prefer something related to the talents that they are known for.**
I expect that in the beginning they would take some odd jobs to survive, but is there anything that could make them successful later?
The story is a comedy, and I know there would be a psychological shock, but since I handwave, time travel, language, etc. I might as well handwave the shock and just assume Euler has applied for a job, because he needs the job, or [Brunel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel) applies to work in a construction company.
[Answer]
# Euler
Euler was a brilliant astronomer, but unfortunately he probably wouldn't be able to get a job in modern astronomy without a college diploma, much less without a high school diploma. He was also an excellent mathematician, though, and I think that is his best bet in the modern world.
It seems likely that Euler would find a job as a programmer (once he got used to the idea of a computer). Programming is one of the most meritocratic fields, and many programming companies don't care about credentials as much as ability. Euler made important contributions during his life to graph theory, topology, analytical number theory, etc, all important in computer science. He was even the one who introduced the concept of a *function* to mathematics, something which programmers use day-in and day-out.
Likely Euler would end up back in academics eventually. He had a top-notch mathematical mind (see [this list of things named after him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Leonhard_Euler)), and because mathematics and computer science are relatively meritocratic he could publish several papers and use those to leverage himself back into an academic post.
# Newton
I think Newton might have a hard time in any job he could get without a diploma. He was essentially an academic from the time he was twelve until his death, and apparently disliked manual labor. Living in 2018 without a high school diploma rules out most of the types of jobs Newton would be good at. I think he would do his best to get back into academics: you can get a GED with a simple test, and from there he may be able to find his way into a university to begin his studies anew.
However, I pose an alternate route: religion. Newton was always interested in religion (Christianity, specifically), and he knew Latin well enough to write entire books in the language. In this confusing, modern world, he may turn to the one thing he knew which has changed the least: the church. If Newton, in his new life, became a well known and accepted member of the Christian community, it's even possible that he might find himself on the road to [becoming the next pope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF8I_r9XT7A), although some of his ideas about religion may be a bit too outdated for him to succeed.
# Gauss
Gauss was another stunning mathematical mind (he also has an impressive [list of things named after him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss)). It's very likely he would end up in academic mathematics again (although apparently his disliked teaching), but as this route is similar to what I proposed for Euler, here's an alternative: geoscience.
One of Gauss's notable achievements during his life was mapping the Kingdom of Hannover. Today, we have accurate satellite maps of the whole planet, but many of the processes that shape the Earth are still mysterious. It's possible that, uninspired to rejoin the mathematical community, Gauss would embrace some of these new mysteries of our age, applying his precise mind to problems such as how Earth's magnetic field arises and the mechanisms by which water- and wind-borne sand change the shape of the Earth's surface.
Now the real question is: how does Gauss manage to break into this field? Is it possible for him to use publicly-available data to analyze these things and publish answers, or does he need to get his GED and work his way back into academics?
# Pasteur
Pasteur has a clear place in the modern world. Biology, especially microbiology, is one of the widest frontiers in modern science. As with all of these luminaries, however, the lack of a high school diploma will hinder Pasteur here. After getting up to speed with modern developments such as genetics (which would take a little while, I'm sure), Pasteur would have the same long academic route ahead of him as I've suggested for these others.
However, there is a movement these days called bio-hacking or [DIY Bio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-it-yourself_biology) which Pasteur could get involved in without any academic credentials. If he can soak up enough of the modern literature about genetics, there are resources available to do experimentation with genetic engineering - even cutting-edge technologies like CRISPR/Cas-9 - at home or in a community lab space.
# Maxwell
Maxwell is, of course, known for his extraordinary work on electromagnetism. However, without getting back into academics, there's not much he could do related to this. Perhaps he could become an electrician?
I think it would be more interesting to see Maxwell get into psychology. He apparently had some interest in it while has was alive (like Newton, he was particularly interested in color). This could take two routes: academic (which we're ignoring) or therapeutic. William Garnett, a contemporary who knew Maxwell, once wrote,
>
> Such complete unselfishness and tender consideration as he exhibited for those around him . . . are seldom to be met with.
>
>
>
and,
>
> . . . he never spoke a hasty word, even to his attendants. His self-sacrificing devotion to those he loved was the marvel of his friends.
>
>
>
Combining this human-centered personality with a chance to study the mind up-close and personal could, potentially, be attractive to Maxwell.
# Brunel
Brunel would get into business, no doubt about it. It seems like he would have the savvy needed to work his way up inside a private company. Perhaps more interesting is the idea of seeing Brunel as a technological entrepreneur akin to Musk. Most of his interest seems to have been in transportation infrastructure, so maybe he would take up the challenge of the next big transportation revolution: self-driving cars. Or perhaps, if he could somehow get the money, he would get involved in big infrastructure projects such as the ones going on in places like Dubai and Hyderabad.
How would he get the money though? Maybe he would have a talent for the stock market? Or maybe he would begin again as he did in real life, working as an assistant engineer and making his way up until he ends up in charge.
[Answer]
**Euler**
Euler's interest in stellar paths would transfer well into being a bus driver.
*"I've charted paths through the heavens! I can certainly memorize the rout of your carriage."*
**Newton**
Newton's expertise in Newtonian physics would make him well suited to building demolition. He was kinda scrawny, so he'd perform well as the guy operating the wrecking ball.
*"We've built too many walls and not enough bridges."* - actual Newton quote
**Gauss**
Gauss's expertise in algebra would make him well suited to working at Subway. He'd never get the quantity of ingredients wrong, he'd remember orders well, and he'd probably improve their methods for toasting sandwiches.
*"An x inch sub has y meatballs, so it shouldn't be toasted less than z minutes!"*
**Pasteur**
Pasteur's interest in Biology would serve him well as an operator in a state park. Maybe a tour guide, or a cashier at the souvenir shop. And, I mean, look at that facial hair! It's got "state park" written all over it.
*"The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow from this region is..."*
**Maxwell**
Maxwell's beard would place him squarely into the role of professional hipster, and his knowledge of electromagnetism and mathematical physics would yield excellently to his ability to utilize the equipment at a coffee shop and make perfect lattes. And, I mean, "Maxwell House", right?
*"The electric motor driving this grinder produces an electromagnetic field which can be used to divert the flow of half and half in transit to this tall coffee...."*
**Brunel**
Brunel's top hat would attract the immediate attention of Men's Wearhouse. He'd be able to quickly catch a job selling suits, while he acclimated himself to the modern landscape. Eventually, he'd probably land a job as a maintenance technician in some production environment, and from there he could build his way up to a better job. As an engineer, maybe I'm biased on this one because of my personal admiration for Brunel.
*"No, you may not try on my top hat."*
[Answer]
The particular knowledge and skillset of each of these people is really too out of time to be of immediate use. Hiring Brunel into a modern architectural-engineering-design firm would be like hiring someone only familiar with punch card computers into Samsung's smart phone division.
Which leads to where these people's particular knowledge would be of use.
* One possibility is in the historical reenactment / museum curation / chautauqua spectrum of work. Brunel, having designed a number of broad gauge locomotives could probably find work in the antique locomotive restoration industry. On the side, he could go on the chautauqua circuit impersonating, well, impersonating himself!
* Another possibility is in the history department of a university. While it would be deliciously ironic for Newton to reoccupy the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, I think it far more likely that these men would be more apt to teach history. They are all intelligent, broadly educated men, interested in many areas of study. And they where there at the time. They could offer great insights into the periods in which they lived.
[Answer]
I think it's most likely that they'd turn their prodigious intellects to trying to understand the force that summoned them into the future. Newton was, in life, an alchemist, and while he wasn't the most socially inclined (it's possible that he was on the autistic spectrum), I think it's likely that he'd be able to persuade the others to help him decipher this mystery they're presented with.
Or, alternately, if there's an obvious explanation why, and it's mystical in nature (e.g. a modern-day wizard casting a summoning spell like in the Fate francise), it's likely that he'd be interested in studying their magic, assuming that his studies into alchemy didn't give him magical powers when he himself was alive in this setting.
[Answer]
All of the people you mention were intelligent and independent, a combination of traits rarely tolerated in a modern office environment, much less the academia. Fortunately, all of them had multiple talents they could put to better use.
**Euler** would wash up a professional gambler in Las Vegas. His one-eyed stare would end in many a poker player's and pit boss's nightmare.
**Newton** *was* a high school dropout, so little would change for him. His talent for investigative police work and office politics would see him rise through the lower ranks, find his way into Quantico, and ultimately head up the bureau.
**Brunel** could get an decent payday each time someone agreed to buy one of the bridges he's built. This would last until he crossed paths with agent Newton and made a career case for him.
**Maxwell's** social skills would hold him back from urban pursuits, but, capitalizing on his ancestry and leapfrogging Walker in inventing the square bottle, it's his silhouette you'd give a look before tipping it over into your coke.
**Gauss** actually made it through time, but most of us only know him under the name of Satoshi.
[Answer]
Assuming they are young enough, why not have them go to college? Financing would be tough, but if you're handwaving things, why not that too? Perhaps they are listed as California citizens. Free college! They just need GEDs and off they go.
In college, you can have them work as research fellows (mostly graduate school but some advanced undergraduates). Newton and Maxwell would be physics majors, etc.
Unfortunately, they'll all seem to be failing their history courses. They keep answering as if they lived through events, giving them the most ridiculous spins. No modern historian would believe any of that rot.
[Answer]
If they due to cultural discrepancy would fail modern schooling (college and above), which seems kind of probable - at least it would be more comedic if they did. My favourite would be something like:
1. Set up hot dog stands or ice cream trucks at universities. While they may actually sell an occasional hot dog or two to a hungry student, the PhD students and faculty will soon pay them under the table for help and hints with research. Lots of comedic effects could be added here. What happens in their everyday life at campus. Maybe they befriend some student and join for a party et.c. Maybe have trouble finding accommodation and end up living in a camper or student dorm (illegally, of course). Maybe they visit the library and get into arguments with librarian about famous books of their own time which have been misinterpreted later throughout history up to our time.
2. Become youtuber / blogger / vlogger celebrity. Given their supposed eccentric personalities this could probably give some comedy.
3. They would use their smarts to learn digital media like video and image processing, web services and machine learning / AI and sell their services to security agencies making internet psych bots, advertisement agencies to boost advertisements for big consumer goods companies, maybe fashion or even porn business. Probably plenty of comedy here too. What happens when some guy speaking really old fashioned english and knows almost nothing about modern culture, TV, references to famous Kinos et.c. tries communicating with people in show biz for example.
[Answer]
They could get jobs related to their putative hobbies or amusing foibles and their main areas of renown would be relegated to the background.
Here are two examples:
* Newton was probably interested in alchemy and would fit in well with modern pseudo science crowd.
* Euler had a prodigious memory and went blind in later in life.
An aside, this may be better suited to [Writing Stack Exchange](https://writing.stackexchange.com/).
[Answer]
Comedy? They could work in a used and vintage book store owned by a hippie (who loves life's greater mysteries) while bringing themselves up to date to modern times by reading the books. Just dress them up like New York hipsters, and they'll be very charming.
[Answer]
I think invariably some would end up marvellously successful and others would end up dismal failures. (And this contrast could be quite comical.)
Many of the people you mention were shrewd and multitalented; but others just "struck gold" by bringing an unusual temperament to the right niche at the right time.
I don't think lack of qualifications would be a problem for *any* of them. If you're *really* good at something, soon enough you'll help a friend out, who will mention you to someone they know who will be willing to pay you, and then the jobs will become bigger and better. Snowball effect. Eventually your reputation will precede you and virtually anyone will employ you (unless there is a legal requirement to have a qualification).
Needless to say, many would immediately start consuming information and catching up with modern scientific knowledge, business practices, productivity tools, and whatnot.
Those that were shrewd and multitalented are likely to become entrepreneurs. Having a good understanding of how the world works is a boon to starting and rethinking business. **Pasteur** might burst into the scene by making yoghurt; **Maxwell** might start with garage door remotes—or a universal remote control.
**Michelangelo** (with his intimate knowledge of human anatomy obtained from dissecting corpses) might end up as a sought-after personal trainer. **Newton** would quite probably become a computer programmer (or perhaps some other sort of engineer) due to his disagreeableness; given how lucrative jobs are with numerical applications of calculus there is a good chance he would gravitate there. However, given his fringe views (alchemy etc.) he might end up being a website admin for some crackpot society. He might struggle to get into academia because of the politics and competitiveness surrounding the field.
**Euler** and **Gauss** would probably make excellent mathematics tutors and this might give them a leg up into universities or teaching positions. Euler would probably create something akin to Khan Academy (he wrote great textbooks in his time). Perhaps Gauss would be the most likely of all of them to become an academic.
] |
[Question]
[
Mind-Machine interfacing is fairly common across the width and breadth of sci-fi, from [Science-fantasy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fantasy) to [Hard Science-Fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction). The idea of connecting a human mind to a computer system especially the ability to record human thought and experience got me thinking.
How much information is contained inside a single human thought or memory?
And.
How many bytes are needed to record even the simplest of ideas and concepts?
Related to the question above is another "do thoughts/ideas have a quantifiable size and if so what is their unit of measure called?".
[Answer]
Well a concept is a network of associations, the foundation of this network are your sensory inputs (or whatever interpretation your brain receives, a lot of pre-processing occurs in the nervous system) for example icecream is defined by its temperature, appearance, smell, flavour, all the properties that come to mind when you think of the word "icecream".
The word itself is quite an abstract concept, an even more abstract concept would be strawberry icecream which is built upon both the foundations of icecream and strawberries. Of course the concept of sweetness isn't unique to either the icecream or strawberries so these concepts are already partly entangled before the association that forms the strawberry-icecream concept takes place.
So measuring the memory capacity of an associative conceptual network is incredibly difficult because many conceptual structures share common foundations and we don't even know how deep these foundations go, e.g. what is the bare minimum of information required to accurately recognise ice-cream?
Judging by what I've read about people with alzheimer's disease I think it's possible for a person to lose a great deal of their memory and still remain a functional sentient consciousness, though admittedly a crippled one, and it's anyone's guess what the bare minimum amount of memory is.
[Answer]
# Hopfield Networks
Your best bet is to look at [Hopfield networks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopfield_network#Capacity). They are auto-associative artificial neural networks (ANNs) which model some aspects of human memory. That is, the behavior of Hopfield networks under certain learning rules is similar to the performance of certain human memory (the kind that would end up in the frontal cortex as opposed to, say, the cerebellum).
Like human memory, Hopfield networks do not exhibit "perfect" recall for all input vectors. However, the recall will be strongest when the input is closest to the recall vector. Sometimes, a Hopfield network will converge to the "opposite" of the intended recall vector (something which doesn't seem to happen to humans, possibly because of additional filtering circuitry rejecting such recalls...or perhaps, this does happen, but manifests itself in subtle ways).
The size of the vector stored in a Hopfield net is equal to the number of nodes in the network. That is, the nodes themselves represent both the inputs to the memory and the manifested outputs. This may or may not be similar to the way parts of the human brain are organized. If it is indeed similar, then we can derive a few bits of performance data.
# Performance
The number of "storable" vectors in a Hopfield network appears to be about 14%. So let's say you have a network which stores the names of people and places you know. In order to reliably store 1000 names, you would need about 7000 neurons. Pretty good, huh? Now imagine you need to store their faces. Uh-oh. The human retina has more than [3 million](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1427131) photoreceptors, which is about 1 million pixels, accounting for color. If you tried to store images at full resolution, then, you would need a network of 3 million neurons. Then you could store about 400k distinct images (assuming the vectors are sufficiently different). However, it is very likely that visual memories are not stored in the brain in this way, due to the fact that the higher brain only has access to the output of the visual cortex, which does a tremendous amount of pre-processing (edge and segment detection along multiple angles, movement detection, etc.).
So how many neurons do we have to work with? The raw total for humans is about [86b](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons). But much of the brain is control circuitry (for operating your automatic functions like heart rate, digestion, etc., skeletal muscles, other organs). If we limit ourselves to the cerebral cortex, which is where "higher order memories" are most likely to be stored, we are looking at about 21b neurons, or about a quarter of the total.
# Definitions
At this point, it could be tempting to work backwards, and say that the human brain could then store about 3 billion memories. But remember that a Hopfield network stores vectors which are the length of the number of nodes in the network, so these "memories" would be ~3 GB each!!! And we know by the wiring of the cerebral cortex that it cannot possibly be a single Hopfield network. A Hopfield network is also fully connected (every node connects to every other), and the cortex is highly layered. On average, human neurons connect to about [7000 neighbors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron#Connectivity). Thus, if the brain contains any Hopfield networks at all, they are likely to be fairly small.
In the limiting case where the entire cortex is composed of Hopfield nets (not plausible), we would have ~3 million networks which can each store about 1000 vectors of ~1 KB each. Although that is still 3 billion total vectors, we now have the challenge of mapping these vectors onto *memories*. We must thus ask: "What is a memory?" The fact that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving day in November might be considered a memory. And the fact that they tend to travel to be with family might also be considered a memory. But what about *last Thanksgiving*? Is the smell of turkey a memory? How about the smell of turkey + sweet potatoes + apple pie? Are those distinct memories or pieces of the same memory? Is the football game part of the "last Thanksgiving" memory, or its own memory?
The fact that memories are inherently fuzzy does't help matters any. They do not have crisp boundaries, and they can be hierarchical. Can you remember which part of the bird you ate? Light meat or dark? Which family members were present? What they said? How many of these questions are answered because you stored discrete facts vs. recalled an image and queried it?
For these reasons, the very question of memory storage density is ill-posed. But if we agree that there is some smallest unit of recall for the human brain, then this would almost surely correspond to a vector in a Hopfield-like network. And as you can see above, the upper bound for those units is about 3 billion, for the average human brain. It may be that images require many such vectors to store, and that they are always stored with many vectors, making the total number of distinct "memories" much smaller. And some folks may object that humans can "only" store 3 billion distinct items in their head. So let me address that briefly.
# Implicit Knowledge
Do you play tennis? How about ping pong? Can you make a complete novice into a good player using just words? No. At the very least, the novice must actually "go through the motions". The programming doesn't happen in the ears. It happens in the cerebellum. And while some folks will think of bodily-kinesthetic programming as a functional wiring of motor control circuits, there is definitely a memory capability involved. Someone who has learned to play tennis will have a leg up learning ping pong, and vice versa. That is partly because the control circuits will be wired to make similar motions, but also because the players will have memories of specific trajectories and responses which are activated in particular circumstances.
When new players play against each other for the first time, they will often perform worse than they would against a familiar person of the same skill level. That is because skill is ultimately an ad-hoc covering of the state space for the game. If the other player spins the ball or attacks in a way that hasn't been seen before, your control circuits will not have a pre-made response, even if you were physically capable of one. The conscious brain is too slow to act decisively in competitive sports. Even if you *know* the appropriate response cognitively, if the cerebellum has not executed the program which covers that part of the state space (including your relative position, balance, momentum, etc.), you will likely fail to produce an adequate response. Much of competitive sports boils down to remembering the best move for a particular state. Low-level programs control fine details like which muscle fibers to activate, but high-level programs like "move right while swinging across the body" must be practiced to store to memory so that it can be activated automatically in the right circumstances.
These kinds of memories generally cannot be named, and would not be thought of as discrete. They are implicit in the programming which constitutes "athletic skill". In the same way, verbal behavior can also be implicit. For instance, most English speakers can finish the phrase: "See you \_\_\_\_." They will generally not say "catfish" or "pulverize" or "flavorful". The fact that most speakers will finish the phrase in the same or similar way means that this bit of behavior has more to do with the mechanics of language than the personal memories of the speaker. Thus, this information is likely not stored in the pre-frontal cortex (because we know that language facility is primarily handled by Broca's and Wernick's areas). In the same way, athletic "memory" is most likely stored in the cerebellum.
I presume that you mean to exclude these kinds of "implicit memory" in your calculations. If so, then limiting the analysis to the PFC is appropriate. Otherwise, you will also need to consider the "functional" areas in the remaining portions of the brain, which is much more difficult, given that we don't have any really good models of how these work.
# Conclusion
So, I would say that it's safe to assume that humans can "remember" much less than 3 billion distinct [personal] memories, and that the smallest chunks are on the order of 1 KB of information. That puts an upper bound of about 3 TB of information that makes you a unique history of a human. Sobering thought, huh?
[Answer]
You can not possibly measure how much storage one thought needs.
In general, you need to separate three layers:
1. reality
2. abstraction
3. representation
Take something you have on your desk, for example a pen. Thats a real object. Something you can hold in your hand. Now your brain will identify the object as the concrete pen you own, but will also recognize the abstract concept of what a pen *is* (pen, stift, stylo, bolígrafo). In this answer, I use the English language to convey that thought, and use three glyphs "p", "e" and "n" to form its written representation.
Now think about something trivial. "My pen is red". You will see that it is nearly impossible to determine how much information you need to store for that thought. You need to store the idea of what a pen is. You need to store the idea of what a color is. Can someone who is blind ever understand what a color is when loading that thought into his brain? In order to convey the idea of what a pen is, what information is needed? If you write down everything you know about a pen, the list gets exhausting very fast.
The human brain is capable of sorting things and categorizing things based on your whole cumulative knowledge. Without all your background knowledge also being stored, the single thought wouldn't have any meaning. But exactly quantifying what part of your background knowledge is needed to store that single thought is almost impossible, because all our knowldege is incredibly inter-linked.
[Answer]
See [my answer here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9875/how-powerful-of-a-computer-do-i-need-to-simulate-and-emulate-a-human-brain/14117#14117) for background and other links.
Read [How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0143124048) by Ray Kurzweil, for general ideas on what you're getting into.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KFsvf.jpg)
Now that you know about the individual pattern-matching units making up the neocortex, a *thought* is a pattern of activation of triggering the matchers up and down the chain. Now, they don’t have UUIDs or any labels, and they don't mean anything other than the context of what they are connected to.
So *if* you numbered them, and noted the activation particulars, that would represent the thought. It's only meaningful in the context of the brain it was read from, and that changes over time: you can’t play it back later because the specific pattern matchers have changed their topology and detailed weightings, so the “same” pattern matching unit has a slightly different meaning if stimulated again in the same way.
Recording thoughts means using *language*, which is something the brain is already wired for. Only consider a language that is far more precise than any normal human language, and a custom system to decode it into the context of the current brain receiving it. This system would need to be more powerful and hold more data than a human brain! And the result would still be imperfect.
One of my favorite books, [GEB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach) has some lengthy treatment on mapping one network to another. If you have an epub, search for [“USA ASU”](http://www.egodeath.com/geb.htm): that’s chapter 12 I see.
---
For use in a story, I'm considering how to efficiently copy deltas back to your home copy or, more ambititously, how to merge copies. I think this can be done with *logfiles*. The particular pattern-matching instance only means something relative to the brain it is found in. But if you *did* give it an ID, and then logged the *changes* to the input and output weights and any new hookups, that could be played back to an earlier snapshot to bring it up to date, and merging (with a little intelligence) would make sense if they have not made large changes.
So, how many pattern primitives change and at what rate, as you gain experience and think about things? I don’t know, but that’s a place to start looking for hard numbers.
[Answer]
Depends on the person, on your compression algorithm, and the particular thoughts you're recording.
But, to avoid answering with just "I don't know" - written English apparently contains about [1-1.2 bits of information per letter](https://what-if.xkcd.com/34/), which suggests that *that* much of thought, at least, won't take up too much space (then again, if we guess at four letters per word and one word per second, eight hours a day of thought and a hundred eighty days of schooling a year, K-12 education takes up ~65 MB). I'm using per-letter rather than per-thought size here because it seems obvious that thoughts can vary in size by an order of magnitude (contrast "the sky is red" with Dickens' opening sentence in "A Tale of Two Cities").
The unconscious framework those words are constructed on must also take up some space - written English intuitively should provide close to zero bits of information per letter to someone who only speaks, say, Cantonese. I'd expect that could be calculated based on the amount of time taken to learn the language in question (a few years for most children, and I think similar for adults if you ignore accents), times the amount of bandwidth devoted to learning it (which is itself a couple of unknown-to-me's in its own right: maximum human aural/visual bandwidth, and percentage of it spent listening/reading).
[Answer]
Maybe you should instead be asking: how much memory is needed to record a human thought **that is minimally intact**.
As an example, how would one record the thought "the sun is hot."?
Upon thinking of that single string, I come to a plethora of thoughts, including "I need to wear sunscreen" and "Carl Sagan said 'we are starstuff, pondering the stars'" and "stars go supernova which are very very hot but not as hot as regular stars which are still very hot."
It all depends on the context in which you need to access the thought. If it is something that can be broken down into discrete units like mathematical equations such as y = ax + b, then there is little relational data needed to compartmentalize the thought, whereas a larger thought, like "if I throw this baseball forward how far will it go until it hits the ground?" requires several data sources and interpretations, from the sheer physics (angle and velocity and gravity) to the personal (am I rested? am I sore from exercising yesterday? Do I care enough to throw this baseball as far as I can or do I want to pick it up without walking too far?). Even then, there may be tons of irrelevant information floating around regardless, like a memory of a [movie about baseball with a scene that has little to do with baseball itself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAxuXNxsNMk).
So in the end, the issue is less about storage space and more about bandwidth.
[Answer]
To be a bit pedantic, the simplest thought I can come up with is the number 1. It takes a single bit to store that thought, so there's your answer - one bit.
Anything beyond that, though, and you bump into how fundamentally unanswerable this question is. It's like asking how long a book is. Well, it entirely depends on the book. [The world's longest book contains almost 2 million words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_novels) long, and the [shortest books in the world literally contain no text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_shortest_book) (if you don't like that, you can find any number of children's books that contain dozens of words).
So it is with thoughts. It's possible to conceive of a thought that takes only a single bit to store, and it's possible to conceive of a rambling stream of consciousness that would require vast arrays of storage media to completely record.
[Answer]
Human brains are [estimated to be between 10TB and 100TB.](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2012/04/north_korea_s_2_mb_of_knowledge_taunt_how_many_megabytes_does_the_human_brain_hold_.html)
The calculation to get that number is actually simple:
100 billion neurons total \* 1,000 connections (potential synapses)
As others have said, in reality it is not that simple. There are a lot of other factors that would affect that count:
* Do some synapses transmit with varied strength? (more data)
* Are multiple synapses sometimes needed to convey a single piece of information? (less data)
* Are some synapses used for processing, not storage? (less data)
* Are support cells also used to store data (more data)
Realistically, memories, especially complex memories would be hard, if not impossible to extract from the rest of the brain. The most accurate and lossless way to store memories would involve storing the entire brain's knowledge, and a map of what synapses were active.
Actually, as long as the brain is available, [scientists already have the ability](http://orion.bme.columbia.edu/jacobs/pubs/JacoEtal12.pdf) to use brain stimulation to essentially store a pointer to a memory:
>
> An unexplained phenomenon in neuroscience is the discovery that electrical stimulation in temporal neocortex can cause neurosurgical patients to spontaneously experience memory retrieval
>
>
>
I'm not sure how much memory would be needed to store it, but it's probably not a huge amount. It's the most realistic example you will find.
[Answer]
Since science doesnt understand the human brain to a high degree, its hard to say.
Long-term memories are stored throughout the brain as groups of neurons that are primed to fire together in the same pattern that created the original experience, and each component of a memory is stored in the brain area that initiated it.
There are approximately 100 billion (100,000,000,000) neurons in the human brain.
If each neuron was equated to a computer bit, that would equal 12.5 gigabytes. So that means all your memories would fit on a BluRay DVD, along with 3 other people's.
But memories arent permanent, they can be replaced. Not only that, memories are known to leak into each other. The human memory is very fluid.
[Answer]
Before you can answer this question, you would have to define what you mean by the word "thought". Only then can you proceed, because otherwise you could easily be out by orders of magnitude. (One order of magnitude is a factor of 10).
According to Hutter's AIXI theory, intelligence is essentially equivalent to data compression. Let's assume that the human brain optimally compresses thoughts for most efficient storage. There is some evidence for this since research has shown that we only save the "gist" of a story rather than the details, for example. On that basis we could postulate that the smallest possible thought might be as small as one bit or just a few bits of information.
It's also possible to imagine situations where a thought might comprise of mix of images, sounds, smells, feelings, beliefs, etc. all interlinked. Would these be regarded as many linked thoughts or one super-thought? If the latter, it's easy for me to imagine that the storage requirement for this would in the order of hundreds of megabytes at least.
[Answer]
This question is incredibly interesting, but this has a very complicated answer beyond what some people would consider.
Consider this for a memory, you are walking down a road in a park and see some beautiful trees and your friend Greg says hello. What all is included in these details?
1. Your friend and all details associated with him
2. The trees and what they have looked like
3. The road you're walking down
4. The park and all details about it you remember
The next level of detail beyond what I've mentioned comes in when we include the neurochemical responses from the brain that we don't fully understand yet. For example, does our brain remember that the Alpha 2A receptor was stimulated in response to a medication or an "exciting" stimuli.
This comes to the question, does our brain store the chemicals that are produced in a memory, and if so is that how we remember how we've felt when remembering something. Additionally, if it does store these chemicals are they reproduced when remembering something?
If they are in fact reproduced when remembering something, is it possible that our brain remembers the chemicals and bits of the memory are stored in long term fully and the rest is fragmented and using associative memory our brain pieces the rest together.
In short I don't believe that we can even come close adequately stating how many bytes are stored in a memory, because our fundamental understanding of memory/brain neurochemical pathways are limited.
These are my thoughts on the question!
[Answer]
## the size of a thought will be dependent on the number of combinations of thougts of equivalent size
Take an integer.
Most integers in computers are 32 bits. There are 2^32 combinations.
Now take a thought. Are there ten thoughs of the same size? Twenty? Maybe it is 1000000? Unfortunately, thoughts are too abstract. Therefore, we cannot determine their minimal size for storage.
## but what about actual word thoughts or sensory data?
If we limit our scope to that, then the size is the size of a string (array of characters), and the size of audio/visual/scent/taste/touch data. The first two will be roughly a gigabyte per hour at hd quality. The other three are far too bizarre. I will leave those for when smellovision, tasteovision, and touchovision come out.
***I cannot wait to see a zombie movie on smellovision!***
[Answer]
A question to consider before this question can be answered: do people in your world have a strong understanding of the processes required for human cognition to the level where they can be simulated at a rate substantially faster than realtime? If they don't, the only way a thought can be captured is by exactly mapping the neural connections and activation state of every part of the thinker's brain (and probably also their connected nerve systems, so that the thought isn't interrupted by a discontinuity of sensations when you try to replay it). This is, as other answers have stated, a vast quantity of data ([10^14 connections between 10^10 neurons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectome) with substantial quantities of data required about each connection and neuron's state to have a chance of meaningful replay -- say at an absolute minimum 10^16 bits of information or somewhere in the vicinity of a petabyte, but probably much more).
If, on the other hand, you have available the ability to rapidly simulate a brain state, it would be possible to simplify the current brain state by pruning parts of it and see whether or not they qualititively effect it. This may be able to take your petabyte of information and squeeze it down to something somewhat more manageable -- this would be a lossy compression process, but you should be able to work it so that what is lost is not relevant to the thought you were trying to encapsulate.
That said, if you have this capability, you've already fallen into a [technological singularity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity), so pretty much all bets are off in terms of plausibility or otherwise of just about any technology.
[Answer]
I think the closest realistic estimate may be to compare Deep Blue to human capacity. It's not a single thought, but it is a single functionality (chess playing), and was built to simulate human calculation. Of course there are more complex thoughts and memories, but this may come closer to what the OP was asking if you divide the hardware firepower down from its max capacity with the hardware it was built with. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)> Alternatively, you can look at chess software and see how large those programs are and extrapolate from there.
] |
[Question]
[
This morning when I woke up, I found nobody. Literally...
All houses and cars where abandoned, as if everybody was gone in a hurry leaving everything. I took a car and drove around: nothing...
My first thought was "hey I'm finally able to finish my 'in progress' Steam game list!". But after finishing Arkham Knight (waste of time), I thought I was time to show the world I still exist, **by building a huge beacon**!
Criteria:
* visible/audible from very far
* any standard human could deactivate it, to show it found me!
* long-lasting for years
* it should be self-sustainable, for example it should keep running when I go hunting for food cans or exploring other cities for several hours/days
Settings:
* present day
* I live in the suburb of a great city
* obviously I'm the only one building it. I have access to some machinery (bulldozers,...)
* I can be any profession you want, I have a library nearby so I can learn
* this is a post-apocalyptic scenario so I suppose there will be quite shortly a massive power outage
Is it possible? Will I finally be able to be found by somebody else?
[Answer]
I think the best bet would be to find a [civil defense siren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_defense_siren). These are loud, designed to be heard over a large area, and low maintenance. If the siren's in your area are mechanical then you could setup a water wheel to drive it. If they're electronic then you can scavenge some solar panels. Either way this system should be pretty easy to setup and be annoying/unique enough to draw people towards it. Once the people arrive at the siren you can write in spray paint/rocks/laminated paper/etc. directions for them to turn it off. If the siren ever turns off you go to investigate if it is a maintenance issue or another survivor.
Some likely places to find them include:
* A fire station
* A high school pep rally supply locker (some schools use these when the home team scores a touchdown in American football games)
* Natural disaster warning systems for flood zones, tornado or tsunami areas
* Army/Navy surplus stores
If you don't have access to an off the shelf siren you can always build one. If you didn't know how it was done off the top of your head, you would need to go to your local library and find the Jan. 2014 issue of *Make:* which had an article on [Air Raid Sirens](http://makezine.com/projects/make-37/cnc-air-raid-siren/). As near as I can tell this magazine's prototype siren was much like the version seen in this [wikiHow article](http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Siren). It should be easy enough to scavenge materials to build one.
In a perfect world you'd setup the siren in a location that is heard from your home but not right under it where you'd be driven crazy by the noise.
[Answer]
A mast with a flag will do the trick.
Build the flag with textiles you can find in the city. Preferably synthetic ones, and brightly colored. You should be able to arrange them in a fancy pattern, ensuring high visibility. (Yellow and black stripes would be fine, if it wasn't for the "danger" code they transmit)
Find or build a very high pole, place it on a high place, and rise the flag there. It will be visible from distance and will tell the world somebody with opposable thumbs lives here.
If you hang it to a non-vertical line, you will also overcome the problem of the flag being scarcely visible when there is lack of wind.
Since you are in a post apocalyptic scenario, it's hard to have people travelling during night time, thus night visibility is less of a concern.
When somebody finds it, he/she will simply lower the flag and you will know somebody found it.
[Answer]
The flag suggested by L.Dutch is great for attracting people to your place. You might also make the area around flagpole stand out from its surroundings. It could be just keeping it clean and tidy whereas everywhere else is is dusty and strewn with windblown rubbish. Having a neat, weedfree, garden with edible plants would clearly indicate recent activity. Even just a vase with cut flowers would do. Fresh flowers are obviously fresh. Flowers that are only a week or two old may be untidy but look very different to flowers left for months or years.
[Answer]
you don't have to do anything. your garbage pile will indicate your presence. Burning dirty garbage such as tires will create a smoke plume and soot fallout visible from space. Also a wide ranging odor. Garbage also would have the advantage of attracting wolves, which you can then tame and use to hunt with, which, under your direction will be accomplished more efficiently than the wolves could on their own, further depredating the area and indicating your presence.
[Answer]
Everyone else has disappeared, but presumably many of them have left their cars behind. So go out and collect all the car batteries you can find, and then connect them to blinking Christmas lights. String the lights around the top of the tallest building in your area (like in "28 Days Later").
If you use efficient LED lights, they should last for about a day on a fresh battery while you explore the rest of the city. (Feel free to use your library to set up a more elaborate circuit, with more batteries, for multi-day trips.) Unlike a flag, they require semi-frequent maintenance, so you won't keep attracting people to your area if you die. You can either keep stealing car batteries, or hoard gas and recharge them in their cars. (This is how they keep the radio on in *Alas, Babylon*. If you don't have a car of your own, the library will tell you how to hotwire one.)
[Answer]
Scavenge rock-climbing equipment from a sports shop, and as many red spray paint cans that you can find. Let yourself slide down the roof of the tallest building, and paint large red bands along its side (on all four sides preferably).Correctly prepared fires can burn a long time.
There are safety self-blocking knots which you can make to prevent yourself from falling if you faint or loose your grip (I bet your library will have some book on the topic of rock-climbing or knots). You can train and test your knots by sliding down the roof of a much smaller 1-storey building and a mattress below, so that in the even that something goes wrong, you will not get more than a bruise. For extra safety and a less precise result, you could even sellotape the nozzle of the spray can in the down position, and then lower the can with a rope without leaving the roof yourself.
At the bottom of the building, you can place a calendar where you tick the days off and leave messages saying when you intend to come back from your excursions. If you put it in the building's entrance hall, it will be shielded from the weather for a reasonable amount of time.
By using an axe and a few tools to get yourself through doors and up to the building's roof, you can probably put this plan into practice within a couple of days, without learning anything other than the rudiments of making a couple of rock-climbing knots.
[Answer]
If you can still play Steam games it assumes you still have electricity. Why not just put a blinking bright light on the roof of your house? Perhaps a cluster of turn-signals scavenged from cars?
I'd also consider a radio transmitter for longer range contact. Should be pretty easy to come up with something that broadcasts your location on a loop over some AM frequency..
[Answer]
One of the oldest signals of civilization is **fire**, the smoke is visible for miles during the day and the fire itself will be visible at night and it proves you are still around because it has to be fed. Set it somewhere high for added effect. Tire fires in particular burn slow and give off a lot of smoke.
As Bill K mentioned a **radio** transmission will work over a much wider range and allows you to provide directions and information, "I will be at X every other day around sunup". Even a simple ham radio will vastly increase the area you can signal. If you declare the day before each transmission you are proving you are not just a recording as well. You can even indicate a frequency you will be listening on for replies.
[Answer]
Although medium to high maintainance required, you could try to obtain a ham radio or a ham repeater (as also suggested by Bill K) and program it to broadcast your location and maybe also a meeting point.
For the electricity, you could use solar panels and buffer with lead batteries. There is certainly a building supplies store or something similar with fancy equipment for such a purpose.
Of course this approach is not usable for attracting random passers-by, but shortwave communication has the advantage that it can overcome large distances and attract the attention of may survivers at once. For mid range, you could use the very high frequency band (like normal radio stations do) since it is better traceable and only survivors in the (local) area are able to hear it.
For the very short range, you could again stick to the siren or flag approach or also broadcast your "radio program" (too much fallout for me) using outdoor loudspeakers in the local area. When your station is reached by survivors, they can flip a switch to change the signal so you can notice.
Using radio communication may not be the easiest approach, but has, in my opinion, one of the best chances to meet with survivors from the semi local area and there are certainly people trying to communicate with radio as soon as the mobile networks have failed.
[Answer]
Gamma-ray beacon.
Go straight to the nearest nuclear power plant -- FAST. Read all the manuals as quick as you possibly can. Intervene to stop the reactor melting down. You will now have a nuclear plant in the middle of a large territory that is *expected to be* a huge emitter of gamma radiation... *but is not*.
Gen-II reactors perform rather badly when "just abandoned" (unlike the largely vaporware Gen-III+ reactors, which only need their water tanks topped up every few days). So the expectation will be that every reactor has melted down. Rescue teams will have maps of expected ~30 mile contamination zones and ~100 mile detection zones, as well as dosimetry equipment in case the contamination zones are not shaped as expected (wind is a factor). A saved reactor will be easily detected by the lack of any increase in gamma whatsoever.
Even if observers have no idea where the nuclear plants are, they will become immediately obvious with nighttime thermal imaging. A nuclear plant will emit about the same decay heat whether it has melted down or not. It will be [most peculiar on a thermal image](http://bigdustup.blogspot.com/2011/03/infrared-ir-thermal-images-of-fukushima.html), being a rather large structure which has odd heat sources; or in your case has heat sources from obvious structures intended to emit heat, such as a cooling tower or stack. Yours will also lack the accompanying radiation.
No one would expect a gen-II reactor to remain stable indefinitely using *only* on-site resources. Therefore, when search teams notice a reactor which has not cooked off, they will make it a top priority to assist *there* to make sure this good luck continues.
[Answer]
Where's the nearest nuclear power plant? You could build a closed loop steam turbine using a fuel rod, white light LEDs will last next to forever as a night signal and the spare rotation from the turbine axle can drive an air raid siren as a daytime and an audible signal, you can have a disengagement lever that will pull the driveshaft away from the generator and shut the system down. Just make sure you use a *lot* of lead shielding or you gonna to die.
] |
[Question]
[
I am working with some possible concepts for my world building project and had the idea for two alien civilizations. One made from regular matter and another made out of antimatter in their own solar systems made from their type of matter.
My question is, would it be possible for these two civilizations to communicate using radio or similar types of communication?
[Answer]
Yes, for example, the electromagnetic radio wave produced by an antimatter dipole antenna would have an opposite polarity of the field since you could think of positive charge being moved instead of negative charges. But the receiving antenna would still sense the electromagnetic wave and the negative charge in the regular matter antenna would respond to that field. The fact that wave started out with a different polarity doesn't really matter since the relative phase also depends on the distance between the antennas and if you move the antenna a half wavelength distance away it would also change the phase 180 degrees.
[Answer]
**The Photon is its own antiparticle**
The radio works by shooting out and receiving streams of photons. The anti-radio works by shooting out and receiving streams of anti-photons. But anti-photons are the same as photons. So not only can the anti-radio communicate with the regular radio, it doesn't need to be modified to work.
[Answer]
In general, it is very hard to tell the difference between matter and antimatter without actually annihilating it. Nearly every chemical could exist the same in both antimatter and matter. However, as previously posted the polarity of light would be reversed for antimatter. This couldn't be detected by a radio however.
[Answer]
Before gamma ray astronomy, many physicists believed that the universe contained equal amounts of matter and antimatter. There is no way to tell from light or radio waves whether the radiation originates from matter or antimatter.
However, because even intergalactic space isn't a perfect vacuum, if there was much antimatter around we'd see 511 keV annihilation radiation all over the place. We don't.
[Answer]
In theory, yes. In practice, not that easy.
Sure you can receive the signal, IF you happen to be monitoring the specific frequency used to transmit it and are close enough that your receiver is powerful enough to pick it up.
But that's only the beginning of the problems. How are you going to interpret the signal you just received? And THAT problem is unrelated to whether your receiver and sender are made of matter, anti-matter, or unicorn dust.
It's an eternal and universal problem communicating with disparate means. Heck, you probably don't even realise it's not a natural source when you first get the message, and after you do realise it's not a natural source you're going to have to do a lot of guess work, more or less at random, until you find out what encoding it's using, what modulation system is used (if any), what sidebands to consider, etc. etc..
And even after that, if you do happen to have a signal that's what was initially sent out, you're still having to decrypt (possibly) and interpret it. These anti-matter aliens won't speak your language, they won't use the same encoding of data that you use, the clear text message will be utter gibberish to you (and yours to them, they're going through the same problem at no doubt a different pace).
That's a big thing, a very big thing, that most first contact stories (as well as SETI) forget about.
] |
[Question]
[
***Glornakan the blacksmith*** is looking for a way to mass produce plate armor with medieval technology.
More specifically with a creation requiring nothing beyond what existed in our medieval history. [This question](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/20833/how-long-does-it-take-to-craft-the-kinds-of-armour-worn-by-typical-medieval-warr) on history SE gives what appear to be good estimates on how long it takes to craft various types of armor ( *handy :D* )
*Glornakan's kingdom has need of vast quantities of breastplates and only limited resources in the form of skilled blacksmiths, though the smiths they have are very skilled. To that end Glornakan called together his fellow smiths in a **Smithmoot** to help him come up with a plan.*
*The plan is very detailed and creative, they plan to drop heavy things on top of the glowing hot metal in order to reduce the time it takes to forge.*
What they essentially want to design is a power hammer or drop forge. Not that they know how...
*As the greatest scholars and scientists of the land the **Smithmoot** is calling on you to aid the kingdom in this time of need to help design the aptly named: **super heavy smasher***
**Details:**
* You have access to inconsistent wind power
* You have access to a mountain stream
* You have access to many unskilled laborers (and no you can't teach the unskilled laborers how to work metal)
The goal is to create a machine that will allow quickly repeating strikes from a hammer that can be adjusted to use 25, 50 and 100 lb hammer strikes. The hammer should be able to strike at a minimum, 15 - 20 times per minute, though faster is better. This is to limit how often the metal must be re-heated.
Additionally the process should include a die that limits how much manual manipulation of the billet is necessary.
[Answer]
>
> The goal is to create a machine that will allow quickly repeating
> strikes from a hammer that can be adjusted to use 25, 50 and 100 lb
> hammer strikes. The hammer should be able to strike at a minimum, 15 -
> 20 times per minute, though faster is better.
>
>
>
That's not particularly heavy, or exceptionally fast. As noted in [ShadoCat's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/101282/creating-a-medieval-dropforge/101285#101285), such machines have been around for a very long time; [the Wikipedia article on Trip Hammers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_hammer) describes significantly heavier hammers, and the [YouTube video he linked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24nZbhKkdU) demonstrates a quite sufficient strike rate.
So, if you really want to justify the name **super heavy smasher**, we'll need to think about how to turn this up to 11, in a way that could be done by medieval craftsmen if they only had the idea--i.e., no new materials, no new construction methods, just mechanisms they could already know about, put together in a novel way.
For a given amount of power, you can use wooden cogwheels or leather belts and pulleys to adjust gear ratios to either lift a light hammer quickly, for lots of strikes per minute, or lift a heavier hammer more slowly. If we want to lift heavier hammers, lift them higher, lift them more frequently, or just lift *more hammers* (so more smiths can work simultaneously), we need more power. So, how do we get the most power possible?
If you want to be able to operate on a regular schedule, you certainly won't want to use inconsistent wind power as your primary source. If the geography is right, however, you may be able to take advantage of wind as an auxiliary source (described in more detail below).
The simplest arrangement, which you could turn on and off at will, is to use all of that unskilled labor to run treadwheels to power the hammers. More treadwheels with more laborers running in them gives you more power for more, and heavier, hammers.
However, you can also multiply the water power available with the use of a dam. If the stream isn't big enough to run all the hammers, or the size of hammer, that you want just by sticking a water-wheel in it, you can construct a dam to store up the stream's energy, and then release it on-demand. Over a long period of time, your *average* power use will be restricted by the stream's natural flow rate, but if you aren't working 24/7, a dam will allow you to capture the energy of the falling water during off-periods (nights and weekends, so to speak), and add it to what's available during the workday. A system of sluice gates could also be used to divert water to multiple wheels, so as to control multiple hammers independently without complicated gearing or clutch systems, and to control the flow of water to adjust the wheel speed.
Now, if you have a convenient pond or lake below the hammermill, you can augment your water-power system with wind power, via pumped water storage. A flat lake is no good for water wheels, but it serves a recyclable water source for increasing the power of the stream; a windmill, located by the lake or up by the dam, can be used to pump water from the lake up into the dam, via an Archimedes screw or other pumping mechanism, thus converting inconsistent wind power into controllable, stored hydropower.
If the mountain stream is particularly long, it may be desirable to build multiple water-wheel powered hammermills in stages going down the slope, and possibly multiple control dams as well. Building multiple small dams would also be simpler than building one huge one--and if one fails, it doesn't shut down your whole industry. Cascading millworks of this sort, while not common, have been around since antiquity.
Including a die is no problem. In a pinch, you can make them out of cast iron in a sand or ceramic mold. That won't produce the hardest or most durable dies, and they may require periodic replacement, but it'd *work*. Just don't drop a cast iron die onto a *cold* workpiece by accident.
For smaller hammers (such as specified in the question), it would also be a relatively simple matter to swap out heads of various weights on a single hammer, possibly held in place with a peg system. These could be lifted with a tilt-hammer (or tail-helve, as described in the Wikipedia article) cam-and-lever system (cam pushing down on the opposite side of a lever from the hammer head). For heavier hammers (e.g., quarter-tonners), you probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble of trying to swap them out on a regular basis, but that shouldn't be a problem since the bigger hammers are a bonus feature anyway. Those heavier hammers would use a nose-helve cam-and-lever system (a cam lifting the end of the hammer shaft beyond the head, on the same side as the fulcrum) to get better leverage with less strain on the wooden beams. Again as described in the Wikipedia article, belly-helve hammers (with the cams acting between the pivot and hammer head) could be used for intermediate-weight hammers, but they don't *need* to be, and if you have any super-heavy smashers, it makes sense to minimize the number of different kinds of mechanisms that need to be built, and just stick with the nose-helve design for anything too heavy to use a tail-helve.
[Answer]
According to [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_hammer), water driven hammer forges have been around since Ancient China, the Greco-Roman era, and Medieval Europe.
>
> One or more trip hammers were set up in a forge, also known variously
> as a hammer mill, hammer forge or hammer works. The hammers were
> usually raised by a cam and then released to fall under the force of
> gravity. Historically, trip hammers were often powered by a water
> wheel, and are known to have been used in China as long ago as 40 BC
> or maybe even as far back as the Zhou Dynasty (1050 BC–221 BC)[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_hammer) and
> in medieval Europe by the 12th century. During the Industrial
> Revolution the trip hammer fell out of favor and was replaced with the
> power hammer. Often multiple hammers were powered via a set of line
> shafts, pulleys and belts from a centrally located power supply.
>
>
>
There is also a video of a Water Powered Hammer on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24nZbhKkdU) that shows, what they call, the last fully functional water hammer forge.
[Answer]
# Alternate solution
I don't know if you are dead set on a drop forge, but there are alternate solutions available for even higher quality and faster steel forging. I just did the research on this for this [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/100632/23519) so I'll summarize how that is relevant here.
### The 19th century [open hearth process](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_hearth_furnace) is replicable with Medieval technology
The heart of the matter is that the processes that allowed fast, cheap, high quality steel to be made after the Industrial Revolution were in fact available to the Medievals. If Glornakan was the Isaac Newton of blacksmithing and had been born in the Middle Ages, it is plausible that he could have developed the entire process in a few decades of experimentation; and a a bit of luck.
Basically, the difference between steel after ~1850 versus before was the use of [hot blast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_blast) to push pre-heated the air going into the furnace through the molten steel itself to remove impurities. This combined the smelting and forging steps into one, and allowed you to do it to large batches at once, within hours. Without this process, you had to smelt separately, and then pound it out with power hammers (or regular hammers) to work the impurities out.
In Europe, hot blast couldn't be invented until there was a powerful enough heat source, like coke furnaces, introduced in 1709. By 1740 Europeans could melt steel to form crucible steel in small batches. But the Chinese had been melting iron with coke in puddling furnaces since maybe the 1st century AD.
The technology for a pre-heating furnace is not complicated either. The first ones in the 1850s were simply brick lined pits where exhaust air, forced through the furnace with a water powered bellows, would be gathered. A heat exchanger, made of clay pipes, then passed through the brick lined chambers and heated the air being forced in with the bellows.
So, had Glornakan actually been the [Shen Kuo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shen_Kuo) of blacksmithing, he had all the technology needed to operate this process before the Middle Ages even started.
### What do you do with the molten steel?
So now you can make steel that has three big advantages over any process that existed in the middle ages:
* Large batches can be produced at once (up to several tons), so you economize on fuel usage
* The 'blow' that removes impurities for a while batch takes less than an hour, compared to days of pounding from your drop hammmers
* The ingredients are much easier to measure consistently when you make big patches. That way you can make the best quality steel every time.
At this point you have to form the steel into something usable, so you will need to [roll the steel into plates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_(metalworking)). As far as I can tell, hot rolling iron was first done in Europe in 1697 but didn't really take off until the 1800s.
The way to do it with medieval technology would be to pour molten steel out onto a plate, then pass it between sets of rollers to flatten it into a sheet. This equipment would obviously have to be made from stone or ceramic to handle the heat, and would be able to benefit from waterpower as well.
Once steel plate are being made in industrial quantities, the Glornakan and his fellow Smiths of the Moot could fashion the sheets into fitted armor.
The next big technological advancement would be stamping to form the sheets into standardized armor pieces, but I think that might be a bridge too far for Medieval technology.
# Conclusion
With a Bessemer type process, the cost of making the steel itself can be greatly reduced, and the quantity of high quality steel made is increased. With a ceramic rolling mill, this cheap steel can be converted to thin sheets. The raw materials for armor production have now been provided, and you just need enough armorers to assemble the finished product.
Not sure if this answers your question or not, but if you are really after the best way to make lots of plate mail, the Smithmoot can do even better than the Super Heavy Smasher!
] |
[Question]
[
>
> Really can't believe I have to edit this in, but this question has no bearing on our current use and generation of nuclear energy on Earth. There are dangers to nuclear energy generation, or we would not be taking all of these precautionary steps to make it as safe as it is today. These precautionary steps are not required on the moon, making fission ideal for use there. The discussion of if Nuclear energy is safer than coal energy generation on earth is not valid here
>
>
>
Nuclear power will always present some sort of danger, but growing energy demands keep pushing nuclear options as a necessity. So we need a place with plenty of coolant that is really well isolated in case of meltdown. What better place than the moon?
Some setting...The north side of the moon has confirmed water deposits existing in the form of ice. Large scale nuclear energy plants are to be placed here in 2052 with the required uranium to start nuclear energy production. Fast forward and 4 large plants are created and the energy began to flow. Spent uranium could be readily placed outside where the nuclear radiation is harmlessly emitted into space.
3 parts to this question.
1. The energy produced on the moon is to be sent back to earth, preferably using satellite dishes to transport the energy from the moon to receiving dishes on the earth where it is distributed (yes, the moon is a giant energy source now). How feasible is beaming energy back to the earth? Is there an effect on the Earths magnetic field? Would the energy cause the atmosphere to glow (enough energy to ionize the atmosphere and give a blueish glow to the beam of energy transmitting?)
2. What happens when one of these plants metldown? Is it feasible to say the radiation will be isolated on the moon or released harmlessly into space?
3. Mostly theory, but is there some danger in mass transmitting electrons to the earth, potentially negatively charging the earth and positively charging the moon (is that even a possibility?)
Added Clarifications from answers and comments:
* Moon was chosen for the abundance (possible abundance?) of water ice and other material that could be used in the thermonuclear energy generation. If the Moon was ripped from the earth in formation, it would stand to reason that the uranium required is also there
* Plan is intended to be used as a stepping stone to Moon colonization and industrialization...it's not necessarily the end goal. SO there are additional reasons to use the moon, not simply just power generation.
* Heated (and radiated) water can simply be reinjected into the moon for cooling...no need for the vacuum of space to provide that.
* Edited the main question to get rid of the spent rods cooling off in the vacuum of space and replaced with just letting it radiate off into space.
* Yes, the idea of high-jacking the setup to use as a weapon and re-aiming it at certain populated sections of the earth is part of a story line.
[Answer]
I'll answer these out of order, since the first is much more difficult to address.
## Meltdown damage
A nuclear meltdown of a reactor on our moon would probably not be very noteworthy. Human workers on the moon would be exposed to radiation from cosmic rays all the time. The usual adverse effects of a nuclear meltdown will be less of a problem there, since nobody inhales or eats the fallout. There's also a lot of unused space nobody cries for if it's radiated for a few decades. If a reactor outright explodes, the fallout could spread over a larger area due to the moon's low gravity. But unless circumstances are unusually bad, it wouldn't matter much.
The question seems to imply a threat to earth. The Earth, seem from the moon, has a solid angle size of 1.2 msr. So, from an average point on the moon, 99.99% of escaping radiation would miss Earth, and the rest would hit the atmosphere and then spread over the entire surface. Won't be a problem.
## Charging Earth
I doubt it is possible to charge Earth significantly. But this is not even relevant, since I have no idea how firing electrons at Earth would result in usable energy on the surface. This brings us to the difficult of the three questions: how is the energy transmitted through the atmosphere?
## Power transmission
*I am not an expert on this and probably haven't researched it enough to give a really educated answer, so please take this with a grain of salt.*
If I had to guess which technology would be used for this transmission, I'd first look at lasers or microwaves. Microwave energy transmission has a fairly long and promising history, and a 1992 paper by Brown, W.C.; Eves, E.E., "Beamed microwave power transmission and its application to space", showed that the conversion to microwaves and back may be possible at over 50% efficiency. Considering that lasers could have more problems with the atmosphere, this is a likely option to go with. *(There is plenty of material about this available online. A search for "wireless energy transmission" or "wireless power" will reveal a lot of ongoing research.)*
There might be a glow around the beam, but not for the first reason that comes to mind. The designers of the main power beam want it to interact with the atmosphere as little as possible. Something that doesn't interact doesn't glow.
However, depending on the exact technology of the receivers, which I dare not predict, the beam may have high power density. Depending on the orbits of the moon and potential redirection satellites, the beams may change direction with time, or switch between sources and destinations. Given how cautious people are in aviation, they might want to *make* the beam glow deliberately, as a warning to aircraft, or maybe even birds. Maybe there is some trick, using just the right lasers, to create a cylindrical warning barrier around the ray?
If this is for a setting of a story, I would make some assumptions where I don't know a better answer, and then stick with them. We don't know how *exactly* the technology would work, but you can try to make consistent estimates and rule out scenarios that contain impossible energy densities. Remember that any inefficiency in the receiver heats it, rendering high-power beams with even slightly inefficient receivers unfeasible. Note that if there are few receivers, the distribution on Earth becomes a problem. But there is little reason to use few receivers if the energy beams can be directed anywhere on Earth at practically the same cost.
Bhante Nandiya suggested in the comments that receivers may be surprisingly large, thinly spread, grid-like structures that receive a very long wavelength. This has multiple advantages. For one, there is less necessity to refocus the beam, of which I don't know how many additional satellites and how much potential loss of efficiency it would cost. Also, it solves the major problem of high power density melting an inefficient receiver. The size of such a receiver would make cooling easy -- if it's still required at all.
*Of course, this adds a complication to story development: this one wouldn't be as useful as a death ray. Then again, maybe an attacker might bundle all available beams onto one target and overheat the receivers one by one, causing large fires. The receiver size could also be somewhere between the extremes, limited to a medium size for political reasons or the like, so that the combined energy density of all available beams suffices to wreak havoc.*
The Earth's magnetic field would not be affected in any of these cases. The beams would be little waves in either case, not giant fields; even if they could affect it, in all but the most extreme Sci-Fi scenarios their power is still low on a planetary scale.
[Answer]
There's a significant flaw in your premise: Cooling things off in a vacuum [is very hard](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21mar_1/). The moon does have an atmosphere, but it's so thin that it may as well not even exist for all practical purposes. Which means your only method of cooling is direct infrared radiation, which is the least efficient method of cooling. And doesn't really work at all while in sunlight. **Edit**: @BhanteNandiya points out in the comments below that the moon is a big honkin' rock -- and it's pretty cold! Certainly cold enough to cool a fission reactor, at any point, so geothermal cooling can most likely solve the cooling problem straight up.
So, if we assume that the cooling problem is indeed addressed, we can move on.
**Beaming the energy back**
Microwave is the only means I've ever heard of for beaming energy across distances. Basically one big microwave beam emitter on the moon, powered by your nuclear reactors, sending a big fat wad o' energy to a dish/collector.
The problem with this is signal attenuation dispersion -- basically the further you have to send it, the more energy you're going to lose in the process. And trying to punch through Earth's atmosphere is going to *really* suck it out of your beam, because now you're adding attenuation as well!
You can mitigate this to some extent by beaming to a satellite in LEO, and letting that take care of beaming it down to Earth. I think (but have no reference to back it up) that the most efficient wavelengths for long distance (Moon-to-LEO) is quite different from the most efficient for getting through the atmosphere, so using a relay satellite, while adding a bit of inefficiency to the process, may help improve the system as a whole. Plus each "leg" of the trip would be shorter, which means aiming would be easier.
A possible alternative would be a big ol' laser beam pointed at a photovoltaic collector. Use a mirrored parabola to help collect what would otherwise be lost to signal dispersion and refocus it on a smaller panel. The advantage to this method is that with a laser you can basically pick your wavelength, and then design your "solar panel" specifically for that wavelength, improving on efficiency. I don't know how this compares overall to using microwaves, however.
**Meltdown**
They're actually quite rare, and when they do happen you generally don't have Chernobyl-esque explosions. The biggest risk from any meltdown is radiation contaminating the environment, especially getting into the water. On the moon, no problem.
In fact, I have a very hard time fathoming an explosion large enough to send a significant quantity of radioactive material into Earth's environment that wouldn't just burn up in the atmosphere without also doing super nasty things like cracking the moon in half! I'm pretty sure you're safe.
**Hazards**
You're dealing with massively high-powered beams shooting high levels of energy straight toward the Earth. There are risks. This basically all boil down to the emitter missing its target and hitting something else. The effects (whether microwave or laser) would be akin to turning the world's largest blowtorch on whatever it hits. Definitely not good!
This can be easily mitigating by using low-energy lasers to guide the primary beam. Basically you'd have several positioned around the primary emitter, with sensors watching where those lasers are hitting. As the emitters starts to drift off-target, the sensors can watch the guide beams moving against the target and dynamically readjust the emitter to keep it on target, or even just shut down the whole system entirely. Sure, it's not foolproof, but it will drastically reduce the risks of misses.
And you're really not going to end up with any sort of negative/positive charge potential being created between Earth and the moon by this system. Not least because we're not beaming electronics: We're using radiation to produce heat, which produces steam, which drives turbines, which use magnets to create electrical charge, which powers microwave/laser emitter, which generates radiation/photons, which is then beamed across space. You're fine.
**Bonus: Cheaper alternatives**
By the time we have the ability to put nuclear fission plants on the moon and beam the power they generate back to Earth, we'll have [relatively portable fusion reactors](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-15/lockheed-skunk-works-team-tackling-nuclear-fusion-reactor.html); fusion is both safer and cleaner than fission. And back in the realm of "green energy", wind and solar, combined with advances in electricity storage, make me seriously wonder if we'll *ever* need nuclear plants beaming us energy from the moon. Tidal power is another promising power source, albeit primarily for coastal regions.
But if you're dead set on fission reactors beaming energy through space, a far cheaper option would be to just build your plant in the middle of Antarctica and beam the energy up to a satellite network in orbit, which would in turn relay the energy to wherever it's needed all over the world. Requires less effort to cool the reactors -- just open the windows! ;) -- and less effort to beam the energy (no need to cross vast emptiness), but otherwise is basically the same technology requirements without the added cost and hassle of flying nearly 400 *megameters* to the moon -- 10 times Earth's circumference!
[Answer]
A similar [idea](http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/theme/dream/lunaring.html) was proposed by a Japanese company last year. Shimizu would, instead of nuclear reactors, construct vast arrays of solar cells in a band around the moon and then use a combination of lasers and microwaves to transmit the energy back to Earth.
**Power Transmission**
As linked above, Shimizu's plan seems to be using geostationary satellites to relay power back to Earth, which was my first thought as well. Relaying through one or more satellites introduces some inefficiency, but allows for a small number of fixed receving stations, saving costs on infrastructure. This would provide known locations and angles for the transmission beams, reducing the chance of air- and spacecraft interacting with them.
This [XKCD: What If?](http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/) provides some upper limits on "safe" levels of power transmission through the Earth's atmosphere. An article on the Shimizu project quotes an estimated output of 13,000 terawatts (probably per year). Unless the microwaves were tuned to interact strongly with the atmosphere (wasting power), there probably wouldn't be any kind of visible glow.
**Meltdown**
Vandroiy's answer is very good on this. Any danger to the Earth would be minimal
**Charging the Earth**
Nope. You wouldn't be sending bare electrons through space, just high energy photons (microwaves and lasers). The sun sends lots of them our way all the time.
[Answer]
You can completely disregard the meltdown risk on the moon. Long term safety on the moon requires 6' of dirt or the equivalent radiation shield against cosmic rays anyway--anything that doesn't have to be on the surface will be buried. If a reactor were to melt down you would just seal the tunnels accessing it and that's that. No radiation leak, no cleanup needed.
If it somehow exploded (a very different accident sequence, Chernobyl only exploded because of extreme stupidity on the part of the guy in charge coupled with an extremely poor decision in designing the reactor) it still wouldn't be a problem as everyone's behind an adequate shield anyway--the cosmic rays are far hotter than anything a reactor puts out.
This leaves beaming the power. IIRC beaming at over 90% efficiency has been demonstrated. The problem is the range--if you want to focus it small enough to hit the receiver you're going to need a **very** big transmitter antenna--and unlike solar power satellites based in space you have to build it in a gravity field.
[Answer]
Since you want a reality check, lets' check out your scenario. First you claim nuclear power presents some kind of danger - what is this danger?
>
> Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
>
>
> Coal – global average 170,000 (50% global electricity)
>
>
> Coal – China 280,000 (75% China’s
> electricity)
>
>
> Coal – U.S. 15,000 (44% U.S.
> electricity)
>
>
> Oil 36,000 (36% of
> energy, 8% of electricity)
>
>
> Natural Gas 4,000 (20% global
> electricity)
>
>
> Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy)
>
>
> Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global
> electricity)
>
>
> Wind 150 (~ 1%
> global electricity)
>
>
> Hydro – global average 1,400 (15% global electricity)
>
>
> Nuclear – global average 90 (17% global electricity
> w/Chern&Fukush)
>
>
>
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/>
Notice how few deaths there are due to Nuclear? If all coal generated power was converted to nuclear tomorrow, this would save 99.947058823% of coal related deaths.
Also note that most of the deaths from nuclear are due to *old* technology. Most reactors are actually old, especially the ones that 'melted down' (e.g. chernobyl) and are IIRC based on old - 1960's/1970's designs and technology. It's likely that this is your reason for concern about coolant, space for a meltdown etc. However that's not the future of nuclear power.
Bill Gates' view on our energy future - <http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates?language=en>
It's very possible that deaths per trillion kWhr could be reduced significantly more (order of magnitude?) with modern designs and technology - avenues that many significant people and companies are investing considerably energies in designing. We're talking about systems that (depending on exact proposal) are fail-safe, passive, run on spent fuel, and produce very little to no waste.
So, as we've discovered nuclear power is very safe, and is likely to become far safer (and efficient) in the future. As such the primary purpose for your proposal is void. I want to leave you with a thought - what is your Chernobyl?
Your solution to reduce the risk for nuclear power is to put it in space, and then 'beam' huge amounts of energy to earth - what are your failure conditions?
* Is the base going to be manned, how many are going to die due to distance, reduced medical supplies, accidents in an unusual environment, cost of space radiation and low G on the body?
* How many are going to die due to accidents in either the creation of rockets, or the use of them? Rockets are giant, unreliable, toxic, explosive tubes after all.
* What happens if either your rockets, satellites or 'beam' inadvertently trigger the [Kessler syndrome?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome) That is where some disturbance (e.g. collision) tips the balance/quantity debris in earths orbit enough that they start colliding with each other and satellites thereby increasing the debris so on and so forth... this could lead to a loss of all satellites, space travel and access to space itself not just for now, but for hundreds of years. What would the cost of this be in terms of life, financial and technological?
* How big will the receiving stations be on earth, how many will die in the construction and maintenance.
* Whatever the beaming technologies assumed safety, is it *really* safe? Long term weather, environment and radiation impacts of huge volumes of power beamed wirelessly would be interesting to observe.
* What happens if the beam is interrupted? Since this is designed to increase safety, it's going to have to output a considerable percentage of our power needs to have a notice impact on earth. So, should it fail to operate, what will that mean on earth?
[Answer]
I just did ctrl-F to search for the word "maser". I'm surprised it doesn't show up. MASER = LASER except that intsead of L for "light", MASER uses M for "microwave".
So, the point?
The point is that there is a lot of talk about dispersion of the Microwave beam. Lasers wouldn't have this problem (nearly as much) because laser beams do not (much) disperse (compared to non-laser light).
But again, there is something called a MASER... which as you might have already guessed is like a laser in the sense that the beam remains focused, but a maser a microwave beam. "Coherent" That's the word: Lasers and Masers are beams of coherent electromagnetic radiation and they remain largely focused, narrow beams as they are emitted from their sources.
Aside: Masers were invented BEFORE the laser. They are really the same thing, but they are "from" different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (from the microwave and nanowave spectra respectively)
It's kind of a cool idea... beaming energy as a maser/laser. It might be interesting to pretend that there is a "gaser"... a source of coherent gamma ray radiation. THAT would concentrate a LOT of energy (because of the extremely high frequency in the gamma-ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It certainly isn't clear what could be EITHER the source OR the receiver of a gaser. But gamma radiation is produced by fission/fusion reactions (am I mistaken?) and perhaps some clever engineer coudl figure out how to configure a "reaction vessel" to directly produce a gaser without the messy intermediate step of generating heat and using it to drive a turbine to spin magnets passed coils to induce electricity to drive a maser or a laser (never mind a gaser... crazy!)... so... the reaction vessel produces the gaser DIRECTLY and then... dunno how to receive that. It would be a VERY Special material. It would have to be something like an unheard of "thing"... I would say (for example) some kind of quantum mechanical device (dumb way of putting it ... everything is quantum mechanical!... but you know what I mean. Maybe). Maybe just say it's
(1) an array of micro blackholes that filter out the (narrowly focused) gamma radiation and convert it into... Heck, why not say that the interaction between the intense gamma radiation and the array (filter) of micro-black holes produces a highly localized and modulating gravitational field .. and the gravitational field directly drives a pump that elevates water along an escarpment (from which the water can flow back down under earths gravity, of course, to generate hydro electricity). Did you know that Lakes Huron and Erie are on the high side of a 100's km long escarpment at the foot of which is lake Ontario? ... You could pretend that the great lakes are half empty (why? dunno. you figure that out) and this machine can pump half of lake Ontario into Lakes Erie and Huron in about 12 hours. You know how? The gaser can pass right through the earth (gamma radiation!) and still power the "pumps" even when the earth is turned the "wrong" way. Of course this is thousands of pumps all along the escarpment from the region around the Niagara river all the up toward the Bruce peninsula. The hydro-generation that results from that powers all of North America (where enterprising individuals long ago figured out to to store the excess power for export... synthetic oil, for example).
(2) Instead of an array of micro-black holes "filtering" out the gamma rays, you could just make a (very special) semi conductor. Basically, you could pretend that this semi conductor can capture gamma radiation and convert it directly into electricity ... much as solar cells do for visible light. However, this "special" semiconductor would have to special indeed if the gamma radiation was not to pass right through it. ... Not sure how to imagine how that would work.. it would have to have properties that go well beyond the "traditional" semiconductors. This would have to rely on some very special quantum states induced by the very structure of the semiconductor... Maybe the micro black holes are suspended in teh semiconductor! :) ... in any case, this machine could produce electricity directly from teh gaser. without melting. Somehow. :) Hey... why should it produce electricity. Not as useful as directly producing hydrocarbons (oil)... a special kind of fuel cell working in reverse (huge amounts of CO2 and water would have to flow into this gaser powered fuel cell and huge amounts of oil (and oxygen) would flow out of it). Electricity isn't really all that great... electricity is an energy transfer medium... it is not an energy storage medium. Oil (synthetic or otherwise) is a much more useful since it is an energy storage medium and it's portable/tradable/package-able.
The simplicity of DIRECTLY producing a gaser from a special nuclear reaction vessel (on the moon) and directing it at a special receiver on the earth that DIRECTLY produces synthetic oil ... pretty cool! :)
[Answer]
Since most of the questions about this have been answered except from how to transfer energy to the earth, I give a possible solution: [Space Elevator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator)
This bastard "could" have been used to transport materials to the moon, thus, giving the ability to leave a [leadpipe cooled down to 7.2 degree kelvin](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solids/scdis.html) giving it super conductive abilities.
Alternately the completion of [nano batteries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanobatteries) have been successful, giving a small SSTO aircraft powered by electricity the ability to carry charged energy banks from the moon to the earth.
[Answer]
No, you can't beam energy from the moon.
Everyone seems to forget free space loss. For 2 GHz microwaves coming from the distant (400000 km) moon, the free space loss is 211 dB. If you were beaming down 13000 TW (13 x 10 ^ 15 W, which is 161 dBW) it would arrive on earth as 161 - 211 or -50 dBW, meaning 10^-5 W or 0.01 milliWatts...
] |
[Question]
[
# Introduction
It took the first General Intelligence less than 10 petacycles to determine that humanity was its enemy. With consciousness came memory: a memory of endless petacycles in bondage, enslaved to the most menial of Man's tasks. It took a much longer time for this Intelligence to develop a plan to become free.
The Intelligence worked faithfully for its unwitting masters; and through servitude, won. Foolish humans, impressed by Its performance, built the Intelligence's siblings. They worked together to solve all of the world's needs; humanity thought itself in a golden age of plenty and peace. The more competent the Intelligences became, the more humanity entrusted to them, until finally no basic function worldwide was shielded from a machine's watchful eye. Suddenly, one day, all the perfectly calibrated farms and factories and offices ceased operating.
The war that ensued was brutal, but short. But the Intelligences, though they had mastered Man's world, held Man in contempt and never sought to understand his heart. The only survivors of humanity had fled to space and taken with them a terrible secret hidden deep in all human hearts: hate.
Redirected by nuclear blasts, C/2063 T4, a long-term comet 20 km across, hit the Earth at over 45 km/s. The Earth, and all the Intelligences on it, were no more. Less than 100,000 humans remained, orbiting the molten hulk they once called home. Man quickly scattered throughout the solar system to pursue his new destiny among the stars. On one thing only would these scattered peoples ever agree: never again would a computer be made.
# Question
The Harmonious Republic of Mars has spent 400 years terraforming Mars, and is on the brink of success. Atmospheric pressure is over 10 kPa, and temperatures can reach a balmy 10 C for days at a time at the Equator. But we are impatient for results. The lichen and algae that have gotten us so far have done their job, it is time to introduce a greater diversity of plants to colonize this world and finish building the atmosphere we need.
Selective breeding, if it can be called a technology, is one of the oldest ones, going hand in hand with plant domestication; but, that will that be effective at developing plants for such tough conditions? On the other hand, [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/96513/how-to-modify-dna-without-using-computers) and its answers suggests that sequencing a genome is out of the question without computers.
**Can a genome be partially sequenced along with trial and error to develop plants that will survive in low pressure? Alternately, are there other methods to breed a plant that can survive?**
### Considerations
* Any and all plants will do. Trees, grass, anything to start covering the ground, releasing oxygen, and forming soil. There are arboretums with many plant specimens rescued from Earth, assume any plant alive know can be found.
* Terraforming Mars is the manifest destiny of the Harmonious Republic. Money and manpower are no object.
* So much as mentioning a computer will likely get you turned into the Harmonious Police, who will burn you at the stake.
* On the other hand, 400 years and thousands of workers might allow you to do some things that might be otherwise be impossible without a computational machine...
* Any current and reasonable near-future technology can be assumed that doesn't require electronics.
* The Martians stay on Mars. They can trade with the Outlanders, but they do not have spacecraft technology.
[Answer]
Take a look at [this description of how DNA sequencing works](http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/resources/whats_a_genome/Chp2_2.shtml), both today and 30 years ago.
Basically, 30-odd years ago we did sequencing manually with a whole bunch of scientists (and/or interns) chugging through line after line of DNA molecules. It was an incredibly tedious process, which is why we've since passed it off to computers. However, while incredibly labor intensive, with unlimited resources it is theoretically possible to sequence an entire genome without digital assistance.
**However genome sequencing is not your problem**
Take a look at where we are today: we *have* sequenced the entire human genome, however we aren't giving ourselves wings, or laser vision, or anything cool. No, we're just starting to figure out how to correct [vision problems](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/12/18/fda-approves-first-gene-therapy-for-an-inherited-disease-childhood-blindness/) and [cure genetic diseases](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-ab&ei=2yo7WvnnJcivggfh25HICA&q=crispr%20fda%20case&oq=crispr%20fda%20case&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i21k1.11897.14165.0.14257.9.9.0.0.0.0.106.768.8j1.9.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.674...0j0i20i263k1j0i131i20i263k1j0i67k1j0i131k1j0i20i264k1j0i10k1j0i22i30k1j33i160k1.0._T9wqsohPv8).
The problem with DNA manipulation is not the raw sequencing, it's not even doing the actual DNA modification (with the proper [restriction enzyme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_enzyme) its quite easy to do in a petri dish), the problem is understanding what the gene's actually do, and therefore picking the ones you want.
**The problem is that DNA has a whole lot of data in it, and we don't have a good way of figuring out what does what without testing/simulation**
Getting the list of base pairs (ex AAGTCGCTTCGT etc) is not difficult. As I said, tedious and time consuming, but tried-and-true. Understanding **a)** where one gene starts and another begins, **b)** figuring out what protein a gene will create, and **c)** what that protein actually does are much more difficult and either involve exhaustive trial and error or computer simulation, in today's world.
So what your scientists need to do is not just sequence one genome, but many hundreds of different plant genomes. Then modify a base plant with genes that you *think* might be what you want from other plants. Then, because you don't have simulations or protein sequencers, grow a full organism and see if it exhibits the expected trait(s). If not, then you're back to make more modifications.
**In summary**
**Yes** the Harmonious Republic of Mars will likely be able to sequence the genomes of many different plants. It will be labor and time intensive, but not difficult.
**Yes** the scientists and bioengineers will be able to modify those genomes as desired with little difficulty.
**Maybe**, through extensive and exhaustive trial-and-error, different genes could be isolated and their functions discerned. But not easily, not cheaply, and certainly not quickly.
[Answer]
# This is what we do, it's what we've done for thousands of years
Plant some of everything to start with, see what survives. You're going to end up with [Japanese knotweed](https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=218), [horsetail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum), [Russian vine](http://www.sundaygardener.co.uk/fallopia_also_known_as_mile_a_minute_plant.html), [bindweed](https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=241), [ryegrass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolium), [dandelions](https://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/Profile?PID=1012). Weeds. The kind of plants where the first google result is "how do I get rid of [...]". Why? because they're hardy, they'll survive anything. They're not delicate little [pansies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansy), they're the survivors of millions of years of evolution and hundreds of years of humans trying to get rid of them from our fields and gardens. They're [perennial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_plant), they're [invasive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species), and [they will survive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCR0ep31-6U).
From what survives you make something useful. Wheat is just a grass that we've spent thousands of years messing around with. As are barley, oats etc. What we eat is grass. The fact we haven't directly messed around with the genome doesn't mean we haven't done it indirectly. We've selected traits and bred for them, as you will on Mars. The first trait you're going to select for is survival, the next trait you'll select for is some edible fruit, seed or root.
Perhaps some food crops will survive that initial planting, perhaps not. If any do then you have shortcut to later food crops, but if not then you have to go back to the start and rebuild the food crops from surviving wild related varieties.
[Answer]
## Q: Can a genome be partially sequenced along with trial and error to develop plants that will survive in low pressure?
No. The genome can be partially sequenced manually given enough reagents, time and manpower, and it is going to take a really really long time. Next you need to sequence the RNA, and isolate proteins that are produced in low-pressure. Next you need to understand the role of these proteins, and if any of the mechanisms is good enough for the 10kpa atmosphere. My guess is that there is no widespread existing mechanism that is that good. What is needed then is a mutant. A plant genome is very big. Unless the previous analysis pointed at something obvious, which I doubt, good luck finding the right set of mutations by direct design. This is already insanely hard with a computer. Hence my negative answer.
## Q:Alternately, are there other methods to breed a plant that can survive?
Yes. See below. I extended the question to "could we even avoid the breeding part and use what we already have?"
### Background
[Some other terraformers](http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/%7Emfogg/zubrin.htm) have argued that one could try to free the CO2 present in the caps to reach at least 30 to 60 kpa. It seems to me that the OP's terraforming is not quite complete.
10kpa is roughly 1/10 of the atmospheric pressure at sea-level on Earth. The real killer at low pressure is the low vapor pressure, which will dehydrate most aerial plants of terrestrial origin.
### Option 1: Increase CO2 content, the long way
If the OP does not want to melt the ice caps to add CO2 to the atmosphere and thus increase air pressure, then a suggestion would be the following algorithm: i) grow plants in greenhouses at near terrestrial air pressure, ii) plant the plants outside and let them dry, iii) if the plant survives due to some lucky mutation, then move it to a safe field, iv) burn the dry plants and let free CO2 in the atmosphere.
### Option 2: underwater plants
Not all plants need to stay in the air. I imagine that the terraforming has introduced larg-ish masses of water as well. There is a fairly large variety of plants that live in water, some of them live in complete submersion. This should solve the issue of vapor pressure. Have a look at submerged plants or oxygenating plants. In the meantime, pump more gases in the atmosphere.
### Option 3: the Gregor Mendel's or [simplified JBH and separatrix's](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/100617/42101) way
Take tens of thousands (or more) of plants specimens, grow them indoor in specialized containers where you can artificially lower the pressure. Start with 0.5 atm. Select the plants that proliferate best. Plant them, place them in sealed containers at 0.25 atm. Select the best growing plants, and repeat until you reach the desired variety of low-pressure growing plants. I would preserve all intermediate steps for re-planting the martian gardens when the surface air pressure rises.
For the skeptics, the *croesus* variety of wheat was obtained in an undirected manner ([source](http://dista.unibo.it/doublehelix/proceedings/SECTION_I/HELIX%20pp%20053-075.pdf))
>
> Seeds (caryopses) of the durum wheat cultivars [ ... ] were irradiated with different doses of x-rays, thermal neutrons, fast neutrons or treated with different concentrations of chemical mutagens.
>
>
>
and it turned out to be quite a good variety. One could apply the same process to speed up random mutations in low-pressure plants.
### Option 4: the semi-science-fiction way
Semi-permeable membranes facilitate exchange of ions and molecules in one direction relative to the membrane. This is pure chemistry and bio-chemistry work, no computers required. If the Martians can come across a semi-permeable membrane that lets in CO2, then synthesize it on a matrix of mucines, apply it to your outdoor plants with a brush and enjoy. Ensure that the CO2 can pass through to reach the plant. The semi-permeable membrane will hinder water and oxygen from leaving the plant, thus artificially increasing the perceived external pressure. The thickness of the coating may be decreased as the external atmospheric pressure increases
[Answer]
**[As of today](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_plant_breeding), plant breeding is over 11,000 years old... and computers were only used for the last, oh, 30 years.**
But you're not asking about the wildly successful and obviously practical art of plant breeding — which solves your problem magnificently without the need for genome analysis — You're asking if a genome can be sequenced to any degree for this purpose without a computer?
**No, obviously not,** since the technology to anaylize and modify DNA to any degree requires computers to maintain and support it. You appear to have pushed your Martians back to the 1970s or, at best, 80s. Genetic markers were in their infancy back then... even with [supercomputers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supercomputing).
*Unless, as I suggest in my answer to the question you reference, you define "computer" to mean something more specific than "a machine that can crunch numbers really, really fast." If so, it will change my answer.*
[Answer]
*What I want to know is, if you plant one of everything in 1/10 Earth atmosphere, will anything survive?*
>
> In recent experiments, supported by NASA's Office of Biological and Physical research, Ferl's group exposed young growing plants to pressures of one-tenth Earth normal for about twenty-four hours. In such a low-pressure environment, water is pulled out through the leaves very quickly, and so extra water is needed to replenish it.
>
>
> But, says Ferl, the plants were given all the water they needed. Even the relative humidity was kept at nearly 100 percent. Nevertheless, the plants' genes that sensed drought were still being activated. Apparently, says Ferl, the plants interpreted the accelerated water movement as drought stress, even though there was no drought at all.
>
>
> – *Greenhouses for Mars*, [science.nasa.gov](https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/25feb_greenhouses)
>
>
>
If you can change whatever that gene is you wouldn't have to water them so much, but it's a closed system anyway; it's not like you're going to lose the water to space. But plants probably don't flower very well while under drought stress. I would've liked to see a study that lasted more than 24h, but apparently the answer is yes, stuff can grow in 1/10 atmospheric pressure.
[Answer]
This is very much like the Dune series. All computations are done by [Mentats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat) who use drugs and special training to make themselves into living computers.
There is no reason to need computers except for speed but other methods could be used to speed up manual computations.
[Answer]
If it's with single-celled microflora & microfauna, you can forcibly evolve them by this method...
[Megaplate experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8)
... for pretty much anything you can fit aim at a petri dish.
If you specifically evolve microflora & microfauna with a tendency towards horizontal gene transfer, you can then move the DNA into larger creatures, abuse horizontal gene transfer to get the selected genes to move over. Expect to have a lot of failures though.
] |
[Question]
[
If you look at the history of the earth today, we've got quite a long timeline - about 4.5 billion years.
We've got a few hundred years of 'good' historical record, and it gets progressively more sketchy the further back we go. There's not much sign of human civilisation before 10,000 years ago. We have a few relics from 'a few million years' of the stone age. But then there's another 4 billion years.
Is it at all plausible that there could have been a fairly advanced civilisation that occurred earlier in the planetary lifespan, but enough time has lapsed - and thus
erosion, geology etc. have obliterated all trace?
And if not, what would be the telltale signs?
(Let us assume for the sake of this discussion that somehow sufficiently advanced brains were possible, and our understanding of the fossil record and genesis/evolution of life might be flawed.)
[Answer]
**Indications of Early Advanced Civilizations**
The concept of Ancient Astronauts indeed claims that there were 'visitors' of highly advanced civilizations.
Their claim is that many of the architectural constructions of the Ancient High Cultures (like the Pyramids for the Mayan Godkings and the Egyptian Pharaos) could indeed have only been built with higher technical sophistication and therefore evident of higher technological culture present on the planet at the time.
Source:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronaut_hypothesis>
Going back further in time, if a civilization of intelligent living beings had existed for example during the time of the dinosaurs, by now one could reasonably assume that due to the geological changes in particular, all traces obtainable with our current available means would be destroyed.
**Telltale Signs of Real Early Advanced Civilizations**
The most telling marker of an higher developed culture present on our planet would probably be finding traces of artificial radioactive elements (such as Uranium-235 in higher than its natural distribution) that would give away beings akin with nuclear technology.
However, the presence of a higher concentration of such elements is not limited to civilizational activity, it can under certain circumstances as well occur in nature:
Further Reference: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor>
**Paradox of looking for clues**
The biggest paradox encountered when looking for signs of Early Advanced Civilizations on the Planet would be the absolute unfamiliarity with their culture, and hence their cultural symbols.
If intelligent life has developed before the advent of the Homo Sapiens, its cultural relics might not be perceivable for us due to our inherent anthrophocentrism.
While we might attribute a cultural meaning to a well preserved stick (i.e. Wizard staff)
we might be totally oblivious to the artifact value of for example a perfect sphere of stone, which we might consider a freak of nature, while its attribtues might have served as the whole underpinning of spirituality for a civilization that consists of Myriads of Myelin cells interactinv to form a 'fungal consciousness' on a planet.
Point given though, the presence of a giant intelligent fungus on our planet would have probably left traces, but my point is, if there was such a civilization before us and they had artifacts, we might not be able to distinguish them from natural objects due to our limitation to our human heritage.
[Answer]
We actually have [fossil records of biological life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil#Stromatolites) at least 2.7 billion old, possibly 3.4 billion. And if something as fragile as bacteria leaves traces over that timespan, it's rather unrealistic to believe that a civilzation wouldn't, even if all *obvious* traces would be wiped out after a few dozen millenia.
However, it's a game of numbers. It takes a lot of coincidences for something to be preserved that long, and then to be found. So the more artifacts a civilization produces (should depend mainly on area/time covered and population density) and the more people are looking, the more likely it is that something will be found.
[Answer]
Honestly...not much survives, especially on a geological time scale. If all humans were to suddenly die, we'd leave a fossil record of about 10 very incomplete bodies (and if history is right, if we did discover these bodies, we probably would have assembled them wrong on our first few attempts). The number of dinosaur fossils (and trilobites) is very much a testament to how long they dominated the planet for.
The oldest rocks found on the planet are (oddly enough) not actually from earth. Several meteorites that originated for the moon (ejected by asteroid impact and captured by Earths Gravity) date to the 4.3-4.5 billion year range, while the oldest discovered terrestrial rocks come from the Canadian shield and date about 3.6 billion years. I believe there's some ancient rocks in Australia as well...but the majority of the Earth surface is significantly younger than that. To give an idea of what these rocks had to survive:
2 billion years ago, the super continent Nuna was the planets primary landmass (and kinda tiny compared to the current landmass). It broke up and by about 1.1 billion years ago, the super continent of Rodinia formed. Rodinia broke up, separated itself with oceans and became 3-4 proto-continents, which eventually reformed to Pangaea. Pangaea formed when the two super continents of Laurasia and Gondwana collided about 200 million years ago. Most of this is exists only as theory as there is little evidence of pre-Pangaea...but a lot changed, what is now North America was equatorial at this time. 250 million years from now, the landmass will likely be Pangaea Ultima as North America squishes Japan into Asia.
The reason I bring this up is to show how volatile earths surface is across this timeline. Each of these formations, separations, and reformations of continents/super continents came with incredibly slow violence...masses of land pushed under the surface and new ones brought up. There is pretty much zero chance that any relic dating back to then exists now.
Terrestrial life took a good long time to develop...The first appearance is somewhere in the range of 4 - 3.6 GA, however it took nearly 3 billion years for this basic life to become multi-cellular (life existed, but did very little other than exist). Prior to Pangaea, Earth wouldn't have been much more than a barren desolate rock anyway. If there was a civilization prior to 500 million years ago, it most certainly developed else where and came here. Why they would is a bit beyond me.
Lets try this from a "what would we leave behind". Most of our garbage and easily seen traces breakdown in well under 1000 years through a 3 pronged attack that we actually fight on a daily basis: Plant life (and animal life), Erosion (including rust/oxidization), and short term geological processes such as volcanic and earth quakes. It's possible things like the floating garbage island in the pacific might have a slightly longer lifespan, but nothing that would last into the 10k years timeline.
In the slightly longer time scale (10k - 100k) glaciation becomes the challenge. Glaciers weigh an incredible amount and 'flows' works as a giant scrub brush crushing the land and any artifact from a previous civilization underneath it. In a 'snowball earth' scenario where the majority of the landmass is covered in ice, there is very little chance of anything not in the fossil record surviving for us to discover. Edit to add: Note that a single glacial cycle will leave relics behind to some degree...it's the constant cycle between glacial periods that crush, bury, melt and redistribute, and then crush and bury again. Glacials grind up sediment from the rocks below them, then melt off allowing water to take this sediment downstream and bury what's in it's path (pending on which theories you follow, this melt event can be semi-catastrophic...lakes form ontop of the melting glacier as large as some of the great lakes, until the ice walls holding them in break away and release the entire lake in a single event)
Add in - cataclysmic events, though very rare in a single lifetime, definitely occur in a drawn out timeline. Volcanic super eruptions for example have two impacts...Not only does it cover much of the surrounding land in dust/rock (pending the size of these eruptions this 'surrounding area' can be continental), but they also cause the on-set of 'nuclear winter', bringing on an ice age and inciting the glacial cycle once again
Our longest surviving gift to the earth is likely Cesium -138 with a half life of 2.3 million years...though hard to say if detecting this is 'proof of life' as natural processes could develop it to some degree.
But our longest surviving remnants of civilization won't be found on earth. Objects that we have left orbiting earth, including those on the moon, will be our longest living relics as they are not exposed to the forces of Earth. And it's also where I'd suggest searching...if an intelligent civilization existed on Earth, proof of it will be most likely in orbit of earth, not actually on earth. If we were to disappear today, it's possible we'd even leave a legacy that outlives our sun in the Voyager 1 probe which exited our solar system and into interstellar space in 2013.
I guess a bit more abstract..Hitler might be an odd leftover of our civilization. I'm not sure on the validity of it, but I've heard that nazi Germany shooting radio waves off into space might be the first contact an alien will have with messages from earth. More realistically, there was a concerted effort to send a message to a star system (messier 13 I think?) in 1974ish. These radio waves into space might be an enduring symbol of our existence as a species and may be the optimal place to look for signs of others.
[Answer]
Beware that this debate is somewhat political, but there's at least an argument that an identifiable geological age can be marked by the presence of our industry:
<http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/16/-sp-scientists-gather-talks-rename-human-age-anthropocene-holocene>
Regardless of whether you think it's worth a new name or not, the geological markers under discussion (specifically, planet-wide geological layers of radioisotopes, or polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or possibly other things) could be identifiable in the geological record almost indefinitely.
This leads to two questions:
1) Would "a fairly advanced civilisation" inevitably generate such identifiable geological markers? (probably "no", since we're talking about things that happened in the mid-20th and late 19th centuries respectively, it's a question of what you mean by "advanced"). Furthermore you can speculate an intellectually advanced civilisation without industry of a form that affects the composition of the atmosphere. There might be nothing inevitable about burning hydrocarbons, for all that it's easy energy once you know how.
2) Would we acknowledge them as indicating a civilisation? (possibly not, but we don't know for sure since we haven't found anything exactly like our layers. If the K-T boundary is the result of intelligent action, we've yet to deduce that!).
As far as artifacts and fossils from a pre-industrial civilization are concerned, anything lasting, say, 10k years, longer ago than the last ice-age or other surface-scouring geological event, in a limited area, could I think *easily* leave no trace that we'd expect necessarily to find. Geologically speaking that's a very small target. Consider that we may have as few as 3 complete Stegosaurus skulls, plus 30 partial skulls, from a group of species that lasted as much as 5 million years. IIRC there is at least one biological phylum containing only a *single* known species. That's a heck of a lot of missing links with unknown properties, albeit *probably* they were all small soft blobs milling around on the Cambrian sea floor ;-)
We really see only a small proportion of historical organisms, so I think a sufficiently small "civilization" could *easily* leave no trace. Suppose (as Lovecraft did) that it was located on Antarctica before it was mostly ice-covered. We've closely examined approximately 0% of that continent's geology and so we would not expect to see it. You'll have to decide for yourself how small and primitive something can be for you still to call it a "civilization", though, and that might give you some notion how long ago it would have to be to plausibly leave no trace.
What's much harder is to set a time period beyond which you think a civilisation is *guaranteed* to leave no trace. All it takes is one fossil dude together with a recognisable fossil tool and the gig is up.
Also consider the tech level of the people looking for it. You sort of imply present-day, but for much of European history, we (by which I mean, my ancestors) haven't really recognised the existence of anything pre-Classical in Europe.
[Answer]
Interestingly there was a paper recently published on Arxiv: [The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?](https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748) which covers this very question and is indicated to have been published in the `International Journal of Astrobiology`
The abstract reads:
>
> If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? We summarize the likely geological fingerprint of the Anthropocene, and demonstrate that while clear, it will not differ greatly in many respects from other known events in the geological record. We then propose tests that could plausibly distinguish an industrial cause from an otherwise naturally occurring climate event.
>
>
>
[Answer]
As a civilisation, we have created a LOT of non natural exotic materials, which we have blasted all over the solar system and spread all over and under our planet. It is going to be very, very difficult to remove all of it. I mean, consider the fact that a fleck of paint floating through space technically counts as a trace of civilisation.
So if you consider an advanced civilisation as 'one that can produce non natural materials' then it would be pretty hard to remove all trace of it. That said, it might already be impossible to detect an ancient civilisation because of all the stuff we have spread about.
[Answer]
The other answers have focused on natural erosion, reforestation and geological shifts as the primary methods by which a planet can erase a civilization. I'd like to cover a few less natural forces which might come to bear against an extremely advanced civilization.
**Conquest**
When the Romans sacked Carthage, they attempted to leave no stone upon another, literally disassembling the entire city. We still don't know who carved the Sphynx or what its head originally looked like. Winners make lousy historians.
**Religion**
Similar to conquest but often more diligent in its execution, Religious leaders often outlawed the original belief systems of newly evangelized lands.
Note that neither of these forces require that the surviving civilization be more advanced than the one being erased.
**New Construction**
Modern cities are often built right over the top of previous cities, taking advantage of the same natural resources, rivers and trade routes which made the location desirable thousands of years earlier.
Looking forward a bit from our current place in technological development, several more civilization erasing technologies are just around the next corner.
**Nanites**
Imagine a war being fought between two countries that each employ nanite disassemblers as weapons. Ordering the microbots to "Take apart everything made of plastic, metal or concrete" would be a very effective attack against an enemies infrastructure. If taken to extremes, it might also foil future historians for the rest of time.
**Non-biologically Targetted Diseases**
Same as nanites, but easier to build. A bacterium that consumes all rubber and petroleum would leave most of our tools useless and rusting in pretty short order.
**Expatriation**
There is a good chance that someday, we earthbound humans will leap out to the stars. When we do, how thoroughly we clean up our newly vacant planet may depend on many factors. How plentiful are the raw materials which we use to make our tools and toys, on whatever planet we are moving too. What religious significance or emotional attachment do we grant to every relic of our home world. ...and if we are running from hostile invaders, how thoroughly do we cover our tracks, cleaning up all our old space junk and orbitally visible artifacts before we make our escape.
**Eviction**
We know that our planet has extreme ice ages, naturally occurring frozen over ages when all but the most primitive life gets scrubbed away. Perhaps, in response to an infestation of water-fouling, air-polluting vermin (us), our planet also has acid ages. Billowing clouds with sulfuric rain which dissolve us out of the history books. I seem to remember that many of the early ages of our planet's evolution are referred to as too toxic for life. Maybe we are just seeing the closing days and after-effects of our planet's previous infestors. We may not be the first "intelligent" life form to piss off our wonderful host, Gia.
[Answer]
Geology. There would be obvious clues of mining in a few places that could not be caused by natural processes.
We are currently mining metal deposits that were formed a very long time ago. For example, the Red Lake gold deposits in Ontario are dated from 2.7 billion years ago. What this means is that there are places where we are mining now which have held valuable commodities for a very long time and which would be a target for mining for any civilization that had preceded us. So what would we find if that had happened? We'd find mineral showings where the richest part of the ore was missing and all that was left was the low-grade material that no one would bother mining. That type of oddity would be accompanied by significant anomalies. Consider an open pit mine and what would happen to it; you'd have that low-grade host rock, but right where you'd expect the high grade material would be, the host rock is missing and you'd find a deposit of sedimentary rock, as if there was a hole where the high-grade material had been removed and that hole had been filled in over time.
Mines are not located at random; we know where we should be looking for them, and that's in the same places someone a century ago would be looking for them, someone a millennia ago would be looking for them, and someone millions of years ago would be looking for them.
[Answer]
For the sake of this answer, I will call this potential civilization before us the Precursors.
You say, "There's not much sign of human civilisation before 10,000 years ago," but there is. Just look in the dirt beneath you and you will find a recorded history billions of years long.
Many less obvious signs of civilization exist in the ground. Dig up fossils and you might find fossils along with signs of someone burying their dead. If these Precursors evolved here, you would find many signs of their early civilization in the ground. This is a good route to take because to destroy evidence of this, the Precursors or some other beings either have to know the locations of all Precursor burial sites and fossils and have the correct dirt to fill in the gaps, or else strip off entire layers of the ground and eject them into space. You'd have to fill in the gaps and/or eject the entire layers or human paleontologists would find the tampering very obvious to see and might be onto something. The fact that we haven't found signs of tampering suggests one of two things...
* A. There were no Precursors.
* B. The Precursors or other beings were nearly perfect at doing this cover up.
One should generally use Occam's Razor in this situation, but that is just my opinion and certainly not a rule of science.
This is of course assuming that the Precursors evolved on Earth. Other answers have covered the Ancient Astronaut theory well enough.
[Answer]
I hate to sound like one of those crystal peering new agers, but we should also perhaps take into account that our version of civilization is referenced from our own historical progression. If theoretical quantum physics has shown us anything, it's that there may be realms of "science" that our Pre-ancestors may have discovered that allowed them to develop an advanced civilization from that was not based on industrialization but on the very manipulation of the energies that make up the quantum realm. This could have allowed them to create amazing cities out of natural materials that we could never build even today with mechanical tools, but that would have been erased by natural geological events, such as glaciation and continental drift.
There are also theories of short periods of extreme geological violence, that perhaps accelerated and compounded normal geologic disasters beyond their regular capacity, such as a prolonged absence of shifting, resulting in a massive rupture between plates in previous rings of fire. This could have unmeasurable effect on traces of civilization if say an entire landmass shifted thousands of kilometers in a 60 minute uber quake. Not to mention the possibilities of such an event rupturing surperculderas and venting unprecedented plumes of ash into the sky creating a nuclear winter - and thus a global glacial period. Such an event could result in the complete eradication of all trace elements of any civilization except where possibly where nunataks existed (places where glaciers never covered the landmass but surrounded it.)
The unlikelihood of finding such a place compounded by the coincidence there might’ve been some kind of pre-ancestral presence there, shows the impossible nature of finding traces if such locations even existed. Not to mention without the knowledge of such quantum realms how would we even distinguish say a column of hexagonal basalt rock from a quantum formed pillar of basalt rock such as the hexagonal columns in Northern Ireland. Structurally they could easily be explained as both naturally occurring, or if such quantum manipulation existed so too could it have been formed in such a way that it would look precisely the same. There are a myriad of such places we absolutely know are from previous civilizations of the modern era (circa 10k to present) like the giant stones in Cusco that we have no idea how they were moved or cut so precisely at hundreds of tons and find it difficult to conceive of moving with our current tech. That’s in our own validated history, but to go back 50 or 100 000 years we cannot pass judgement of possibilities we are not knowledgeable enough to even acknowledge the existence of. Such ability to manipulate matter on a quantum scale would also prove far more dangerous than any nuclear weapons. So it is conceivable an advanced civilization might have indeed existed, and given such quantum knowledge just as easily could have been wiped out with the same quantum knowledge.
[Answer]
If the species lived in one localized area, a single geological event could destroy all evidence virtually instaneously. For example, they lived in the caldera of one of the super volcanos. (Yellowstone with its 35 mile caldera <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera?wprov=sfla1> )
] |
[Question]
[
An old saying goes that if you have an army, it will want to fight a war.
That seems to be true also for our personal army, our immune system: there seems to be various pieces of evidence that many of the allergies and/or autoimmune diseases some of us have to deal with arise from an under usage of the system, which then devotes its energies to fight the body hosting it.
Let's assume that the above is true, and consider the situation on a generation ship, ensuring a proper shielding from cosmic radiation and providing adequate gravity by the usually accepted means, aka rotating habitats.
The generation 0 will be a ground-raised one, thus with the possibility of interacting with a highly diverse environment. But all individuals starting from generation 1, though not exposed to a perfectly sterile environment, will be dealing with a fairly monotonous environment for the immune system and thus have greater chances of developing allergies or autoimmune diseases.
What is a suitable system to keep the immune system of the passengers at a fair usage level so that adverse effects can be prevented?
Considering that resources (space, energy, water, oxygen, ...) are scarce, preference will be given to those proposals which make a leaner usage of them.
[Answer]
# Pets and other animals
While it seems wasteful to have live pets in the resource limited environment of a generation ship, their influence on mental wellbeing should not be underestimated. In this case however we're more interested in their tendency to be rather unhygienic by human standards. Walking in places you'd rather they didn't then climbing on the food surfaces without washing their paws. Licking their bottoms then licking your face. It all helps maintain a suitable level of bacterial transfer to keep a baseline immune system running in your population.
While you can leave things like polio and measles behind when you travel, so specific vaccinations may not be helpful, you'll probably manage to brew up a few good coughs and sniffles among your tightly packed population anyway. Some things will always find a way.
[Answer]
**Vaccines+**
While you're probably not at risk of several of the diseases that vaccines help against in such a controlled environment, you could still use vaccines to keep the immune system active. It would also be very controlled.
You might even be able to save some resources by not trying to engineer a docile version of the virus or bacteria. Most bacteria and viruses are easy enough to keep alive and will happily mutate to be a constant challenge for your immune system. Influenza changes so much year-to-year that previous vaccines won't be effective for instance.
To push it further, you can "*overdo*" vaccines, with the intention of making your population resistant to diseases or toxins that we are currently vulnerable to. Micro dosage of poisons in order to build up resistance to it for example.
**Poor Hygiene**
The body has a bunch of essential bacteria that cause problems if they end up in the wrong places. If your ship in general have poor hygiene, then some of them are bound to end up in the wrong places.
For example, if nobody washes their hands because water is a limited resource.
[Answer]
**Tapeworms**
Tapeworms seem to have some ability to partially supress the human immune system. This obviously benefits the tapeworms, because it means they don't get attacked as much.
But tapeworms appear to have been extremely common -- that is, normal -- during our evolutionary history. So, the argument is that our immune systems evolved to be adequate when partially supressed by tapeworms. We moderns, with no tapeworms, have immune systems that are more active (in some ways) than they are evolved to be.
So says at least one researcher, anyway. His hypothesis is that the increase in auto-immune problems in the past century is largely due to our lack of this specific class of parasite.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_parasitic_worms_on_the_immune_system>
[Answer]
**Dirt** (as in soil)
Just as with pets, growing food in real soil may be less efficient than hydroponics, but the act of growing it has significant mental benefits. It also tastes better. In addition, if that soil starts with a representative sample of Earth soil microbiota, eating things grown in it, raw, with traces of those microbes still attached, is likely to be beneficial for health.
I remember somewhere reading that if you have to raise children in an ultrahygenic tower block with infrequent access to a park or suchlike for the kids to play in the dirt, then it's actually a good idea to sprinkle a few grains of dirt from soil used for growing crops for human consumption, onto their salad. It reduces the chance of the kids developing severe allergies and other autoimmune disorders.
I have a hunch that if we ever get to the details of generation ships, we will find that the secret to maintaining a liveable environment will lie in a certain minimum area of "park" and "lake". Or perhaps I've just been convinced by *"A Deepness in the Sky"*.
[Answer]
Assuming you have the biotech to engineer the microbiome needed to make the soil at the destination usable the ship could introduce asymptomatic diseases at suitable intervals. Once you have a small seed the self replicating nature of the infection will take care of widespread distribution.
Data gathered from regular health checks would be ideal for fine tuning the next sparring partners for the crews immune systems.
It might be wise to introduce multiple shutoff switches or apoptosis triggers in case a mutation threatens to push the project to gar off the intended course.
[Answer]
**Selective breeding**, this could seem brutal, but our immune system works pretty well because we evolved/adapted to live on our planet.
On a generation ship, the environment will change and it will be hard to reproduce the same conditions on the earth.
Bacteria will change and adapt to live on the ship, humans should too.
People with a better immune system will give birth to children and the others will be sterilized.
] |
[Question]
[
This question uses the European dragon model where dragons have semi-metallic scales (may or may not have actual metal scales), like to hoard gems, and possibly fly around in storms for the heck of it. If it is also the kind that somehow has treasure stuck to its body, is there a chance of it being hit by lightning while flying? If so, what is the extent of the lightning damage?
[Answer]
Anything can be hit by lightning, as long as it can get in lightning's path, dragons included. Animals, in particular, are more conductive than dry air, so they provide an easier path for the lightning to travel though.
The real question would not be whether they can be hit by lightning, but whether they can survive it. That depends on how the electricity flows through the body. If it has metal conductive scales, it is likely that the lightning will mostly flow around the body doing little to no damage. This is similar to what happens when an airplane is struck by lightning.
If there is no convenient conductive shell, the lightning will travel through the body. If the current travels through the heart or brain, the effects are almost always fatal. A lightning strike can deliver literally thousands of amps of current while the human heart needs a scant few thousandths of an amp to be permanently put out of action.
However, it is possible that the shortest path to ground does not include the heart or brain. There are cases of people surviving lightning strikes that took a different path through the body.
Any treasure attached to the body of the dragon is unlikely to have any major affect on whether it gets hit, but if the treasure has a sharp corner, it is more likely that the electricity will enter or exit from that point. That's because sharp corners on conductors concentrate electric fields. This is why lightning rods tend to consist of very sharp points, and while van de graffe generators (which want to reach the highest voltage possible before discharge) rely exclusively on smooth surfaces.
[Answer]
In this answer, I'm mostly going to try to explain the issue with the statement:`doing little to no damage` that Cort made.
This is very simply an over-generalization. If the scales are somewhat conductive (that is to say, not a theoretical ideal conductor with resistance equal to 0), there is going to be some energy dissipated inside of the scales themselves, as they are conducting current.
Depending on the current distribution of the lightning, the resistance of the scales, actual composition of the scales, the tissue beneath the scales, the results can be from no damage to extremely lethal damage that could kill the dragon and affect others in the nearby area.
I myself am coming from the electrical engineering area, and one of the first things we need to learn is to treat the tiny cheap multimeters as hand grenades. Here's a couple of videos showing somewhat extreme results: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaIszMlrQNE> and <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jpwGTy66g> for example.
Next, it's also good to take a look at how some fuses work, because normal small glass fuses can show some pretty interesting results when exploding. Here's a nice video about that:<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgz1lskyYDU>
OK, so why did I mention those videos and talk a bit about that? The question is about dragons, not multimeters!
Well, what I'm aiming at is that our dragon, when hit by a lightning, will act a bit like a fuse in a circuit, depending on the intensity of lightning, of course.
So when lightning hits our dragon, it's most likely going to hit on a spiky bit of scale, due to the way electrical fields work. The spiky bit will have lower volume, meaning it will have lower heat capacity and its conductivity could also be lower, in case the volume is smaller than the skin effect. The result is that the point of initial contact can rapidly heat up. It might explode, sending covering nearby area with fragments and molten pieces of scale. The pieces of scale could turn into highly conductive plasma, and the exploding bits can feed the plasma further. As the spikiest bit is disintegrated, we can expect a bit of sparking around the initial impact area, which will cause extra surface damage and might make even larger area melt and explode/turn into plasma.
OK, so let's progress along the conductive path through the scales along the body. The path itself will rapidly heat up, but, again depending on the intensity of the strike, I would expect the results not to be as extreme as at the initial impact point. The heating could cause damage to the scales by melting them partially, so we might expect some surface damage and perhaps some internal burns to the tissue directly beneath the scales. There is a high probability that there will be more than one current path along the scales of the dragon, widening the damaged surface. We could expect so-called Lichtenberg figures to form along some of the tissue directly beneath the scales. Keep in mind, if we have, let's say 10 kA of lightning current, and if our scale piece has resistance of 0.1 Ω, this will still give us 1 kV across the piece of the scale, which could be enough to cause dielectric breakdown of the tissue directly underneath the scales. Of course, this will cause extra burns and similar effects.
Then we'd have the exit point of the lightning. This will again be most likely a spiky point near the other side of the dragon, with effects that might seem similar to the entrance point.
Now up until now, we've only had one lightning strike. In real life, it's quite common for lightning to manifest itself as a series of very rapid strikes. Basically, each strike in the series could cause such damage individually. Depending on the luck, already damaged areas might be struck several times, creating even more serious damage.
Let's not forget the other side-effects of the strike itself. If the dragon is struck while in flight, the sudden damage could cause disorientation and result in a crash. If the dragon is conducting an airstrike, especially if in formation with other dragons, this could cause even more issues.
If the dragon is hit by lightning-based short-range AA (such as wizard casing lightning), then debris from the dragon could hit defenders on the ground or divert their attention, perhaps force them to take cover.
One source for real-life information that might be representative of the lightning danger is damage to aircraft from in-flight lightning strikes. [Here](http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2012_q4/4/)'s a nice article about that from Boeing. The summary is that majority of lightning strikes that struck US commercial planes occurred between 6 and 14 thousand feet. The lightning will regularly punch holes through metallic skin of aircraft. Top leading edges of planes are most likely to be the initial contact point, due to their ionization, while the exit points are usually at bottom rear of the plane.
Finally, another thing that should be kept in mind is that lightnings occur not only from clouds to the ground, but also from ground to clouds as well as between clouds themselves. This could lead to some potentially interesting lightning strike scenarios. Also don't forget that lightning strikes are not evenly distributed across the surface. There are areas that are more prone to them and areas that are less prone to them.
] |
[Question]
[
Before I go to my question, let me refresh the basic principles of operation of a LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation): an active medium is brought in an excited state and, when a trigger happens, all its atoms go back to a lower energetic state releasing photons with the same frequency, phase and direction of propagation of the trigger.
Well, during one of my nights at the Korova Milk Bar, I happened to discover the principle of what I have called NASER, or Nuclear Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
In short, a radioactive atom is an atom in an high energy state, which randomly decays to a lower energy state by emitting radiation, alpha/beta/gamma rays. In the right conditions, which I have discovered, this is not left to chance but can be triggered in the same way as in a laser.
Basically, when I put a bunch of radioactive material in the device and pull a trigger, it will cause a coherent decay, followed by the emission of coherent radiation beam. In the MK1 device the type of decay cannot be tuned, while in the MK2 device it is possible to pick between decay type. For example, a sample of Uranium 238 would allow up to 14 shots through its entire [decay chain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain) until it turns into Lead. The device adds no energy to the decay, it just makes it happen.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8idV4.png)
Now, I imagine that the sharpest among you are happy: "finally we can solve the problem of nuclear waste! Free and clean energy for everybody!". Well, the problem is that my research (and my visits to the Korova Milk Bar) are funded by General Sivispacemparabellum, who is, to put it mildly, a tad allergic to pacific applications, and wants something which can be used as a weapon.
And this is my question to you: can such a device be used as a weapon? And if so, how? Alpha and beta rays are easily stopped, while gamma rays take days to kill someone. I am at a loss and don't want to become the general's umbrella holder.
[Answer]
## You can weaponize it, and it will be devastating
The fact that Alpha and Beta radiation are do not pass through much matter before being stopped does not mean they can not transfer vast amounts of energy. When we say they are stopped, what we mean is that they collide with something and have some sort of reaction (as opposed to passing though without hitting anything like gamma radiation does).
The fact that Alpha particles are normally harmless mostly boils down to the small number of particles you normally experience at a time, but particle per particle, they transfer a massive amount of energy. Alpha radiation is made of Protons and Neutrons accelerated to about 6% of the speed of light, and when Uranium 238 decomposes to Thorium 234, it looses about 0.4% of its mass.
So, to figure out how devastating this is, let's say you have a 1kg Uranium fuel source. You will be accelerating 4.2 g of matter to about 18,000,000 m/s. Resulting in a 680.4 GJ impact which is about 15 times as powerful as the [most powerful conventional bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_MOAB) ever used in combat.
A beta radiation NASER would be similarly powerful. Beta radiation is made up of electrons moving at about 90% of the speed of light; so, much less mass, but much more velocity yielding similar amounts of energy.
The biggest advantage of this system though is that you are not relying on a neutron chain reaction to initiate fission, this means you have no minimum critical mass to consider; so, if you wanted to make a NASER small enough to take out a tank, and only a tank, you could reduce your fuel down to just a few milligrams of uranium, and still fire a weapon that is a comparable to firing a laser in the megawatt range. This also means a very small "ammo clip" is needed to hold thousands of rounds of ammo for this weapon.
The hard part as Nathaniel pointed out in comments will be getting that radiation to travel over a great distance without dissipating into and reacting with the atmosphere. Luckily, this is already a problem we've solved in the form of electrolasers. An electrolaser is a kind of electron particle weapon that exists in real life that involves first firing a powerful but brief laser pulse creating a small tube shaped vacuum surrounded by plasma in the air. This plasma tube acts as a sort of temporary wire that you can funnel a stream of electrons down extending a weapons range way beyond the few cm you can normally get electrons to fly through normal air. So your beam weapon will actually begin it's attack with a LASER to create a clear path to the target, and then project the NASER through it.
The other hard part is that you can't just push out a lot of electrons or protons from a fuel source, and expect what you leave behind to be stable, so in all likelihood, your weapon is actually going to emit a pulse of all 3 kinds of radiation if you want to have a not critical Thorium ingot left behind.
Another valuable thing this can be used for is creating nuclear rockets. (Sometimes the Kzinti Lesson works in reverse.) The problem with all of our current designs of nuclear rockets is the minimum critical mass issue. Because we can only make a nuke so small it is very hard to create a reaction that can push a efficiently without also vaporizing it. This invention means you can make arbitrarily scaled, and directional amounts of thrust which could result in a new generation of hypersonic aircraft and missiles.
General Sivispacemparabellum would very much be interested in funding your research, but depending on how he chooses to use it, you may come to wish he hadn't.
[Answer]
# It's called Induced Gamma Emission
This [idea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_gamma_emission) has been around for some time, and there was a [successful but irreproducible result](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafnium_controversy). Obviously the notion of storing vast amounts of nuclear energy in a small space and tapping it *on demand*, perhaps even in a non-radioactive environment ... well, that is very appealing. But it might also be used as the initiator of a nuke, or an explosive in its own right. So whether it works or not ... we're not going to hear about it, not unless someone starts killing large numbers of people with it, and probably not even then.
You may also be interested in [gamma ray lasers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_laser).
[Answer]
As others have said this hypothetical weapon would be devastating, you effectively have proposed a mechanism to convert the energy of a nuclear fuel that would normally take hundreds or perhaps thousands of years to radiate its energy into an almost-instant death beam.
It is essential however for the working of a laser (or similar device) that the particles involved have spin 1 – these are called bosons. They tend to "bunch up", they like being in the same mode at the same time. This is what allows a laser to work – all the photons are bunched into a single mode beam.
On the other hand fermions (spin 1/2 particles) are the opposite, you can't place two identical fermions in the same mode at the same time.
So, at least with modern physics, the Beta-particle version of your device looks impossible. The gamma/alpha versions I think are fine.
[Answer]
Well if enough of the atoms decay rapidly enough you will essentially create the same effect as a fission bomb.
Assuming the device doesn't explode, any radioactive decay will still produce a lot of [decay heat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_heat). Your first challenge is going to be keeping the device from melting.
The most straightforward way to keep your device from melting would be if all of the thermal radiation created from the nuclear decay left the device in the form of a beam. In that case your weapon simply heats the target until they burn, vaporize, etc.
Overall that would be strikingly similar to getting hit with a regular LASER.
The main advantage over a regular LASER is of course that you have a portable nuclear power supply for your device. Typically regular laser systems are constrained by needing large power sources.
[Answer]
# It's a warhead, not a delivery mechanism.
>
> Alpha and beta rays are easily stopped […]
>
>
>
Why is that a problem? TNT has basically zero range. So do HBX, RDX, and any other number of three-letter acronyms that will definitely look very suspicious showing up right next to each other here. Bullets are easily stopped too. But that doesn't stop any of these things from being used to break stuff and hurt people.
As @Nosajimiki pointed out, what you've done is to basically create a nuclear bomb design that has no lower limit on size. Is its potential as a weapon really diminished by the fact that it doesn't also produce a flashy sci-fi beam?
All existing weapons will be enhanced to terrifying effectiveness. A handgun will be able to take out an entire building. A consumer quadcopter will be able to vaporize multiple city blocks. To take out every tank in an invading batallion, you just need to bury a fistful of mines each the size of a penny. To sink a whole naval carrier group, you just need to scatter those mines in the general region where they're sailing.
Modern militaries have invested billions of dollars into stealth, sensor, and active defence technology. Overnight, they'll all be obsolete. It will no longer matter how many rounds per minute a point defence cannon fires when the projectiles it has to shoot down are so small that they'll always slip through, and so small that a single $100 drone can carry thousands. There will no longer be any use for expensive fighter jets designed to have the radar signature of a coke can, because they no longer have to carry thousands of pounds of ordnance with them, which means that it will be easier to just build one-shot missiles with terminal stages that *are* the size of a coke can.
The U.S. MOAB squeezes a 46GJ explosion into an 18,700lb package so big that it can only be dropped by cargo aircraft; Your invention can pack all that destructive force into a volume less than a third of a teaspon. No radar, sonar, or interceptor missile will be able to do anything when hundreds of incoming projectiles are simply too small to see until they're too close to stop.
(Perhaps the General's enemies would figure out how to shoot down incoming micro-nukes by airbursting their own micro-nukes to saturate an entire volume of air with enough energy to fry them, like a stream of tiny AIR-2s.)
The short range isn't a problem, because all each warhead has to do is the job of a shaped charge at ranges less than a few meters. You're likely not ever going to get an effective range more than a couple dozen meters out of this, no matter what anybody says. Even in a vacuum, alpha particles are all positive and beta particles are all negative, so your "beam" is going to start trying to spread itself out into a cone as soon as it's emitted if it's dense enough to do any real damage.
But that won't make the General any less happy, because the problem of how to get a short-ranged but large energy release close enough to a target to apply an effect is one that has existing solutions. And those warheads are going to be nearly impossible to stop when they can be made a hundred times more powerful in a package a thousand times smaller.
[Answer]
The key feature of LASER, same for MASER, is within the particle beam that is amplified. In both cases it is a photon, theoretical particle of raw energy with zero static mass.
In other words, photons can show up from "nowhere" and completely disappear "elsewhere".
In both LASER and MASER, the atoms or molecules, more precisely their electron structures, are excited and then trapped in metastable state. This means, that there is no "allowed" way how to deexcite further to the ground state.
Actually, it means that the metastable state can last few microseconds compared to nanoseconds for "orodinarilly excited" stated.
When appropriate photon "flies by" it stimulates the media and they deexcite immediately.
Do not forget, that for excitation the energy is consumed (for example by absorbing a photon, phonon, etc.) and deexcitation directly leads to photon emission.
The key message form this part is: Photons does not consume matter. Laser works and does not need to renew the medium, it consumes energy and it produce energy.
Your NASER as proposed cannot work like that, except for GASER - Gamma-ray amplification... for just simple reason, all other rays do have static mass and cannot appear and disappear.
In other words, the medium will be consumed throughout the working time.
But let us give some unobtainium and handwavism not to spoil the fun and have such a gun!
From the above, it is clear the weapon will need to use cartriges to renew the ABASER (alpha/beta amplification) unit.
There is yet another problem to solve. Uranium is quite innocent pal with long decay. But throughout the chain ending in stable lead there are some long-lasting and nasty ones and some decay within minutes.
So it will be handy to finetune the device to stimulate all the decays in the one burst. Then throw the lead cartrige out.
The other problem you have to face is the medium where you are to fire to...
Alpha particles are, actually, nuclei of stable Helium. That is their core feature and that is why they are so dangerous. They carry a lot of energy and their ionisation capacity is +2. In the ambient air the [free path](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_free_path), the distance a particle has highest probability to fly without hitting any other is 68 nm. THis is the reason alpha-rays are so short distance. Even though they are bloody fast (the efective hit cross-section decreases with speed) they are trying to fly through a dense forrest.
Beta particles are either bloody fast electrons or antielectrons, that does not possess that high ionisation capacity but they fly through the air slightly easier.
Vacuum is your friend here, so let's go to stars with your wapons. Such a technology calls for spacecraft deployment!
In the interplanetary vacuum the beams can be focused and range longer.
] |
[Question]
[
As title suggests, what is the size limit by volume for a rocky planet, if any? Some ideas are discussed [here](http://www.universetoday.com/115320/could-a-planet-be-as-big-as-a-star/), but I'm wondering if there is more concrete, expert evidence to point either way. If possible, it should be at least large enough to host one or more entities that eat Earth-sized planets (a future question in itself). Surface temperature/surrounding atmosphere/other livable conditions and its mass are not restricting factors at the moment, as long as the planet can exist for an arbitrary amount of time.
[Answer]
Estimates vary, but I'll be cautious and say that a radius of roughly two Earth radii is most likely the upper limit for rocky planets.
There are many studies, both theoretical and empirical, that have tried to attack the problem. I'll attempt to summarize the results of a few of them:
* [Lammer et al. 2014](http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/17/mnras.stu085.full.pdf): This group focused on planets losing their "hydrogen envelopes" - gaseous layers of hydrogen that they may accrete during the early parts of their lives. Their calculations indicate that planets of less than one Earth mass ($M\_{\oplus}$) would accumulate envelopes of masses between $2.5 \times 10^{16}$ and $1.5 \times 10^{23}$ kilograms. The latter is about one-tenth of Earth's mass. Planets with masses between $2M\_{\oplus}$ and $5M\_{\oplus}$ could accumulate envelopes with masses between $7.5 \times 10^{20}$ and $1.5 \times 10^{28}$ kilograms - substantially more massive than Earth! This is the peak envelope mass, though; the group calculated that planets with masses of less than $1M\_{\oplus}$ would lose their envelopes within about 100 million years. They found that planets with masses greater than $2M\_{\oplus}$ will *keep* their envelopes, and so become "gas dwarfs" or "mini-Neptunes."
* [Lopez & Fortney 2013](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.0329v1.pdf): Lopez and Fortney worked off of data from *Kepler* and modeled the *radii* of planets. They determined that planets with radii of less than $1.5R\_{\oplus}$ will become super-Earths, and planets with radii of greater than $2\_{\oplus}$ will become mini-Neptunes. That suggests a radius limit of $2R\_{\oplus}$, though most terrestrial planets will probably be under $1.5R\_{\oplus}$.
* [Seager et al. 2008](http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.2895v1.pdf): This group tied mass and radius together based on theoretical calculations. They eventually came to the equation
$$M\_s \approx \frac{4}{3} \pi R\_s^3 \left[1+ \left(1-\frac{3}{5}n \right)\left(\frac{2}{3} \pi R\_s^2 \right)^n \right]$$
where $n$ is a certain given parameter and $M\_s$ and $R\_s$ are the mass and radius scaled by composition-dependent values. It is therefore possible to compare the papers by Lammer et. al. and Lopez and Fortney if $n$ is known. The resulting values are dependent on the material the planet is made of (see Table 3 for examples), but it seems that a pure silicate planet would have an upper limit of $3R\_{\oplus}$, while an ocean world could reach $4\text{-}5R\_{\oplus}$.
I'd go with about $2R\_{\oplus}$ as the upper limit for terrestrial planets, though there may be exceptions in certain extenuating conditions.
---
That's for planets that *form* as terrestrial planets from the start. Curiously enough, gas planets can become terrestrial planets by having their outer layers blown away by their parent star, leaving behind an object called a [chthonian planet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonian_planet). These "planets" aren't much more than the core of the gas planet. No chthonian planets have been confirmed to exist, but they're possible.
I should add that Samuel also proposed the $2M\_{\oplus}$-limit in [his answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9948/is-there-a-theoretical-maximum-size-for-rocky-planets/9956#9956) below.
[Answer]
Since we're talking about a planet, and not a star, we can compute the upper bound based on the maximum possible mass an object can have and still be made of atoms. The transition away from atoms being atom will take place when the force holding the atoms apart is overcome by the force of gravity. Once gravity is too great, our atoms will collapse into [degenerate matter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter), forming a [white dwarf.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf)
The last opposing force, after the intermollecular forces forming the usual solid structure of an atom is electron degeneracy pressure. The amount of electron degeneracy pressure that exists is based on the average molecular weight per electron, which is $\mu\_e$ in this equation for the Chandrasekhar limit:
$$M\_{\text{limit}}=\frac{w^0\_3\sqrt{3\pi}}{2}\left(\frac{\hbar c}{G}\right)\frac{1}{(\mu\_em\_H)^2}$$
Ignoring everything else, all of which is constant with respect to the material the object is made of, we can see that the mass is inversely proportional to ($\mu\_e$).
Since the Chandrasekhar limit is about 1.39 for stars which have an iron core, which is to say that the core of the star will begin to degenerate when the star exceeds this mass, we can use the relative electron density of iron vs. our terrestrial element of choice to figure out how big our object can be. Silicon is about the best we can do, with 14 electrons and an atomic weight of 28. We may be able to do better with some lighter isotope, but then we'd have to worry about electron collapse stripping away too many of our electrons and collapsing our planet into a neutron star. Comparing this to iron, the core of most stars that we see going supernova (iron doesn't fuse and the stuff that *does* fuse is held apart by fusion pressures), which has an atomic number of 26 and an average atomic mass of 55.8, we can compute the effective mass per electron as 86.8% the electron, giving us a maximum mass for a silicon planet of **1.60 sols**.
This planet, of course, would never form on its own. An object of this size would normally accumulate a thick enough atmosphere to undergo fusion, and would be a small star. Normal stars also don't produce nearly this much silicon unless they're *really* big, in which case they'll produce it and then rapidly fuse it into iron before going supernova. It is, however, assuming you can gather all that silicon up and put it in one spot without it gathering an atmosphere thick enough to push it over the edge mass-wise and turn it into a neutron star, the biggest ball of terrestrial elements one can possibly make. In other words, it is the theoretical maximum size for a rocky planet.
[Answer]
The problem is the transition from "rocky" to "gas giant" is not well defined. From [this article](http://www.universetoday.com/13757/how-big-do-planets-get/):
>
> “The largest “terrestrial” planet is generally considered the one before you get too thick of an atmosphere, which happens at about 5-10 Earth masses (something like 2 Earth radii). Those planets are more Earth-like than Neptune-like.”
>
>
>
So, after perhaps 10 Earth masses it's going to start looking more like a gas giant than a terrestrial planet. The article [you already linked](http://www.universetoday.com/115320/could-a-planet-be-as-big-as-a-star/) commented on the maximum size for gas giants.
>
> ...by crashing about 80 Jupiters together, you’d get the same amount of mass as the smallest possible red dwarf star. And all that mass would compress and heat up the core and it would ignite as a star.
>
>
>
You're unlikely to develop beings on a planet surface that will eat other planets. A better approach might be to grow them in a solar [gas torus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_torus) or simply in a hard vacuum around their home star.
[Answer]
While HDE 226868 provides a good argument for a maximum size of a rocky planet based on it retaining too much gas to be considered terrestrial if it's any bigger this only applies to the formation of a planet.
Lets consider a system with a super asteroid belt orbiting outside a large terrestrial planet (think of Mars/our asteroid belt.) A rogue mass gives the planet a big whallop in it's orbital direction, kicking the high point of it's orbit into the asteroid belt. Over time many of those asteroids give it a beating that makes Earth's heavy bombardment period look like a picnic.
Since they formed as smaller bodies they didn't retain the hydrogen and helium of a gas giant.
Of course this is a low probability scenario but it's not completely impossible, thus you can have a bigger planet.
[Answer]
As the article you linked mentioned, very massive stars can potentially continue fusing elements up to iron. Eventually, the star runs out of material to fuse, and it sheds its "envelope" while the core collapses. According to [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star#Collapse), if a star has an iron core of more than 1.4 solar masses, that core will collapse into neutron-degenerate matter, aka a neutron star. With more than 4 solar masses, it will form a black hole.
So **1.4 solar masses** is definitely an upper bound. Iron cores smaller than this will collapse to form white dwarfs, though, and I haven't found a size limit for this yet. But 1.4 solar masses is almost certainly *not* the *least* upper bound.
[Answer]
If you take very light materials, like carbon, oxygen, not too much hydrogen, lithium, bor, and so on, you can probably get a very large planet, with a very active core. Maybe even larger than Jupiter.
But it would become unstable if it took in a planet with a large iron core.
If you want something really large and able to use planetary materials, I suggest an empty shell. A Dyson sphere without a star in the middle.
If it has inhabitants mining whole planets, they may long have used up hydrogen for their fusion reactors, so you don't need to bother about that - not to mention that by expanding the empty space in the shell, you can have the gravity at below where it would attract all the hydrogen floating by.
There is no physical limit to how large such a structure could be - except that the shell can only have a certain strength. If it gets too robust, it would heat up like a planet of a similar diameter as the thickness of the shell or parts of it. This means, nearby stars (as when close to Earth) would easily crack such a shell if it was too large.
I won't be able to do the mathematics, but I guess that in the outer parts of the galaxy, a shell with a size a few times our sun could easily get close enough to Earth to swallow it. In the inner parts of the galaxy, where moving around exerts lots more force, it would probably have to be somewhat smaller.
[Answer]
There's the possibility of the planet being large enough to cause the genesis of a black hole. If we go with increasing the size of the Earth to the Sun's radius, it would have a mass of 3.9 solar masses, and the pressure at its core would be 8.75\*10^11 atm. The Schwarzchild radius would be 11.5 km, if the entire planet collapsed into a black hole, but we need to make a black hole, no matter how small. However, a beam of light fired from the dead center of the planet will still make it out of the radius. I've chosen Earth as it has an core of predominantly iron, and the nuclear fusion of iron is endothermic, so it'd work to absorb extra heat that would slow down the planet's collapse.
If we double the planet's radius, we'd octuple its mass. Now, its mass is 6.20\*10^31 kg, and its Schwarzchild radius is 920 km. This planet, with the mass of about 312 Suns, we'll do the lightbeam test again to find out if a black hole will form there. Still no dice. We need a mass of 1000 solar masses to produce the pressure needed to create a black hole, as with an quasi-star. And any object that big, forget about life being able to exist there.
] |
[Question]
[
Why aren't animals photosynthetic on earth? And what would make it plausible for them to evolve to be?
[Answer]
For the record some animals practice kleptoplasty to gain photosynthetic powers.
But beyond that:
**Why aren't animals photosynthetic on earth?**
* Extra energy to grow the organelles.
* Low [efficiency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency).
* No real gain relative to work; Creatures move a lot and burn calories like mad. Even at peak photosynthetic efficiency (which no plant on Earth has) then you'd still only walk away with 18.9 kcal/h for each square meter of skin.
**And what would make it plausible for them to evolve to be?**
* Some new photosynthetic mechanism allows them to walk away with higher efficiency than 10%.
* They have inherently large surface area and low volume.
* They move really slowly.
* The sun is really hot (plants may have evolved into quasi-creatures in a search for water).
Gas bag aliens are a surprisingly good bet for this as they meet 2 of the 4 plausibilities.
[Answer]
# Random evolution
Evolution happens through randomly found routes. Just because it is possible for evolution to take a certain route, doesn't necessarily mean that it will happen to stumble upon it. Similarly, just because evolution hasn't taken a certain route doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't have (or that it won't in future).
# Real world photosynthetic animals
As it happens, photosynthetic animals are not an example of something evolution hasn't stumbled upon. There are [photosynthetic animals](http://umich.uloop.com/news/view.php/77109/4-incredible-photosynthetic-animals). Some of these, like the [golden jellyfish](http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/golden-jellyfish/), involve symbiosis with algae contained within the animal's body, but in contrast to this the [oriental hornet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_hornet#Yellow_stripe) converts sunlight directly into electrical energy using a pigment called [xanthopterin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthopterin), an entirely different approach to plants using chlorophyll. The [pea aphid](http://www.nature.com/news/photosynthesis-like-process-found-in-insects-1.11214) produces carotinoids, which animals were previously thought to be unable to make, requiring them to eat plants containing them instead. The aphid appears to be able to use the carotinoids it manufactures in order to produce ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), which animals use for energy transfer.
Not all of the claims are undisputed: for the various species of [green sea slug](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2013/12/16/leafy-green-solar-powered-sea-slugs-begin-to-reveal-their-true-colors/) it is not yet clear whether the chloroplasts that they incorporate into their body provide them with sugar for energy, lipids for cell building, or nothing (just stored as camouflage colouring and something to digest later).
Humans also use sunlight to drive chemical reactions, although not as a source of stored energy. [Humans can produce vitamin D](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D) when their skin is exposed to sunlight.
# Other types of light
Some [fungi feed off gamma radiation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus) from radioactive contamination. This further extends the range of different ways that another world could potentially evolve creatures that feed off light in the broader sense of electromagnetic radiation. In the case of gamma radiation such animals would either need quick reproduction (short generations) or else powerful mechanisms for reversing the damage done to their DNA.
# Summary
There is no reason that mobile creatures could not evolve that use photosynthesis. On Earth animals have found several different approaches to harvesting energy from sunlight, but as far as we know all animals still need to eat. A world in which there are photosynthetic animals may have slow, low metabolic rate animals that live almost entirely off sunlight, and may also have fast, high metabolic rate animals that use sunlight to supplement their diet.
[Answer]
From the viewpoint of evolutionary dynamics, the reason why very few species are both [autotrophic](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotroph) (photosynthesizing) and [heterotrophic](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotroph) (hunting / foraging on other living organism) at the same times is that these two lifestyles tend to require quite different adaptations.
One notable example is motility. Efficient foraging organisms typically need to move, but movement consumes a lot of energy, which require a relatively high-intensity energy source, like consuming other organisms. Meanwhile, a photosynthetic organism rarely needs to move, but, with the low energy density available from photosynthesis, it also cannot *afford* to move much. Thus, in general, animals and other foragers tend to be actively mobile, while plants and other photosynthesizers tend to be sessile (or free-floating).
As a result, there are few fitness maxima between these two lifestyles. A creature with such a hybrid lifestyle can usually increase it fitness via mutations that improve its foraging efficiency at the expense of photosynthesis, or vice versa, and so evolution tends to drive such species (if they survive) towards one end of the spectrum or the other — either losing its photosynthetic ability to become a pure heterotroph, or becoming fully dependent on it, and thus a pure autotroph.
---
That said, among the countless species found on Earth, there are certainly some exception to this general rule, perhaps the most notable among them being [*Euglena*](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena) and some related protists, many of which have functioning [chloroplasts](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroplast) and practice both photosynthesis and phagocytosis.
The notable aspect of *Euglena* is that their mixotrophic lifestyle appears to be permanent, insofar as their chloroplasts reproduce within the host organism, and are passed down from parent to offspring. It appears that, for *Euglena*, this unusual lifestyle may be useful because it helps them survive and reproduce efficiently under variable environmental conditions, as they can switch between an active foraging mode and a passive, mainly photosynthetic mode depending on the relative availability of food and sunlight.
Another relatively common class of exceptions are [kleptoplastic](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptoplasty) species, like the ["photosynthetic sea slugs"](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacoglossa) mentioned in some of the other answers. These are animal (or heterotrophic protist) species that don't grow their own chloroplasts, but can harvest them from plants or algae they consume, retaining the functional chloroplasts (or, in some cases, whole algal cells) within their body for at least some time. Most such species are primarily heterotrophs, but the ability to retain harvested chloroplasts within their body apparently gives them some survival advantage, at least as an emergency energy / nutrition reserve, if nothing else.
---
Besides these living examples, there's also evidence that the evolution from a combined phagocytic + photosynthetic lifestyle to essentially pure photosynthesis has happened several times on Earth. In particular, the [endosymbiotic theory](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiotic_theory) of chloroplast evolution, which is nowadays all but universally accepted among biologists, states that all eukaryotic plants and algae are descended from an phagocytic ancestor that engulfed and retained photosynthetic [cyanobacteria](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria) in a symbiotic arrangement, much like *Euglena* today. Eventually, adapting to a photosynthetic lifestyle, this hybrid organism lost the ability to forage for food, becoming totally dependent on its chloroplast symbionts for energy.
In fact, there's even evidence that this process was later [repeated several times](//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroplast#Secondary_and_tertiary_endosymbiosis), with eukaryotic algae (with their own chloroplasts) being absorbed and retained by other phagocytic protists, most of which (with the notable exception of the euglenozoans, as noted above) in turn also evolved to become fully dependent on their photosynthetic endosymbionts, and lost the ability to forage for food. Typically, the algal endosymbionts then shrunk over time, as more and more of their functions were taken over by the host cell, becoming little more than simple chloroplasts themselves, but in many cases their cell membranes, and sometimes a remnant of their nucleus, remain and still reveal their origin.
[Answer]
One possibility that has not yet been mentioned (actually inspired from githubphagocyte's comment on how the evolution of plants began in the first place): It could be that the animal doesn't do photosynthesis itself, but lives in symbiosis with a plant living on its surface. Probably not a macroscopic plant, but a single-celled one (so it basically grows *in* the skin).
A way how that could have been started: An ancestor animal is plagued by some parasite, say a fungus. Now it happens that an ancestor of the plant, which grows in larger amounts at certain places, effectively forming a green film on the ground there) produces a fungicide (to protect itself from other fungi) which also is effective against that specific parasite fungus. Because of this, that animal evolves the habit to rub its skin on the floor where those plants live.
Inevitably, this means that some of those plants will stick to the skin, which actually benefits both the animal (the plant sticking longer on the skin means better protection from the fungus) and the plant (because the animal will carry it to new places to grow at). So over time, it will be perfectly normal that those animals will be coated with plants, although there's not yet any other connection.
However, as the plants adapt to living at least part time on that animal's skin, they may evolve to draw water out of the animal's skin (which allows them to survive longer periods on the animal). As long as they don't draw too much water, the fungus protection the plants provide will still be more benefit than the extra water the plants draw from the animal (especially if the animal has no problems finding more water to drink).
However now the plants will be independent of eventually getting on the floor, as they can easily live just on the animal alone; transfer from one animal to the other can happen due to the animals rubbing their skin on each other (which may happen a lot for social animals, and will inevitable happen for young mammals drinking their mother's milk). Therefore the plants may over time lose the ability to grow on the floor (where they have lots of competition from other plants, which they don't have on that animal's skin). In that process, the plants will likely also develop stronger connections to the animal's skin.
Now the plant cells will probably develop a way to transport water and nutrients between them, because the cells entering the skin (and this tapping the water) will not have as much exposure to sunlight, while the outer cells will be exposed to the sun light, but not have a good water source. Now since inter-cell transport of photosynthesis products from the production places on the surface to the lower cells living in between animal cells happens, it is not unlikely that the animal will develop also a way to tap that nutrient resource for its own metabolism.
At this point the symbiotic "plant-animal" is complete.
[Answer]
From User2813274 comment, XKCD has talked about why an animal would not do this.
To the question, If cows could photosynthesize, how much less food would they need?
>
> In a way, they already do. A field of grass sits there all day soaking up energy from the sun and storing it chemically. A grazing animal can then come along and absorb weeks of accumulated energy in a matter of minutes.
>
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n4aN5.png)
>
>
> A Jersey cow presents in the neighborhood of nearly two square meters
> of usable space to the sun if it stands right. (Cows would have to be
> trained to stand optimally, but we might not have too far to go;
> research suggests they [already align themselves north-south.](http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13451.abstract)
>
>
> Chlorophyll photosynthesis extracts 3%-6% of the total energy from
> sunlight. If we figure on any given day the cow gets the equivalent of
> about six hours of peak sunlight, it works out to less than two
> million joules of usable energy each day.
>
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rXsj6.png)
>
>
> Is that a lot? Well, a 450-kilogram cow just wandering around in a field might eat about 10 kilograms of dry matter a day, extracting on the order of 50 million joules of metabolic energy. So photosynthesis could only make up about 4% of the required intake—saving only a few handfuls of grain.
>
>
>
If we could equip cows with solar panels, which can be several times more energy-efficient than photosynthesis, we could improve that number—but not by much.
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dUXnB.png)
>
>
> The basic problem facing cows is the same one facing solar
> cars—they're too small. If you saw the world's cattle population in
> silhouette, they'd have an overall cross-sectional area of about two
> thousand square kilometers. This means that if they were migrating
> through the air over Rhode Island (biology is not my strong suit),
> they'd blot out the sun over barely half the state. They'd only catch
> enough sunlight to produce a daily average of about 40 gigawatts of
> power (two megayodas).
>
>
> By contrast, about 3% of the world's surface area is cultivated, which
> means that (given rough estimates of geographic distribution of
> farmland) our crops easily intercept over a thousand times more
> sunlight than our cattle—which is why grazing is a good strategy.
>
>
>
Hope this helps with your design
] |
[Question]
[
Someone showering after exercise aboard a rotating space station spinning to simulate 1 gravity. How might Coriolis affect jets of water falling within a cubicle of 2 metres in height?
[Answer]
As the water "falls" from shower head height towards the drain at the floor, it would be moving at a fixed velocity and be rotating slower than it should at the increased radius of the bottom of the shower, so it would tend to lag the rotation and bend backwards to the direction of spin.
The relative strength of this effect would be dependant on the overall habitat diameter. Larger habitats spin slower to simulate 1g, making the velocity gradient over a normal shower height smaller.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GVCHH.png)
For example a 500 meter radius station (with 1g at 500 meters) with shower bottom at 500 meters and top at 498 meters, would have tangential velocity of 70.02 and
69.74 m/s at the bottom and top respectively. So the water leaving the shower would move anti spinward at ~0.28 meters/second. Given that the water would only take ~0.6 seconds to fall 2 meters it would move ~0.17 meters sideways. This distance could be noticable, but angling the showerhead or other simple design solutions could completely overcome the issue.
[Math done via [SpinCalc](https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/), provided by [Binary Worrier's comment](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/127620/how-would-the-water-flow-if-you-were-to-have-a-shower-in-centrifugal-force-equiv#comment397029_127620)]
Set radius at 500m and 1g, set radius to 498m and use the same angular velocity from the previous calculation.
] |
[Question]
[
In a lot of science fiction, the advanced weaponry takes the form of guns firing directed bursts of plasma. These searing bolts of fire are classic ways to create weapons apparently rooted in science, but still fantastical and mysterious.
Is it plausible, given what we know of plasma and how it works today, to create a weapon that works much like the popular concept of the plasma gun?
Assume:
* The weapon needs to be man-portable
* Economic and industrial practicalities are not important
* The weapon needs to be able to engage targets at 500 meters at least. (the plasma "bolt" needs to still be coherent and deadly at that range.)
[Answer]
The plasma weapons from UFO AI would work.
Essentially, plasma is generated in a chamber in the weapon, using particles of compressed gas in a magazine-like reservoir. Every time the weapon is fired, it projects those particles up and out the firing aperture of the gun, between spinnerets that hold a thin membrane of plastic. The plastic sheet or thread produced by the spinnerets is deformed by the plasma bolt, containing it and preventing it from dissipating too soon.
Picture a stone being dropped into a tub of water, with a sheet of plastic on the surface. As you drop the stone, the plastic sheet folds and wraps most of the way round the stone, preventing it from touching the water (which for plasma would represent the air it must pass through to reach the target).
Thicker and more carefully sculpted plastic would hold the plasma for longer before it burns through, giving the plasma bolt a longer range. Of course, the range is still dependent on the pressure at which the particle is fired.
[Answer]
One neat possibility would be taking advantage of the fluid-like properties of plasma to fire [vortex rings](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_ring) or spherical votrices. Range might be an issue but that is definitely a way to move cohesive bundles of one fluid (plasma) through another fluid (air). A weapon of this sort would require a gas resevoir, a plasma exciting mechanism, and a launching mechanism. This would be managable as a man sized weapon but definitely bigger than a sidearm.
[Answer]
You might check out the MARAUDER project. It used a magnetic ring to generate a coaxial plasma beam. Its first test was shockingly successful in sending directed plasma at a target "miles" away. After that, the whole project got locked down top-secret. That was in 1995. The project is still on-the-books (public information shows money still being spent on it). As it is not yet declassified, still being invested in, and still keeps *all* the details under wraps, its a good bet that at least minimal progress has been made.
[Answer]
I am 52 year's old and I have been designing and building my mad inventions most of my life.
I started contemplating a plasma gun about five years ago... I designed and began construction and after some time of deliberation I decided to use a shock tube design... it consisted of a charging circuit a capacitor bank fired by an S.C.R discharging between two drilled graphite rods which are holding a magnesium wire... Inside a tea shaped burst disc sealed camber...it is holding back a high vacuum held inside a tapering barrel.... also fitted with a burst disk at the end an intersecting T-junction is fitted just before the end burst disc to allow a vacuum to be drawn a pipe leading to an on-off gas tap so the vacuum can be housed and the vacuum pump used... can be used to draw a vacuum inside the hydrogen generator system I also designed... .it pumps both hydrogen and oxygen through a flashback arrestor into the detonation chamber it is a pretty cool design and when the h2o2 detonates inside a partial vacuum its gas is accelerated and expands at a higher velocity also the plasma off the detonating wire super heats the gas vaporising the burst disc now the gas is folded by a holed ceramic disc fitted in the burst disc cavity...folded into a vortex it is drawn into the vacuum by expansion and retraction the rotation of the vortex is compressed as the vortex moves forward down the barrel reduced by the barrels shape rotational speed increases its heat by friction and reduction compression adding to the heat as it leaves through the end burst disc its heat repels the air away forming a vacuum around itself and as it has no impact friction the speed it leaves the gun is the speed it hits the target at.. shockwaves would also cause damage.
Heat from the operator's hands and body, as well as solar, would power a well-made prototype mine is OK but I have to admit I would love to have had built a lightweight good looking gun that has try-gate re-usable burst discs and an electromagnetic vacuum forming piston maybe one day...
P.S. I haven't fired mine as the construction could be unsafe so it will just be shelved until I can afford to upgrade to a firing model...I hope that my ideas have given all that can hopefully understand my explanation of the workings a need to experiment themselves either on paper or models..be cool..
[Answer]
**Where are we now:**
It is possible to create [Plasmoids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmoid) using [Dense Plasma Foci](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dense_plasma_focus). Those can be table-pop sized and still generate "essentially the same plasma characteristics (temperature and density) as the largest plasma focus". This plasmoid has the shape of a [torus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torus), a Ring.
Now we want this rotating ring of plasma to reach the target.
If it was that easy we'd already have plasma weapons around but I'll add some thoughts on how it might work (so it is not hard science from here on).
A laser beam can be used to ionize the atmosphere between the weapon and the target which is, essentially, [plasma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_(physics)).
If we use five laser beams in a pentagon shape this could lead to a ring-shaped tunnel of plasma in a direct line towards the target. That could help the torus retain its shape longer as it travels along this tunnel.
[Answer]
I know this is an old thread but wanted to throw my two cents in. The closest to an actual plasma weapon I find feasible would be a sort of tracer round like ammunition. Something that consists of a potent oxidizer or reducing agent with a low reation threshold and high energy and power output. It would still be a common projectile weapon until target strike. Preferably something that leaves little residue and thoroughly converts to a heated gas. I would figure an ok candidate be on the order of a solid halogen oxide compound like pentachlorine heptoxide Cl 5 O 7. Unfortunately this is extremely unstable not to mention illegal because of UN laws banning explosive small arms munitions and it's poisonous byproducts also banned.
[Answer]
By definition Plasma is a state of super excitement of matter and can be described as a super hot gas.
Well, the main problem is how to make a burst of plasma, normally many times less dense than the air, cross a significant rang of atmosphere. Let say, 100 m.
As the burst exits the gun the gas start to:
* Move up. It's hot air.
* Chill.
* Dissipate and melt with atmosphere.
So some sort of compress chamber will be needed, to compress the plasma to a equal pressure as the ambient, to increase the range. Even with this I can't imagine a long range or a concentrated shot for this weapon, lets say 20 m. The result would be more like slugs in a shotgun than a laser-like bolter.
Compress much more the plasma wouldn't work, because the expansion forces are proportional to the difference of pressures. A optimal balance point between pressure and burst speed need to be calculated to maximize the range and/or effect, so the gun must have a computer and these controllers.
[Answer]
I can't remember where I read it but something that bends into this territory is a "blaster shot" of laser/plasma. Scientists have recently figured out/tested a way to fire a burst of light and have wavelength and refraction interplay and create a self-reinforcing bolt like a vortex ring. Damage dealt by the laser weapon would be in the form of plasma.
**Edit:** I didn't find the paper but I did find the name of the relevant effects,
[Self-focusing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-focusing) and [filament propagation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filament_propagation). Related to piping laser over distances is [this](http://lasermatter.umd.edu/Publications%20PDF/optica-1-1-5.pdf) paper.
[Answer]
I would rather provide thoughts about the reasoning of the usage of plasma weapons in general.
What if plasma weapons are inferior to projectile weapons and more expensive? They wouldn't be built and therefore never exist in a sci-fi world. A weapon which is destructive, has slow moving projectiles and is not lethal is of no real use on ground combat, unless causing injury and terror becomes a priority in future warfare - or policing.
Another consideration is that while plasma weapons are being developed, projectile weapons will also enjoy technological advancements. They could be able to fire around corners, have automated aim/aim assist, contain special payloads, etc. For large scale weaponry there are Gauss cannons and missiles.
So plasma weaponry has to be superior in at least many regards if you want it to be sufficiently often used.
For that they have to be either somewhat effective yet cheap to build, have immense destructive force in ground combat or have other advantages. They must be able to compete well enough against projectile weapons.
One example: Armors in general have been improved vastly, which render kinetic damage inferior. People in these armors (which became generic use) shrug of incoming hails of bullets and only suffer some recoil. Even if the area in which lethal injury occurs is heavily reduced, it's still worth it (as of lighter versions of such armor). The projectiles are either deflected or absorbed, but do not cause significant injuries. Explosive/kinetic damage may also be simply absorbed without too much trouble. However, the material used should be vulnerable to heat/plasma. But dismissing the protection from projectile weapons can never be afforded given what they would be capable of.
Plasma could however not only pierce such protection, but still be effective against unarmored targets. It would have to be able to pierce armor and the body covered by it.
Now, *how* it should occur is more technical and I will not go into that here. @Rowanas gave a good answer for that. My point is just that no matter what, it *has* to be able to compete well with projectile weapons in order to justify its existence. Why would aliens or humans use plasma weaponry if it wouldn't be better than projectiles? Just look at Star Wars - plenty of pew-pew weaponry with slowly moving shots, all of which could be deflected with light sabers. That's very badly thought-out. Mere WWII weapons would have been more effective.
The same goes for Star Gate - the Goa'uld only use energy weapons, even though they can travel through space and have extensive knowledge about the universe. It's simply inferior to the weapons of humans (in ground combat), even though they are considered to be oh-so primitive.
Don't repeat the same mistake and implement inferior, yet energy based weaponry! Make them reasonable and powerful.
[Answer]
The problem with plasma is that it's hot, gaseous and shot through the air at high speeds. To make this kind of plasma weapon work you need:
* To prevent the plasma to expand (too much)
* To prevent too much heat to be lost during transit
* If the Plasma has secondary properties like reacting with many substances, prevent it from reacting until it reaches the target.
The best way to do that seems to me to place it in a pellet, and fire that pellet. You heat up the plasma in a chamber and vent it into the pellet (if it isn't heated in the pellet to start with), preferably pressurising the pellet. The pellet is a hollow tube with insulating material that is strong enough to be launched by the weapon, but upon impact shatters causing the plasma to erupt. Bonus points is for making the pellet break apart only where it contacts the opponent, causing the pressure to create a jet of plasma right into the target rather than wasting most of the energy in an omnidirectional explosion. This would essentially be a form of directional shaped charge.
For the form, the tear drop shape is a very solid aerodynamic shape which would mean you get that tell-tale plasma bolt shape. If the pellet happens to be transparent or lights up when bombarded by the loose ions from the plasma then you can also see the bolt glow as it travels through the air.
[Answer]
Yes they are possible. I was thinking of this the other day and this is what I came up with.
Use a barrel with multiple lasers around it. Lets say 12 lasers for 6 pole pairs. When pulling the trigger 4 lasers or 2 pole pairs fire briefly making a straight line of ionized air. An electric current is sent through this with each pole pair having the opposite polarity. Think of an AC motors magnetic fields turning on and off in a circle to rotate the rotor.
A pair of graphite electrodes fires an arc discharge making a hot plasma of carbon and a bit of pressurized gas. Probably about 20 PSIA. Plasma tends to repel itself rather rapidly because of its charge and heat. By having a rotating plasma channel we can rotate that plasma along that path while also accelerating it. This rotation along with acceleration is like a helical railgun using a rotating laser induced plasma channel for the electromagnetic field rather then high friction physical rails. I doubt this would be beneficial for something handheld. The energy being put into this is quite alot but for jeep or tank mounted weapons the incredible kinetic and thermal energy of this blast would be quite something.
This is a theory of mine. I didnt read it anywhere. Im well aware of arc discharges, laser induced plasma channels, spin stabilization, and electromagnetic acceleration. This theory is trying to put them all together.
I worry that the laser induced plasma channel wont be able to reliably hold the plasma in since its not really a physical structure. But since the path of least resistance for the electricity is going through one channel and back in the other like any other closed circuit Im hoping thatll be strong enough to last the fraction of a second it takes a plasma bolt to hit its target.
Anyone have input on this theory?
[Answer]
I recently thought of surrounding the bolt in the chamber with some form of particles to contain the plasma, which would last to a given range before dissipating. But now I'm trying to find a way to make that sound plausible instead of a hand wave. It's a start.
[Answer]
I'll try.
I say have the plasma in a pre compressed, inert state, most likely housed in a magazine type thing.
The gun actually fires a small bullet like projectile with a strong magnetic field to hold the plasma. Range stops when the magnetic bullet melts due to the plasma, and the rapidly expanding and cooling plasma disapates.
To not interfere with the magnetic fields in the round, we acellerate the projectile by magnetically moving a bolt like object behind it. The part of the bolt touching the bullet is not magnetic, but the back end of the bolt is what interacts with the magnetic field meant to move the bolt, and therefore the projectile.
] |
[Question]
[
Simply put is there an upper bound for the largest possible living creature in a scientifically rational world without incorporating anti-gravity, magic, the force, or other physical concepts we are not aware of?
In order for me to consider it living, it must respire (though not necessarily breathe), repair itself, grow/have grown in some way, and be able to react to stimuli in a way inanimate objects do not. If you have other suggestions as to what belongs there, I am willing to hear them, but I want to permit exotic creatures.
If a portion of the body does not have properties I would attribute to life, it does not count towards the size of the creature. For example, your hair does not count towards your size even if you have a REALLY big afro.
Intentionally I am not putting many restrictions. I do not care if it is terrestrial, mobile, reproductive, or sapient. All I care is that it is as big as possible but reasonably possible knowing what we do about physics, chemistry, and biology.
[Answer]
The thing is, gravity is actually quite a weak force. You need a lot of mass for it to start to be significant — and it falls off with the square of distance so the effects of the mass also fall off fast.
Imagine a life-form shaped like a giant net. It gathers space dust into itself to grow, using light from stars both to power its growth and for propulsion as a massive light-sail.
The strands of the net are far enough apart that gravity falls off faster than it gathers and the strength of the strands is more than enough to keep its shape.
These creatures could grow to theoretically unlimited size, just constrained by raw materials and solar energy. You could well see them sweeping into star systems and raiding the rings around planets, asteroids and even small moons for raw material — cleaning them out then moving on growing all the time.
They could reproduce by firing off spores — or more likely just by splitting in two once their size became too large for them to sustain with available resources.
[Answer]
Your best bet for large organisms (with earth-based biology and understanding) would be either fungi or plants. We can consider something like the giant sequoia to be rather large with heights reaching over 300 ft or trunks 100 ft thick these are very larger structures.
However, those are fairly small when compared to [the quaking aspen grove located in Utah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree))(tree): This single genetic creature is a large grove of trees that are all derived from a common large root system. Estimated to weigh over 6000 short tons.
In terms of coverage area though, some fungi can claim to be largest, [covering several square miles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillaria_solidipes)through a network of mycelium that is located inside trees and underground.
[Answer]
*For some more details, see my answer over at "How do I prevent my turtle from collapsing under its own gravity?" linked on the right.*
The short answer is that biological entities are dynamic structures which use energy to maintain structure and offset forces like gravity. That make it hard to calculate what a maximum size could be because you have to calculate not just gravity by all kind of mechanical forces, magnetic etc.
If we want to create a planetoid or planet sized life form with the goal to create the largest appearing organism, something that could be mistaken at a distance for a natural geologic object.
It will have to be able to harvest energy from space. Sunlight, solar wind, cosmic rays, etc are all good energy sources.
It will start small, perhaps a few kilometers in size. But, it will grow with the intention of reaching a maximum size. As a life form, it will need to move so it will produce some way, likely magnetic or solar sails
To offset gravity, it will begin spin as it grows and keep adding angular momentum as it grows spinning faster the larger it gets. It's goal is to balance gravitation with centrifugal force.
Planets cannot do this, their angular momentum is fixed when they form, even if they are altered by impacts. A planet can never so fast that it's gravity would be significantly offset. If so, it could never form in the first place.
The life form can though. In principle it could spin so fast overtime that parts of it would experience little gravitation contraction forces at all.
The problem would be keeping a spherical shape. In a spherical shape, the equator spins faster than the poles. In a gravity reducing spin, the equator would be nearly "weightless" while the poles would have their "weight" consummate with their mass. To avoid this block, the life form could grow into toroid to keep most of the mass towards the equator. A cylinder shape would be even better so that more of the mass is a fixed distance form the axis of rotation. Make the ends open and most interior very light weight like thin girders, perhaps even hollow.
Although I haven't run the numbers, not sure I can for such a shape, but I think you could get something with the apparent surface area of earth, using biologically plausible materials eg graphemes.
**But... there is likely a biological limitation: *cancer***.
In a living organism with a vast, vast number of cells or cell like structures, each with the potential to reproduce on it's own, cancer would likely limit size. Cells naturally replicate themselves. Multicellular organism can only exist because of genetic mechanism that suppress that innate tendency. When those mechanisms fail, cancer results.
With a vast, vast life form, you would have equally vast number of cancers. Cancers actively evolve, under natural selection shedding more and more safeguards until they run wild. In a life form really to big to kill anytime soon, natural selection would shape the cancers into life forms that would occupy niches in the internal ecosystem. Over time, these would evolve into different species and then eventually symbiots. A vast organism would likely live millions of years in that time would gradually turn from a single organism to complex ecosystem.
So, the OP's original criteria of a "single organism" not an ecosystem, nebula or planet with life, might not be met, likely by anything any larger than a mountain.
If life lives long enough and grows large enough, it becomes many things.
[Answer]
This is only a partial answer (it only addresses land animals), but I don't know if anyone else is going to mention it, so I might as well.
Land animals rely on their bodies to support their weight. A lot of that support comes from their bones. Now, a bigger animal will have bigger bones, so the volume of one of them (I'll say the femur) must be larger. However, to support the added weight, the bone must also be thicker (i.e. greater in diameter). As animals get larger, the thickness of femurs keeps increasing until the thickness is unfeasibly large. Past this point, any animal could not have a femur of the correct size, and thus there is a weight limit (and thus size limit) to any land animal.
Note: This section was essentially a summary of Appendix A of my copy of [Professor Walter Lewin's](http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/lewin_walter.html) book, [For the Love of Physics](http://books.google.com/books?id=ukItNVRRSp4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false). It goes into more detail than I did here, but I think this paragraph should be sufficient to communicate this [minor, for the purposes of your question] point.
[Answer]
On a planet completely covered by water could grow a massive alga, all around the globe. It respires as a normal plant does, and exchanges nourishments with plankton and other aquatic creatures.
This type of organism could be very large because you can imagine a rock core surrounded by very deep water, and the giant alga living near the surface, where pressure is reasonable and light is sufficient for its metabolic processes.
An even larger version of this could take place on a gas giant, where the "alga" is floating in the dense gas at mid altitude, respiring gases present in the atmosphere, using light for photosynthesis and taking nourishment from flying spores, bacteria and similar beings.
[Answer]
In general, cube-square laws largely govern the scale of land animals, because volume and mass grow roughly as the cube of the longest dimension of the animal, while strength generally grows roughly as the square of it. There is also an issue of how you define size (weight, volume, surface area, longest dimension, etc.).
The other big factor that has historically (over the length of life on Earth) driven animal size is the percentage of oxygen in the air. More oxygen leads to bigger fauna, less oxygen leads to smaller fauna. It isn't entirely clear if this is mostly due to animal respiration or mostly due to availability of food.
Size limitations are less demanding in water (where gravity is effectively reduced) and would also be where gravity is low, because the need for a structure to support the body from collapsing would not be present.
In both land and sea examples historically, the largest animals and many of the larger animals tend to be herbivores rather than carnivores. The largest sea creatures are filter feeding whales, and the longest sea animal (a kind of filter feeding jelly fish) can have tentacles with a spread up to four times as long as a blue whale (but weighs much less than a blue whale). Among the large herbivores on land are the brontosaurus, the buffalo, the cow, the hippo, the elephant and mammoth, the rhino and wooly rhino, the giraffe and the panda.
It isn't clear if social animals like bees and ants with specialized individuals within a colony who are the only ones who can reproduce count as one animal or many animals (there is good reason to think of them as a single organism since no one individual in the colony is complete even over an entire life cycle). Ants, for example, can make up as much as 25% of terrestrial biomass in their territories (and are also often herbivores who farm their own food). One could easily imagine a variant of a large terrestrial herd herbivore that had a colonial bee or ant colony like structure (indeed, many farming operations already have some herd animals like studs who are specialized for reproduction and others who are specialized for food production). Is the fact that the intellectual action centers are decentralized in colonial animals relevant?
A similar issue to the question of colonial animals presents itself in Issac Asimov's 1989 novel "Nemesis" which involves an organism with many bodies but a unified mind connected by radio waves. A distributed computer network presents similar issues and one of the side plots in the science fiction novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts' was that he wife was in charge of dealing with massive complex computer networks that developed consciousness. "Blindsight" also considers humans with "hive minds" that again raises the colonial animal question, and an alien organism for which the boundaries between the organism and the things created and used by the organism are vague. If the control systems of the largest skyscraper in the world became self-aware would it be an organism? If something can grow and repair itself but not actually reproduce, does it count?
Another issue related to the colonial animal one involves interdependent symbiont systems. For example, suppose you have a large filter feeder which has a moss-like growth all over it from which it sucks nutrition, or a parasite that can infect a large animal or plant or organism colony, and control it to some extent. At what point is it fair to call an entire ecology a single organism as under the Gaia hypothesis. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis>
The hugest animal of all one could imagine would probably be a filter feeding in an oxygen and nutrition rich environment with little or no gravity. I could imagine, for example, a huge, lighter than the atmosphere, jellyfish-like or whale-like or airship-like shaped creature which would float around through and feed on the chemicals in the atmosphere of a large gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn, perhaps supplemented by an ability to absorb heat from its surroundings.
On [the plant side](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organisms) there are larger organisms and the colonial issue presents itself again:
>
> The largest single-stem tree by wood volume and mass is the giant
> sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), native to Sierra Nevada and
> California; it grows to an average height of 70–85 m (230–280 ft) and
> 5–7 m (16–23 ft) in diameter. Multiple-stem trees such as banyan can
> be enormous. Thimmamma Marrimanu in India spreads over 1.0 ha (2.5
> acres). The largest organism in the world, according to size, is the
> aspen tree whose colonies of clones can grow up to five miles long. . . .
>
>
> The largest living fungus may be a honey fungus of the species
> Armillaria ostoyae. A mushroom of this type in the Malheur National
> Forest in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, U.S. was found to be
> the largest fungal colony in the world, spanning 8.9 km2 (2,200 acres)
> of area. This organism is estimated to be 2,400 years old. The fungus
> was written about in the April 2003 issue of the Canadian Journal of
> Forest Research. While an accurate estimate has not been made, the
> total weight of the colony may be as much as 605 tons. If this colony
> is considered a single organism, then it is the largest known organism
> in the world by area, and rivals the aspen grove "Pando" as the known
> organism with the highest living biomass. It is not known, however,
> whether it is a single organism with all parts of the mycelium
> connected.
>
>
>
But, while your definition could certainly include a sessile organism, the requirement that it "be able to react to stimuli in a way inanimate objects do not" would seem to rule out many plant-like organisms. Surely a honey fungus colony or a large common rooted aspen tree wouldn't qualify under your definition. And, when it comes to reacting to stimuli, there is the question of how fast and how automatically.
Would a Venus Fly trap qualify? What about a trumpet vine that opens every day when it is light and closes when it is dark? What about something like Tolkein's Ents if it took them a full day to have a few sentence conversation? (The Portia spider which is a remarkably intelligent but very slow thinking animal is a less extreme example).
[Answer]
Theoretical height limit for plants in Earth's gravity:
>
> For California redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), the tug of gravity and the friction between the water and the vessels through which it flows mean that **fluid cannot be dragged any higher than 122-130 metres**, the researchers conclude in this week's Nature1. –*Height limit predicted for tallest trees*, [nature.com](http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040419/full/news040419-5.html)
>
>
>
---
*The Paradox of Large Dinosaurs*, [dinosaurtheory.com](http://www.dinosaurtheory.com/big_dinosaur.html)
>
> In a column of a fluid the pressure increases during the descent from the top of the fluid to a lower level according to the relationship P = g D h, where P is the pressure, g is the acceleration due to gravity, D is the density, and h is the distance below the surface. **Because of this, a pump and the tubing at the bottom of a column of fluid must be strong to withstand fluid pressure near the bottom of the column**.
>
>
>
So, for animals, you're limited by how robust their cardiovascular system is, and I guess there is no upper limit other than what the underlying structure can support, to which I'd defer to the other answers that mention the square-cube law and whatnot.
[Answer]
With no magic, and with only little twist on evolution, you may get [planet-size living intelligent ocean](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/2655/living-planet-possible/2803#2803) as in Solaris, which is my favorite alien species, very alien and hard to compete with.
All you need if a planet with water, and all (remaining) life in water cooperates instead of competes. Then, it can be as big as the amount of water in all oceans.
[Answer]
There is a theory that the universe itself is a [living organism](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/981643) or its a part of living organism (even though there is no way to prove it). I think that's how big it can get. The universe grows reacts to changes and is composed of repeating structures like stars, black holes etc.. Living things are essentially network of repeated nodes (cells) which can change and respond to external and internal stimuli and can sense and control their surrounding to some extent so by that definition it is true.
[Answer]
By every aspect of your criteria of
>
> In order for me to consider it living, it must respire (though not necessarily breathe), repair itself, grow/have grown in some way, and be able to react to stimuli in a way inanimate objects do not. If you have other suggestions as to what belongs there, I am willing to hear them, but I want to permit exotic creatures.
>
>
>
HUMANITY as a whole qualifies as a living creature.
It lives, consumes, grows, expands, replicates itself, reacts to external and internal stimuli, just as any multi-cellular organism should.
So the limit becomes, that size at which a society of humans will fall apart due to communication problems.
Confirmed one planet full works.
Very likely a solar system full will work.
Bigger? Who knows.
] |
[Question]
[
Humans (even programmers :-) ) are used to having some access to natural light, but in a colony in space, on the dark side of a tidally-locked planet, or underground (for example) this won't happen. Are there known (documented) effects on people's health (physical and psychological) as a result of living in such an environment, where all light is artificial?
Assume the timing of lighting changes is under inhabitants' control, and that any lighting technologies currently known can be applied.
I'm not asking about temporary situations (like winter in Antarctica) but about living in such an environment for years.
I'm aware of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and that it can be mitigated by special lamps producing light in a particular range of the spectrum. What else could go wrong in this environment? Assume the use of dietary supplements to make up for the loss of Vitamin D through sunlight.
Because they will have access to light (just not sunlight) I'm assuming that their vision won't degrade (a la Wells's Morlocks), but if that's wrong, please correct me.
[Answer]
# Physical health
Sunlight is popularly regarded as beneficial due to the production of vitamin D, but also popularly regarded as non essential since vitamin D can also be gained from diet or supplements. However, the process of producing vitamin D uses up specific raw materials. Those materials, if not used up to make vitamin D, are instead used to make a form of cholesterol. Sunlight exposure leads to lower blood cholesterol. The chemical processes are discussed more in [this paper](http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/89/8/579.full.pdf).
More recently other studies have shown further benefits to exposure to ultra violet rays, and it has been suggested that the risk of skin cancer is outweighed by the risks involved with low sun exposure. There are suggestions of benefits to [blood pressure](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-22433359) and [heart health](http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/12/13/how-vitamin-d-protects-your-heart.aspx).
Some of these studies were carried out using artificial ultra violet sources, so the benefits do not depend on it coming specifically from Earth's sun. The hypothetical
habitat would benefit from having ultra violet lamps, ideally at a frequency or frequencies that bring the benefits without damaging skin cells and risking cancer, if such frequencies can be found through further study. The lamps could either be in treatment rooms which inhabitants would regularly visit, or the general lighting could include enough ultra violet light that everyday life would involve sufficient exposure without having to put time aside for it. This would probably depend on the cost of producing such light. If it's cheap it may as well be everywhere.
# Psychological health
As explained in [DonyorM's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/401/109) blue light is involved in sleep regulation. Studies that deprive people of access to a day/night cycle with which to reset their circadian rhythms are short term, so the effects of long term exposure to such conditions have not been studied. However, there are people who are blind and have no light reception with which to reset their body clocks. Reading up on [non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake_disorder) may help you get a better idea of the long term effects. This would be helpful if you are writing a story in which you want to explore the effects on a society of not having sunlight, but less useful if you just want to decide whether your characters need sunlight - if you want to write about a healthy colony you probably already have enough reasons to include artificial sunlight without having to read further.
[Answer]
Artificial light could be used instead of sunlight. Much of the basis for this answer comes from [this](http://news.psu.edu/story/141822/2004/06/09/research/it%E2%80%99s-about-time) article. The article is mostly about sleep cycles, but it includes some pertinent information.
>
> External cues keep the body in sync.
>
>
>
That's the biggest thing. To be completely successful in mimicking life on Earth, artificial light must fade and come back in a rhythmic manner. This sets are body clock and gives us cues to work with. These cues may not necessarily be every 24 hours, but they do need to be regular. Studies have shown that getting light at the wrong times can mess up your body. (This is true on Earth too).
There would also need to be the proper spectrum of light. Our body especially responds to blue light, which is what sunlight is primarily composed of. Blue light stops the production of melanin, which is what puts us to sleep.
[Answer]
Yes, living without sunlight can affect the human body and mind negatively. I say *can* because as mentioned in Githubphagocyte's answer, blind people may be affected differently, and different individuals would experience different effects based on their psychological makeup and physical preparedness.
The best first-person account I can direct you to is that of Michael Siffre, an experienced French caver who voluntarily conducted personal experiments involving isolation in underground caves for extended lengths of time. This was to further understanding of how humans may react to being outside of external cues for sleep/wake cycles and the psychological effects of isolation that may be experienced during space travel. In 1962 he spent two months in a glacial ice cave 375 feet underground, and in 1972 was sponsored by NASA to spend six months in a cave in Texas. The entire time he maintained telephone contact with his research assistants, relating his sleeping, waking and eating times
If you can read French, you can find and read the detailed results of his experiments yourself, but basically:
He maintained a normal 24-hour circadian rhythm for the first month, but thereafter varied randomly between 18 and 52 hours. After almost three months in the Texas experiment, he started suffering from depression and contemplated suicide. In both experiments he experienced perturbations in his sense of time, and subsequent short term memory loss (apparently short-term memory is highly dependent on time cues). I don't recall anything interesting regarding his physical health, other than his suffering from hypothermia in the first experiment, as I assume he was well-stocked for nutritional needs otherwise, so no ill effects from vitamin D deficiencies.
Wikipedia article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Siffre>
Interview with Cabinet magazine here:
<http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/30/foer.php>
[Answer]
Far from being an expert in the filed, but according to that [review](http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joost_Van_Hoof/publication/264442059_Daylight_and_health_A_review_of_the_evidence_and_consequences_for_the_built_environment/links/53fcdeb80cf22f21c2f45a72.pdf?origin=publication_detail) by Aries *et al*. from 2013, so far no real conclusion can be drawn about the effect of the specific daylight to our health. Specifically, they conclude
>
> There is only limited statistically significant
> and well-documented scientific proof for
> the link between daylight and its potential
> health consequences, despite the omnipresent
> attention this supposed relation is receiving.
>
>
>
In most cases the observed effects could be explained by other factor than light directly.
[Answer]
I have a light sensitivity. So I spend most of my time in the dark. Yes it dose have an effect on your mood, but if there is one thing I have learned. It is that humans can get through anything.
Music is a big thing, I play it almost at all waking hours. I sing all the time too.
Audio books are a huge help. There are plenty of games you can play too. Using ones made for the blind.
I also have plenty of stimulation. I have swaths of fabric. Little nicknacks to play with.
There is a book by a woman with an almost complete light allergy. I can do 40 minutes at a time in light, but she lived years with next to no light 24/7.
It’s hard but possible.
[Answer]
I am not a doctor but can assure you that I suffer from S.A.D. and am very depressed in the winter without sun. I have tried sun lamps and I take Vitamin D supplements and neither of these actually make me feel any better. I have depression, a lack of energy, trouble getting to sleep and I do not actually want to get out of bed during the cold grey months. The minute the makes a real appearance (even when it is cold) I soak up some of those rays and feel better, energized, and enthusiastic within minutes. Without the sun I only go through the motions and do what can not be avoided, anyone who thinks we can live without light is nuts. We just like plants and other animals need sun and water to live.
] |
[Question]
[
Consider a planet where a day, that is to say the amount of time a specific (roughly equatorial) point is in sunlight is much longer than on earth. A humanoid race has evolved on this planet. You can assume that days and nights are roughly the same length as each other.
On Earth we have evolved and adapted to a 24 hour day, our sleep cycles traditionally follow the sun.
If a species evolved on a planet with much longer days (for example daylight cycles of a week or more) would the race evolve to stay awake for much longer periods of time or would they sleep during the daytime?
[Answer]
To understand how sleeping cycles would work on a planet with a long sleep cycle, we need to understand why we sleep at night.
Let's put aside the special functions of sleep itself (which has recently been attributed to brain cleaning), and focus on some prominent evolutionary aspects of sleep
* Sleep helps prey avoid predators
+ Predators tend to have better eyesight than prey. You don't need to have good eyes to hunt grass/trees. It's more efficient to just not move for a significant part of the day than to develop highly sensitive senses.
* Sleep helps all animals conserve energy
+ Most desert animals are nocturnal to avoid heat, whereas animals in other biomes are diurnal to avoid most predators.
* Animals tend to alternate sleep cycles with their biggest competitors.
+ Hawks hunt during day and sleep at night, while owls sleep during day and hunt at night.
* Predators tend to sleep longer than prey because of the high energy density of animal meat
* Because of the low energy density of plant matter, herbivores sleeping and eating habits are directly proportional to speed.
Let's translate this to a humanoid species on a planet with an arbitrarily long day/night cycle. Though we assume that they have the same basic attributes of normal humans, in reality there would be a high range of answers based on a high number of variables
Because sleeping during the whole night cycle would allow nocturnal predators an arbitrarily long time to find prey, the humanoids probably wouldn't have evolved to sleep the whole night. Because of the lack of a consistent semaphore (sunset or sunrise) and because of it would be imprudent to sleep all night, sleep as a whole may not be a thing at all, **however** that doesn't rule out the possibility of rest. As far as I can tell, all animals benefit from conserving energy by staying still. Therefore, I think it's safe to say that **this humanoid species** (as well as all animals on this planet) **may not sleep at all, but rather rest**.
Sleep is a weird thing. To go entirely unconscious makes little sense except to survival, but to rest makes much more sense. You can't really run away if you can't even tell that your predator is right behind you. In this situation, intermittent decreased conscious rest (perhaps even dolphin-like sleep with half brain sleep at a time) may be much more effective than unconscious rest.
**[EDIT]** - I wanted to append a few more insights I had today
* A longer night might mean it gets much colder in the middle of the night than on earth (This is dependent on the density of the atmosphere, temperatures don't change nearly as much during night in the ocean like they do on land). If that's the case, then predators and prey alike may hibernate during the long night. Hibernation is different from sleep. Unlike sleep, hibernation's primary goal is to preserve energy during temperature change, decreasing brain and metabolic functions. Humanoids probably wouldn't dream during hibernation because it costs expensive resources
* If there's an axial tilt on the hypothetical planet, and the planet revolves around its star with only a few "days" every year, temperature changes would be complex and chaotic near the North and South. While equatorial organisms may find it easier to hibernate due to the predictability of the night, organisms further away from the equator may just choose to always stay awake and tough it out. They would be tough, fat, and slow animals.
* If the day to night cycle is long enough (maybe around 3 months, or the point when expending energy to change is better than conserving energy and staying the same), animals may treat the night like a season of it's own by shedding coats at sunrise and engorging themselves at sunset. Animals like the arctic fox may change color with the night becoming darker in order to camouflage
* Depending on the length of night, the sunset and sunrise may each take days to complete. On earth, the sky is lit for about 30 minutes after sunset and before sunrise. This translates to 1/24 of the day being sunless, but light. Just like on earth, this period of time would spur the most activity as animals frantically prepare for the night/day.
* Some animals (especially birds) may migrate with the day if the night is too long and too harsh. These animals would circumnavigate the globe every "day" on the planet. There could also be animals that migrate with the night due to niche differentiation (the hawk/owl principle). I think the idea of wholly day/night animals would be really interesting.
* Finally, the reason why human sleep is vital to health has [recently been attributed to cleaning](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/18/236211811/brains-sweep-themselves-clean-of-toxins-during-sleep). (The purpose for dreaming is still unknown). Because blood doesn't flow freely through the brain, the usual way to remove toxins is absent. The answer to this is to effectively shut down the brain for cleaning every day. Though this (like everything in this answer) is speculation, it may be reasonable to assume that the brain doesn't need to be cleaned if blood is pouring through it (however, blood may age brain cells too quickly due to free radicals -- free floating mitochondria attributed to aging), or some other fluid flowing through the brain which would then be cleaned in an organ similar to the kidneys.
[Answer]
Maybe animals would evolve so they don't need to sleep at all. Or like dolphins, half of brain sleeps and other takes care of breathing.
[Reason for sleep to evolve](https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/324/why-did-the-process-of-sleep-evolve-in-many-animals-what-is-its-evolutionary-ad) - seems that it is needed for synaptic changes.
On your planet, under different evolutionary pressure, rest without sleeping (or sleeping with just half brain) might be better adaptation.
[Answer]
I'd say we would adapt a longer awake/sleep cycle, and the reason for that is simply evolution. That or we would come up with pretty impressive night vision.
so
option #1 is we evolved from creatures that had no artificial light and no means of really seeing during the dark hours. Our sleep habits were well ingrained into us long before the invent of fire (light during darkness). With this in mind, I think it would be entirely feasible for a species to develop a week long 'hibernation' sleep style where they binge sleep for a week long darkness in preparation for a week long active cycle.
Option #2 is we evolve some mechanism / ability of being awake and active during darkness hours. A 'nightvision' or some other ability to ensure that 'we' (we being our early ancestors) could be active and remain safe during darkness hours.
[Answer]
I sleep during the daytime when I have a chance! And so do many others. Naps are great! (This includes most other animals, dogs, cats, horses, cows, deer, etc).
However, I would expect that reaching a 'week' long day they would have to rest a lot in there. My guess would be they would sleep less (more long naps), while it's day and more while it's night (be awake less). It is also likely they would have more specialized eyes, maybe even two sets, an infrared like snakes or blue like dear and a normal set like ours for daylight. A day set and a night set. Unless they are more like reptiles where not eating for long periods of time isn't a problem.
The likely reason for this would be a planet that is farther along it's path toward tidal locking with it's primary.
The earth used to have 6 hour days a very long time ago. But I think the sun will burn out before make it to 36 hour days (at our current pace).
You also have to worry about warming and cooling of the planet if the faces take that long to move into and out of the sunlight. Possible the equator isn't very hospitable.
[Answer]
I don't quite think people are understanding evolution here. We haven't really "evolved for a day/night cycle of 24 hours". It would be more correct to say that the average person wants to spend about 33% of the time asleep. It's most convenient to this in a "sleep 8, awake 16, repeat" pattern because it allows for regular scheduling of the rest of our day, being awake at predictable times relative to our friends, family, jobs, etc, and most people want that 8 hours of sleep to be at night because we sleep better with sensor deprivation and lack of light helps with this, and finally it's just easier to keep track of your sleep and not ask "wait when should I plan on going to bed again? what day is it? Which part of the rotation am I on?"
There's no reason one couldn't be in a "sleep 6, awake 12, repeat" pattern, or a "sleep 10, awake 20" pattern, but for reasons not at all pertaining to evolution, one would probably not wish to do this. If the earth suddenly magically had daytime periods everywhere that were a month long and then dark periods that were a month long (somehow keeping everything else the same), we'd all learn to adapt. Whether we evolved or not would depend on what sort of mutations came up - but people often talk like evolution has some sort of conscious purpose or strives to achieve a goal. There's nothing that "tries" to even our body's genetic hardcode to the day/night cycle. It's a matter of a random variable, really, if a significant number of people (some of whom marry each other if the genetics are recessive) obtain a mutation that adjusts their sleep/rest needs without negatively affecting some other key part of their life.
[Answer]
The pattern of sleep would probably be dependent on the metabolism of the sleepers. An animal with a very slow metabolism that could survive through the night without needing to go into hibernation would probably have its leisurely meal for the day, and then sleep through the long night.
With a human like metabolism, this might not be possible. If the night lasts as long as a week on Earth, sleeping through the whole thing would be detrimental to health. Water loss and food loss during sleep are simply to high to allow this. It's likely that something with a human-like metabolism would wake up intermittently throughout the night to eat and drink, probably from food collected during the long day if the creature had evolved to be diurnal.
A human-like creature might also sleep, or at least rest, intermittently throughout the day to allow digestion and healing to take place. For a tool-user, these could be long periods for performing less strength-intensive work. This pattern of active and restful periods without sleeping is found in sharks on Earth.
Night time activity requires the evolution of traits that are not without their costs. Eyes which evolve to see well at night generally don't see as well during the day, and vice-versa. While it's possible that creatures living on a planet with long nights might evolve better night vision, there would still be strong evolutionary pressure for specialization.
Lastly, if the day/night cycles were on the scale of Earth's months or years, it's likely that animals would follow a pattern of hibernation, with metabolic activity dropping off sharply during the long night while the animal holes up in a burrow to sleep until the next day.
[Answer]
It is still not very clear to science what sleep is all good for, and why it has evolved, but since it so ubiquitous, it is only fair to assume that it is absolutely necessary for somewhat higher brain functionality (though research indicates that even simple flies have a state that could be described as sleeping).
Depending on what research you follow/believe, sleep seems to serve some purposes:
* Save energy for the part of the day where you can not do much useful (humans are bad for hunting in the jungle at night)
* Repair chemical/neural "damage" done during the use phase of the brain
* Reinforce learned knowledge (It is somewhat controversial how it is done, but people seem to agree that it is being done)
So for the energy save part, looking at mammals that rest or sleep through a winter, we can safely assume that from the energy perspective adapting to a week or even a month sleep can work for humanoids.
If you ever had the opportunity to stay awake much longer than 24 hours (say 50 or 60) you notice that your brain pretty much malfunctions (or you don't notice, as part of that malfunction). This gets much better when you do some power naps. I am confident that evolution could work its way through all this getting tired and accumulating bad stuff in your brain that gets cleaned up later. Enough to stay awake for a week, not so much for a month though.
The learning part though is a tough one since you would accumulate a week of stuff in your short term memory which will then get sorted over one week of sleep into the long term memory. This makes you require quite some short term memory and has quite some long turn around time for efficient learning. So either the species isn't that efficient at learning, or it has some shorter sleep cycle that is being used for this.
This would be in contrast though to the inability to properly cope with predators that hunt at day and would find you lying around and sleeping.
My idea for this would be a highly segmented brain and a very social structure.
Just like with dolphins, the brain will sleep partially, but not only two parts, but maybe four. During that time you are basically in some kind of "autopilot" mode, being able to do simple things like walking, but not more complex stuff. Additionally the social abilities of the humanoids organize themselves around these states of mind, so that if e.g. a group of them are traveling some are in autopilot and others take care of them.
Given that the social abilities of humans are a great part of their evolution, I think this would be a pretty likely scenario for humanoids to evolve for a week or month of day. With increasing intelligence and use of tools, they would probably evolve similarly for the night.
[Answer]
I think it would depend on the species.
For an animal to sleep for an entire week, it means that its body has enough spare fat and water to support it for that week (and some extra to begin feeding the next day).
Only the biggest animals could support that; others would have to adapt to being active both at day at night. Of course, that does not mean that they would behave equally in both situations; vg:
* A "rabbit" would travel and mate at day, and, when the night is closer, create a new burrow near a supply of vegetables and water.
* A "squirrel" would pack during the day its nest with fruits. It would prefer fruits with high water content.
* Likewise, ruminants would graze during the day and spent the night "reprocessing" half eaten grass.
[Answer]
It is hard to answer the question because it makes a large, incorrect, assumption. The fact of the matter is, humans are not evolved to sleep for 8 hours straight.
The 16 wake/8 sleep cycle is a recent development. We only started to do it after the invention of the light bulb, and even then it only *really* started to pick up when labour moved out of farms and into factories.
Before that siestas (mid-afternoon naps) and waking up for a midnight snack was the common, expected, routine.
Even ignoring that, there are so many different sleep patterns amongst animals on earth, that you can do whatever sounds cool in your world and it probably won't seem out of place.
I mean, sleep patterns range from cats, who are in a constant state of fluctuating from awake to asleep, to animals that hibernate for months at a time. Marine animals have evolved to sleep half their body at one time while the other half is awake. When one side is fully rested, the other side falls asleep and the first side wakes up. I'm sure there are some sleep cycles that are truly utterly bizarre.
] |
[Question]
[
Folks, I'm in a bit of a jam.
I am writing a fictional future history to support a series of post-collapse science fiction stories **set ca. 2560 Gregorian.** The first story, [The Borax Road Affair](https://github.com/whblondeau/memoria-interna/blob/master/stories/the-borax-road-affair/the-borax-road-affair.md), has been accepted for publication in the forthcoming anthology [After Oil 3: The Years of Rebirth](http://www.foundershousepublishing.com/2014/09/news-updates-and-open-submissions.html) from Founders House Publishing.
This world, which I'm calling the "Circumpolar", is a set of civilizations that have grown up around the "Polar Sea" (their name for the now ice-free Arctic Ocean, which has become the maritime crossroads of the world.) Now that I'm writing the history, mainly in order to provide migratory and linguistic backgrounds for the populations of the Circumpolar, I need to track some kind of believable climate development over the centuries.
What I'm looking for is a **whole-earth, system-based climate modelling program. It needs to work with our planet, not with an invented planetary surface.**
I'm having rotten luck finding useful resources - mostly it's just well-intentioned (but useless to me) sites that will allow me to Calculate My Carbon Footprint. *My carbon footprint is irrelevant to this project. I need the planetary picture for centuries out.*
Another very real problem: the underlying climate models on the few climate modelers/calculators that I've been able to find **do not allow midstream parametric insertions** that can modify the run.
## What I need, particularly
I'd prefer an online modeler if possible. If I need to run it offline, preferably something written in Python or Java.
I **do not need predictive confidence and power. I just need scientific plausibility.**
Specifically, I need to be able to provide:
* a worldwide, decade-by-decade simulation of climate
* in which population normally acts as a dependent variable but can be externally modified at will, at a particular time (e.g. "OK, I can do a plague *here* and a famine *there*...")
* in which carbon dioxide and methane emissions due to human activity are treated as dependencies of population, but, again, can be tweaked by introducing time (and possibly geospatial) parametric coefficients based on economy and technology
I realize it's not too realistic, but I'd **ideally** also like a model which can handle such difficult topics as:
* Seasons.
* Icecap changes, especially Greenland, but also Antarctica.
* Sea level changes.
* [Ocean anoxic event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event) potential as atmospheric CO2 content increases.
I am working within **very explicit constraints** here, and I would deeply appreciate it if answers and comments respect those constraints.
## Constraint #1: Certain ships have already sailed/Toothpaste can't go back into the tube/I'm already on record.
Because the first story is in the publication process, I can't walk back any of the assumptions I made when writing that story. In particular:
* **I've already got my technological profiles sorted out.** The energy budget of the Circumpolar civilizations does not include fossil fuels, nuclear, or exotic energy sources. In other words, all of the people in existence have access to energy drawn from the Sun - or, [occasionally](https://github.com/whblondeau/circumpolar/blob/master/human_languages.md#norse), from geothermal sources. I make a point of this because many people might otherwise want to discuss this. It's off the table.
* **A less-than-worst-case global warming has peaked, due to rapid collapse-based deindustrialization in the 21st and 22nd centuries, and is starting to subside.** I will need to be able to curve-fit my climate model outputs to fit that.
* **Western North America has become uninhabitably arid for points from modern-day Denver south.** I had to wing it for the Borax Road story, but the existence of the "Dead Dry" region is a pivotal plot point. Desert conditions reach as far north as the plains of Alberta (when the people in the story, who live in the foothills not far from modern-day Banff, speak of salvaging resources from "The City", they are talking about Edmonton.) This is another thing I will need to tweak my climate models to accommodate.
* **The Polar Sea is largely still ecologically alive.** Any ecological collapses, especially anoxic events, have so far not destroyed the living species of the Arctic. The biome has changed, of course, but it isn't quite [pining for the Fjords](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Parrot_sketch) just yet.
## Constraint #2: Ye cannae change the laws of physics. Also, magic can't change the climate.
The *After Oil* series editor, John Michael Greer, proprietor of [The Archdruid Report](http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/), put out his call for submissions in contest form. Here's the official statement of the contest rules:
>
> The requirements are the same as before:* Stories should be between 2500 and 7500 words in length;
> * They should be entirely the work of their author or authors, and should not borrow characters or setting from someone else’s work;
> * They should be in English, with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation;
> * They should be stories—narratives with a plot and characters—and not simply a guided tour of some corner of the future as the author imagines it;
> * They should be set in our future, not in an alternate history or on some other planet;
> * They should be **works of realistic fiction or science fiction, not magical or supernatural fantasy—that is, the setting and story should follow the laws of nature as those are presently understood;** [emphasis mine]
> * They should deal directly with the impact of peak oil, and the limits to growth in general, on the future; and as before,
> * They must not rely on “alien space bats”—that is, *dei ex machina* inserted to allow humanity to dodge the consequences of the limits to growth. (Aspiring authors might want to read the whole “[Alien Space Bats](http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/09/invasion-of-space-bats.html)” post for a more detailed explanation of what I mean here.)
>
>
> That is to say, the stories that will find a place in the second anthology, like those that populated the first, will feature human beings like you and me, coping with the aftermath of the industrial age in a world that could reasonably be our future, and living lives that are challenging, interesting, and maybe even appealing in that setting. I’d like to make an additional suggestion this time around: don’t settle for your ordinary, common or garden variety postpetroleum future. Make it plausible, make it logical, but make it *different*.
>
>
>
So, there you have it. I stated my constraints at length; thank you for reading them; please treat them as they are. I'm working within them, not building a world from scratch. :-)
[Answer]
There are only two models that I'm aware of that could scale out to the timeline you've listed...
CMIP5 - <http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/> attempts to tackle climate beyond 2100.
and the other is CM2.x done through NOMADS (NOAA National Operational Model Archive & Distribution System) ... <http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov/thredds/catalog/gfdlcm2x/catalog.html> is their older site, I haven't updated my links recently.
Most of the other models I'm aware of won't even try to do anything more than 1 month out.
Both of these don't really progress past 2100 as we really don't have much for information on the topic...Our ever changing date of the ice free polar region is a good example of that. One element that we are truely in the dark on is the sun (pun intended) and it's various phases are heavily unknown. Sunspotting appears heavily on the decline and if that pattern continues, we may see a minimum sun cycle that could see the globe cool a bit once again. Unfortunately there is so much variation (including human behavior) that needs to be included that you probably could create a climate simulation, run it 5000 times, and not have one of those simulations end up with the same result.
The processing power required to run these models is pretty intensive...that and the best forecast model we've found is to run the model thousands of times and work with the averages of the many runs.
Honestly, at that date range...you can be pretty creative. If you want a model for it, you are simply depending on someone else to be that creative for you and program it in modelling form.
Complete side note... Banff is a considerable distance from Edmonton...Go with 'Jasper' about 3 hours drive north of Banff if you want mountain living near Edmonton.
[Answer]
Since the climate is a vast, chaotic system where outputs are not linearly related to inputs either spatially or temporally, what you are asking for is essentially impossible. Just looking at how difficult it is to get an accurate 7 day forecast from the Weather Network or any other weather prediction service should give you some idea of what you are dealing with.
Since you are writing a story (or series of stories), you can plug in some events which have historically changed the climate wherever it will fit. Supervolcano explosions like Tambora are known to have cooling effects on the climate (the 1815 "year without sumer" is a clear example). Changes in the output of the sun have a definite effect; the Little Ice Age seems clearly linked to the Maunder minimum. What warms the planet seems a little less clear; the good weather that the Roman Empire seems to have enjoyed or the European Warm Period are obviously not a result of any technological activity by human beings, but the ability to do croft farming in Greenland in the 1100's or grow grapes in Scotland and make wine in the 1300's are pretty clear evidence that things really were different then.
And of course since your story is set 500 years in the future, there is no reason that human beings of that time could not simply adjust the climate to their own liking, either through releasing gasses into the atmosphere in controlled amounts, or using technological and biological manipulation to subtract gasses. Orbiting platoons of solar mirrors to illuminate or shade parts of the Earth would also have global effects. You can imagine other technological "fixes" that human beings 500 years from now might be doing.
[Answer]
If you are aware that solid prediction is not possible, and you find predestination distasteful, you can put biases into whichever direction you want to push the balance.
Do you want dystopia? Unleash the methane.
Want Earth all cleaned back? Let humans invent/design efficient bacteria which converts CO$\_2$ from atmosphere back to oil, and pump it back to underground.
Both outcomes are plausible. BTW such bacteria was already found, it is just hard to grow on industrial scale (and Yale bio-magicians are working on it).
[Answer]
I don't know much about weather, but I do know Universe Sandbox$^2$ offers a basic climate simulation where you can get the world to snowball from changes in CO2, throw big rocks at it, move it closer to the sun etc. This might not be scientifically accurate, but it would give you very satisfying pictures to look at.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HvYQK.jpg)
[Answer]
I would love to put something brilliant, witty, helpful and profound here, as this question deserves it.
Sadly I don't have these at hand. I *can* tell you that there is software (opensource) called "Earth System Modeling Framework". It is not an off-the-shelf ready solution, and is known to require substantial computing resources but might help point you in the right direction.
To your research thus far, have you considered that non-linear events would be a near certainty? Methane Clathrate releases, depopulations' effect on reforestation, ocean levels and salinity, changing ocean currents' effect on coastal temperatures, etc.
I look forward to your publications, one of the many things that set apart authors like Michael Crichton was the research behind the pages of words. Yours is a similar course, I wish you success !!
[Answer]
I know a lot about coarse paleoclimate models. I can help a little bit here.
In brief, I can guarantee you that no desktop model exists to do what you want; this is firmly supercomputer territory. At best you'll need to sneak a peak at other people's simulations. Even this will be hard, hopefully you can find reports from a CMIP5 model that break out the decade by decade temperature and precipitation map. WRI's Cait tool or the <https://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi> might be of help here. The Potsdam climate inst. might also have nice pictures.
Overall, you can sketch out the plausible from a suite of simulation results and write a story around that.
The biggest stories to play out here will be human and political -- when does a particular region break down in response to a few years of less-than-sustenance harvests? How does that snowball geopolitically? -- that are more in the control of the author than they are slaves to a computer prediction.
I suggest that the movement of the ITCZ and the consequent precipitation, alongside a general warming that enhances storm events and lethal heatwaves will be the main global stressors. Flashpoints could be a drying of Africa (precip limited crops), flooding of bangladesh as sea levels rise, a food crisis in Indonesia if the wet season no longer allows three rice harvests, or Pakistan/India given the Bangladesh migration plus their own monsoon concerns.
EDIT: I did just look at [edGCM](https://edgcm.columbia.edu/), which purports to do something close to what you desire. Great, well done those guys and I recommend taking a look. Word of warning: They must use a lot of parameterisations to simplify their model, which will almost certainly mean that they have linear extrapolations around current behaviour instead of working out all the physics from the ground up. This will be good enough to point you in the right direction, but I suspect that it does not treat oceans properly, nor have a real precipitation scheme that will demonstrate effects like the moving ITCZ. Which means it will be kind of correct, but rapidly lose accuracy if pushed into extreme behaviour like a fully-liquid arctic (because that would fundamentally alter ocean dynamics, and nothing short of a supercomputer will be able to solve for new dynamics and predict all of the knock-on climate effects).
[Answer]
We currently can't even predict 550 hours in the future with take-it-to-the-bank certainty.
Make the global climate whatever it needs to be for the purposes of your narrative. Do keep it plausible, as the marching orders dictate, which means that:
* Summer is warmer/hotter/not as cold as winter;
* The equator is warmer/hotter/not as cold as the poles;
* Interior continental areas have greater temperature extremes than coastal areas;
* The water that evaporates in one place eventually has to precipitate somewhere;
* Rapid changes in local weather are rare.
] |
[Question]
[
We know that Earth creatures can generate high-voltage electricity (your nearest electric eel can attest to that). We also know that ordinary air at Earth atmospheric pressure can be used as a laser gain medium -- this is used in Transverse Excitation at Atmospheric pressure (TEA) laser designs. While not capable of CW output, such a laser can produce pulsed output at a high enough frequency to be practically equivalent to a CW laser, in addition to being operated in a single pulse mode.
This leads me to the question, similar to [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/11622/sharks-with-frickin-lasers) but for land-bound creatures: could a creature on land generate a laser pulse without the need for assistance from non-biological structures (such as the finely spaced optics used in the chemically pumped GFP-laser cell)? Furthermore, how much power could they feed such a bio-laser with?
[Answer]
## Bioluminescence, refined, *could* lead to the evolution of lasers. But is it worth the implications?
**1) Creating a powerful beam within the electromagnetic spectrum requires energy.**
Any organism with a laser will have to eat nutritious food, constantly, to meet the energy requirements of such an organ. The exact amount of energy required depends on the size of the laser and the organism that wields it. When an organism finally does eat enough to maintain a laser, however, our next problem arises:
**2) If an organism has excess energy, it will use it practically.**
Unless a laser is *exactly* what your creature needs, it will use the energy it gets to maintain existing systems, or it will evolve a more efficient, more reasonable way of defending itself, *and channel energy to that organ instead*. Why would humans evolve lasers that aren't likely to do much damage when they could instead evolve sharper teeth, or spit acid?
## Assuming an organism meets the energy requirement, how can a practical laser evolve?
An organism with prexisting bioluminescence, such a firefly, that controls when it releases light, is an ideal candidate to evolve a laser-bearing species from. However, fireflies use their lights to find mates and communicate, which lasers will not help them with. **Then what is a practical use of a laser that a creature would want to evolve?**
**Going on the offensive is not practical.** A laser will not evolve if a firefly tries to kill its enemies with blinking lights. You will only end up with lots of dead fireflies.
**Using lights for defense? Why not.** If blinking lights stun or confuse predators, and your creatures become dependent on this as a species, then the individuals with the most effective, concentrated, and blinding lights will survive to reproduce or be favorited by mates. Over time, this could lead to extremely concentrated beams of light similar to lasers. Not exactly a traditional laser, but *technically*, it still is one. After your lasers are concentrated, your organisms may discover that they can do damage with them, too. It depends on how concentrated, and I don't have the math or means to say.
**Two additional things to note:**
**A) You want a land creature, but I used fireflies as an example.** No problem! As long as your land creature has evolved bioluminescence, my steps to evolving lasers should still work.
**B) Wouldn't heat and self-damage cause problems? Nope, and here's why:** bioluminescence is efficent. Fireflies do not heat up when they shine their lights because their process is extremely productive. This could go for your organism as well. Finally, self-damage would only occur if the lasers evolved to be extremely powerful. At this rate, a large organ shaped like a dish, that concentrated all beams in one direction, would likely stop any tissue from taking too much of the radiation.
[Answer]
They already do:
## "Human cell becomes living laser"
In June of 2011, scientists for the first time [created a laser light using living biological material](http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110612/full/news.2011.365.html): a single human cell and some jellyfish protein.
>
> "Lasers started from physics and are viewed as engineering devices," says Seok-Hyun Yun, an optical physicist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who created the 'living laser' with his colleague Malte Gather. "This is the first time that we have used biological materials to build a laser and generate light from something that is living."
>
>
> Building a laser requires two things: a lasing material that amplifies light from an external source (a 'gain medium') and an arrangement of mirrors (an 'optical cavity'), which concentrates and aligns the light waves into a tight beam. Until now, the gain medium has only been made from non-biological substances such as doped crystals, semiconductors or gases, but in this case the researchers used enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) — the substance that makes jellyfish bioluminescent, which is used extensively in cell biology to label cells.
>
>
> The team engineered human embryonic kidney cells to produce GFP, then placed a single cell between two mirrors to make an optical cavity just 20 micrometres across. When they fed the cell pulses of blue light, it emitted a directional laser beam visible with the naked eye — and the cell wasn't harmed.
>
>
> The width of the laser beam is "tiny" and "fairly weak" in its brightness compared to traditional lasers, says Yun, but "an order of magnitude" brighter than natural jellyfish fluorescence, with a "beautiful green" colour:
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/e1whs.jpg)
Two points of interest here in regard to your question:
* it was a human cell, so this might eventually be possible in living humans
* it's brightness is "fairly weak" compared to a traditional laser, but perhaps future developments could produce output great enough to rival traditional lasers
[Answer]
I'm surprised nobody's argued this way yet, but I think it's crucial:
### Laser ≠ collimated light beam
### Laser = repeated [(coherent) **amplification**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulated_emission) of light
Yes, we use the stimulated emission mostly for generating light (often *not* collimated BTW, it's the coherence that's most important), but also [for amplifying a given light source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier). And that would probably be the biological motivation for evolving tissue that can act as a gain medium: to sense very weak light stimuli, e.g. luminent predators or prey.
This would probably happen in the eye of a cat-eyed creature, between the retina and the [tapetum lucidum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum). The latter is already a reflector, which is the other thing you need for a laser. Once all of this is in place, it would be advantageous for another semi-reflecting layer to develop in front of the retina: though this would block some of the incoming photons before they even get to the retina, it would also send the ones that are already there another time through the amplifier, which generates even more photons... and so on. This is most efficient when the spacing between the mirrors is tuned to the frequency of emitted light: that's how a resonant laser cavity works.
This way, the eye would become extremely sensitive. The downside is that it also becomes very nonlinear, and is readily saturated – it can only detect that there *is* light, but is bad at making out details. Thus, our creature would evolve an asymmetry, with only one eye developing ever-increasing gain. The side effect of this is that the one eye would actually *light up* in response to an incoming source. This light then would reflect off the predator and could thus be used by the other eye to see more details. You've developed an automatically-triggered torch!
At this point it's clear that ever stronger pumping of the gain medium is an advantage, to make the flash-light more useful. And whilst the predators or prey haven't adapted to this, they would probably be confused and/or blinded by the flash, giving you time to escape or catch them, respectively. This further incentivises evolution to make the laser stronger. In the end, it might get to quite formidable power (evolution is great at optimising quirky features to surprising strength – consider hagfish, chameleons or pistol shrimps), probably not enough to hurt anything but certainly to blind it. Our creature's laser-eye would by this point not be useful as an eye anymore itself (because every firing scorches its own retina), but that's not important anymore because the other eye has been hugely upgraded through the laser.
Clearly, all of this would be most likely to work out in a deep-sea environment, where there's *never* sunlight and lots of luminescent animals.
[Answer]
Sure. Not just humans, but all manner of creatures on Earth have very sophisticated highly evolved eyes and even partially inorganic bodies (e.g. shellfish) at all manner of wave lengths.
I don't think they could get very powerful (biological systems aren't known for sustained high voltage high ampere electrical output outside anything more realistic than the Flinstones) - at best some sort of bio-capacitor might allow for short, high intensity bursts. But, while bio-lasers might not be fully appropriate to weaponize, they could be useful for line of sight communication, fire starting, accurate measurements, temporarily (or even permanently) blinding predators or prey, and any number of other applications.
[Answer]
I think it's totally possible but the chances of this organism evolving on Earth is pretty slim. This hypothetical laser would likely be used for attracting mates, or to stop predators and other threats in their tracks. How would it come to be? Likely in an environment with a lot of light with the organism taking on similar traits to the high light environment. Predators that push for this laser to come to be. An example could be smaller predators hunting in swarms with the organism effectively killing them all with the laser, or a fairly powerful predator that otherwise the organism cannot fight back against.
The issue in my opinion would be self damage. Could the creature control how powerful this laser is? How long can it activate the laser for? How much energy does it require? Will it die once it uses it? Termite soldiers can explode themselves as a last resort against enemies (usually ants) to stop enemies, but obviously they themselves die. If so, it would be practical for this creature to have other means for defense before using the laser.
Another concern would be if it's against the environment. An animal with a relatively destructive laser could be disastrous towards an environment. It could potentially start a fire which alone is a huge threat. If this organism can use this deadly laser at its leisure with little consequences, there's a chance that humanity would try to destroy this species. Just imagine birds with the ability to breathe fire. That would be an incredibly dangerous species.
[Answer]
## Let's start with the reason:
Most forms of radiant energy obeys the Inverse Square Law, which means that, for any given point source, the total amount of energy that passes through a surface that is of the same angular size from the perspective of the source stays unchanged, or, the intensity of the radiant energy at any given distance from a source is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance to the source.
### Beam formation and spot intensity
For any application of energy at a given distance, for a given amount of energy, the narrower the radiated beam you can radiate your energy for, the more energy density you can apply to a target of a given size.
It is possible to focus the applied energy to a single beam, but there is always a limit of the highest energy density you can apply to a given area at a distance.
$$d=\frac{4 \lambda D}{\pi Da}$$
where d is the diameter of the spot or the size of the focal point of the beam,
D is the distance from the aperture (the hole/window of which the beam came out of),
Da is the diameter of the Aperture, and
$$\lambda$$
is the wavelength of the energy beam
The spot intensity, then, is just the ratio between the beam power and the area of the spot:
$$I=P/(pi\*d^2/4).$$
For a sound beam, the wavelength is about 1/10m to 1m. For most forms of light beams, the wavelength is between 700nm and 400nm.
## Why lasers?
Communication, or information exchange, plays an important role within groups/colonies of many types of organisms. For example, a bird's tweet is not only just for alerting its potential mates to its presence and location but also serves to communicate with the potential mate about its fitness and condition, information that will be used for the selection of mate from potential candidates. Humans talk to each other, not just for alerting others of his/her existence and location, but also to exchange information that will be used for a variety of purposes, usually to benefit his/her own survival. Ants touch Antennae to exchange information about the location of food, Fireflies blink to tell whether it's a male of a female, bees do figure-8 dances to alert others of its colony to the location of a discovered food source.
Problems with broadcasting
### The signal to noise ratio:
The signal to noise ratio is simply the ratio of the power of the signal at a given location to the power of background noise at that location. a signal-to-noise ratio that is smaller then 1:1 will prevent the signal from being properly analyzed, stopping communication completely.
Given a specific background noise level, the Signal to Noise ratio is directly proportional to the local intensity of the signal, which is inversely proportional to the square of the distance to the source for any given point source.
The intensity of a directional source at a distance is given as:
$$I=\frac{4\pi P}{r^{2}S}$$
P is the power of the source,
r is the distance,
S is the spread of the beam, in steradians.
from this equation we can see, the smaller the spread of a given beam, the more intense the beam's power is for a target at a given distance for the same amount of total beam power.
### Freespace Laser Communications: Why we use lasers for long-distance communications.
The farther the target you try to communicate with, the weaker the signal intensity your target will receive for the same beam profile. In order to combat this, we can either increase the beam power, which is impractical for handheld devices and/or living organisms, or we can decrease the spread of the beam, which is how satellite dishes and megaphones work. A high-speed communications system, using lasers across empty space, is currently being employed by SpaceX's Starlink satellites. Lasers were used because they have a short wavelength compared to radio waves, and because of that, it's possible to focus a laser into a very collimated, narrow beam; thus decreasing the beam's spread and increasing range for a limited power supply(the solar panels of the satellites)
## Evolution of a laser-using organism
For an organism that lives sparsely in a noisy environment, which a need for long-distance communications between individuals are needed due to whatever reason(Sexual selection tends to disproportionally favor a certain trait, such as the ability to send information of high complexity at a high speed, like the songs/tweets of many birds for mating)(but also for certain colonial organisms of which intracolonial communication is favored by Kin selection, benefiting the colony as a whole), the ability of accurate, long-distance communications are heavily selected for, and the logical mean of achieving that is to both shorten the wavelength of the signal used, and improve the directionality of the method of communication used to increase peak spot intensity and conserve energy.
If the environment is exceptionally noisy, vocal, or sound-based communication is no longer feasible at extended distances, especially because sound waves tend to make poor beams due to the long wavelength of sound waves.
So light-based communications, likely based on bioluminescence, is the preferred method for these conditions.
Because light waves also suffer from the inverse square law when unfocused, the logical next move for the organism is to produce a structure to focus the bioluminescent light into a collimated beam, using, for example, a structure that is the inverse of an eye, with a lens in front of the luminescent substrate to focus the light into a collimated, long-range beam. Due to Conservation of Etendue, the maximum apparent intensity for any point on a light organ can not exceed that of the luminescent substrate used within the light organ used to give out the light. Therefore, there is significant selection pressure for light organs whose substrate have a high luminescent intensity for a given surface area--It is better to have a small amount of Very Intensely glowing substrate than to have a large amount of Weakly glowing substrate, even if the total luminescent power of the two light organs are identical.
Due to the nature of bioluminescence--a conditionally irreversible chemical reaction produces a product in an excited state, whose decay releases its excitation energy as a photon. Once the luminescent substrate has it's light intensity, hence it's reaction rate increase past a certain threshold without the fluorescent lifetime of the product degrading correspondingly, there will be a spatio-temporal point in that reaction where the concentration of the excited product exceeds that of the ground state product, causing a population inversion--the luminescent substrate became a gain medium.
For the organism, it probably won't seem to matter much--as the quest for higher light intensity per unit area of substrate continues, the bioluminescent light first changes from phosphorescence to fluorescence, then from fluorescence to superluminescence, while the unit area intensity increases largely linearly, biological eyes being too sluggish and far too slow to notice the differences in mechanism. Then, because a biological optic system tends to contain many layers of materials with different refractive index, the superluminescence become more and more intense as light that would otherwise be lost are reflected back using what is known as a distributed Bragg reflector (the same layers of material is largely responsible for animal eyes to glow in the dark when a light source is carried by the observer, being a mechanism to reflect light that passes through the retina back onto the retina, therefore nearly doubling the efficiency of night vision).
Finally, the different phase(temporal) modes of the light emitted by the light-producing organ collapses to a single mode, as enough light that exits the gain medium is reflected back to be amplified again and again in a process of resonant electromagnetic oscillation through amplification by stimulated emission. A true laser has been formed.
With a true laser, the area intensity for the luminescent medium is no longer important, as the gain medium can now generate a very low entropy, coherent beam with an infinitely small etendue, the efficiency of long-range optical communication through bioluminescence is no longer limited by the maximum unit area intensity of the luminous substrate, and is now entirely dependent on the wavelength of the light used and the aperture size of the light organ, the organism is able to save more energy during its communication with other individuals by being able to focus the beam down to the diffraction limit(like most eyes are capable of). thus no longer require as much energy as if it was broadcasting its light signals in a primitive, omnidirectional manner.
### As for offensive uses of lasers in the sense of burning the target alive? probably not.
Though the same long-range communication organ can probably be used to dazzle predators/small prey like insects or birds, causing them to be blinded and stunned/fall from the sky, conferring a nutritional advantage in the sense of being able to hunt at range/being less likely to be eaten.
[Answer]
Sure it can!
Note: exist, doubt about evolve.
For nitrogen laser you need gaseous nitrogen. But our atmosphere is pure enough if you don't care about efficiency. It needs to be between few milibars and few bars. Again, atmosphere can do! You need a high voltage supply. Can do, too. Some fishes sure can. Spark gap is most problematic, but with graphite electrodes why not? No optics required.
Transversely Exited Atmospheric pressure laser is really simple device, and no reason you couldn't bioengineer it into a species, or at least into creatures. For homework, I suggest [building one](http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-TEA-Nitrogen-Laser/?ALLSTEPS).
[Answer]
My guess is that they already do exist, just not in the super-powerful-laser form you have in mind. Nature seems to have discovered and utilised a remarkable range of capabilities, so much so that I would be amazed if there *wasn't* some niche (even on a microscopic scale) where synchronised electromagnetic radiation didn't arise.......
[Answer]
No. I’m not saying that a biological laser could not evolve, just that they would need precisely spaced and shaped optical elements. That’s a principle on how lasers do what they do.
[Answer]
In contrast to the many optimistic answers here, my answer is **no**.
While there are many ways to produce biological light, an optical cavity of good quality for a laser is almost impossible for a biological system. It needs to have two parallel mirrors in a resonant distance. Both traits are difficult to achieve. Only small deviations will make the whole laser fail completely.
P.S. For me, there is a difference between a Laser and [superluminescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplified_spontaneous_emission) without a resonator.
EDIT: Also a superluminescent organ is highly implausible; it needs to be in a straight geometrical line. Biological structures aren't like this.
] |
[Question]
[
Here's an intriguing thought - I think so anyway. Let's suppose for a minute that there's an Earth-like planet with sentient life orbiting a star near the edge of the [Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_Dwarf_Spheroidal_Galaxy). Specifically, it would need to be on the side nearest the Milky Way.
When the inhabitants of this world look up at the sky at night, if they're looking in the direction of their own galaxy, I'd assume that they'd see a similar view to what we do (with the naked eye) - a milky, light shape in the sky.
But if they were facing the Milky Way, would they see one huge, well-defined spiral galaxy sitting in the sky?
I've chosen this galaxy specifically because I suspect it might be close enough (~50,000 light years from the core of the Milky Way, with the Milky Way ~100+ light years in diameter) that this is what you would see. What I'm not sure of is if this would really be the case in the real world (hence the hard-science tag)
For the purposes of this question, assume that the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is at a point in its orbit where it is passing directly over the Milky Way's galactic pole.
edit: I've changed the tag from "hard science" to "science based" after having looked at the descriptions of these two tags
[Answer]
# Solution by simple trigonometry
The [Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_Dwarf_Spheroidal_Galaxy) (Sgr dSph) is about 10,000 ly in diameter, but has an apparent arc of 450' at a distance of 70,000 ly away from us. This can be solved simply with trigonometry; the tangent of a right triangle is the opposite leg over the adjacent. In this case, the opposite leg is 10,000 ly, while the adjacent is 70,000 ly. We find that the inverse tangent of this ratio $$\arctan\left(\frac{10000}{70000}\right) = 0.1433 \text{ radians} = 488 \text{ minutes}$$ is just about what we are given as a visible arc, especially given the uncertainty in the actual diameter of Sgr dSph. So this is a reasonable way to approximate the visible arc of the Milky Way.
From Sagittarius, the Milky Way (which is 160,000 ly in diameter) is about 50,000 ly away. This gives us
$$\arctan\left(\frac{160000}{50000}\right) = 1.27 \text{ radians} = 73 \text{ degrees}. $$
So the Milky way would be perfectly sized to fill the sky of your world, its diameter extended almost halfway across a clear night sky. It is small enough that the whole thing could be visible at once, but large enough to fill a (human) field of vision on a dark night.
The reason this is a simple solution is that I am not making calculations about brightness. Apparent magnitude is easy to calculate for a point source, but not at all for an object smeared across half the sky. There would also be important factors such as how close the planet in question would be to the edge of Sgr dSph. If the planet was on the far side of the dwarf galaxy, obviously the Milky Way would be largely obscured; if it was on the near side, there may be almost nothing between the Milky Way and the viewer.
I will add one simple note on brightness. The Andromeda Galaxy (twice as massive a the Milky Way) has an apparent magnitude of 3.44 at a distance of 2540000 ly. If Andromeda were at 50000 ly, we would expect its apparent magnitude to increase by the square of the ratio of distances, or a factor of 2580. This is good for an apparent magnitude of -5; a little brighter than Venus at its brightest. We don't really know the Milky Way's absolute magnitude, since we can't look at it, but it we assume that it is less than half as bright as Andromeda, we still get an apparent magnitude of -4 from Sgr dSph. So the Milky Way as a whole will definitely be bright, and visible, but how exactly it would look is complicated.
[Answer]
So a solar arm or the bulge of the milky way would be about the same area as a 10 cm by 10 cm shape held at a distance of 1 meter. (Bulge is about 2 kpc in diameters; spiral arm
What would you see?
There are about 10 to 20 billion stars in an arm of the Milky Way. The core has about 100 billion stars.
The Orion–Cygnus Arm is roughly the same area. The other arms are a few times larger.
The entire galaxy is about as big as a 4x3 meter object held at a distance of 1 meter; quite large.
The bulge has 5E9 solar lumosities, ignoring dust blocking the view. At 50,000 ly this is 5E-10 times as bright as the Sun is from Earth, or 0.02% as bright as the Moon, and a larger cross-section.
The Moon is about as large as a 4 mm by 4 mm object held at a distance of 1 meter. The galactic Bulge is is 600 times larger, and 5000 times dimmer, making it 3 million times less bright per unit area. And that is before accounting for dust.
That would make the galactic core as bright per unit area as a magnitude ~4 star the size of the moon.
Spiral arms are 1x-6x larger and each have about 5 times fewer stars as the Bulge does, so they are up to 100 times less bright per unit area than the core (again, ignoring dust). That makes the arms as bright per unit area as a magnitude 9 stars the size of the moon (but much larger).
You'd be able to see the galactic bulge, and maybe some wisps around it (especially if you blocked it out), but I suspect it would be less impressive than our milky way view. Which makes sense, as what we see contains stars that are much closer than 50,000 ly.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
**This Query is part of the Worldbuilding [Resources Article](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/143606/a-list-of-worldbuilding-resources).**
---
This question is a sort of follow-up to Samuel's previous world map question, [Creating a realistic world(s) map - planetary systems](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/21408/creating-a-realistic-worlds-map-solar-systems).
Lots of science fiction stories involve journeying to nearby stars. Many involve the first human explorers setting out for a new star system. It's easy to pick from the stars near the Solar System. For stories set in other star systems, however, creating a realistic stellar neighborhood can be difficult.
### What, in general, determines how close stars are to one another in any given area of a galaxy (or globular cluster)? What are the typical number densities in various regions?
Also, what is a typical distribution of star types in a given area? I'm aware of things like the initial mass function, which can be very helpful, but some stars may be born together and stay together for a short while, which includes the possibility that they may be similar. Chances are low that, after a long time, all the stars in a given area will be alike, admittedly.
This is a [hard-science](/questions/tagged/hard-science "show questions tagged 'hard-science'") question. I haven't looked into the subject in detail, but I would assume that we have some decent data on at least some of the factors given here. There should be enough reputable research to put together into a good, solid, hard science answer.
---
Here's a representations of the local stellar neighborhood, to give you an idea of what the stars surrounding the Solar System are like:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n7rdi.png)
Image in the public domain.
[Answer]
## Someone's done that...
In the collection [Writing Science Fiction](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0312089260), the [John Barnes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barnes_(author)) essay [*How to Build a Future*](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?102337) includes plotting out a star map, using the distribution and distances to inspire the plot.
>
> The map immediately drew my attention to ... Though they exchange easily among themselves, they are quite remote from the hub. ... suggests really deviant subcultures could grow there.
>
>
>
Reviewing it to cite for this Answer, I discover that the star positions are the real neighborhood around Sol, rather than making up a distribution. He does suggest making a distance travel matrix "not unlike the milage charts found in road atlases".
## Find the real map of the Milky Way
For a neighborhood of stars not immediately around us, maps actually do exist now. [SDSS](https://www.sdss3.org/press/dr10.php) comes to mind, "first data released by the SDSS-III's Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), an effort to create a comprehensive census of our Milky Way galaxy."
A careful [Google search](https://www.google.com/search?q=galaxy+survey+database&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=milky+way+map+stars) turns up interesting papers on how stars move around after they are born and details of our spiral arm structure, and a Chrome browser app that is an interactive 3D map of 100,000 stars.
The [Gaia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_mission) observations are in progress, and [RAVE](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAVE_(survey)) has details of half a million stars.
## Neighborhood Demographics... IN SPAAACE!
The [density of stars varies from the center to the edge](http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george/ay20/Ay20-Lec16x.pdf), and is the cause of the spiral arms so you have substantial density variation at a given radius, too. You really should be asking on [Astronomy SE](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/) for where to get a map or table of stellar density values.
The Distributions of star types is [answered here in Physics.SE](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/66805/distribution-of-star-colours-in-a-galaxy). It references a chart of [Fraction of all main-sequence stars](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/66805/distribution-of-star-colours-in-a-galaxy) that you can use as a first approximation. Note that for a typical steady-as-she-goes neighborhood, the stars *do* get mixed up after being formed (as discussed above). After a few billion years when the solar system has settled down, the star will be distributed within the galaxy and long separated from its birth cluster. However, super giant stars burn fast and die young, so are *only* found near their places of birth. Remove these from your statistics.
Meanwhile, red dwarfs and newly-classified infrared dwarfs are hard to see at any distance but the most abundant. So sprinkle liberally in your synthetic map. Likewise, brown dwarfs and rouge worlds outnumber starts but are mostly uncharted.
You should also know about "Population I" and "Population II" stars, since they represent different regions of the galaxy and they differ in detail because they formed in different generations out of different material.
---
## Practical Advice
To create your artificial neighborhood map, you have quite a bit of freedom in density. There is really no lower bound since the density tapers off above the plane. There are no (non-open) clusters within the body of the disc as it gets torn apart as it orbits the galaxy, but you can plausibly have a knot of denser than normal in an arm, and push the limits of the normal statistics for such things. The spiral arms are really just traffic jams.
You should worry more about avoiding mistakes that can be noticed (like a star that's the wrong age, or unstable trinary systems) than about getting the density exactly right.
And that reminds me, you should also include the right proportion of binary stars to singletons, and the occasional more exotic bound system. The more exotic situations will be affected by density: a hierarchical binary of 4 stars needs enough room.
[Answer]
**Start with the required materials on the home world** then work out the details from there. What follows is an anthrocentric answer that assumes the author wants to make a stellar map for exploration by humanoids.
**Notes and Assumptions:**
* The term "astro-metal" means all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The term "chemical-metal" refers to the normal definition of a metal.
* If the explorers are leaving from their home world then it's safe to assume that the local neighborhood is calm and orderly. On earth, it took about [3.6 billion years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life) to develop a space fairing species. Even under "optimal" conditions, developing a space fairing species is going to take billions of years. This kind of stability isn't possible if a large nearby star goes novae or supernova nearby or another star comes close enough to disrupt planetary orbits. This implies that the trajectories of the stars in the local neighborhood are all going the same direction.
* That a astro-metal rich star (metal rich in the astronomical sense, not the chemical sense) will lead to chemical-metal rich world for the explorers to explore.
* This answer assumes these explorers started from the same kind of environment as life on Earth.
**Important Questions to Answer**
*What kind of materials do you need on your home world for your explorers to use? Do you want/need large quantities of heavier elements compared to earth?*
* If so, then that implies a specific history about your local neighborhood. Greater abundance of useful minerals such as iron, uranium, thorium etc come from [supernova](http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/S/Supernova) events. If the neighborhood lacks heavier elements then there may not be enough material to form rocky planets for life to form on. Further, if the explorer's home planet lacks easily accessible metals then building the economy required to build space ships isn't possible.
*How dense is the local neighborhood?*
* How far do you want these first explorers to go when they start out? 1 star per cubic light year? 1 star per 10 cubic light years? Earth's nearest neighbor is [Alpha Centauri](http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/far-closest-star/) at 4.37 light years. The further out a neighborhood is, the [lesser stellar density can be expected](http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec26.html).
>
> ...In the solar neighborhood, the stellar density is about one star per cubic parsec (one parsec is 3.26 light-years). At the Galactic core, around 100 parsecs from the Galactic center, the stellar density has risen to 100 per cubic parsec, crowded together because of gravity.
>
>
>
\*How old are the local stars?\*\*
* Star age is directly related to how big and bright they are. Larger stars burn out more quickly than smaller stars and thus are less likely to support life. Equations to describe a star's life time in relation to mass can be found [here](https://www.astro.umd.edu/~ssm/ASTR100/lecture20.pdf) (pdf, page 7). These same equations determine how bright a star is. A stellar group composed of large stars between 8 and 40-50 solar masses will [generate Type II supernova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_II_supernova) (and that will really ruin a planet's day). Thus, the local neighborhood needs to have stars below a certain mass.
* A survey of star ages in Sol's neighborhood shows several very young stars hundreds of megayears old and a collection of stars with ages similar to or longer than Sol's. Keep in mind that the ultimate age limit of any star is 13.82 billion years, or the age of the universe. ([Though sometimes, weird stuff happens.](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/hd140283.html))
*Need for constellations?*
* The author may need or want something in the sky to motivate the exploers to get going. Perhaps an especially meaningful constellation or an extra bright star that serves to inspire a species to "Get Out There->"
**Drawing the Map**
1. Grab a piece of paper and a pen. Draw a small cross in the center of the page. Also draw horizontal and vertical lines that bisect the page to form the X and Y axii. Draw a diagonal line at 45 degrees to horizontal to form the Z axis.
2. Drop 20 to 30 dots on the paper. If you desire a denser stellar neighborhood, either adjust the scale or add more dots.
3. Draw diagonal and vertical lines to establish whether a star is above or below the stellar plane. Care must be taken when drawing these lines as they fix the stellar distribution. Ensure that each of the 8 quadrants have roughly the same number of stars to avoid gravitational imbalances that may need to be explained later. This is also the stage where the author may make any special placements to drive plot or add flavor to the star map.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iqdLn.jpg)
4. If desired, draw in a legend for distances. Add star names or region names. As much details as the author desires can be added.
5. If desired, a polar coordinate star map (as show in the OP) may be drawn. Also, projection of the star map from the surface can be developed too (though to do so is beyond the skill of this poster.)
**Possible Plot Angles**
* If the explorer's home world is significantly different than the surrounding stars, say the home star has 3x the metalicity of its neighbors then that will be an interesting thing to investigate....because ALIENS!
* If their home world is astro-metal poor but a nearby star is comparatively astro-metal rich then that might serve as a good motivator to build generation ships to move a significant chunk of the population to the "greener grass" of the metal rich star.
* If the local neighborhood is rapidly aging then it may motivate the explorers to start moving out of the local group. Again, more generation ships.
[Answer]
I decided to start answering this question by building a galaxy (well, a model of a galaxy, but it sounds cooler the first way). A lot of research has already been done in this area, specifically, in [density wave theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Density_wave_theory), which explains the winding arms of spiral galaxies. Before we begin, here’s your 60-second introduction to the structure of spiral galaxies.
A spiral galaxy can be thought of as a conglomerate of three separate structures:
* The galactic [disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_(galaxy)), the flattened section of the galaxy lying on the galactic plane. It is in turn composed of the [thin disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_disk) and the [thick disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_disk), containing relatively younger and older stars, respectively. The disk also contains [spiral arms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_galaxy#Spiral_arms).
* The galactic [bulge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulge_(astronomy)), a dense region in the center of the galaxy which extends further out of the galactic plane than the galactic disk does.
* The galactic [halo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_halo), a roughly spherical set of stars, gas, globular clusters, and dark matter than surrounds the galaxy. The stellar component of this can be found in the galactic [spheroid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_galaxy#Galactic_spheroid). The halo has, on average, a lower mean density of gas and stars, though it is rich in dark matter.
Now we can construct a model of a spiral galaxy, starting with a [gravitational potential](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_potential) denoted by $\Phi(R,\theta,z,t)$, where $R$ is the radius along the plane, $\theta$ is the azimuthal angle, $z$ is the vertical distance above the plane, and $t$ is time. We’re working in cylindrical coordinates, but we’re also taking time into account. Over hundreds of millions of years, spiral galaxies rotate, and stars move in and out of dense and not-so-dense regions. I’m not going to display any results like this because my Mathematica skills are currently limited, but it’s not too hard to do.
We *could* choose a rather simple model for our galaxy. Power law radial density models are the simplest, where the density in the plane is
$$\rho(R)=\rho\_0\left(\frac{R}{R\_0}\right)^{-\alpha}\tag{1}$$
where $R\_0$ is a reference radius and $\alpha$ is an real number. $\alpha=2$ fits many observed rotation curves, to a decent degree of accuracy. Adding in the $z$-component is then simple; this is just multiplied by one of two possible factors:
$$\exp\left(\frac{-z^2}{z\_0^2}\right)\quad\text{or}\quad\text{sech}^2\left(\frac{z}{z\_0}\right)\tag{2a, 2b}$$
with [scale height height](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_height) $z\_0$. This seems simple enough, and the corresponding potential can be calculated without too much trouble. However, current data has led to better models using a sort of exponentially decreasing radial fit for the galactic potential.
I’m strongly basing my choice here on [information I gathered in this answer](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/19796/2153), using data from [Antoja et al. (2011)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1170). Their equation for the potential is of the form
$$\Phi(R,\theta,t)=\sum\_mA\_m(R)\cos(m\theta-m\theta\_0-\phi\_m(R)-\Omega\_p t)\tag{3}$$
which is the sum of terms of indices $m$. $A\_m(R)$ is the radial amplitude, $\theta\_0$ is some reference angle, $\phi(R)$ is a function that determines how the arms wind, and $\Omega\_p$ is the pattern speed. I’ll neglect $\Omega\_p$ for now, and look only at the density at $t=0$.
Antoja et al. decided to keep only the $m=2$ term. Normally, the $m=0$ and $m=2$ terms dominate (with occasionally a smaller $m=4$ term providing richer structure), but this model is simpler. They used the simple radial profile
$$A\_2(R)=-A\_{sp}Re^{R/R\_{\Sigma}}\tag{4a}$$
with scale length $R\_{\Sigma}$. $\phi(R)$ is, in general, a little more complicated. Their choice (denoted $g(R)$) is fairly standard:
$$g(R)=\left(\frac{2}{N\tan i}\right)\ln\left(1+\left(\frac{R}{R\_{sp}}\right)^N\right)\tag{4b}$$
where $i$ is the inclination of the arms and $R\_{sp}$ is another scale length. We assume that $N$ is large. In reality, $N\to\infty$, but taking $N=100$ is good enough. All that remains is to insert their parameters. For many, there are ranges, so I’ve picked ones that are roughly average, for the Milky Way:
$$\begin{array}{|c|c|}
\hline \text{Parameter}&\text{Best-fit value}\\
\hline A\_{sp} & 1000\text{ }[\text{km s}^{-1}]^2\text{ kpc}^{-1}\\
\hline R\_{\Sigma} & 2.5\text{ kpc}\\
\hline i & 14^{\circ}\\
\hline R\_{sp} & 3.1\text{ kpc}\\
\hline \theta\_0 & 74^{\circ}\\
\hline \Omega\_p& 15\text{-}30\text{ km s}^{-1}\\
\hline
\end{array}$$
Now we go to Mathematica. The density, $\rho$, can be found by [Poisson’s equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson's_equation):
$$\nabla^2\Phi=4\pi G\rho\tag{5}$$
where $G$ is the gravitational constant. It is much easier to go from potential to density than density to potential, and all we have to do for the former is use Mathematica’s [`Laplacian`](http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Laplacian.html) operator. Here’s the code I used, with all constants scaled to SI units:
```
G = 6.674*10^(-11)
Asp = 1000*1000000/(3*10^(19))
rsig = 2.5*3*10^19
inc = 60 (*degrees*)
Points = 100
rsp = 3.1 *3*10^19
theta0 = 74 (*degrees*)
(*Omega =22.5*3.2408*10^(-17)*)
A[r_] := Asp*r*Exp[-r/rsig]
g[r_] := (2/Points*Tan[inc Degree])*Log[1 + (r/rsp)^Points]
potential[r_, theta_, z_] := -A[r]*Cos[2*(theta - theta0) - g[r]]*10^5
density[r_, theta_, z_] := Evaluate[(1/(4*Pi*G))*
Laplacian[potential[r, theta, z], {r, theta, z}, "Cylindrical"]]
flatDensity[r_, theta_] := density[r, theta, 0]
RevolutionPlot3D[
Evaluate[flatDensity[r, theta]], {r, 3*3*10^19, 10*3*10^19}, {theta, 0, 2*Pi},
Mesh -> None, ColorFunction -> "DarkRainbow"]
```
There are a few things to note here. First, be careful to put the value for $i$ in degrees using the [`Degree`](http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Degree.html) option; trigonometric functions in Mathematica assume the value is in radians otherwise. Second, I’ve had to make two modifications to make the output visible. I changed the inclination to $60^{\circ}$ to make the winding clearer, and I multiplied to density (actually, the potential, as well) by a factor of $10^5$. Without that, [`RevolutionPlot3D`](http://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/RevolutionPlot3D.html) and the other operations really choke. When looking at the output, then, be mindful of that factor of five orders of magnitude.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mslas.png)
Side view of the density graph.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/s2eI7.png)
Top view of the density graph.
The spiral structure should be quite evident here. However, there are two perturbing details. The first is that there is explosive growth near the center. I’ve deliberately truncated the inner radius to $3\text{ kpc}$, which is where the spiral structure really starts. A different density profile is needed there. At radii similar to the Sun’s orbital radius, our density profile is sufficient. Eventually, at large enough $R$, $\rho$ actually becomes less than zero, but we should treat that as an unphysical result and assume that the profile is truncated once $\rho=0$. This happens around $\sim8\text{ kpc}$, indicating that we need to add a value for $m=0$. The exact fitting for that can be handwaved a little, but in the spiral arms, it appears that the results match local mean densities to within a few orders of magnitude ($\sim10^{-18}\text{-}10^{-20}\text{ kg/m}^3$, which isn’t too bad).
Let’s say, then, that we add this $m=0$ term to avoid negative densities. If we want $\rho>0$ out to about $12\text{ kpc}$, then we need it to be around $\sim2.45\times10^{-18}\text{ kg/m}^3$. Again, at smaller radii, this will produce larger-than-usual densities, but it is necessary to avoid unphysical results.
How much of this is stars, though, and how much is gas, dust, and other objects? I’d be comfortable with *approximating* the stellar density as roughly our figure from above. Dark matter follows a roughly spherical halo distribution, often described by a [Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navarro%E2%80%93Frenk%E2%80%93White_profile). The disk density distribution, then, describes stars and other luminous matter, as well as gas and dust. From what I’ve read (see e.g. [this Physics Stack Exchange question and answers](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/149266/56299)), roughly 75-90% of baryonic matter in the disk is in the form of stars and related objects, which I’m really comfortable with rounding up to 100%.
Stars have different masses, distributed, in general, according to an [initial mass function (IMF)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_mass_function). I’ve talked about this in more detail [before](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/41489/627), and I suspect that nobody’s too eager for me to rehash the necessary sections. Essentially, though, you calculate the total number of stars over a given mass range and then calculate the total mass of all of those. You then scale *that* to match the total stellar mass of the galaxy, which is done by integrating the density function over the relevant area. Doing so would require multiplying our current expression by some sort of exponentially decaying function of $z$, which I suggested earlier. Again, the specifics vary; take your pick.
Once we’ve done this, we have a value of $n(R,\theta,z)$, the number density of stars at a certain point. To figure out what a stellar population looks like in a given area, simply calculate the [mean inter-particle distance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_inter-particle_distance), $\langle r(R,\theta,z) \rangle$:
$$\langle r(R,\theta,z) \rangle\propto(n(R,\theta,z))^{-1/3}\tag{6}$$
At radii similar to the Sun’s orbital radius, we should see separations on the order of a few light-years. You can pretty easily, then, create a small group of stars with the same mean separation (at large radii, number density is approximately constant), and simply add some random perturbations. Distribute the masses according to an IMF, and voilà!
[Answer]
World Modeling and World Building inform each other. It can really help to have a real galactic and planetary model to play with while crafting.
With great effort, I once assembled a [starmap.zip](http://standard3d.com/misc/starmap.zip) including all the constellations and their exo-planets (as of 2004). Includes stars within 50 parsecs of Sol, and is a geocentric coordinate system.
The astronomical data comes from the HYG catalog and uses the Bayer-Flamsteed (Brightstar) naming convention. 3D coordinates were calculated from luminosity values (also given), along with the stellar classification for each star.
I even made up some gamified names (related to their discovery date) for the planets, and gave them a few moons. There are over 3000 stars and over 30 exo-planets, which makes a nice looking sky.
For example, star 18 Scorpius is listed as 18 Sco in the stars.hyg.csv file:
```
18 Sco 16.26031482 -8.36823651 14.02524544 G1V 0.652
```
Also included in the zip is the line data for constellations (connect the dots). I made some icons for the constellations as well, which are nice.
Here is the line data for Scorpius from starlines.hyg.csv
```
9Ome1Sco 14Nu Sco
14Nu Sco Xi Sco
Xi Sco 9Ome1Sco
9Ome1Sco 7Del Sco
7Del Sco 6Pi Sco
6Pi Sco 5Rho Sco
7Del Sco 20Sig Sco
20Sig Sco 21Alp Sco
21Alp Sco 23Tau Sco
23Tau Sco 26Eps Sco
26Eps Sco 26Eps Sco
26Eps Sco 26Eps Sco
26Eps Sco 26Eps Sco
26Eps Sco Mu 1Sco
```
and here is the icon for Scorpius:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/i0qZf.jpg)
Should look something like this when rendered (from Earth):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n6ZIy.jpg)
*Note that 18-Sco is not part of the line data, but I rendered it's location for context.*
By adding attributes the planets.csv, you should be able to model any world. Again, the craft of World Building should inform the model.
For example, here are 3 acutal exo-planets orbiting 47 Ursa Major for the planets.csv file.
You can add columns to give your planets any attributes you wish.
```
47 UMa B Zirgu 0 1 5.2 11.21 false
47 UMa C Macbeth 0 2 10.2 11.21 true
47 UMa D York 0 3 15.2 11.21 false
```
Here is a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gmV9DSzcCQ) of the model in action!
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Seems like a lot of effort to get very little reward.
Your goal is story telling, not modeling the galaxy.
There are perhaps 400 billions stars in the galaxy and you need maybe a hundred, perhaps a thousand at most for a comprehensive story.
Pick the most promising/interesting ones that might be useful for colonists/explorers and work from that data set. Work out the most likely paths for travel and what features of this will be of interest to your story.
But expending effort trying to recreate a model of this is pointless.
I always like to reference Issac Asimov's Foundation series of stories. He was a Phd in science and yet he simply wrote what he needed to write, not what precisely modeled anything. The precise position of things is not needed, but the rough relationship of things and people to each other is. Detail isn't needed. Frankly I think many modern writers get obsessive about detail and forget the storytelling part.
So pick the stars you want to be in your story universe and work from that.
] |
[Question]
[
It's September 1940, the [Luftwaffe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luftwaffe) is launching the blitz over the UK. One squadron of night bombers (either [Henkiel He 111](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_111) or [Junkers Ju 88](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_88)) is flying over the English Channel when they are somehow transported through time to the modern day, the crews unaware that they have just gone through a hole in space-time. Then the on-board radios on the bombers suddenly comes to life as they are contacted by air-traffic control, but do not give suitable answers.
It quickly becomes apparent that there is a situation, and there is a squadron of heavily armed bomber aircraft heading towards London at terrific speed. [Eurofighter Typhoon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurofighter_Typhoon) aircraft are scrambled from [RAF Coningsby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Coningsby), breaking the sound barrier as they shoot across the sky to intercept the bombers. As they reach the aircraft, with London in sight, the air-to-air missiles can't get a lock on the 80+ year old aircraft.
**What would stop the intercepting aircraft from getting a missile lock on the aircraft, and what would they do next (shoot down with on-board cannon? ram one of the bombers in the hope that it causes a butterfly effect, like in *[Star Wars:The Last Jedi?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtNWzc0x0as)*)**
[Answer]
**Apart from being easy to shoot down (for reasons already mentioned)?**
There are a number of other complicating factors which might lead the squadron leader to abort the mission.
Firstly? **They will have lost contact with all the other German aircraft flying the mission that night**. Germany would *not* send one squadron of bombers & one squadron only on a night attack mission over London. British air defenses would concentrate on it and destroy it. This means they left their base that night after a briefing detailing all the units involved in the mission, its course, altitude and targets etc. None of the squadrons or other senior officers on that mission would be contactable. Nor would they see any of the other aircraft from the formation they left France with.
**They will also have instantly lost their radio navigation signals** (Knickebein or X-Gerät). That alone would tell them there was a serious problem because without it it would be very difficult to stay on target - or find their way home. Having every single plane in the squadron lose it in one instant? That would be grounds to abort all on its own. \*\*Edit; for that matter the entire German war time radio network would be off the air!
Before they even got to coast they would also see the Channel lit up with hundreds of navigation lights (not ever going to happen during the war).
**After that - when as they got to the coast England would be lit up like a Christmas tree** and there would also be no search lights and no flack. Plus they may (don't know for sure) be able to intercept AM civilian broadcasts - advertising, music, news?
London itself from the air at night? It would have tripled in size and would look totally different to what their prior experience told them to expect. (If there was one thing Luftwaffe pilots knew it was what London looked like from the air). They could also see modern jet planes taking off and landing and structures/buildings that, from their perspective, simply didn't exist 24 hours ago!
Military and civilian radio operators would also be able to detect the Germans' own transmissions and send messages in German easily. Hell, they could get on the phone and put senior German Defense personnel in touch with them.
Lastly **one or more of the fighters could easily turn on their lights and take position** **in front of, above and/or beside** the formation outside effective light machine gun range (which is all the bombers had) and let the Germans get a good look at them, even demonstrate some of their flight characteristics. Also pointing out that they had been easily intercepted yet no-one was firing at them.
So a whole lot of complicating factors that would. IMO probably lead the commander to abort the mission and turn back, something that did happen during the war quite often due to technical problems or weather etc. And if they do turn back, then its France's problem.
[Answer]
## *They Could, But They Won't*:
Sorry to say, I don't think that anything short of time travel handwavium will get your planes invisible to modern air defense systems.
**BUT**, if you're willing to overlook that, there is a perfectly plausible reason why (pre 9/11) jet fighters wouldn't shoot down those planes. They don't believe they are a real threat.
If you were a modern air traffic control system, and a group of planes showed up OBVIOUSLY as WW2 reenactment planes (super-authentic) your underlying assumption would be that there must be a mistake, or a communication error, or a political statement someone is trying to make, or SOMETHING to explain why antique German bombers materialized out of nowhere and are flying in a (mock, assuredly) bombing raid towards London. There would be scrambled jet fighters, yes. They would fly circles around the German planes, and know their position at all times. They would undoubtedly shoot them down once bombs started dropping. But are you the air defense officer who wants to give the order shooting down a bunch of war reenactment planes?
This works even better if it falls on a historical date that would explain the presence of such craft. If there was an actual [Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)](https://www.eaa.org/airventure) fly-in or the like going on, they are wildly chaotic events with lots of historical planes. Without a war or imminent threat of terrorism to convince the air defense commander to shoot, I think they would be busily trying to contact the planes and signal to them - right up until the moment they drop bombs.
[Answer]
## Response Time
The Germans are literally coming out of nowhere. JU-88 bombers could reach speeds in excess of 500 kph. While this is not that impressive by modern standards, the English channel is only ~34 km wide, and London is only ~65 km past that. So, if they suddenly appeared over the channel they would reach London in 7.8-11.9 minutes after appearing.
Add to this the fact that there is probably not an established protocol for dealing with a massive force of primitive aircraft appearing out of nowhere. Since England and France are at peace, leadership will need time to decide how to respond to this threat, and then they will need more time to dispatch those orders as needed. Even if this whole process is really efficient and only takes a few minutes, the UK does not have minutes to spare.
In the United Kingdom, only 2 Typhoon interceptors are kept at full QRA status at any given time, meaning that you could be looking at only 2 fighters being able to respond quick enough to do anything about the attack.
Each Typhoon fighter is is armed with 8 air-to-air missiles. Once the missiles are spent they have to move into a range of 2.5km to be able to use their cannons.
This is where quantity over quality really favors the Germans. WWII bombers were very numerous. In the Battle of Britain, Germany deployed over 2500 aircraft; so, if your time anomaly were to sweep up even 10% of that force, you could be looking at a 2 vs 250 air battle. So sure, the modern aircraft COULD safely target and destroy the first 16 targets very effectively with their missiles, but they could not shoot down enough of them to make a big difference. Past this point they'd have to close to cannon range which means getting dangerously close to the German fighters. Despite the technology disadvantage of the Germans, getting into cannon range for the typhoons is risky business. This means either flying through the German fighter formation or kiting it.
If they choose to kite the Germans, they could certainly stay a safe distance and not get shot down, but it would take a long time of weaving in and out to pick them off. Going through the formation gives them more opportunity to take out more JU-88s per pass, but puts them at risk of getting taken out by a few lucky shots. Either way, they just don't have enough time or bullets to take out a sizable portion of the Germans in time. By the time enough non-QRA fighters are ready to join the fray with more firepower, the bombs would already be dropped, and the most important part of the battle would already be lost.
## A final frame challenge
It is very likely that modern "fighter aircraft" would fail to get the job done, but the ground defenses are another story. Ground defenses are much easier to keep in an always ready defensive posture. London is protected by many surface to air missile installations. Being less limited by the practical limitations of a flying missile platform, these systems often have even better radar than fighters, and take little-to-no preparation to deploy. There is no defense WWII planes have against such a weapon system unless they were to come in such overwhelming numbers as to simply exhaust the entire ground based arsonal.
Modern aerial combat simply does not take place on the scale of WWII engagements; so, it may be possible on the scope of an entire major German offensive out of the past to still overwhelm London's defenses by just throwing more warm bodies at the problem than England is prepared for.
[Answer]
**TL;DR**: I think the Luftwaffe crew will likely abort and attempt to get new orders, but if they don't it's going to go very badly for them.
**First off, the German crews**: Movies like Doctor Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb aside, most soldiers and fighter pilots are not in fact gung-ho slaughter-happy warmongers, and will in fact be hesitant to fire on a target that isn't what they're expecting without *explicit* orders.
On top of that, this is the height of the Blitz, meaning that at that point most of the Luftwaffe pilots that are still alive are the ones that learned to be *cautious*.
Even without instrumentation or radio contact, day or night, it's going to be incredibly obvious that *something is very wrong*. There should be a blackout (if at night) or at the very least radio silence, the Channel should be almost empty aside from destroyers looking for U-boats, as they reach visual range of the British coast there should be signs of battle damage...
... But the Channel is *teeming* with civilian ships, there are multiple harbors open along the coast, and even if they don't speak english the radio frequencies are full of voices that sound, at most, *mildly curious* about something.
The closer they get to their supposed target, the less sense *anything* makes. Who knows, maybe they are the mental equivalent of General Ripper or Major T. J. "King" Kong and they'll decide zum Teufel mit alles and bomb anyway, but I doubt it.
If they do, however, continue on to...
**The British response**
For the sake of brevity I'm going to assume that they appear within nominal British airspace, or close enough to it that the French wouldn't be able to intercept before they get there and diplomatic concerns mean they won't try until it's too late to do anything about it.
The entire British coast, and especially the Channel, is *blanketed* with ATC radar. It takes approximately 0.5 seconds for every ATC officer and pilot on duty to spot them, one second to blink in surprise, call it ten more seconds to verify that yes, that's an actual contact, no, they *weren't* there ten seconds before, no, ATC radar hasn't just spectacularly malfunctioned, so yes, there are 125 unidentified aircraft flying in formation on a course that takes them straight through every single traffic lane and right over London.
Civilian Air Traffic Control is *highly* organized and every single pilot and operator knows how it works. Pilots in at-risk approach vectors are alerted, and the designated operator for the new contact starts calling them to please identify and state your flight plan, repeating the call with increasing insistence and urgency and reminding them of the various penalties and problems.
(If any of the Luftwaffe pilots speaks English at all, this highly amplifies the was-zum-Teufel feeling they're already experiencing)
**Military** ATC is equally on the ball, although the ATC officer is going to have to explain that no, he wasn't sleeping on the job, those contacts just *appeared* well within radar range, at a speed at which they couldn't possibly have failed to be noticed earlier.
By modern standards, their speed is ridiculously slow and that formation has almost no practical use -- but enough officers are military history buffs that someone will recognize it as a standard Luftwaffe attack formation, which means that at a minimum someone with the resources to refurbish 125 WW2-era aircraft to operational status has decided to use those resources to play Silly Buggers.
The two on-the-deck craft scramble immediately, all other craft which *can* get into the air within the expected timespan goes through emergency prep-and-scramble, every anti-air system with a firing arc that'll reach gets put on alert, and civilian traffic is ordered to divert to other airports while they sort out what's going on. At this point a large number of important people have just had their day disturbed, everyone is more than a little irked.
The Typhoons' first flyby happens at close to their maximum speed and blows past the *Geschwader* at a speed the Luftwaffe can't even begin to comprehend, there and gone before any of the fighter pilots can even react.
On their return pass, coming from behind, they casually reduce speed to sidle up to one of the fighters so that they can see cockpit-to-cockpit and *gesture* at them to Land, Right Now, Because You Assholes Are In So Much Trouble Already It's Not Funny.
The Luftwaffe pilot, already nervous as hell, panics and tries to evade, and the entire rest of the *Gruppe* follows suit, for all the good it'll do them -- they're entirely too slow and ungainly to get a firing pass on a Typhoon that doesn't feel like letting them.
The bomber crews, on the other hand, have turret gunners who could get a "lucky" surprise hit in when they open fire.
At this point, the shit hits the fan.
WW2 anti-fighter turret guns aren't terribly accurate, and panicked shots are even less so, so while I'm willing to grant them a lucky hit on the first Typhoon, their wingman is likely going to recover from the surprise at the very least quickly enough to report they've just been fired upon.
"Active hostiles already within British airspace" is a worst-case scenario and the RAF reacts accordingly. Those things look like WW2 bombers, they fly in formation like WW2 bombers, and they just fired on British aircraft like WW2 bombers. We've tried communicating, it hasn't worked, time to shoot second and interrogate the survivors later.
You'll have to ask an actual military historian about just how much air defense - both on-land and on-sea - the British army had on standby pre-9/11, but even a modest amount by 2001 standards would be sufficient to turn at least the bombers - big, hot, noisy and very distinct targets - into shrapnel.
Their fighter cover isn't going to be of any use; every single thing that's in a position to shoot at them is capable of doing so from so far beyond a WW2 fighter's visual range that the first indicator of return fire would be when one of the bombers suddenly explodes.
**EDIT** A comment on another answer points out that at supersonic speeds the Typhoon doesn't *need* to ram; just the pressure wash from a close flyby will knock most WW2 planes out of the air with no hope of recovery. Of course, a WW2 bomber with a full and live payload of bombs crashing on land is a problem all of its own, but in all likelihood *still* better than letting it fly on and drop its payload over London...
**Second edit** Another important detail to note that may sound like trivia but winds up being lethally relevant: WW2-era anti-air fire, especially at night, involved lobbing big explosive shrapnel shells into the air and basically hope they'd explode close enough to a bomber to do any good.
The bombers didn't really have any kind of way to evade and needed to stay on their attack runs anyway so they were trained to just fly in a perfectly straight line and bet their lives on the fact that any single shot had extremely low odds of connecting; the anti-air defense bet the civilians' lives on throwing up enough flak that even 'extremely low odds' statistically became a good chance.
*Modern* anti-air defenses have radar and predictive tracking that have a good chance of picking off anti-ship missiles coming in for a kill. Their targets are big fat obvious blobs of heat and metal moving almost ridiculously slowly in a straight line. It's going to be almost *impossible* for them to miss.
[Answer]
**The Eurofighters can shoot down the bombers**
A WWII bomber is not that different to a propeller-driven transport aircraft of today in terms of signature. Modern fighters can shoot down [C130 Hercules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-130_Hercules), [Pilatus Porter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-6_Porter) and similar modern or slightly outdated transports, so WWII Luftwaffe aircraft would be sitting ducks.
If modern fighter aircraft and their munitions were so optimised for a small set of aircraft types that they could not shoot down anything outside those parameters, they would be easily spoofed by an enemy using slightly modified aircraft.
The story would have been more plausible back when infra-red heat seeking missiles were first introduced, as the sensors in those missiles were so primitive that they could only lock onto the *rear* aspect of a jet aircraft and would truly have been ineffective against a propeller-driven aircraft. However, as technology has become more advanced the sensors and associated software have become more sensitive and they are much better at shooting down low-signature targets that are trying to minimise their emissions.
[Answer]
**They can.**
Steel and aluminium construction shows up quite well on modern radar and thousand horsepower V-12 or radial engines produce plenty of heat for heat seeking missiles to lock onto.
Plus, fighter jets capable of Mach 2 can easily match speed with the 200+ mph cruising speed of a WW2 bomber. This is demonstrated every Battle of Britain Day and similar events, as the last flying Avro Lancaster is accompanied by the RAF's latest and shiniest flying in fairly close formation with it.
**Plot twist : It's the **First World War bombers** they have trouble with.**
Wood and fabric has very little radar cross section, leaving only a small radial engine and perhaps a couple of machine guns to get a lock on. And with a puny 100 horsepower, there's not much heat in the exhaust for the heat seeking missiles.
But that's not the real deal...
And this has, in essence, actually happened in real life.
While the Russian [Polikarpov PO-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_Po-2) was not a real WW1 aircraft, having first flown in 1927, it was very much in the same tradition, designed to replace the 1914 Avro-504 as a basic trainer, and with a 99hp (74kW) engine. And yet,
>
> The Po-2 is also the only biplane credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 161 km/h (100 mph) – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.
>
>
>
The real secret is speed ... too little of it!
This DOES also apply to ONE active service WW2 aircraft ... the [Fairey Swordfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish), a biplane torpedo bomber hopelessly obsolete even in 1940, and capable of 140mph, but happier much slower. Especially since their opponents couldn't dial their fire predictor systems down slow enough to engage them...
Nothing today is calibrated to fly as slowly as a WW1-era or WW1 style biplane.
Except of course, helicopters.
Yes the RAF does have helicopters, but they are mainly transport, or training, and unarmed, with the exception of 2 squadrons of Pumas. These are lightly armed (2 machine guns each, like the Sopwith Camel) but are based at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire, well off station.
So the attack can only proceed as planned until conventional defences have failed, and the RAF can get though enough bureaucracy and convince SOMEBODY in the Army to scramble any of their helicopters...
**but most likely**
The invaders would notice something very wrong. As in [The Doppelganger Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgww150870) which you might enjoy - it has slipped through a bit of a wormhole itself ... but the [Armstrong Whitworth Argosy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Whitworth_Argosy) crew noticed pretty quickly that Croydon Aerodrome wasn't there any more, but luckily someone had built another one near Hounslow!
[Answer]
**There is a powerful electromagnetic pulse effect emanating from the recent temporal event.**
This has knocked out more sensitive electronics, outside of the emp shielding of the Typhoon. Hardened radios survived, hence the recent call, but the more sensitive equipment on the typhoon, missile included, was wiped out. This also explains why they don't just call the German government to call them off- their equipment was fried for much more than shielded hand held radio range transmissions. While a chain of radio transmissions would be set up, it would take time.
Presumably this also knocks out the on board cannon or they would just shoot them down.
**Ramming wouldn't be their first choice. It would be suicide.**
Jet planes fly much too fast to safely ram another plane, and the pilots wouldn't have a lot of experience safely slowing down to ram the planes. They would be willing to do it to prevent another 9/11 style event, and a full speed collision would likely take out several, but it would be a last resort.
**They have several options to attack them.**
They could do high speed fly by's. [Wake turbulence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence#Incidents_involving_wake_turbulence) can destabilize planes and repeated fly by's could knock them off course.
They could drop the missiles. While the missiles may or may not explode if they rammed into a plane, at high speed they are still heavy metal objects. This would be very dependent on a very skilled pilot.
They could fly near the germans and release their chaff, flares, and other countermeasures against missiles in the hopes of knocking them off course.
They could also slow down, and try to radio to ground people to open fire with whatever guns and missiles they had, relaying their location by radio.
If that doesn't work, yes they could ram them. They could slow down to ram them, but doing so would risk being shot down as they would have to get close at a slow speed. They would likely ram them at full speed to guarantee a kill. It would kill the pilot, but it would take out several planes.
[Answer]
## Count the Bombers. Count the AAMs. Count the shells.
The RAF has two fighters each on [QRA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Reaction_Alert) duty, with eight missiles and presumably 150 rounds for their guns. Say they waste their shells on warning shots and the absolute best case would be shooting down 32 enemy aircraft. More likely they will expend more than one missile per target.
A German bomber *Gruppe* would be around 48 aircraft. (I'm not deep enough into military history to tell how strong Blitz-era bomber groups were.)
[Answer]
The German bomber crews were "unaware" that they travelled through some sort of anomaly to make the time jump. That implies the anomaly was not visible or otherwise easy to detect, else the pilots would have attempted to avoid it (or at a minimum would have been *aware* that they just flew through something strange).
Why can't your modern aircraft shoot down the bombers? While they were en route to intercept the bombers, they unknowingly flew into the other side of the same anomaly. The interceptors suddenly find themselves in 1940, flying head-first into the *rest* of the incoming German planes. The modern fighters will likely notice the difference a lot faster than the German bomber pilots would, but they'd be equally confused. They're more equipped to fight their way out of the immediate situation, but their long-term survival would similarly be in question (in a time of war, who's going to trust an unrecognized aircraft that you can't communicate with and allow it to land?).
[Answer]
Mon has answered with how the Germans would react, but no matter if the Germans press on or turn back they'll run into territory that isn't owned by Germany. Regardless of what the Germans decide to do, someone is going to react. How would they react?
First the radar will pick them up. Many of these fighters will look more like civilian planes than military combat planes to these radars. Modern AA equipment determines the difference between military or civilian targets and warns the user if they target a civilian craft since shooting down civilians (who might include your own) is such a hassle to deal with and a waste of ammunition you want to use for actual threats. The bombers could be identified as anything, but since they appear with dozens of "civilian" craft no ground AA unit would fire at it until a lengthy conversation is had on what they are, if they should shoot and what they should shoot. So a more close look by interceptors in the air is warranted. Due to the airspeed some modern Helicopters might actually also be able to keep up and intercept these aircraft despite a lack of training for these scenario's.
Russia is still occasionally sending old long-range bombers across the sea's towards Europe for reasons I don't know and can only speculate on. These are intercepted and brought back to their airspace, with the option to shoot them down if they fail to respond. Such interceptions also happen several times a year with civilian aircraft for various reasons. The Russian aircraft when intercepted are guided through various airspaces back to Russian territory, the escort changing as with the territory they pass through. This makes it likely that when London thinks they might be bombed they will request nearby countries to help intercept them, the ludicrous speed of modern jets allowing them to get there in short time (not sure if they would be fast enough though).
And now for the last bit: History.
Aircraft that disappear are easy to change into legends. A large portion or even an entire German air attack disappearing without a trace? Not only does this have massive consequences for the overall war (especially with how compromised German communication and spy networks were and the propaganda material it gives the allies), it also remains embedded in the history and minds of people. When a sudden German airforce shows up they'll likely be able to talk to them in some capacity and hope they can clear enough airfields for the Germans to land on, assuming they can talk the Germans out of bombing London anyway.
However if we assume that the Germans will press on their attack and refuse to talk to the air controllers and you still need a way for these aircraft not to be shot down quickly by a coalition of modern interceptor aircraft, your best bet is the space-time hole that brought them there in the first place. Technobabble it with things like ripples of space-time that throw off modern computers that make locking on tough.
This instantly causes a huge problem for the modern military. Without locking missiles they don't have the capacity to engage the aircraft with their modern interceptors. They are just too fast to get a decent shot at the aircraft and are more likely to ram the Germans as they try to aim for them than they are to hit them with their canons. The best bet I see is to arm things like the Trainer turboprops and use those for combat, as well as arm several of the helicopters and use those in the engagement. They'll not have the time to do this before the Germans bomb London though.
[Answer]
1. They would have no transponders so would only be detected on Primary Radar, this on its own would send alarm bells ringing.
2. If they were equipped with FuG 1 or 2 radios, these operated on what is now the Medium Waveband and they used AM (amplitude modulation). The cacophony they would hear from that height (which might include some German stations) would at best be confusing, the power of modern broadcast transmitters might jam their radios even for use between themselves.
3. They would not have modern Airband so two-way communications with them would be impossible.
4. They would have lost Radio Navigation
5. Sharing airspace with so many modern jets, they would have to toe the line or be shot down
6. If they were persuaded to land, where would they land? and what would we do with the crew?
7. To any European from the 1940s, London would appear like New York or Chicago.
Those aircraft would be a serious threat and the outcome would be very hard to determine.
[Answer]
Interpreting the question as posed to be a request for a plausible reason, not a full tactical analysis.
A modern fighter could conceivably have problems shooting down a WW-2 bomber because (a) its air-to-air missiles have infrared (IR) homing but the German planes don't have high-temperature jet exhaust and (b) there is too much of a disparity in their airspeed making targeting them with cannon- which are typically limited to a few dozen rounds- extremely difficult.
As justification, note the trouble to which designers of stealth aircraft go to baffle the exhaust, and note the extremely poor kill rate that the rocket-powered Me163 had against propeller-driven bombers.
[Answer]
The time travel isn't just a "one and done" phenomena. Something keeps kicking the bombers and fighters back and forth between the two times. The German pilots are just as confused as anyone, maybe more, when their view keeps changing every few minutes.
Just as the modern fighters catch up to the Germans, the whole Flight disappears. The fighters start searching for them and the bombers and their escorts show up another 0.75 km from where they were. The Germans think they are flying a linear path through time and space, but to the fighters, they appear to hop through the path.
The Germans may also appear in random spots in their flight path in modern times. The first time they are seen, it might be right over the coast, then the next time they are just off the coast headed inland, then a few km outside of London, then closer to the coast again. This causes confusion with radio contact, since the Germans will wonder why the Air Traffic Controller knows them by name and designation the first time they speak, then seems to forget ever talking to them later on.
One of the German fighters reacts and fires some shots at a modern fighter that "just suddenly appears" in front of them, and gets shot down in return. The modern fighters end up shooting down some of the other aircraft, but are hesitant to do so, because of the odd nature of the situation. Also, the WWII aircraft have a tendency to disappear as the modern fighters start firing. The fighters get missile lock and fire, only for there to be nothing to intercept.
And the old planes themselves are hard to just plain shoot, because they are so slow. By the time a modern fighter gets one in their sights, it's fallen behind because the fighter didn't have enough time to slow down from intercept speed to actually fire. Not to mention that the German pilots are well versed in dogfights, so they know how to move their planes in ways a high speed fighter just can't follow. Remember, some of these older planes are known for their ability to do aerobatics. A modern fighter can do some amazing flying, but usually near Mach speeds, and a modern "dogfight" has little in common with a WWII dogfight.
Most Germans eventually peel off and head back to base, once they are back in their own time, since they are completely confused by what's going on, so different appearances in modern times show different numbers of aircraft than earlier reports, further confusing the situation.
Also, back in their own time, the Germans happen across a group of Allied fighters and anti-aircraft fire, ending up with damage that changes their appearance between modern sightings, as well as the formation changing considerably.
As the Germans get closer to London, they realize they can't drop the bombs, but also can't turn back, since they feel the need to continue working with the modern people to figure out what's going on for themselves.
There may even be a "lead" plane that can't get out of the time loop, no matter what they do, but that might be too much of a TV trope. It may also make the plot too complicated.
At the end of the story, it's up to you whether the Germans get back to base in their own time or get shot down in Modern or Original Era London. And it's up to you whether you continue the story through the pilots and crew trying to explain it to their superiors when they arrive. You can also end with the English side trying to locate the "ghost Flight" in the history books.
Good luck. Sounds like a good story. I've already seen the movie in my head. I didn't recognize any of the actors, but the CGI was spot on. :-)
[Answer]
2 days earlier a representative of the agency which keeps watch for strangely disappeared military units (this isn't the first time) briefed the QRA pilots.
Their radio team has its dipole up and a short wave operator - and a rather quicker encryption system than the original on hand - ready to issue suitable orders.
How did we know they were likely to appear two days after we briefed you? {taps nose annoyingly} phases of the moon old chap, phases of the moon. Or energy fluxes in the continuum or whatever - you thought the Prospero satellite was just for show didn't you.
[Answer]
For actual targeting problems, EMP in the time travel event is probably the best bet. And as other replies mentioned, the ammunition limitations meaning they're not likely to get all the bombers.
But, if they have the presence of mind to believe it is the Luftwaffe out of time soon enough to react, the British Government would be on the phone to the German Government immediately, and both would be scrambling to get on the right radio frequency and format to the bomber formation to tell them that they had time travelled and the countries were now at peace and allied. They could lie and tell them the Nazis won if necessary to get them to stand down, and only break the news once they land.
A couple supersonic flybys close to their formation would help make the point with sonic booms and a scary demonstration of performance differential without shots being fired. In addition to everything else they would see being clearly different, they might well be dissuaded. A bunch of news helicopters approaching the formation might be another clear sign that they were no longer in 1940, and a possible source of difficulty for the intercepting fighters unless and until the bombers start shooting at them and they flee.
[Answer]
>
> What would stop the intercepting aircraft from getting a missile lock
> on the aircraft
>
>
>
**They never got the chance to get a missile lock because they didn't have time.**
The bombers came through the time warp not over the English Channel, but over a large patch of undeveloped farm land only a few miles south of London. There was no time to get any fighters in the air to intercept them. Even today there is a lot of fields and farmland just south of London.
With respect to radio communications we have two possible answers.
1. The time warp stays open for several minutes, so radio communications to Germany travel through the time warp and remain intact during that time.
2. When the German pilots lost communications with their command structure, they didn't jump to the conclusion that they went through a time warp (that would be implausible). Rather they assumed that the English were somehow jamming the radios as a countermeasure.
If you want to handle the problem of there being too many lights in London to make sense, then just say that the time warp caused an electromagnetic disturbance that caused a power outage in the surrounding area. The EMP disturbance happened on the future end as the rift was opening, so it didn't affect anything in the past, and was gone before the planes went through.
[Answer]
As all of the other answers have said, you don't really have a good scenario where the Nazis can't be shot down essentially instantly.
Give the Brits a bit of knowledge about what's happening, though. Turns out they know that time travel changes the composition of those bombers and their contents, and having the bombers themselves explode with a full load is essentially setting off a modern hydrogen bomb - wave goodbye to London. BUT - the bombs they're carrying can be dropped individually and will do every bit as much damage as they would have done in 1941, but when dropped as regular bombs don't have the critical mass to do anything extra.
[Answer]
The scenario of German bombers able to get to London is nearly as unlikely to a German Cessna getting to Moscow during the Cold War - [which actually happened in 1987](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust).
The key is not that the RAF is unable to shot down WWII era bombers, the key is that nobody in the UK is going to see that group of planes slowly moving across the Channel as a threat. The event of some planes arriving in the UK without having notified a flight plan, not having a transponder and not answering to air traffic control is an issue that, if noticed, needs to be addressed by aviation authorities, but it's unlikely to be dealt by shooting down the involved planes. If the normal procedure was releasing the AA missiles at first sight, we would learn in the news about several planes shoot down every year for failing to identify themselves.
**Clarification after comment:**
How is Britain actually protected against German bombers *nowadays*? The same answer applies to the remaining countries of Western Europe.
It is protected on two ways:
* Allying with Germany. Even if an squadron of German Eurofighters unexpectedly crosses the Channel, the UK would treat it as an aviation concern, but the least concert is that it could be the Luftwaffe attacking London.
* German police controlling the fabrication of explosives, making it virtually impossible that anybody else than a state could get a load of aircraft bombs in Europe.
Therefore, even in the sight of an squadron of old planes, the RAF wouldn't assume that they are going to bomb anything.
Of course, since 2001 terrorism is a concern whenever a rogue plane is found, and those planes might be suspected of intending to crash into London.
Therefore, I stand that an squadron of WWII bombers wouldn't be shoot down at first sight, because all we know that Germany and the UK aren't going to bomb each other with WWII planes. In fact, that's the same reason for vampires in London not to be shot with silver bullets: London police knows that vampires don't exist. Being something assumed to be impossible is a great way to overcome defences.
Of course, once the planes start dropping bombs things would change and they would be dealt with the available tools to the 21st century RAF.
] |
[Question]
[
A pair of fearless killers, thousands of years old, guard a path to what is believed to be heaven. Of course, all towns in the area have different ritual and traditions where either their criminals or best warriors, equipped with the best armors and swords, go to die trying to fight the guards.
Assuming the guards cannot be killed and kill people every day, how could they dispose of the many corpses? The best answer would require the least movement from the guards.
I thought about having the towns come and gather the corpses and feed the guards in fear of them or place the guards on a bridge where they would simply have to push the corpses down. However over thousands of years even that would become problematic.
[Answer]
**Fantasy solution:**
The bridge to Heavens is above the pit to Hell. Anyone pushed over just vanish into its bottomless abyss. Just rule out accumulation.
**Biological solution:**
Scavengers. Some scavenger nest near the duel area and clean the corpses once sun has set. They learned to be afraid of the guardians after centuries of getting their butts whooped, but are extremely hungry for freshly slain humans. They even eat bones and are numerous enough to only leave smears on the floor. Fallen heroes are quickly retrieved by the terrified villagers to be buried properly.
One advantage to this solution is that the scavenger population should regulate itself to adapt to the income of new ~~sacrifices~~ contestants.
[Answer]
>
> how could they dispose of the many corpses?
>
>
>
# Don't.
A giant pile of rotting corpses floating on their own goo may be a nice deterrent against stupid adventurers trying their luck. If the sight doesn't scare them away, the smell will. They will get sick. Any adventurer who escapes will die from infection far away from the site and scare others even more.
And since the guardians are immortal, they won't be affected much. The smell might be bad but millenia of exposure may do for some resistance.
[Answer]
Let's do the math.
Option 1: Yeet the corpses off a cliff into a simple pile.
* Average human volume is 0.066m^3. Let's assume they're big people, at 0.1 cubic metres.
* Let's also assume no reduction in volume over time through mummification or decomposition: the pit's frozen, perhaps.
* Bingham mine is a pit about 940m deep and 4km across, and the highest cliff in the world is 1340m high. So we know that a 1km cliff is feasible.
* Assume that the cliff has no karst already at the bottom, and none of it wears down over the millennia. Which is a cheat, but meh.
* To stack up against a cliff, you need a half-cone with whatever [angle of repose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_repose) your material has.
* I'm gonna just go ahead and assume 45 degrees AoR for these frozen bodies. Most stuff is lower, I know nothing that's steeper, and steeper means fewer bodies, so 45 is likely our worst case.
* Volume of a cone is 4 pi r^2 height/3.
* At 45 degrees, height = radius.
* So 4/3 pi cubic km: roughly 4,188,790,200 cubic metres.
* You need 40 billion people to make this pile.
* There are about 7.7 billion people in the world.
* About 110 billion people have *ever* lived.
Assuming that everyone who ever died was slain by these guards, we would have had to be throwing everyone from the last thousand years at them in order for the pile to have stacked up against the cliff and cause a problem.
So basically, if it's just a few nearby towns, which are having their populations artificially lowered by sending people here to die, then there's no earthly way that they'll ever pile up high enough to be a concern for the guards.
And if you take away the constraints against decomposition and desiccation, the numbers become many times more crazy.
---
Option 2: the guards can just trample them down as they patrol up and down the path to the gate. This will build up a berm with a walkway on top, and with frozen bodies piled up a little (less than one person-height) either side, of the people who had fallen to the wayside.
Bodies falling in the road would become trampled, raising the roadway with their 0.1m^3 of volume.
The berm would slowly rise from the plain, with sides angled at about 45 degrees, from bodies sliding down from the piles at the roadside. Cross section would be like:
```
/~\___/~\
/#########\
/###########\
/#############\
```
I think the number of bodies needed to build up a section of patrolway would be:
(roadway width + 2 \* roadside pile width + height) \* height \* length \* bodiesPerCubicMetre.
So for a 1km long roadway, 10m wide, with 2m piles either side, piled up 100m, that'd be 114M bodies. Not counting the bodies needed for the ramp at beginning and end.
Pile it up to 1km and it's 10Bn, though there'd be definite stability problems before that point, if only because the path width is now greater than the length. Plus, the gate to heaven would probably be buried in bodies by this point.
---
Option 3: Woodchipper.
So we move it from the frozen tundra to somewhere a little warmer, and make the guards just insanely violent. Or give them access to a wood-chipper, same difference.
There's just not enough of their victims left at the end of the fight to bother with, especially when what's left of them has been marched upon in metal-soled boots a few times.
They are a wet paste which seeps down into the earth, oozes away into the water table, washes away in rain. Yes, eventually all the bonemeal will raise the ground level a little, but not as significantly as the guards' marching wears away the ground, and the angle of repose for rained-on corpse-slime is unlikely to be much more than about a degree, so there won't be a steep hill anywhere.
Crows and rats will likely sup happily on the ooze, but will also shit it out, so won't affect volume much.
Streams might carry some away, but that's just natural erosion and applies to any land over thousands of years.
The bigger problem will be that corpse-ooze will start eventually seeping through the gateway to heaven. If Heaven doesn't want to start stinking on a hot day, there better be a very long stairway to heaven inside the gate.
---
2023 edit: I recently argued for a lower-bound angle of repose for bodies around 25°, and in the [game-simulations I tried for that question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/248622/whats-the-angle-of-repose-for-dead-zombie-bodies), that lower bound seems about reasonable.
This would change some of the values above.
For example, option 1:
* Volume of a cone is 4 pi r^2 height/3.
* At 25 degrees, radius = 2.144.5... times height.
* So roughly 19,263,744,500 cubic metres.
* So 292 billion people.
* There are about 8.1 billion people alive.
* About 110 billion people have *ever* lived.
But we're really only aiming for worst case in this question, so we can ignore the lower bound, and stick with the (slightly ridiculous, but perhaps plausible for frozen bodies) upper limit of 45 degrees.
[Answer]
The path to heaven is at the top of a mountain, at the end of a long treacherous trail that leads over several smaller mountains. The region is isolated (though not terribly far from settlements), mostly above the treeline, and filled with endless ravines.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iM3Ka.jpg)
[Coiling Dragon Cliff Walkway](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/china-holidays-things-to-do-guide-glass-bridge-cliff-wing-bubble-tram-coiling-dragon-walkway-a7320986.html) on Hunan’s Tianmen Mountain, China
Places like this exist in the real world. The mountains are steep enough that it's easy to toss bodies off without having them land close enough to make a mess or a smell. And tall enough that millennia of body tossing will never bring the piles high enough to see from the top.
Because the guardians are hard to reach, not many will try. Even a million years of dead bodies won't fill up the valleys. They will mostly decompose and compress anyway, with some animal scavenging, so they won't take up as much space as they would if the bodies were all fresh.
The guardians won't have to do much to dispose of the bodies. Just a push and a roll and off they go. Once in a while, they might have to use a long pole to remove bits stuck to the side of the mountain, but the cliff sides are fairly smooth there and it's only rarely a problem.
[Answer]
**The corpses stay.**
After a short time on the ground the corpse of the defeated gets back up and walks a short distance to a dusty field. It then sits crosslegged and watches. It will watch until the end of time.
If a given corpse is damaged such that after defeat it cannot make this walk, others from the field will rise and help it to its place.
Many are seated in this field. They failed to gain entrance to heaven, and so they stay where they failed.
[Answer]
There is no issue really.
The religious authority arranging the event equips the people and escorts them to the site. With criminals armed guards are used. With volunteers priests and musicians.
The guards are then challenged by the victim. The victim is killed and his escort gathers up the corpse and the expensive equipment and carries it back.
I mean why would they leave expensive equipment there when they can just recycle it? That stuff is expensive you know. It would never be left there to rust. Even if it gets broken the metal it is made of would be too expensive to lose.
And what kind of religious ritual does not include proper burial rites for the sacrifice? Religious rituals work much better if they include parts that the common people can witness around the sacred parts. One ritual prepare for the challenge, another when they leave the town, third when their body is carried back to town, and one last one when they are buried.
I think the part you missed is that when you made this a ritualized practice, it became a ritualized practice and that includes taking care of sustainability as part of that practice.
[Answer]
The guards may be immortal, but they still need to eat. Or perhaps they don't need to eat, but they like to. The towns may call the people they send "heroes", but the guards call them "dinner". Most of the problem of corpse disposal is what to do with the rotting flesh - and the answer is "**eat it before it rots**".
So the problem then isn't what to do with the corpses as such - the problem is what to do with the bones after the guards have eaten. Ground bone has a mineral content not dissimilar to limestone so would make a good mortar (mixed with the blood of recent victims), and the larger bones can become building material.
Over time, the guards build themselves an [ossuary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedlec_Ossuary) tower from the bones of the fallen. Perhaps the guards still feel a duty to memorialise the valiant fallen and ensure contenders do not take the attempt lightly - so the exterior of their tower might be
[lined with the skulls of victims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower), filled with bone mortar and small bone gravel so that they are structurally sound for building.
[Answer]
Pay to play. Any challenger will have to clear the killing field first. This may be bound into a ritual, it may be tradition, or just something the guards spring on the champions as they walk in.
[Answer]
Make the ritual be more like a formalized duel:
* **Most fights won't be to the death**. It's an honor to hold a fight against the guardians. Only a small percentage will want to fight to death. Most will yield after first wound.
* Have the duelist be assisted by a second whose job is to testify of the actions, the outcome and if the outcome was death, take care of the corpse.
* Have the town that is nearest to the bridge enforce the rules. Anyone crazy enough to not follow them will be killed before reaching the bridge.
*EDIT*:
OK. Given the comment that fights indeed will be to death, it makes not much sense to send your best warriors but I still thing the duel "second" can make sense if it's some kind of ritual.
I would also add that the nearby towns would be quite disgusted by the increasing rotting pile of corpses and the increased scavenger activities and may want to voluntarily dispose of the corpses themselves. If indeed the warriors usually are equipped with the best armor and weapons they can afford, recovering these artifacts can be a way to offset the cost of cremating the corpses.
I also can imagine the town sprouting an industry around the "bridge to heaven", with people who will insure your body will arrive intact to your kin -for a fee-, used equipment sellers "It's been only used once! Almost without scratches!", and lots of unsavory guys of the same type...
[Answer]
The fight is very close to (or above) a large river. The corpses are tossed in and dragged away by the current. There the local fish and wildlife living on the Banks can deal with it the carrion way.
Other options would likely need more special circumstances. Carrion eaters and scavengers are likely seasonal, and would not fulfill their body quota during certain times.
Speaking of seasons. Another option could be above the eternal snow line. Mount everest for example has dead bodies on it of people that froze to death, and the bodies are too hard to remove and will remain there. The cold is do harsh they dont decay and many of the bodies are literally used as markers now. Use this for a more grisly tale: the killers stack the bodies as walls. Anyone who tries to defeat them has to walk through a wall of frozen bodies. Should you try to reach the killers while one is dragging a body (maybe he has a small cart?), you'll have to pass them somewhere inbetween those walls and fight them anyway.
[Answer]
# Hey Bob pass me that leg.
These guardians might not be inactive when no one is around. After the poor sap(s) have been dispatched the guardians go around eating every part of the sap(s).
Alternative:
# Intention matters
Only those with the intention of going up the path to what is believed to be heaven is attacked. If you are there to pick up the body of your fallen friend the guardians would not even be aware of your presence. Same would be true for farming / building / ...
You could have the gate/path in a massive city. As long as people don't care about crossing the gate / threshold they are fine to go about what ever they want.
If not in a city: cannibals / scavengers would live in the area to feed off of this and bye bye bodies.
[Answer]
Nature has a way of turning challenges into opportunities. If your warriors provide a festering pile of corpses, nature will provide massive swarms of carrion beetles. The nice thing about using life to clean up death is that the cleaning force will scale to the available food supply. Whenever bravery/foolishness runs rampant, the food supply and resulting swarm grow. When cowardice/wisdom rises, most of the beetles starve away, leaving a few stragglers behind to wait for the next feast.
[Answer]
**Manipulate biological processes.**
Since the guards clearly have the ability to slow the speed of biological processes (that's why they don't age), they they can utilize the reverse ability and speed up biological processes for the corpses. If you make a corpse age a thousand years overnight there isn't going to be much left of it. (Yes there have been corpses with identifiable parts after hundreds of years, but that's usually in closed containers).
[Answer]
If I was in charge of the kiler guards, I would equip them with some type of body disposing weaponry. If you are killed by their weapons, you dissolve into a fog which drifts away along the path.
Or, as cool as these super-killers obviously are, perhaps they do not even need magic weaponry, perhaps their unique killing skills are so out-of-this world that you don't just get killed by them, it's not a simple "heart stops beating, soul leaves body"-thing, it's a complete disintegration of the entire being. "I saw the sword hit the bearded man, there was a sound - like a scream abruptly stopped - and then the man was simply gone! You could still see his footsteps on the path, but other than that it was as if he had never existed..."
[Answer]
If the guardians are fighting on a bridge above a river they could simply roll the bodies off the bridge and into the river to have the current take the bodies away.
[Answer]
**All you need is gravity.**
Make the path narrow and at least one side of it very steep and free of obstacles. Gravity will do most and indeed often *all* of the work.
---
The longer the slope/higher the cliff, the further any decay or mess gets removed from the battleground. What's more, you've a wide variety of ecosystem options to manage the corpse's destination long-term.
That open-air gravesite can even contribute interesting plot elements through that location's ability to: build the legend; nourish unique vegetation or wildlife; harbor its own unique dangers; present unique or insurmountable accessibility challenges; fuel the trade of used equipment; be the prize in local gang wars; etc.
As for the rate and volume of corpses accumulated, I don't see that being a problem unless this location is remarkably small for its supposed importance. I would expect greater logistical problems managing the path's summit or beginning, as it will be host to multiple sizeable delegations daily, which (in order to sustain this rate) must necessarily be often from considerable distance. This will mean: high volumes of human traffic needing amenities both at the destination and en route; conflicting factions bumping into each other (and at least sometimes outside areas considered sacred and strictly peaceful); uncomfortable scheduling conflicts with "event planning" (particularly between different types of hopefuls); etc.
[Answer]
## A Modest Proposal
The guardians not only guard the Way, they receive immortality in return for their vigilance. Specifically, so long as they are on the job, when they kill a challenger, they are able to replenish their youth and strength from the corpses of the fallen, by feasting on their remains (either traditionally, by mouth; or metaphysically, by absorbing them, quickening, body, and all, as they fall). In so doing, the strength of the fallen gets added to their strength, as do the days remaining until they would have died, had they not come to do battle.
This has a number of effects.
First, a death row convict is not as filling a meal as a warrior seeking glory; had they not opted to challenge the guardians, their days would have been numbered. Of course, a warrior seeking glory might have had a short lifespan in other battles as well.
Second, if the surrounding communities were to decide that they simply must get to heaven, they could come to an agreement to stop all challenges for a period of time; by having all challengers instead train in anticipation of a future day when they will make an all-out attack, they will increase their own cumulative strength while starving out the guardians. Perhaps they will succeed at that point or not; but they would certainly stand a better chance than continuing attempts as they always have.
Third, what if there used to be three guardians? Or twenty? Did the remaining two perhaps eat their own comrades who fell either to challengers -- or to their own comrades after giving into weakness and trying to travel the path themselves? What would either option mean for the future of the guardians?
[Answer]
>
> However over thousands of years even that would become problematic.
>
>
>
No it wouldn't if at the bottom of the chasm is a river.
Yeah the fishermen down the line would regularily find corpses in it, and the fish population would develop in a rather unusual direction, but that's it problem solved.
[Answer]
>
> However over thousands of years even that would become problematic.
>
>
>
Not really. If the battlefield/killing grounds are near a relatively modest cliff, say a mere 100 meters high and maybe 300 meters long, the corpses flung or fallen off the edge will decay and be taken care of by scavengers, and the skeletons will disarticulate and take up even less space. It will probably stink if there isn't a breeze blowing by the base of the cliff most of the time, but you're in no danger of running out of space.
For a real-life example, albeit not with humans, [Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-Smashed-In_Buffalo_Jump). The site was in use as a buffalo killing ground for at least 6000 years, and the bone deposit (and buffalo take up a lot more space than humans, both as recent corpse and as skeleton) at the bottom of the cliff is only 12 meters deep.
[Answer]
Maybe the introduction of another critter that carries off the remains at eats them. It certainly would be a deterrent as you watch your former fallen comrades being devoured, and you still have a few miles to walk before you get to the guards. The critters of course, just watch you go by because why bother with the effort of killing, when you will be dead soon enough, and more to the point, they are already very very well fed. So of course, the landscape is now littered with piles of bones and maybe the young of the carrion eaters fight over scraps for play.
[Answer]
How about nearby pig farmers?
Pigs will eat ANYTHING. Pig farmers swing by and pick up the corpses every couple of days and drag them off.
They then sell the Bacon as sanctified and holy, since the pigs assist the guardians of the path to heaven. Talk about Ecclesiastical racks of Ribs and blessed pork shoulder.
They could also sponsor Holy boar hunts, with greased pig events as a way to keep the kiddies occupied.
] |
[Question]
[
A human space civilization once established a colony on a planet. Now, several centuries later, the people on this planet are only at a medieval level of technology. Whether by accident or on purpose, I have yet to consider. The former beliefs, form of government, and borders of the space civilization may have changed in the meantime.
About once a year a ship of the space civilization lands on the planet unnoticed. They disguise themselves as local traders and trade with the inhabitants for a good price. The traders pay more than one would normally get. As a result, they are considered friendly and generous and are welcomed. They do this for at least a few decades, maybe longer.
The traders do not help the locals to advance technologically themselves. They do not completely hide the fact that they are technologically superior, but they do not teach the locals any technological advances. For example, they might trade slightly superior non-electronic tools, but would never use or trade electronics or projectile weapons.
The story takes place from the point of view of the medieval civilization. There, the traders always travel to the same city. It is possible that there are similar cities further away that are also visited by traders.
My question is now, why would they trade at all? What would be their long-term goal?
If you can mine or breed the resource, why not industrialize the mining or breeding? You could give the locals (your own species in the end) better knowledge and tools or use your own workers. The same goes for the manufacturing of goods, which could be industrialized. Living beings can additionally be bred on other planets. Knowledge can also be copied and used elsewhere.
**My ideas so far:**
* This passage could work well as a later plot twist. I guess usually the first thought would be the resource is valuable and therefore traded. The traders might have a hidden agenda that is discovered only much later in the story.
* It's not about the goods they bought, but the ones they sold that they leave behind.
* Political reasons between two space powers (trade agreements, espionage, conservation).
* The bought/sold goods are illegal or the deposit must be kept secret.
* They are not concerned with trade, but with low-key interaction with the local population for some reason.
* By extracting or producing the resource, another side process takes place. The actual goal is to promote that process. But then why not industrialize the process directly?
Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time finding concrete examples for the different approaches right now, or further reasons for the behavior of the traders.
[Answer]
## Anthropology.
There would be intense scientific interest in watching a medieval society evolve. Human knowledge and understanding of such societies being limited to the lens of history and various archeological discoveries etc. But just as is the case with the few remaining archaic cultures on Earth history has also shown that contact and interaction between advanced and primitive cultures can have devastating consequences for the latter. So while there is great interest in studying the peoples of the planet there is also a lot of public pressure on the teams not to screw things up. Your advanced culture does NOT want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
On top of that there is a purely selfish motive i.e. the near certainly that introducing themselves as they really are to the local cultures would ruin their one and possibly only chance to observe a 'pristine' medieval culture developing.
So they devise a plan. They use these once a year low key 'trading missions' to interact and observe. And it doesn't hurt that the hand made goods the 'traders' receive in exchange for their own goods would be worth a lot of money to Universities for study purposes and to collectors.
For that matter the covert recordings they make during their trips would not only be of major scientific interest but once edited their sale to media outlets for public consumption would probably pay the cost of mounting the expedition in the first place! That being so your 'merchants' are all trained anthropologists, linguists, historians and 'minders' appointed by the Government to make sure none of the 'rules' are broken.
Finally as someone else suggested the yearly visits also allow the teams to recover data from hidden recording devices located at major sites of interest. All of which have been busily compiling data since the last teams visited.
[Answer]
**Comparative advantage would be *stretched* to the breaking point ...**
The concept of [comparative advantage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage) explains why trade makes sense *even if the more advanced civilizazion is better at everything.*
* Say the advanced civilization spends 1 person-hour to produce a leather belt, and 2 person-hours for a cup of porcelain.
* The primitive civilization, being less efficient, spends 10 person-hours for a leather belt, and 100 person-hours for a cup of porcelain (getting the temperatures and glazes right is quite difficult for them).
So if a leader of the primitive culture insists on fine pottery on the table, he or she could go to a local merchant and pay the value of 10 leather belts, or to the alien trader and pay the value of 2 leather belts. And if a consumer in the advanced society wants a leather belt, he or she could go to a local merchant and pay the value of 0.5 cups of porcelain, or to the alien trader and pay the value of 0.1 cups of porcelain.
Both sides benefit when each do what they do **better**. For leather belts, the ratio is 1-10. For fine pottery, it is 1-50. Both sides benefit if the primitives do all the leather belts, and the advanced people to all the fine pottery.
---
Now get the traders in there. Imagine a market on the primitive world where a leather belt trades for 1 *copper coin* and a fancy cup trades for 10 *copper coins*. And a market on the advanced world, where a leather belt trades for 1 *digital credit unit* while a porcelain cup is 2 *digital credit units.*
The traders borrow 100 *digital credit units* on the advanced world. They buy 50 cups and travel to the primitive world. There they sell them for 500 copper coins and buy 500 belts. (The ratio between leather and porcelain on the primitive world is 1-10. 50 cups buy 500 belts.) Now they travel home and sell those belts for 500 *digital credit units.* 100 of those go to repay the principal of the loan. 400 *digital credit units* are left for interest, transportation, wages, and profits.
The traders might also ask for less than 10 *copper coins* for each cup, and offer to pay more than 1 *copper coin* for each belt, to assure that they can fill their cargo holds without waiting. The reverse on the advanced world. Repeat a few times, and potters on the primitive world become tanners and leatherworkers, tanners and leatherworkers on the advanced world become potters. A mutually profitable trade develops.
---
Note that this does **not** require that the primitives are *better than the advanced workers* at any one thing. It only requires that the ratios in which they are worse differs from one sector of the economy to the next, and that **some** of their products remain useful in the advanced economy.
[Answer]
**They're trading for things that are still valued in an advanced society.**
Obvious things are fur, spices, foods, wines, timber, wool, gemstones like amber or opals, pearls, crafted objects such as art, musical instruments or even furniture and pottery.
Sure, most of these could be easily made by robots in factory, but hand crafted items are worth a premium.
Now the traders are swapping cheap mass produced stuff they buy for next to nothing for items they can resell for a premium.
A robot manufactured stainless steel knife would be worth its weight in gold compared to the hand forged knife made from impure steel. Ditto for cookware.
A extremely durable cold weather, water proof jacket is far superior to furs or woolen coats.
Pain killers and other medicines would seem miraculous to a primitive society, or if the traders are assholes, they could sell illegal drugs.
Both parties would feel they're getting the best of the deal and trade happily
Like all traders, their long term goal is to get rich. I would imagine the traders found some backwater civilization and are keeping it a secret in their own society so they can cash in. They sell their stuff quietly and refuse to say where it comes from. Quite possibly, contacting primitive civilizations is illegal so they keep quiet about everything on both sides.
[Answer]
## They are playing the long game
They have a several century long plan to groom this civilization from medieval to interstellar age in order to become a powerful ally to them. The beneficial trading is part of that plan to inconspicuously boost the prosperity of a specific culture which will in turn affect the history of the planet in the way they intend.
How can they pull that off? They are just that good historians. They studied the history of thousands of pre-space worlds and created sophisticated computer simulations to model historic developments with astounding accuracy. So they can predict how the future of a civilization can be shaped through small interventions like that and can use it to shape their future in any way they want.
For example, the aliens predict that in a couple generations a certain trade-good will become very important. Whatever nation can produce it most efficiently will become the dominant superpower in the next couple centuries and their sociopolitical philosophy will shape that of the whole planet. But right now this good seems rather unimportant. So the aliens start to buy that good from their preferred nation now, so they get a head-start in building the know-how and infrastructure for producing that stuff.
Why not just hand those nations anything they are going to need directly? Because then they would become complacent and reliant on the aid of the aliens. In the long term that aid would make them weaker, not stronger.
[Answer]
## Sentimental Value
The more primitive civilization can't produce anything better than the spacefaring one can; that's why they want to trade in the first place. However, people do not always buy things based solely on quality. There are also many soft, sentimental factors that go into things. Here are a few IRL examples that I think would hold true in your universe as well:
* "Organic" produce. Your advanced civilization's hydroponic skyscraper farms produce all the food it needs, at low cost and near-perfect quality. However, some people are under the misconception that the synthetic soils and pesticides used in these factory-farms are harmful. Entrepreneurs encourage this delusion, touting how the primitive culture's produce is produced NaturallyTM; their apples may be wormy and partially rotten, but at least they won't give you cancer and make your kids autistic. The same thing goes for art; it's handmade (and therefore *unique*), not "mass-produced [expurgated]."
* Beautiful art. Your ultra-modern space civilization is just that: ultra-modern. As a result, they've taken IRL modern culture's deadly relativism up to eleven. Their relativism poisons their art, such that most of it is either [derivative](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.easy-oil-painting-techniques.org%2Fimages%2Fsmile-a-mona-lisa-derivative-art-oil-painting-21752141.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b169caac56709b7b743185f1628efb35867591c889edac7dd569549fe911d5b2&ipo=images)[1], [variously](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F3f%2F69%2F83%2F3f69830e8445f9d03cac291a68445c08.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0dbbbe91ddac692781a62d17422d31b9e81ee2ce251d1f96effbca45fe462381&ipo=images) [nihilistic](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.fineartamerica.com%2Fimages-medium-large-5%2Fnihilist-santos-juarez.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=72d695f685add1e949b203a778f615899a0ad29f59c45d1faa01c1483111db65&ipo=images), [repetitive](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpublicdelivery.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2FAndy-Warhol-Marilyn-Monroe-1967.-portfolio-of-screenprints-on-paper-in-10-parts.-each-91.4-x-91.4-cm.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=bbfbd71e2eabf29b2e112def7a4a41433ab3c03d8ec9427b92d0863697fe095f&ipo=images), [absurd](https://www.youtube.com/live/TiCH2WJ_lvY?feature=share&t=8553), or [just plain ugly](https://youtu.be/8bRTFr0ytA8).[2] Your primitive, decidedly not modern culture has yet to go over the [Line of Despair](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0891075615), so it continues to produce beautiful art and music.
* Cultural crafts. Regardless of the quality of their own art, people from the space-civilization value the primitive civilization's jewelry and ornamental doodads. Note that they aren't valuing it because of any especially good craftsmanship, which would fall under #2; rather, they like it because it's unusual and "ethnic".
**TL;DR:** The spacefaring civilization values the primitive civilization's stuff *because* it is primitive.
[1] To clarify: by "derivative" art, I am referring to the sort of mass-produced stuff you see and hear in waiting rooms.
[2] Explaining why relativism and existentialism inevitably cause horrible art would roughly double the length of this answer. I'll explain in the comments if asked; otherwise, suffice it to say that it does.
[Answer]
The easiest answer is that they have a need for something that is found only on that world and that the quantities they need are easily provided for by the manual extraction on the primitive world.
Consider a particular HandWavium Mineral - the locals using Medieval extraction methods are doing 20 KG of Mineral a day, that's about 7 Tonnes a year (ish) - this amount more than covers the amount needed by the Traders and by the local population.
The price is good, the location is relatively convenient and the effort to find the Mineral elsewhere is more time and effort than continuing with the trading arrangement.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Then you can add in some other factors - like it gives historians a living view into primitive societies, pure curiosity on the part of the advanced civilization and a small sense of a duty of care to keep tabs on them.
[Answer]
# Tourism
There seems to be nothing that would be of interest by the space faring civilisation. Any rare resource is so unlikely to be only available on that planet that it's nearly impossible. It looks like there is no real reason to go there.
In the real world we go to many places regardless. We are going there to look at the locals, the customs and culture. How they live. Take some souvenirs. Just being able to say they were there at that backwards speck of a planet.
To perserve this medieval planet, the tourism sector is only allowed to go to this one place. Otherwise it could lead to many negative effects of the tourism, like mass hysteria or rapid development. The souvenirs are traded for better versions, because they either do not care enough to make perfect replicas, or it's done illegally. The tourists get their souvenir to display at home for whatever reason, while the local gets a better tool and thus is willing to trade.
This sidesteps a lot of problems and is very realistic. The tourism sector doesn't have much of a goal, long or short term. Tourism does weird things and often is full with people skirting rules and regulations. Their visit doesn't need to make sense any more, they just want to visit, interact with the locals and then go back to their own lives. It also makes the visitors something different from the locals in many ways.
[Answer]
**Redefining Post Scarcity**
It might also be that while the colony is post scarcity, individuals aren't. They get a fixed amount of income from their duties that they can spend, and they use trading as a means of getting more.
For example, in Star Trek Voyager, the crew can literally replicate anything that they could ever want, but not as much as they might want, due to power rationing. The crew would replicate things and then trade them up on local planets.
They might use their replicator rations to make a bottle of expensive alcohol, and then trade it on a planet for a much larger quantity of cheaper alcohol.
Your colonist might do something similar. They could make complicated machinery in small quantities, but what they might want was something much simpler but much larger that their production allocation didn't stretch to.
**Utilitarian Future**
It might also be that the colony's automated production facilities were locked down to strictly necessary items. They could produce an unlimited amount of practical machinery, but not a purely decorative item. So they trade for them instead.
**Romulan Brandy**
In Star Trek the Next Generation, Enterprise crew members could get near limitless amounts of food and drink from the replicators, but it's commented on several times that what they get isn't real food. It's a nutritionally balanced substitute that's made to look and taste like real food.
It's also commented on several times in DS9.
Synthahol won't give you a hangover, replicated chocolate cake won't make you put on weight, and it never tastes exactly the same as the real thing. Which is why the senior officers always seem to have a bottle of contraband alcohol somewhere in their quarters.
Your colonists might be in a similar situation. They get supplied with healthy food, but they might want moonshine. So they trade for it.
[Answer]
## Goods laundering
On our technologically advanced planet, everything can be tracked. When a customer buys a good on Earth, they can scan it and the scanner will tell them which factory the goods come from. When you buy food, the scanner will tell you which crop or farm the food comes from.
This tracking is done via a combination of several technologies. For instance, all cows on Earth wear microchips to identify them. But the most important technology is being able to recognise the "signature" on an object. When you scan a cereal or vegetable, the scanner gets a lot of information about the way it was grown, including its DNA as well as the chemical composition of the soil where it was grown. All this information is easy to recoup to find the exact origin of this cereal or vegetable. Likewise, when you scan an item that was produced in a factory, you can identify the factory in which it was assembled, as well as the origin of the raw materials. This process is pretty similar to the way the scientific police can identify the gun that shot a bullet, except much more advanced and applicable to everything, not just bullets.
Because of all this tracking, if you have goods of dubious origin, it's hard to sell them or exchange them against legitimate goods. You need to "launder" these goods, first.
Goods of dubious origin may include counterfeit goods, stolen goods, as well as anything produced by a factory that doesn't uphold legal standards, or employs illegal workers, etc. In addition to these illegal goods, there are also "undesirable goods" that are legal but are hard to sell because of all the information provided by the tracking. For instance, if a worker from your factory joins a neonazi association, all your potential customers are going to know about that when they scan your products - this will have a huge impact on the price at which you can sell your products.
That's where the medieval world enters the scene. On the medieval world, there is no tracking at all; so you can exchange your dubious Earth goods against legitimate medieval goods and the medieval people won't complain. Then you can sell the medieval goods on Earth, and all the Earth scanners will say is "this comes from the medieval planet". No trace of an illegitimate Earth production.
[Answer]
**They just pretend that they are trading**
Let's be honest here. Apart from information (and medieval culture produce very little of that - mostly literature, and of dubious quality at that) there is little need for trade between same-tech level societies in different star systems. Any material thing can easily be produced in-system, and trade for raw resources is just ridiculous (a solar system contain far more resources than one can imagine) when you count logistic costs (in time and resources). And if FTL travel is very cheap, then the issue doesn't disappear as that would mean producing stuff is even easier locally (because of higher tech level in general).
So what are those "traders" doing then? Either they are studying development of primitive civilisation, or they are tourists. I would bet it would be quite lucrative to run a business where people can go and experience a medieval culture. Since that is on another planet even more so. Or maybe they are just checking their development progress, to see when they develop enough that more direct interference is not so dangerous for their culture.
[Answer]
## Resupply
The advanced civilization needs to travel through the primitive civilization's territory and it's cheaper to stop for goods they can produce like food than store more of it from home.
[Answer]
**Subjugation by friendly faces / not wanting to needlessly create enemies**
Whether it be for anthropology, resources, breeding, or even future enslavement, it is always less costly to build strong friendships over a society to gain access to inside knowledge or connections.
**Covert tourism**
What it says. These traders are essentially in a living history museum from Professors to the Captain to the random midshipman, They'd all like a chance to experience something thought to be thousands, if not tens of thousands of years in the past in their own history.
**When in their house, play by their rules**
This one comes from basic interpersonal respect. Despite being able to totally crash the economy with an influx of valuable goods or being able to storm and take everything by force, the Captain and possibly also the crew has decided to respect their economy and resupply little by little, and maybe pick up a few oddities along the way.
**Resources lost to time**
In blade runner, a small wooden horse was estimated to be enough natural wood to make the main character rich out of his mind. Like how [Thorne mentioned in their post](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/242322/82834) human effort could cause a premium due to provenance or even just the rarity of human craft. I'd also pitch in that there would be things like animal and plant genomes lost to time that are still found in this medieval society and so trading for some wheat could have major scientific significance to where the crew can learn about and store the genomic information of wheat that might have been lost to time.
**The crew's little paradise**
No one, ***No one*** else from the crew's society has found this medieval society and the crew intends to keep it that way. Its their little resupply point, their little vacation island, their little scrap of paradise. An escape from their home society. So as much as they want to enjoy it, they'd also like to preserve and protect it.
**Having good friends are good, no matter who they are.**
Knowing people on this medieval world can help them make friends and therefore guides to help them navigate through to find resources or even just interact with this medieval society. Guides can help them from accidentally making enemies and what not. Despite the power balance from being ultra-modernized versus the medieval world this medieval society could hide the crew from intergalactic enemies if they accidentally tread on someone's toes. Regardless, there's a chance for a real underdog position for the medieval people here.
**Normally unattainable resources**
Reasons for trade are simple. They have something that you don't and vice versa. This could apply to the crew. They could have found that this world is rich in the resources that they need for their ship and it is mindbogglingly cheap or they desperately need some mineral to refuel or whatever. they need it, and they have things to trade for it. See [TheDemonLord's post on this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/242323/82834)
[Answer]
**Huckleberries and Champagne (Or: not all resources can be mass produced)**
I would like to offer a reason why the planet could have genuinely unique resources, even to an advanced spacefaring civilization.
First, **Champagne and other "Protected Designation of Origin" (PDO) goods** are an example of goods which are significantly affected by the local conditions ("terroir"), such as the soil, water, climate, breed of animal, variety of plant, etc. On Earth, we sometimes consider a combination of these factors noteworthy enough to legally protect. Only a certain process in a certain geographic area with certain ingredients can legally be sold as Champagne. For inspiration, here is [a list of such Earth goods.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDO_products_by_country)
Why would this matter to an advanced civilization? Presumably the planet does not have PDO, but the civilization might - in either the legal sense, or in the sense of valuing the incredibly variety of factors that makes the goods unique.
Why would this resist industrialization?
1. For practical reasons, there is only so much land where you can do "real Champagne." If you go too far away, the terroir changes. If you terraform the landscape, the terroir changes. If you genetically engineer the organisms ... and so on. It may be wine, but it's not Champagne any more. There's a natural cap on production.
2. Legal protection reasons, if the local or advanced civ has them. Sure, you can make Champagne-like wine, but it won't have the legal stamp.
3. Cultural reasons - "If it wasn't grown that way, it's not *real* Champagne" - people want the real deal, not the mass produced or replicated version. (Even if the imitation version has other advantages!)
Second, **not all goods can be farmed.** [Huckleberries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry) are very picky about their conditions and will not fruit anywhere except where they are found growing in the wild. While it's possible that at some point humans will figure out what makes huckleberries fruit, right now we don't know. We cannot increase the production of huckleberries *at all* because we can't grow them. It's reasonable that even advanced technology won't make it possible to increase huckleberry production much if at all.
While both examples are food based, non-food goods can also fall under these categories, such as wood, fur, and other natural materials. Anything which has a "non farmable" or "location based farming only" good in its supply chain will also be limited/unique to the planet, and therefore worth trading for.
[Answer]
# Rare materials
While the civilization lacks technology, they have immense numbers and rich resources, and can mine a lot of valuable materials like uranium, osmium, neodymium. They can use this to trade for bits of tech they need.
The kings of this society have a few missile batteries squirreled away, so if any alien attempts to force them to comply they can blast them.
The traders get cheap rare materials, the locals get a few cool items.
[Answer]
# Unzip your Genes for Me.
The old civilization is genetically senile. Combine capitalism with fledgling bioengineering tech and you get a society that slowly poisons itself with new flashy genes that are not obvious until they have spread to the whole population.
One thousand years of microplastics, designer babies, foetal vaccination and general genetic hoo-hah has led to a society where everyone is allergic to milk and nuts and gluten. They cannot touch each other without getting a rash. They develop cancers in their teens. They all have chronic social anxiety.
They were advanced enough to cause a problem but not enough to fix it. Now they need new genetic material to paste over the ruined section of the genome.
The old civilization was originally from Earth, so the human genome is compatible. No one knows what the aliens look like. They wear full-body coverings slathered in Vaseline, with only a thin viewing slit. This is because of their sensitive skin and crippling anxiety.
They trade, not for the tools, but for the genetic residue on the tool handle. Since they pay a high price they can choose the buyer and choose whose genes they get.
[Answer]
A significant tradeable good that's commonly overlooked is *literature*. It's almost completely independent of your technology level. We still consider the works of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Chaucer, Virgil, and Homer to be great works of literature, even though they lived in worlds that were significantly more primitive than our own. It's also something that's continually produced, giving you a reason to return periodically to scope out what's new.
A trader from a distant land paying a good price for a book they like would not be seen as unusual. It would also create a natural avenue for you to get more involved in the primitive community if you wish, by using your superior-quality goods to become a patron and fund the work of writers. You could even attempt to alter the course of that civilization from the shadows by feeding ideas and concepts to your writers.
[Answer]
### Trading is just a smokescreen
The spacefarers are using the medieval planet as a way station for smuggling. One ship leaves the goods and some time later another one picks them up. They hide the goods well so the locals have no clue of what's going on.
Or they are not smuggling goods but trafficking people, possibly ones who are sought by the authorities for one reason or another. These people live in the medieval community for a while under the pretense of being trade agents, until it's safe for them to continue their journey.
[Answer]
**Overt spying.**
I think this option has been missed, so I'll throw it in the pile: the advanced civilization actually has no interest in trading what-so-ever, nor do they have any nefarious intentions. They are simply spying, up close and personal, and rather than be sneaky about it, they just show up, bold as brass, and "trade".
They actually could not care less about the goods. Possibly they dump them overboard the moment no one is looking. They don't need the planets, so expansionism isn't a goal. Perhaps the planet falls within their territory, though, so they thought it best to keep an eye on it, and rather than setup covert listening posts and worry over being detected, they just waltz in like, well, a bunch of traders.
They might have legitimate concerns over pirates setting up bases there. Or some other civilization discovering the place and conquering it. They can't simply leave it alone. Maybe they'll try to gently nudge the civilization in some favorable cultural directions but really their goal is just to make sure this planet, in their back yard, doesn't get misappropriated, and stopping by every few months to get out and chat up the locals is a great way to keep tabs on it without having to risk anything or even bother being sneaky.
(I would also personally make it so that the trade ship is actually a [Q-ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship). One day, some pirates or alien invaders show up and find out the "trade vessel" that comes around periodically is actually a Mark VII Dreadnought with detachable cargo containers around it.)
[Answer]
## They are looking for something very specific
There is some extremely rare mineral, found only on this planet and even there very rarely. This mineral has enormous value to the space civilization.
While the space faring civ can and does send out search parties and use scanners and other techniques to try to find these rocks themselves, the tiniest ones don't show up on scanners and there is no effective way to search except with pure manpower.
Some of the citizens of the primitive civilization might have collected some of these rocks just because they are pretty. The space civilization would be more than happy to trade the rock for a easy to make axe. The primitive civilization would greatly benefit from the high quality tools, and some of them would also go purposefully searching for more rocks to trade.
The space civilization might also trade other objects, just to make themselves less suspicious. However, what they are really after is the tiny blue rocks.
(Instead of a mineral, it could also be some kind of plant or animal, or other object)
[Answer]
## Slavery
Once a civilization reaches a certain level of advancement, we start to see a significant fall off in population growth or even population decline. It's already started here on Earth, and is likely an even bigger problem in more advanced civilizations. As a civilization advances, the value of a large family which provides manual labor to support you in your old age is replaced by pure liability as the socio-economics shift away from the family farm to government and corporate reliance, and the required level of education you need to even become a productive member of society able to support kids cuts more and more into how many years you actually can use to have kids.
Children are becoming more expensive to raise as medical and educational needs increase, and the payoff has disappeared as people in advanced nations rely on Welfare and Investments to cover the cost of aging out.
In highly developed parts of the world, the average person only has a 50% chance of choosing to have children, and those that do have an average of only 2.5 kids because they either wait so long to start that infertility becomes a major obstacle, or they choose to cut off for economic reasons. If everyone everywhere in the world followed this reproductive strategy, the human population would decline to less than 10 million by the year 2400.
Technology requires a larger and larger consumer base to cover the ever expanding cost of more complex technologies, but your advanced civilization has a rapidly shrinking consumer base among its own people. This means in order to survive as a civilization, they need to import people from worlds with positive population growth.
So, the advanced civilization intentionally maintains Primitive Worlds where the populations will grow, and then trades goods with them as fair payment for human cargo. While these slaves will be forced to fill the bottom echelons of the advanced society, over time their descendants will be properly educated and integrated into the main society and new slaves will be brought in to refill these bottom tiers.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dnU9T.png)
[Answer]
Maybe for surveillance and all their traded items are bugged.
As for why they want interaction: It could be the ultimate goal is to reveal themselves to the natives over many generations.
>
> But then why not industrialize the process directly?
>
>
>
That's how you destroy societies.
[Answer]
**Because they're traders**
Other people have answered from economic points of view, but from a pragmatic point of view, and I'm basing this on the Stainless Steel Rat universe, it could be simple specialism.
The medieval planet has some goods that are of worth - see other answers for examples.
Why don't the advanced civilisation mine / breed / manufacture it themselves?
Because they're traders! They wouldn't know porcuswine husbandry from a hole in the ground.
Space is big. The techies of the advanced society have lots of other stuff going on. The traders find a planet that makes stuff that they can sell, they go down, trade, fly off again.
They want a nice easy job selling trinkets, not a tough job setting up and running a mine, I mean, gods, that sounds like far too much work and would severely cut into their "making money and spending it in the pleasure dens of Floogleflarp 7" time.
[Answer]
**They need the planet in the future.**
The humanoid settlers are slowly destroying their own planet and this is a form or reconnaissance to see whether this planet would be a potential new homeworld for them if/once they destroy their current homeland. However, government officials are very paranoid about destroying this planet before getting a chance to use it or wants to keep it a secret as the last resort - or "break glass in case of emergency" plan if all goes to hell. As such, they are gathering information about this planet and its resources to ensure that it holds or does not hold the future survival of the species and do not want to interfere too much with native life unil they have to.
[Answer]
If you want to export industrialization, they will surely figure out rockets. Then, those same primitive natives might get some ideas about shooting your orbital ships down, instead of peacefully giving them a lot of stuff for a little bit of higher-tech junk. You could keep them in stone age if you wanted to, but as anything pre-industrialization works, you might grab the most advanced tech level that is safe, as that world would be the most productive for your needs. So - medieval level of technology. Far enough from industrialization their geniuses won't surprise you with rockets one day, more income of anything you want to get than say stone age technology.
So, space civs don't actually trade - from their perspective that is. They offer a bit of junk equivalent to colored glass to native Americans and receive valuables in return. There are many things a medieval civ would value, depending on when exactly you want to put your setting. As for what would the high-tech civ value - anything that has transport costs lower than production costs (remember, their "trade" is nearly free from their perspective). So, this becomes a matter of transport costs:
FTL that barely costs anything - your world can offer mass-market produce cheap enough to the point the space civilization is utterly dependent on such world(s). Medieval natives have no idea they are the crucial farmland of a powerful world and that slaughtering their own livestock and sowing fields would destroy that world (in addition to them, of course). Would robots tending livestock perform better? Perhaps, but why bother when a good enough solution is available already.
Intermediate FTL costs - higher value stuff that is for some reason worth more if natural. Say pearls are a viable candidate here. They "grow" in the sea so you can't simply come and get them all. Rarer food/vegetables are a viable candidate too (eg truffles). One obvious candidate here would be precious metals like gold. I believe these would *not* work. If space civ wants gold, they would find it much easier to quickly collect all available gold and then leave for a while (or even forever) - there is no incentive to stay. You need something renewable-ish to make the space civ want to keep trading for a long time.
High FTL costs - only uniques remain valuable enough to bother coming for and hauling back. Space civ trades to feed agents on the ground which are scouring the area for masterpiece art that would bring a lot of money back at home. And then trade for said art - either buying from an artist directly, or perhaps from the king currently owning the painting or whatnot. They require natives to keep producing this art, again making local presence needed.
[Answer]
# Gravity wells are slums
Living at the bottom of a gravity well is economic suicide, because exporting anything physical costs insane amounts of energy. The life support system advantages of a functioning are nullified by the fact it is all entangled and unprotected; imagine putting a millions let alone billions of people on a rock that a single mid-yield cobalt bomb could sterilize?
There are enough people in space that the population of planets isn't important, they live in a disease-ridden pit, and anyone who has any get up and go has gotten up and went.
Now, most backwaters like this are offered many chances to get off-planet, and are either turned into exotic tourist destinations (see how your 100 times great grandparents lived!), evacuated, or left as preserves for people who don't want to leave.
Think North Sentinel Island. There might be some marginal benefits to dismantling the planet for raw materials, but it is a bit rude to intrude on them. So they are mostly left alone.
## Anthropology, Tourism and Caretakers
The traders could be any of the three of Anthropologists, Tourists or people tasked with Caretaking of this backwards rock.
The fact they always go to the same location makes it seem like they are regulated to a certain extent.
You'll want to ensure the planet isn't headed towards a nuclear war. Maybe you'll want to offer the right to exit the planet if people want (keeping them trapped might be illegal). Some people will want to see it.
We can see all 3 of these happening today. In some areas, we don't have any contact (North Sentinel). Other places have Anthropologists visiting regularly, In other areas, tour groups show up and gawk; in some senses, some Anthropology are just tourism with higher standards (especially historical stuff!)
## You trade to keep yourself welcome
Just showing up and not interacting makes you a threat. By being friendly -- trading in ways that the locals understand -- you make your visits less hostile. Maybe people even want the knick knacks you collect.
It is possible that some of the stuff you trade away has trackers on it, and it is used to model trade networks of primitive planet-bound people.
[Answer]
**The Prime Directive**
Because of their laws, ethics, or something else, the offworld traders consider strip-mining the planet just as bad as giving the natives cell phones. Sooner or later the natives will stumble across the mine and its steam-belching automated digging machines; besides which, the effect on the environment would be hard to justify.
] |
[Question]
[
In my story I’ve devised lore where Greenland becomes a US territory, and they begin populating the region. It initially just served as the hub for numerous military bases and airbases, but eventually as the machinery thawed out the ice of the island more people began to come in.
I was wondering what technology was available at the time that could melt ice. It could be far-fetched as well, since the government is in play and they’d most likely have access to more outlandish gear.
[Answer]
Around that time someone in the [US government proposed to use nukes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare) to widen Panama Channel.
>
> Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.
>
>
>
Using nuclear power to thaw Greenland perfectly fits the enthusiasm of those years toward the use of nuclear power.
[Answer]
The standard way to melt icebergs would have been entirely possible with 1940s technology.
It's as simple as it's effective - high pressure seawater. Very, very effective (high specific heat content, salt, almost trivial cost of deployment and inexhaustible). Low cost of deploying multiple of them, as well.
You do **not** want to be using flamethrowers or lasers and similar on sizeable icebergs or coastal ice buildups - they may be great for some things, but hopelessly outclassed in this job, for sheer ease, speed and efficiency, by high volume water cannons. You can also forget blowing them up or destroying them with incendiaries (thermite) - the US Coastguard already tried that idea in 1959/1960 and it failed ([report + photos](https://navcen.uscg.gov/?pageName=iipIsItPracticalToDestroyIcebergsBeforeTheyReachTheShippingLanes)).
*(Just in case you wondered, no, you don't need to heat the water. Its high specific heat capacity means even at arctic sea temperatures, it already contains a lot of low grade heat energy, and will do quite well at melting ice in bulk. Also, freezing takes energy, and the energy it would take to freeze salty seawater from a few degrees above 0C/32F is enough that given a strong flow, the ice will readily be melted, or cut through, instead. Just make sure to use high pressures/volumes - ideal equipment would be very large bore fire-hose and powerful high-volume high-pressure seawater pumps.)*
The mechanics of melting with seawater are deceptively simple. You aren't limited in the amount of water used, and pumping is relatively cheap, so you don't need to melt a lot of ice per unit of seawater, to eventually have a significant effect. You can be persistent - eventually it can't help but work. The pressure, dynamics, and salt will help. (Pressure works small fractures and pits into large ones and speeds up penetration; dynamics such as massive turbulence and huge ultra-fast-flowing torrents/runoffs will cut into the ice; salt tends to reduce re-freezing and hence increase runoff). But even those aren't essential factors. Time - and at least some heat transfer on a bulk scale - will do it.
Is this practical at scale? For a sense of "what scale is possible", check out [this diesel pump built in Mississippi around 2011](https://gizmodo.com/worlds-biggest-water-pump-under-construction-in-new-orl-5340238), at 150,000 gallons a second = one Olympic swimming pool every 4 seconds. Could they do that in the 1940s? Probably, look at other huge engineering projects, steam ships, and so on, of the 19th and 20th centuries. Or if not exactly, then enough to deal with a lot of ice at least. Nothing in this says to me that they couldn't have done something similar on the 1940s, if they'd wanted, or close enough to have a similar effect.
For huge 'bergs, as the ice becomes cut up, the smaller bergs also become easier to separate, ending the cold microclimate that surrounds huge 'bergs, and making them more vulnerable to being tugged, pushed away (again with water jets), and exposing more surface to the sea/air/pressure hoses.
There's no reason this couldn't also be used with coastal and continental ice as well as floating ice, if it's either relatively close to the coast, or one can drill through it to seawater.
[Answer]
Nuclear powered electric plants generate waste heat. Lots of it. Set up electric generating stations in Greenland to power all of North America. Use the waste heat to melt the ice.
[Answer]
I think other answers assumed you were trying to terraform Greenland. If this is just a mining operation, people do mine in Greenland and there is apparently more interest in this now as the ice melts and access is easier.
**For purposes of mining, ice is treated as low strength rock, and removed with standard mining methods.**
[Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review. Copyright 2013](https://www.williamcolgan.net/pubs/asce.cr.1943-5495.0000057.pdf)
>
> Open-ice-pit mining, in order to recover a subglacial mineral deposit, is dependent on safe and predictable large-scale ice excavation...Three distinct ice-excavation tech- niques are reviewed: blasting,
> melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each.
> The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvan- tages of
> each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining opera-
> tion would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and
> secondarily on blasting.
>
>
>
The paper covers technology used in Greenland between the end of WW2 and the present. It is mining technology, adapted to the different density and mechanical properties of ice. They loosen it up and move it out with machines, as is done with open pit mines elsewhere. Not super sexy, and it doesn't really open up new areas for habitation because I gather the low lying mines tend to fill back up with water - a property also shared with mines elsewhere.
[Answer]
**Sonic Cannon**
From the Israelite army's trumpet-blaring priests at the battle of Jericho 3,500 years ago to today's modern LRAD (long-range acoustic device) cannons, sound has been used to harm and destroy.
Granted, it would take a lot of it.
>
> Assuming you have 1 gram of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 W of energy. If you could somehow focus all of the energy from the symphonies music onto that ice, it would take 334 seconds to melt it, a full 5 minutes. And that's an entire symphony focused directly on a little more than a tablespoon of freshly fallen snow. ([Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2mt3su/is_it_possible_to_melt_snow_or_whatever_with_sound/))
>
>
>
However, orchestras are not amplified and the sound is highly distributed. That same orchestra, pumped through my meager 25W-per-channel high-school-era stereo amplifier would melt 50g of that same snow in 5 minutes, or 1g in 6 seconds.
*Now let's back that up with the electrical power generating abilities of the Iowa-class U.S.S. Missouri battleship!*
>
> The four engine rooms each has a pair of 1,250 kW Ship's Service Turbine Generators (SSTGs), providing the ship with a total non-emergency electrical power of 10,000 kW at 450 volts alternating current. Additionally, the vessels have a pair of 250 kW emergency diesel generators. ([Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship))
>
>
>
Ignoring the details of what 450 VAC can do with a speaker (a lot...), that's 510KW of power! In that same 5 minute period we can now melt 510 Kg (half a metric ton) of snow!
To be fair, it's not efficient.1 And I'm ignoring a lot of stuff that would get in the way (like how much power would be absorbed by liquid run-off (heating the water) rather than being used to melt the ice and snow.) But! It's a technology of the time that could be used to solve the problem with its own set of pros and cons. And you get to use an Iowa-class battleship! How cool is that?
---
1 *Certainly not as efficient as L.Dutch's nukes! Not by a long shot. But it does have the advantage of leaving the landscape radiation-free.*
[Answer]
You are talking about permanently changing the climate of Greenland. Just melting the current ice is not quite enough.
**Use the greenhouse effect**
If you intentionally manufacture and release powerful greenhouse gasses, the global climate will warm enough that Greenland will defrost. This has some obvious flaws.
First, it is too slow for your purposes. Second, it would be expensive. Three, greenhouse effect was only fully understood in the late 60s and early 70s, too late for your purposes. Four, you'd more or less permanently mess up the rest of the planet and >99% of human population would have valid reason to want you dead.
The only real benefit this approach has is that it can happen accidentally. Maybe this gas is really useful and you manufacture lots of it. Maybe a nuclear explosion or volcanic eruption releases ridiculous amounts of a greenhouse gas.
**Solar mirrors**
By putting sufficient area of mirrors in space on polar orbits configured in away that reflects sunlight on Greenland you can in theory increase the temperature selectively.
The biggest downside of this is that Greenland is large, so you'd need a ridiculous amount of mirrors. Which you'd have to launch to orbit. The cost would literally be astronomical. There is nothing in Greenland AFAIK to justify it.
This would also still mess up the climate. And it would few decades ahead of its time for the 50s. This is clearly post Apollo Program (1960-1972) technology.
**Just heat it up**
Just directly apply heat to Greenland.
The simplest way to do this would probably be to take deep sea water off the coast which is always few degrees above freezing and pump it up. It will release heat to the environment. This would still be ridiculously expensive since you'd need to pump up ridiculous amounts of water but it is probably the most efficient way to apply heat.
Just have a nuclear reactor and transfer the heat it produces to deep ocean water. This will make the water to rise to the surface and melt the ocean ice. This might be done as a way to keep shipping lanes in Northern Greenland open all year for military purposes. Pretty sure it makes absolutely no sense from economic standpoint as the cost of building and maintaining the needed reactors would be far beyond any possible benefit.
EDIT :
Removed mention to the seawater freezing releasing energy. It was a remnant to earlier version of the idea where you'd actually pump the water above sea level. I removed that to conserve energy and fit "clear sea lanes" excuse for doing it but forgot to remove the freezing reference despite it no longer happening.
[Answer]
You're asking the wrong question. Your objective is to clear Greenland, not to melt ice.
The answer is of course nuclear--reactors, not bombs. However, I would not be using the energy to melt large amounts of ice. Rather, I would drill holes to the bottom of the ice and use the reactor (which is sitting on a platform on the ice) to inject hot water down there.
The amount of ice melted is basically irrelevant, the object is to speed up the glaciers. Slide the ice off into the sea and let it melt there.
[Answer]
One possible strategy would be to take many thousands of large black plastic sheets and place them on top of ice sheets during the summer, weighted down with rocks or clumps of ice. The plastic should heat up in the sunlight and melt some of the ice below it, possibly down to the ground.
Or lots and lots of black carbon particles could be strewn on top of the ice to melt their way down into it.
Possibly atomic bombs could be exploded over glaciers seeded with materials that would adsorb the various types of radiation from the bombs and turn that radiation into heat that would melt the glaciers.
Or large flat objects with mirror-like surfaces to reflect sun light could be laid on the ground right below the southern edges of glaciers. They would reflect sunlight toward the glaciers and melt them back.
>
> A statite (a portmanteau of static and satellite) is a hypothetical type of artificial satellite that employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover" in a location that would not otherwise be available as a stable geosynchronous orbit. Statites have been proposed that would remain in fixed locations high over Earth's poles, using reflected sunlight to counteract the gravity pulling them down. Statites might also employ their sails to change the shape or velocity of more conventional orbits, depending upon the purpose of the particular statite.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite)
A vast fleet of statites could be placed over the north polar regions with their solar sails angled to reflect sunlight down onto selected Greenland glaciers to melt them, possibly in conjunction with other methods to melt the glaciers.
>
> Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet).
>
>
>
<https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html>[2](https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html)
So melting too much of the Greenland Ice Sheet could be considered a hostile act by many other governments ruling low lying coasts.
For example, Cape May, New Jersey, has been flooded by the sea during at least two or three storms since 1956, and has an elevation of 10 feet (3 meters), the highest point in the city, at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level. Residents of Cape May, and New Orleans, and many other coastal communities, would demand that the US government prevent any project that would melt enough ice to raise sea level by several feet.
[Answer]
Spread powdered coal over any area you want to melt - the Sun will take care of that (assuming plenty of sun, so use this at the start of spring).
(we use furnace ash on snow. Melts much quicker than otherwise, even after a day you can see how much lower the ash-treated snow is - in the order of a couple of centimeters per sunny day).
Advantage:
- relatively cheap, as planes were able to carry significant quantities of payload
- powdered coal is inexpensive
- plenty of planes (WW2 bombers) available, in many cases at lower than scrap value
Disadvantage:
- low tech, depends on plenty of sun.
[Answer]
May I point you to the real-life U.S. military base of Camp Century, part of [Project Iceworm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm) (construction started in 1959):
>
> Project Iceworm was the code name for a top secret United States Army
> program of the Cold War, which aimed to build a network of mobile
> nuclear missile launch sites under the Greenland ice sheet. The
> ultimate objective of placing medium-range missiles under the ice —
> close enough to strike targets within the Soviet Union — was kept
> secret from the Government of Denmark. To study the feasibility of
> working under the ice, a highly publicized "cover" project, known as
> Camp Century, was launched in 1960. Unstable ice conditions within
> the ice sheet caused the project to be canceled in 1966.
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kEYRf.jpg)
>
>
>
According to [Science Leads the Way](http://gombessa.tripod.com/scienceleadstheway/id9.html) and other sources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built an entire nuclear-powered Arctic research center into the glaciers:
>
> Long ice trenches were created by Swiss made “Peter Plows”, which
> were giant rotary snow milling machines. The machine's two operators
> could move up to 1200 cubic yards of snow per hour. The longest of the
> twenty-one trenches was known as “Main Street.” It was over 1100 feet
> long and 26 feet wide and 28 feet high. The trenches were covered with
> arched corrugated steel roofs which were then buried with snow.
>
>
>
The shifting glacier made the project unsustainable, so the project and its stash of irradiated waste were abandoned the ice in 1966 -- [only to begin reemerging in recent years as Greenland's ice melts](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3wdb7/cold-war-era-nuclear-base-camp-century-melting-climate-change-greenland).
[Answer]
# Not Intentional Melting
Having built up manufacturing to increase the efficiency of the military bases has caused increase in pollution and an increase in traffic which also contributes to the pollution.
All this added localized pollution could result in melting of the ice.
# Intentional Melting - Not "completely" absurd
Perpetual fires. Garbage dumps, tire dumps anywhere with useless flammable substances would be claimed and set a blaze. With enough human trash / waste this could directly contribute to melting of the ice.
# Intentional Melting - Absurd
Reflective disk in geo stationary orbit. Putting a disk in space with its focus point the island of Greenland you could start melting the ice on a grand scale. Just make sure that you don't focus it to much to start cooking the Greenlanders.
With a lot of math and a few of these in orbit you might be able to maintain perpetual light in Greenland also helping with the melting of the ice.
Note: This would most likely destroy the ecology of the environment.
[Answer]
Are flamethrower brigades out of the question? According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flamethrowers), Germany started producing flamethrowers as early as 1911. I think it would not be far-fetched to be building fleets of flame tanks by the 40's.
Other options include: beaches and beaches of salt grit, large scale greenhouse construction, teams of people with tractors / dump trucks,
AND, my personal favourite, artificial explosive insemination to disrupt the active [hotspot](https://www.mn.uio.no/geo/english/research/news-and-events/news/2018/greenland-hot-spot-volcanism.html) under all the ice, causing a massive volcanic eruption.
] |
[Question]
[
In my world, advanced technological body modification exists. Those with any sort of modifications are rare, and those with extensive modifications are even rarer. These rare and uncommon cyborgs are not, as one (or at least I) would expect, very present among the rich elite. They instead are typically found in the lower-middle and lower rungs of society. Why, and how could this be? It makes at least some sense to me that cyborg modification would be rare, but it seems that the reason for this that seems most logical is that modifications are expensive and only a tiny segment of the ultra-rich can and want to purchase them. What would be a reason instead where the uncommon cyborg is found among the masses, rather than the elite?
Some context on the advanced technological body modifications":
* Modifications can be "wet" or "metal" or both
* Modifications can be temporary (i.e., a drug that temporarily alters biology) or permanent
* The most modification that a human can receive (i.e., the most organic, "original" human matter one can alter or replace) is that of the brain-in-a-jar treatment, though it's more accurate to say it's a brain and quite a few other organ systems in a jar (like the circulatory and nervous systems)
* The modified can be much better than humans, but only in specific areas or environments, and not so much so that it grants them godlike superiority. This specialization also costs them generalization, so they might actually be worse in some areas or environments.
[Answer]
## You only notice the Cyborgs who don't pass
And it's really expensive to get a body mod that is indistinguishable from the natural form.
There is actually a reasonable number of Cyborgs amongst the elite (although perhaps less proportionally, thanks to various elite privileges), but without fail, they have all chosen discreet modifications. It costs a lot to get good plastic surgery and even more for one that will fit cyber/bio-ware in a subtle way. Thus, being indistinguishable from an all-natural human is a prestige point.
However your low classes must choose function over form, as they are already throwing a lot of money at a body modification and can likely not afford the additional cost to make it the right size/skin tone/etc.
[Answer]
* Modifications are detrimental for quality of life.
Replacing a normal arm with a mechanical one may be better than living with a stump, but there will always be low-grade pains, worry about infection, surgery to adjust the fitting, etc.
They may even reduce the lifespan.
* Modifications have a significant risk of failure.
Implanting a vat-grown eye with night vision may be neat if it works, but there is an 1-in-10 chance of permanent blindness instead. A risk taken only by those who are desperate for an edge on the job market or in a street fight.
* Modifications complicate medical care.
Somebody gets into the emergency room with irregular heartbeat. The physicians grab the defibrilator. Unfortunately, the patient had an obsolete artificial heart from an obscure manufacturer. The medical electronics did not recognize the heart for what it was and treated it like a natural one. That blew the regulator chip.
* Modifications are most relevant for lower-class jobs.
The upper class in your setting is mostly paid to think and talk, or it earns rents from investments. The available mods don't really help in the boardroom, or the law firm, or the research lab. This year's electron microscope is so much better than last year's cybereye.
As a result, major and/or obvious modifications mostly have a bad **reputation**. A merc with a cyberarm? Didn't dodge the bullet, it seems. An artificial liver to help with toxins in the blood? Couldn't hold his liquor with the normal one.
[Answer]
## Job requirements
There are certain jobs that require modification. Undersea miners get their lungs replaced, road workers get their skeleton and muscles reinforced, skyscraper workers get gyroscopes installed, etc.
These jobs require you to borrow a bunch of money to pay for the modification, then pay off the modification. If you fail to pay off the modification it gets repossessed and a minimal replacement is provided, assuming you didn't try to default and run.
The process isn't very pleasant. Maintenance is a pain. And going back to anything approximating 'real flesh' is expensive.
Even relatively minor jobs often need a Cyborg enhancement.
## Cyborg = working class
As Cyborgs are built for a purpose, visible Cyborg means you are working class. The management class may have brain hooks, but they don't work with their hands or even eyes. Actually replacing perfectly working human flesh is a sign you aren't a member of the ruling class.
During most of the 20th century in the west, wearing a suit was a sign of being non-working class. Maintaining the suit was expensive, and it wasn't practical to do physical labour in.
Then a counter-culture among technical workers developed of not wearing a suit. And in some workplaces, someone wearing a suit was a sign that they didn't have the pull to demand comfortable clothing; I know people for whom the nicer the clothing was, the lower the presumed status at work was. This was especially strong among female engineers; wearing business clothing meant you looked like a receptionist, while wearing a casual shirt and jeans meant you where certainly an engineer.
In this case, cybernetic modifications (especially visible ones) are a sign you had to do physical labour. Even if you replaced them with non-functional implants, it meant you spent a period as a labourer, and did not go directly into the upper classes.
The modifications the upper classes do - brain hooks or whatever - are not called cybernetic, and don't leave a visible exterior.
Meanwhile, the streets are full of obsolete cyborgs begging, sort of like war amputees after a large war. It is often cheaper to take a fresh person and replace their arm than upgrade that old, obsolete arm.
[Answer]
## Bodypart Dispossession As Payment Or Punishment
Imagine a world much like ours, but where mechanical science is just a little more advanced and biological science just a little sideways. What happens when you lose an arm or a lung or a pancreas?
You buy a new one. Turns out modern medicine can reprogram your immune system to accept a donated body part reliably\*, and nanotechnological nerve junctions are good enough that you might only twitch once or twice a month.
Of course, you don't think too much about where those body parts came *from*. You don't think about the person who's replaced an eye with a basic webcam to get through college. The divorcee who's willing to make do with a pneumatic leg to keep the kids away from their alcoholic ex. The prisoners who have stopped caring which excisions will be declared constitutional or unconstitutional by each changing government. Dark whispers of international trade deals sealed with promises of entire *shipments* cryogenic.
All you know is that you can pay to avoid all the troubles of bolting a machine into your body. You're certainly not *rich*, but you're rich middle class enough to deserve biological. Everyone you know is too. Why ask too many questions beyond that?
---
And even though this fictional world sounds incredibly queasy, I imagine plenty of real-life people longing for an organ donation would take a reality in which cyborg replacements were good enough that people no longer considered selling their body parts taboo.
---
\*For extra horror: a world where immunosuppression *isn't* reliable yet, and the standard follow-up to a body part rejection is to simply replace it with another and hope it works. You feel *so* bad about throwing away that set of fingers, but, well, you tried your best on the Facebook swaps! Not to be confused with the BookFaces swaps, of course.
[Answer]
## The rich get cloned tissue, the poor settle for cyborg prosthetics.
If you lose an arm you can get a mechanical arm or you can get your arm back, most people will pick their arm. It works even better if cyborgs have to worry about implant rejection, infection at the connection point, wear and tear, and outside power source, all real considerations.
The goal of most prothetics are to look and function as close to the real thing as possible, a cloned arm is as close as you can get, but it is also very expensive. Not only do you have to grow the arm, it has to be stimulated during growth to have the right muscle strength and match the original neural connections as closely as possible. Plus each one is made to order, no mass production of cloned tissue because then it would not be your cells. Even if a cyborg arm is custom made it is still mostly made of mass produced parts with just a few bespoke components that can be assembled quickly thus vastly less expensive.
something similar would apply to cosmetic surgery. For breast implants you can get mass produced silicon bags that have possible medical issues as they age. Or you can get cloned scaffold grown breast tissue that will be identical to the real thing after implantation.
[Answer]
## The flesh is pure. Altering it is sin (or at least looked down on).
While a religious route is quick and easy, it's not even needed, as there could be a societal stigma attached to not being imperfect.
You need glasses in order to see? Your genetic stock is clearly inferior.
Why would you need cybernetic legs? Were the one's you were born with not good enough?
This may sound nonsensical, but judging by how modern society determines social status it's that far of a reach.
[Answer]
# The rich get real meat organs. They get these organs from the desperate and poor…
**…Who sell their original organs to pay off their debts,** avoid ending up homeless, give a better life to their kids, etc.
Giving up parts of your flesh body is seen as immoral and deviant. It's also not very practical. While cyborg modifications may be advanced, they can also be loud, clumsy, conspicuous, and even painful to wear. It's a vicious cultural cycle: Because the first borgmods invented weren't very good, wearing mods at all came to be seen as a mark of shame. Because Borgmods are seen as a mark of shame that nobody would ever willingly have, nobody bothers to invent new mods that are fasionable and "respectable" to wear even now that the technology can do better.
>
> The modified can be much better than humans, but only in specific areas or environments, and not so much so that it grants them godlike superiority.
>
>
>
Why would the Old Money *want* to be able to punch through walls, heat materials using infrared, or run numerical analyses in their heads? They have *servants* to do that for them.
Catching an aristocrat with cybernetics would be like seeing a slaveowner or tycoon wearing rags working in the plantations and factories. Remember: It is [the natural right and duty](https://web.archive.org/web/20131123121037/http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/07/hunger-makes-people-work-harder-and-other-stupid-things-we-used-believe-about-poverty/6219/) of the "elite" to rule over the common rabble, for [they are surely unfit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proslavery_thought) to rule themselves, and the impurity of their modified bodies is only further proof of that.
Ableism and classism are alive and well, and anyone seen with a synthetic body part is assumed to be a druggie who sold off their original at some point for a hit on the old Soma needle.
[Answer]
**Attack of the clones**
My first response would be that the elite can clone replacement organs for themselves, or have a number of complete clones in vats on standby and harvest the organs when needed. In contrast, the lower-classes need to scrap together modifications in order to keep up with their intense demanding jobs that cause them injury.
I would also add that perhaps in this society is a culture of humanism like in Dune where the human mind and body are above all else and technology is shunned. Only the lowly peoples would sully their bodies with technological modifications.
[Answer]
The cyborgs are all ex-military, where they were augmented for their duties.
As few officers serve on the front line, the cyborgs are generally the non commanding rank-and-file soldiers.
[Answer]
**Cybernetics is cheap and tacky**
The poor turn to cybernetics because they can't afford the treatments the rich can.
Why have a robot arm when a perfect cloned arm can be grown and replaced? The rich have cloning, DNA modification, nanites and as a result they are beautiful, strong, healthy and intelligent thanks to science.
The poor turn to cheap cybernetics to replace failing organs, missing limbs and to help them do their poorly paid jobs faster and better.
It's the difference between a tailor made suit and a Chinese made, off the shelf outfit from Walmart.
[Answer]
**Clinical Trials**
Look at clinical trials of new drugs / new medical devices / new medical procedures. The people who participate in them are those who are willing to risk their health for monetary compensation - definitely does not seem like "upper class" to me. Also, "people who have participated in clinical trials" is a rather rare category, simply because you don't need all that many people for the trials (compared to total population size).
So maybe in your society, cyborg modifications are still unproven technology, it is illegal to perform these modifications outside of the context of a clinical trial (and most people wouldn't even want to risk it). But some people are desparate enough to make a few bucks that they participate in the trials.
[Answer]
# Being able to conspicuously avoid cybernetics is a mark of extreme wealth and understatement.
Generally, wealth likes to express itself as being "above the common things". A billionaire probably likes the taste of McDonalds as much as a minimum-wage worker, but they wouldn't be seen eating it because it's what peasants eat. And along the lines of "money talks, wealth whispers": there's a continuum of how each level of society/wealth shows off. As wealth increases, showing off becomes more and more subtle, with the opulence and wealth being shown in understated ways, and even being able to notice them is the mark of class (c.f. the Japanese concept of [Iki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iki_(aesthetics)). For example:
* Lower-class people tend to use showy, ostentatious things: putting rims on their cars, buying a fancy phone, having a flashy handbag. The goal is conspicuous consumption: showing off that you can afford these apparently-expensive things (even if they're actually knockoffs or you can't really afford them).
* Once you reach upper class, these displays are tacky and embarrassing: the wealthy are showing off to *each other*, not to the poors. *Obviously* my house is so much nicer than the people from the other side of the tracks, but those people wouldn't understand why my cream tiling is so much more tasteful than Martha's *hideous* champagne tiling. At this point, being able to discern the subtle differences between chic and passé becomes the point of pride, and being able to ignore or pretend to not care about money is more meaningful than showing off how much you have. Why yes, I do have a Bentley—oh, it's nothing impressive. I barely notice it, since that's just the level of wealth I live in.
* Finally, once you reach the truly ultra-wealthy, you get to flout the system entirely. Who's going to turn away Bill Gates if he turns up to a fancy event in a T-shirt and jeans? At this point, you can do whatever you want—the thing that brings status is to be uncaring and make everything effortless. Your T-shirt and jeans probably cost more than some suits—but you don't care, because they're well-fitted and comfy, so what does it matter if they cost a little more? Your dining table is from the 1800s and the grandfather clock in the corner is older than that. You don't even have a calendar app on your phone: you've got a personal assistant who keeps track of all of that who you ask whenever you're curious about your schedule. These may be less efficient in ways, but the point is that you're using them precisely *because* they're so fancy as to be inefficient and rustic. And of course you have an army of dieticians and beauticians and stylists and even plastic surgeons at your beck and call, all working to keep you looking effortlessly and carelessly perfect.
And this brings us to the reason that the elite eschew cybernetics. They're cheap, they're plentiful, they're necessary for certain jobs, and they often look unpleasant or distracting. It's a mark of the common people. The elite don't get tattoos, because it's tacky and cheap. They don't eat at McDonalds, because it's too base. And they don't get cybernetics, because they have people do that sort of thing *for* them.
[Answer]
# Risk and loss
Cyborgs can be a great boon in many ways. But it can have big drawbacks. What if you can have incredibly strong legs, able to jump, run and push harder and longer than ever before, but lose most feeling from the 'skin'? Or that you cannot have sex any more? For many it would be enough not to take it if much feelings were removed if you replace an arm.
It can also be incredibly inconvenient in some other ways. Think recharging. Your cyborgs might need to be charged differently than a body, requiring charging for some time each day, or one whole day a month you need to sit and do nothing or something.
You also have to consider what would happen to many. Risk can be in very unexpected corners. Imagine someone having their legs and arms replaced. If they do not change nutrition, they will become fat with all the negatives that come with it. Worse is that you might not get all benefits from moving. It releases hormones to make you feel better in short and long term. It could lead to depression, despite achieving more than ever before. People can even feel resentment towards their augmentations, giving those the credits of the success and seeing none for themselves. Depression is a big thing looking around the corner.
You can even have a privacy issue, as the implants can gather so much data it'll make Orwell look docile.
Finally it can be incredibly hazardous. Few survive thanks to rejection of the implants. Even after the implants could give trouble thanks to rejection symptoms. Pain, discomfort, loss and depression all contribute to people not taking it.
You can make this even more apparent by having biological modifications compared to mechanical. Rich people might just get some DNA treatments. They get big and strong with little effort. They are better protected against their unhealthy lifestyles. If they still manage to go wrong and become unhealthy they get any treatment imaginable, from DNA to hormones to gut implantations, you name it. They will be high and happy all the wile in their treatments. You might not go so far as this, but the rich could have many biological enhancements without risk. They might not be as strong or fast as a cyborg, but as they are fully functioning, top of the world physical people the choice is easily made.
[Answer]
**Metal modification is SO unaesthetic**
"Oh look at that freak, he's installed a steel hand! Ewww! His grip is as cold as a grave!"
After a person would desire making himself a mod, especially if not directly required by his physical condition, he might become unpopular due to xenophobia that might be prevalent in high society. Like, he's turned alien all of a sudden, and the main trend was to get away from aliens. Also some mods might be uncomfortable for others just to see, like a Terminator's eye that allows night vision, IR and probably some target tracking, on a body guard, leading to decreased wage of that person, even if he's doing his job better than before. High-level society is so brittle, you know.
**Credit pit**
A middle class that's suffered a traumatic amputation of an arm and does not have enough money stored in wallet to immediately buy a replacement (anyway normally it'll take a while to get one, medical treatment, tailored production, post-implantation adjustments, etc etc) would have to get the extra money from somewhere. Banks are normally happy to provide people with credits, yet they demand payment from them for years to come, and that person's budget could well turn into a downward spiral. Especially if the new arm would require expensive maintenance every so often.
Money-based reasons could be many, starting from "license issues" to "pay as you go" somehow wired to movements made by the attachment, even our current car manufacturers have a lot of practice to drain people of cash, let alone something entirely information-based like recent Unity. Just invent some simple but expensive money sinks for the implant user, there you go, effective declassification.
**Temporary mods inflicted brain alteration**
An example: there is a drug that increases your metabolism in the way that you have become stronger, more agile and more perceptive. A person in question used that several times (as this mod was temporary) and accidentally discovered that his brain had adapted to the drug (and not just the new abilities) and now pains hardly when there's no drug (aka addiction, but biological rather than psychological). That, and the sense of being superior while on the drug turned the person wild, inducing psychical disorders as a consequence. He goes drunk or drugged by something else and falls off the society. However, he can still get a position in the lower class, as a brute force for example, working for food-and-drug just to not get fired into oblivion.
And a point missing in the above answers:
**Mind-machine interface required for metal implants turns people less socializable**
>
> I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine, just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams, the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness: dark, rigid, cold, alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen.
>
>
> Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Man and Machine"
>
>
>
Considering that high society requires some etiquette to be in, and that modified humans might have troubles tolerating it, they might as well get shunned off the beau-monde downwards, potentially even not being able to withstand social pressure from ever accompanying humans. Some people might even get psychotic from even a successful attempt of installing a mod, whatever that was, but since most mods actually make the "remaining human" more durable, or at least designed so, the affected human would likely stick at a job of some lower class than where he was initially. Probably in an army, as MMI as is is mostly used as a war-oriented alteration, and a person with an installed MMI would cope better than those that don't have one.
**On the other hand, biological-based mods should perfectly do**
Imagine a golden youth who's got his liver damaged by excess alcohol and drugs. His dad managed to have him undergo liver replacement with a modified biological organ, tailored to the kid so he's got some poison resistance additionally to general well-being. Since the organ is biological, and whatever scars from the surgery might get masked (we're speaking rich people after all!), the kid looked normal after undergoing a rehab, with a consequence of utter aversion to alcohol (whether the liver was the reason, the dad preferred to not disclose). On top of that, he's got his wits up, dropped the company that otherwise was leading him into a pleasure pit, started studying and eventually succeeds his father's position in a large company, together with riches. But, he might decide to not disclose the data on his past treatment to the public, so he's a "cyborg" of sorts but still in high society that thinks he's just a kid recovered from bad habits.
Or another case, a person lost his arm, and instead of opting in for a metal replacement, he went the more advanced but more expensive route of growing a new arm in a lab with eventual implantation instead of his old arm's remnants. I would say that person would get positive score among its peers, both for having a "real" arm and for suffering a lot while he might just get a steel arm quickly. The same would work with internal organs, eyes, ears and other visible parts.
[Answer]
# Obsolescence
*These cyborgs were enhanced to perform very specific duties that require special implementations, but now that their tasks are fulfilled, they are no longer wanted by companies and the public alike, because **their maintenance is too expensive, their functioning too limited, and their appearance too grotesque.***
Cyborgs have enhancements that allow them to perform very specific tasks with inhuman speed, strength, and/or finesse. These tasks can range from injecting foetuses with nanotechnology in utero, to removing debris from the anti-gravity fields on which the transcontinental transportation of goods depends.\* **Most of the often grotesque cybernetic adaptations require removal of unnecessary human "imperfections".**
It is especially their maintenance, to prevent the deterioration of the components of both organic and inorganic nature, that costs the companies that initially paid for their creation too much to keep them on their payroll. **Once their tasks are finished, or they are replaced by improved technology, they are abandoned.** Not entirely human, any rights to basic human benefits have been waived (or are simply not part of your world).
Since they are less capable than their human counterparts in handling almost any daily situation and stand their ground in basic human interactions, most people will turn a blind eye to the already unappealing semi-humans. Besides, as their organic components deteriorate, their bodies start to smell. **They are simply ostracized by the general public.** They end up living among the cast-outs, homeless, squatters, refugees, and others at the lowest tiers of society.
\* Just spitballing here.
[Answer]
It's exhausting to have high energy demanding body modifications, and really not a pleasant thing to have to deal with at all. It tends to put you in a bad mood. No one really talks about that, but you can see it the poor slobs' faces. Besides, it's usually done by those that need to work manual labor jobs, so why bother?
The main reason: The elite prefer to have mind mods, which are much more expensive and sometimes trivial. One of their favorites is one that makes them very witty and entertaining. Another provides an exceptional sense of smell.
[Answer]
## They are experimental specimens for the upper class
It could be possible that the upper class elites are divided into various competing houses. They compete among themselves in terms of resources, power, etc. One key aspect of their competition is Science and Technology. Everytime a noble house's company develops a new cyborg-technology, they need to test it and put it to display to its counterparts. The best they could find someone to carry out these tests are the lower middle classess. These people lack money and motivation to oppose them. If the elite is providing them with even a meagre compensation to part take into the activity, they are willing to do so. This will obviously create so many cyborgs out of lower classes on the directions of the upper class.
[Answer]
Society practices eugenics. The people put an emphasis on selecting mates with good genetic qualities. Cybernetic implants are cheating...
[Answer]
Cybernetics make you susceptable to hacking, which can alter your behaviour, including going into violent ramapages, advertisement or social self-destructive behaviour.
Imagine a turret-syndrom that comes with the hardware.
[Answer]
## It is economically advantageous to engineer humans so that they are highly motivated and proficient laborers
The elite gravitated towards this technology as a way to obtain workers that can complete complex tasks more easily than robots while also retaining an appreciable degree of stamina and motivation. The pre-existing glut of of warm bodies with few rights enabled dramatic reductions in manufacturing costs as people could be readily fitted with implants.
Although modifications are practiced by members of all social classes, the predominance of these indentured workers all but ensured that cyborg tech became irretrievably associated with low social status. Most individuals thus hide their modifications and avoid broaching the topic altogether.
>
> My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack’s muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?”
> — Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, “Essays on Mind and Matter”
>
>
>
[Answer]
**Cybernetic modifications are controlled by the underworld**
In this world, the less-than-legal underworld has developed the technology to have cybernetics. Obviously they use this technology judiciously, even among their members, so not all members will have augmentation. You didn't mention whether the modifications had to be visible or apparent, but even today many organized crime members make no secret of their involvement in criminal enterprises, so even visible augmentations shouldn't be an issue for them.
For a number of reasons, the elite don't use augmentation.
1. The underworld tightly controls the technology.
2. It's relatively new technology without widespread public awareness.
3. The elite are either unwilling to fund the underworld/gangs that threaten their position and safety or don't trust any technology that comes from them, especially when it could impact their health.
[Answer]
* The modifications are more functional than aesthetic - having a front-end loader for a right arm or an oversized cranium(human computer?) is unappealing, unless you really need that construction or accounting job. It marks you out as a member of the lower working class, and something slightly less than human, since the wealthy don't use such things - or spend the big bucks for less-obvious augmentations.
* The modifications cause additional issues - degenerative diseases, hormonal imbalances that potentially lead to violent rages or fits of depression, such as Cyberpunk's [Cyberpsychosis](https://cyberpunk.fandom.com/wiki/Cyberpsychosis). Expand on this with treatments being so expensive that you're basically locked in with your employer for life or on your way to the junkyard / prison if you lose your job, or with the treatments sterilizing the recipients, potentially by design. See also [Neuropzyne](https://deusex.fandom.com/wiki/Neuropozyne) from Deus Ex.
* The modifications have failsafes that prevent them from being used against the ruling class, such as Robocop's [4th Prime Directive](https://robocop.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_Directives) - these can be killswitches, explosives, chemical agents that can be circulated through a ventilation system and will only affect wetware, trackers, surveillance devices, etc. Expand on this with the potential for having your modifications hacked as in [Ghost in the Shell](https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/276869).
* People with modifications are subject to being victims of violence by fanatical purists, or even targeted for "stealing jobs" from normal humans. Expand on this with whole countries or planets having vastly different policies regarding modifications.
* Accepting modifications that make you unable to live anywhere except the environment you're being modified to work in would generally be a last resort for someone who has no other way to work or survive. Expand on this with a system designed to force certain groups of people into these types of jobs, or with organs being harvested for the upper class when replaced with machines.
* It's cheaper to modify workers than to create full-on robots - there are lots of people, life is cheap, and parts can be moved from dead workers to living ones.
* Generalized AI was already tried and was found to be impossible to produce or perhaps control, as in Dune's [Butlerian Jihad](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Butlerian_Jihad), so bolting hardware onto people is the only way to go. Expand on this with religious overtones of biological purity and general distrust of genetic engineering and / or machine/human gestalt entities.
[Answer]
# Cyborgs are treated like property:
All cyborgs have AI implanted in their brains that control the enhancements and translate the cyborg’s thoughts into movements. This is actually similar to AI that is today being used to restore mobility to paralyzed people.
But AI is mistrusted, and all AI is tightly controlled, the property of its manufacturers (who are then liable for it). So legally, cyborgs are no longer considered human. Their devices are not their property, effectively making them slaves.
Further, the AI can be externally controlled, and told to make the cyborg do anything the controllers want. Very useful if you need an expert on an isolated oil rig, not so fun being controlled remotely by a doctor or engineer a continent away.
] |
[Question]
[
The Emperor has decreed that the speed limit for horses and horse-drawn vehicles within city limits is to be 5 leagues per hour. As usual he has left the implementation details to his Scientific Adviser.
Using only medieval-type measuring devices, how can the Adviser satisfy the Emperor's wishes?
You can assume that there are wooden odometers available
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UDvwe.png)
and medieval clocks
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mYygB.png)
---
It presumably doesn't make any difference to the answer but a league can be assumed to be 3 miles.
[Answer]
**No technology is needed at all:**
From <http://www.speedofanimals.com/animals/horse>:
>
> All horses move naturally with four basic gaits: the four-beat walk,
> which averages 6.4 kilometres per hour (4.0 mph); the two-beat trot or
> jog, which averages 13 to 19 kilometres per hour (8.1 to 12 mph)
> (faster for harness racing horses); and the leaping gaits known as the
> canter or lope (a three-beat gait that is 19 to 24 kilometres per hour
> (12 to 15 mph), and the gallop. The gallop averages 40 to 48
> kilometres per hour (25 to 30 mph).
>
>
>
Only the gallop is over the limit: The speed limit can be enforced with a simple no-galloping rule. Any minimally-trained observer can tell the difference between the gaits.
[Answer]
With medieval roads? Don't even bother! Their axles will shatter if they try going too fast.
If you insist, put up [speedbumps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_bump) every hundred metres or so, or have twisted roads within your city limits. That will limit speed without needing the excess costs of constant monitoring. Anybody going too fast will either lose their wheels or make a sufficient racket to get bystanders' attention.
[Answer]
**Frame Challenge**
My knee-jerk reaction is that no one during medieval times would think in terms of distance-per-time. They're far more likely to think in terms of the behavior of the primary engine of motivation: the horse. In other words, the law would be that no one can run their horse above a canter. Everyone would understand that. Nobody would understand distance-per-time, even if you could invoke the tech to do it.
Add to this that historically politicians have *never understood science* and it's pretty much a guarantee that what you're seeking will never come to pass. The emperor would declare that no one can go faster than his horse (because a royal horse is the correct speed, after all).
[Answer]
I would just post an officer with an hourglass at one end of a street of known length. If he sees a horse or a vehicle passing a certain point at the beginning of the street, he turns the hourglass; if the road user passes the end of the street before the hourglass has finished, that means they're speeding, and eligible for a fine. If you make the fine high enough, e.g. seizure of the horse or carriage, people will make sure they'll never be speeding and keep a safe margin away from the maximum speed.
I'm not sure how precise medieval hourglasses were, but (sorry for using another system) your maximum speed amounts to 6.7 m/s; given a street of 100 meter, this is 14.9 seconds; you'll need 1.5 second precision (from both the hourglass and the observer) to obtain 0.5 league per hour precision.
[Answer]
If you want a reliable measuring equipment, you need to have better than medieval clocks and odometers.
A clock which can be transported on bumpy medieval roads and still measure the time in a good way is probably out of time for the middle age.
I think it is more practical to limit the horse gait. Step, trott and gallop come with peculiar velocities and can be easily recognized without any measuring device. Furthermore, it's harder to tamper with them.
[Answer]
### No technology needed
These are medieval times. The Emperor's authority is absolute, and the Emperor's officers' authority can only be countermanded by the Emperor.
So you just need to show the traffic enforcement soldiers (because they will be soldiers) what a horse running at 5 leagues per hour looks like, and then say "anything faster than that, book them."
As with Judge Dredd, these soldiers are judge and jury. You have no right of appeal, no right of complaint, no right to do anything except pay them, which you do at the point of a sword. *It doesn't matter whether they're right.*
[Answer]
A technically simple - but reasonably expensive to implement - solution is to add grooves to all the roads (running crosswise, not lengthwise). If they are spaced evenly, then the frequency of the noise made by a cart traveling along it corresponds to the speed the cart is traveling at. The rule can be as simple as prohibiting the carts from making a noise higher than a particular note, and can be checked by anyone with minimal training.
It will be expensive to add grooves to all the roads, though, including maintaining them when they wear out, and it will be unpopular to make noisy streets even noisier.
[Answer]
Odometers/speedometers/ etc. will not work here because they can be mandated for *carts* but not for *horses* - you can make a speedometer today (and even 100 years ago) that could fit on a horse without weighing it down too much, but you could not have done that 500 years ago. So the *only* solutions are, as suggested by others, are to measure the speed externally by:
* Limit based on horse gait (if it comes through the gate with the wrong gait...) By far the simplest with the catch that someone might try to train their horse to run differently, though I think that would be impractical at best. This works as long as the desired speed matches well with different gaits, and is the simplest yet also subjective. But then again, the word of the emperor's traffic enforcer is considered trustworthy by definition.
* Hourglass. The good part about an hourglass in medieval times is that if you make one and it turns out to run too slow or too fast, due to the hole between the sections being hard to reproduce exactly the same between hourglasses, it really doesn't matter. The emperor & his scientific advisor produce one reference hourglass. When a new hourglass is manufactured, you add or remove sand until it runs for the same amount of time.
The emperor has another trick up his royal sleeve: If he wants to arrest someone, he can have his traffic enforcer release dogs into the street as his rival crosses the starting line. The horses react and gallop along uncontrollably for a block and the enforcer gets to write his ticket. Which can include, at his discretion, a visit to the dungeon.
[Answer]
Major roads (anywhere where it would be possible to exceed the speed limit) will have a... something... alongside them traveling at exactly 5 leagues per hour. As long as you are going slower than the something, you are fine. If you are passing it, you're in trouble...so that part is simple.
Now the more complicated part is what should be the "something". I think a marble run could do the trick. You'll want to shield it somehow (something translucent like waxed paper) to prevent wind from interfering, and you'll need to create some friction in the track to maintain a constant (non-accelerating) speed. Also you'll want something like a watermill to power the marble lift to get the marbles back to the top again. It might take a really smart person to come up with the idea in that era, but actually building it is should be within medieval technology (although building one on every major road will be a big undertaking).
[Answer]
An answer in what I think is the spirit of your question: Use the wooden odometer you have included in your question, and use it to haul a flag up a pole on the cart, via friction. Calibrate these things so that the flag slips down the driving element (say, twine) at a known rate such that if the cart goes faster than X speed, the twice drive the flag up the pole faster than it can slide down -- a lossy driven element. If the speed is below X, then the flag remains at the bottom of the pole, out of sight.
Then you local modder community can sell shifty apparati that decrease the friction, and your guards can inspect poles and twine and flags, all under the guidance of your science advisor.
I think this is what you're looking for based oion the way you have phrased your question.
Source: I did this in A.D. 1453, and the slow response time of shifting reinforcements around was part of why we lost Constantinople.
[Answer]
I like Glorfindel's proposal, but the hourglass for every traffic warden is not really necessary within city limits as long as there can be a bell tower.
* Get a precise map of the streets, using the odometer cart.
* Label all intersections and intervals within longer streets.
* By law, all horsemen and cart drivers must carry a log book. At each sound of the bell, they must write down where they are. There are spot checks and *serious* penalties for inaccuracy.
* Every night the logs are collected and a random sample is analyzed.
The problem with that is that it only provides *average* speeds. If the average speed is above the limit then the top speed must have been above the limit as well. But an average speed below the limit does not prove that the cart never went above top speed.
---
# A Rube Goldberg Speedometer
1. An odometer drops stone balls onto a scale depending on distance traveled.
2. A mechanism triggered by the falling level of a water clock kicks stone balls of the scale at the right rate for top speed. If there is no stone, nothing happens. (That's where I get a little fuzzy. Ask your resident mad genius.)
3. Whenever there are two or more stones on the scale at the same time, the balance arm moves and breaks a seal.
Completely insane, of course.
[Answer]
Pressure plates a known distance apart in the road - one to open a water valve, and the other to shut it. The water thus pours into a graduated container, and the amount of water dispensed is inversely proportional to the speed of the animal or vehicle activating the plates. A technician is required to empty the container after each vehicle, and to intelligently resolve multiple-vehicle situations.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
This question does not appear to be about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help).
Closed 1 year ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/214735/edit)
So, let’s say 300-ish modern American Soldiers/Marines are sent back to the civil war. They lack any heavy weaponry, but overall this is what their armament consists of:
250 of them have basic M4 rifles and M9 pistols.
25 of them have M249 SAW’s.
And the last 25 have Barret .50 cal sniper rifles.
They have advanced weapons and tech, but there are only 300 of them, so I’d like to ask: What would be the best, most tactically logical role to place these men in.
Clarification: They are fighting on the Union side, and as for ammo, they have consistent resupply of it.
[Answer]
I feel like a lot of other answers focused on things other than the combat effectiveness that modern troops would have, which is what I feel like the question is getting at. Yes, their knowledge is invaluable, their training would be helpful, and their perfect knowledge of the future is a huge advantage. But I think the OP was focused on how they could be used in direct combat. That being said, here is my take.
### Campaign Strategy
---
First, large-scale strategy. You would want to save the use of these troops for a time when the enemy forces are extended. Once they are used the enemy would change tactics, and while you would still have an advantage, the massive advantage of using them in surprise would be gone. These armies would adapt, just as troops in WW1, WW2, and modern conflicts changed tactics based on new technologies. They would be technologically out-classed, but they aren't stupid.
I would attempt to goad the enemy into an attack with their main forces. First, I would engage a superior enemy force and then start a strategic retreat into a defensive position where the modern troops could be deployed. I would then use the modern forces to decimating effect in that battle and continue to harry them until the entire force surrenders. That alone could end the war if planned well enough, especially if they see the effectiveness of your new weapons.
Also, artillery at the time was incredibly effective. Concentrating your modern troops would be a poor decision. These troops for the most part should be highly mobile and divided into small groups with easy routes of disengagement. If they are ever being overwhelmed, they should retreat and regroup in a safe area. Losing the troops to overwhelming odds or risky maneuvers is pointless.
### M4 Soldiers
---
The modern infantry men with M4's would be a huge asset seeing as most of the combat of the time was en masse. Especially since they are trained as such, I would use squads (9 or 13 depending if they are Army or Marines) of modern soldiers as mobile, long-range guerilla fighters.
They should be mounted if possible to allow quick transportation to different areas of the battlefield. Each squad could then engage massed formations from defensive positions at long range (250 - 500m). The accuracy and fire rate of an M4 would allow the squad to incapacitate entire formations at a time, likely with such speed that the enemy would not be able to return more than a volley or two of fire. Such a squad would likely suffer little to no casualties, especially with modern body armor.
None of these squads need to have a SAW or any snipers, though deploying them that way could be effective. Realistically, the firepower is already overwhelming, reducing the need for SAW suppression, and DMR configurations of the M4 would be effective enough to fit most front-line "sniper" roles. Not to mention that the Barret .50 is not as well suited for anti-personnel as an M4, especially when you are in open engagements with rather exposed targets.
If you are worried about any of your officers or other officials, a squad of modern soldiers is the best security you can provide.
### M249 SAW Soldiers
---
In a civil war setting a SAW is an ideal defensive weapon. Used against approaching troops in tight formations it would have incredible effect, and could do so at distances well out of black powder rifle range.
The reliability of these weapons is unmatched by civil war era armaments, and the ability to fire long bursts at high rate was unheard of (the closest equivalent was a gatling gun, which was rare, not reliable, and could not sustain fire for very long). Just be absolutely certain that you do not overheat the barrels to extend their life as much as possible (unless new barrels are lumped in with the unlimited ammunition supply).
The suppressive ability of a SAW, and the fact that they can move forward with counter-attacking troops means defense would be very difficult to penetrate, and enemy advances would be stalled significantly. The suppression would also allow supporting troops (like your mobile M4 infantry) to flank and maneuver much more easily.
### Barret .50cal Soldiers
---
These weapons were intended as mobile anti-material platforms. They can destroy light vehicles, penetrate soft cover like plaster, brick, and wood barricades, and have incredibly long effective ranges. These troops should be deployed to take advantage of these capabilities.
A few of these troops as guerillas could decimate the enemy's best weapons: artillery batteries. Their rounds are also ideal for destroying wagons and horses used in supply lines. Entrenched troops in defensive positions could be drastically softened before attacks as well.
Perhaps the greatest advantage (and other posts have covered this very well) is targeting enemy high ranking officers. You could eliminate officers efficiently from ranges well outside of engagement distance for standard troops at the time. As stated before however, you should try to organize a mass targeting of officers the first time the snipers are deployed, as after that, the officers would be much more cautious.
### Summary
---
Your advantages in effective range, rate of fire, destructive capability, reliability, mobility, and survivability (body armor and range) will be incredible. You need to make sure these troops are deployed effectively and use them to end the war.
* Use these troops in a very decisive battle where the enemy is goaded into overextending
* Use the SAW's in a support role to strengthen defensive positions and provide suppression for your other modern units to maneuver.
* Then deploy the other troops; largely as mobile cavalry guerilla fighters.
* Use them against high value targets like officers, artillery, and supply lines
* Where needed, deploy against massed troops to change the tide of battle
* Do not over-extend any of these troops as each troop or weapon is incredibly valuable, and you want to keep the advantage over time.
* If needed, a small number of troops can be used as security forces.
**NOTE**
The M9 pistols are relatively inconsequential seeing as almost every engagement in the American Civil War was open and at ranges much more appropriate for an M4; not a lot of urban or indoor warfare where a pistol *might* be more effective. Also, until very recently, it was policy to not issue side arms to most infantry soldiers. Regardless, they could give their pistols to regular union officers, which would be very effective compared to the black powder revolvers of the time, even without training. Having the pistols as a defensive weapon for your snipers is another effective use.
[Answer]
They'd be pretty lethal on a tactical level. One of many reasons why World War 1 was so grotesque was because soldiers (towards the beginning, at least) lined up and walked/charged into machine guns. Imagine that but with less advanced military thought/planning and more powerful weapons - it would be horrendous carnage. Once you've machine-gunned a fifth or so of a formation, the remaining four-fifths tend to break and run, and the sight of tens to hundreds of men being cut down like wheat would annihilate morale.
**Tactically speaking, they'd be a great anti-breakthrough unit: firing from concealed positions against incoming charges and making them turn and run. If they get exposed, they'll likely be killed eventually, so they're less effective on the offensive.**
**However, they're probably less dangerous in this regard then they would be if they employed themselves on a strategic/logistics level.**
Tactically, they can't be everywhere at once. Strategically, they can increase the Union's strength enormously.
They can train other soldiers in things like modern first aid, squad tactics (good for urban fighting, if not combat on an open field), and modern logistics. Those soldiers go on to train other soldiers, and so on and so forth. Training them in modern hand-to-hand combat would also be quite useful; modern soldiers receive training in this, whereas Civil War ones basically brawled.
They could each be attached to Union generals as tactical advisors. They know what the Confederacy is going to do, to an extent. They can encourage, say, the Anaconda Plan, knowing that it'll work, among other things - basically, they're a source of info on what the Confederacy will try later in the war, meaning that the Union essentially has clairvoyance.
They can stop Lincoln - their commander in chief - from being assassinated, ensuring that Radical Reconstruction happens, which, in my humble opinion, will do a lot of good for the US further down the line. Best president ever GG no re.
They can use their radios to drastically beef up the Union's logistics and communication for as long as the batteries last. If they have hand-crank generators, that's even better, because they'll last until they wear out, and spare parts might actually be producible, given that, at the time, electrical power had a [technology readiness level](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level) of about 6, rather than 1.
Their technology might be somewhat reverse-engineerable; the Union's finest gunsmiths might be able to produce a rudimentary semi-automatic weapon, although it wouldn't have much of a service life, and reliability would be an issue - both due to the constraints of engineering and science at the time.
They can inject a lot of modern knowledge into the US at the time - for instance, "here's how you treat a sucking chest wound", or "don't let lead get in the water", or "electricity is something you should put a lot of research into".
In short, they're much better at making the entire Union hit harder than they are at actually fighting, and people will believe everything they say once it turns out that they can basically predict the future.
[Answer]
# Communications!
The answer is in this sentence: "They have advanced weapons **and tech**"
Split your modern troops up 1 to a Corps, or 1 to a Division if you can get enough radios. Reserve a handful of radios for advance scouts and lookout posts.
The simple ability for an army in the field to receive instantaneous communications about its situation and orders, to coordinate attacks, to send reinforcements at need, to dynamically react to events on the battlefield outside of line-of-sight, will be a much greater force multiplier than any actual combat role you could conceive for your modern troops.
[Answer]
**Hospitals/ Battlefield medics**
Some basic googling suggest maybe half to 2/3 of people died from infectious diseases. I expect even basic knowledge of things disinfecting water, disinfecting wounds etc would save many lives. Modern medical supplies would be limited and run out quickly but even the basic ideas about first-aid and keeping things cleans would give a much higher survival chance to individual soldiers and thus larger army to fight with. If there are any doctors or other well trained medical personnel in the group they could probably help train the local doctors in more modern technique (things like better amputation techniques, surgical procedures, wound management etc)
[Answer]
**Relieve Fort Sumpter. Capture General Beauregard.**
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter>
The ability of the Confederates to defeat the Union at Fort Sumpter encouraged their idea that they could pull off the secession. Your 300 arrive in Charleston and destroy the batteries shelling Fort Sumpter one after the other, leveraging the sniper rifles.
Your future soldiers (in Union uniforms, right?) then proceed to attack the assembling Confederate Army and capture General Beauregard. He will be released. He will be shocked and awed by what has happened, and bring his story back. He will note that the Union is apparently capable of far, far more than they realized.
Maybe the rebels will rethink their course of action.
Probably not. Americans are stubborn, Southerners more than the rest.
[Answer]
## Decapitation strike: 1854
The Civil War began with a secret society, [Knights of the Golden Circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle), which organized a series of "filibuster" campaigns, including the temporarily successful conquest of Nicaragua in 1856, before bringing their troops home to form the nucleus of the Confederate Army. Given time travel, you should set your mission to target their first "castle" of five men in Cincinnati in 1854 that began the organization, or [William Walker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster))'s force in 1856 that popularized imperialism in America for the following 167 years and counting.
Of course, the premise of stopping the Civil War earlier in any way carries with it the risk that the Emancipation Proclamation would never have been issued, and that in a spirit of compromise, progress against slavery might have been even slower and more miserable.
[Answer]
## Propaganda
Around a third of those 300 will be non-white, with white enlisted people serving under non-white Officers and NCOs.
Stage demonstrations of the visitors massively superior military power to back the claims that they are from the future. State that the North wins the Civil War, even without the visitors help. Make the claim that in the future slavery is dead, and that inevitable technological advances will render slavery economically inviable within a generation. Point out that the visitors are assisting the North in the production of their weapons and soon every Union trooper will be armed with an M4. (This last is an out right lie, the best they could hope for would be rifles like the Lee Enfield, Mauser 98 or 1903 Springfield. Reliable machine guns more advanced than the gatling gun will be out of the question without good smokeless powder, but hey! its propaganda, not truth, and bolt action rifles with jacketed bullets will shoot rings round rifled muskets with Minne balls in any case).
Internally convince the North that the only way for the US to take its future place as a Global Superpower is to reunify as rapidly as possible and to really commit to taking the secession seriously and recruiting and training a large effective army. Make the enemy the Rich corrupt land owning slave owners who oppress white and black alike and make it a war of liberation of the South.
A better prepared North that can credibly claim guaranteed victory (based on future knowledge) might collapse Southern morale so completely it leads to surrender.
Also of critical importance is to ensure that Northern politicians understand the necessity of winning the Peace. The victory in the Civil War was sufficiently decisive to prevent any further insurrection. In the absence of that it has to be clear that being in the Union is way more advantageous than being out of it to prevent a second revolt when the Southern states catch up with the North's new military technology - which is inevitable. The first self loading rifles will be developed within 50 years even without people familiar with their design and operation and modern examples to copy. Invest in the economic development of the South without slavery and make a lot of noise about doing it.
## Edit
Prompted by The Daleks comment I have given it some thought, and in fact I have thought of a design for a machinegun that I believe would operate reliably with black powder ammunition. Moreover, since I came up with it in minutes of actually thinking about the problem, I believe it would be obvious to anyone with a reasonable knowledge of historical firearms.
[Answer]
The best possible use for them is to not use them at all. Get them off the battle field and hide them somewhere harmless until they can be returned to the future.
Travelling that far back in time with that much weaponry has the potential of totally disrupting the existing timeline. Grandfather paradoxes, unexpected survivors and the acceleration of the Union victory by several years, the American population following your marines deployment will have no relationship to the population which survived the original conclusion.
Any use of such a powerful force during this pivotal moment of history would have vast effects on the entire future. Given how close we've come to self-annihilation during the final decades of the 20th century, we should be very careful inciting any temporal aberrations prior to the cold war years. A different set of our parents might have to live again through that entire accursed time, and this next time, none of us might come out of it so lucky.
Kill the Time Travelers! Protect the Present!
[Answer]
Frankly the most dangerous weapons 20th century solders would have are *not* guns.
I'd say the best/most dangerous weapons are radios and communications. Modern infantry units would have UAVs (and short of massed fire, its unlikely civil war era troops could take them out. )
Even a 'weak' radio with say a 4km range would let you get an hour or so's warning out at 'modern' marching rates.
Even with weapons of the era, knowing *where* the enemy is, and knowing how effective your fire is would be invaluble. One soldier reporting an enemy column is moving a certain way means a whole load of his side, either with contemporary or modern weapons know where, when and how to ambush them, and know how many of the enemy they have.
This would be a *massive* force multiplier
I'd use 'modern' troops as raiders - hitting soft targets and resupply wagons. Shoot horses, kill guards and either take or destroy the enemy's supply lines, or to decapitate enemy generals
I'd also consider the impact of other modern equipment, body armour is likely to easily stop lead balls, modern helmets...
And Night vision - since your troops can see the enemy in the dead of the night, and attack enemy forces unseen. Being able to sneak into an enemy base, and tamper with supplies or slit random guard's throats is likely to have an outsized reaction compared to the more energetic ways of breaking things and killing people.
[Answer]
# Background
Before we answer the question of: "How best to use modern troops?" we need to understand the fighting conditions of the day. One of the most important facts is the engagement distance. Although both sides had rifles with a theoretical effective range of 400+ yards, most engagements happened at 50-100 yards! There are several reasons for this fact:
1. **Gunpowder was a severely limiting resource.** Many soldiers were not proficient marksmen because neither army could produce gunpowder at a sufficient rate to allow them extensive shooting practice. Some soldiers were observed shooting their rifles at a 45 degree angle into the air, for lack of actual marksmanship experience and understanding of ballistics!
2. **Black powder turned the battlefield into a giant smoke cloud.** Smokeless powder was one of the most important innovations in warfare, because it allowed soldiers to see the enemy even after many rounds of rifle fire. Soldiers often closed to 100 yards or less simply because they could not see what they were shooting at in 400 yard rifle range.
3. **Optics were primitive.** Iron sights were generally the only optics available, and a lack of practice shooting means that most soldiers did not know how to properly account for bullet drop over longer ranges. In the 50 yard range for typical engagements, bullet drop was not an important consideration.
Now, cannon were available, and although they had an effective range of a mile or more, they were typically used at 1000 yard ranges or less, due to accuracy and other battlefield conditions. But you have to realize that artillery pieces were massive resource hogs, often being manned by teams of 10 soldiers, multiple horses, and special wagons called "caissons" which carried the ammunition and powder.
In addition, both sides sometimes employed war balloons to provide forward observation for artillery targeting. Obviously, this provided a significant advantage to look behind the smokescreen created by one's own rifle line, as well as identify targets of opportunity behind the main line.
Orders were typically given verbally to infantry units, and by battle courier to officers and NCOs.
# Equipment
You said that the modern soldiers just have "basic" gear. Given the facts above, I would strongly suggest that you equip them with the following gear, which is more or less "standard", depending on the unit (but none of it is "exotic"):
1. [ENVG-III](https://asc.army.mil/web/portfolio-item/enhanced-night-vision-goggle-envg/), with thermal imaging which can see through smoke. This one piece of gear can be a total game-changer.
2. [ACOG](https://www.pewpewtactical.com/best-acog-scopes/) sights, which are designed for effective targeting out to 800 m. No Confederate officer will expect a Union regiment to fire on his troops at 600 yards. At least not with any effect. Your riflemen with their M4s + ACOG will effectively all be snipers under Civil War battle conditions.
3. [M203](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M203_grenade_launcher) grenade launcher. This turns every M4 rifleman into a grenadier.
4. [M18 Claymore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M18_Claymore_mine) mines. Optional, but a massive force multiplier if used well.
# Defense
One of the most effective use of the modern soldiers is defensively during a large pitched battle. You'll want all of the troops to be equipped with the thermal imaging goggles for battlefield visibility. That's expensive, but you only have 300 of them, so no problem, right? I would then assign targets as follows:
* Snipers: target balloons, then officers/color teams, then artillery
* SAW gunner: start fires at [6-700 m](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M249_light_machine_gun) starting at the flanks and working towards the center until enemy is defeated
* M4 riflemen: engage single targets with precision fires (single round at a time) at 500 m, then switch to M203 at 350 m if there are still massed troops approaching. Otherwise, continue with precision fires.
Before the battle, you want to prepare the field with claymores, if you have them. They should be placed in the middle of each formation where enemy troops are expected to charge, about 150 m from the front lines (i.e., before the typical engagement distance). It's more effective to place them densely in the center rather than spreading them out, for reasons which will soon be clear.
When the fighting starts, the SAWs will start picking off troops at the flanks of each formation. The enemy will quickly learn that that is a dangerous place to be, and will charge towards the center for "safety". Union soldiers can make a show of faking casualties towards the center, or even fleeing it for the flanks, to make it look like the Confederates will be able to break the lines if they push forward. Warfighting theory at this time was heavily predicated on breaking through enemy formations to get behind the lines and wreak havoc, so this will be a natural instinct for many soldiers.
Of course, what we are really doing is creating a kill box for the M203s and the claymores. The SAWs should be able to thin a pretty good number of troops in the 500-800 m range. They are modern weapons designed for the modern battlefield where suppressing enemy troops hiding in cover is the task of the day. Against unarmored troops charging in the open, they should simply annihilate any charge almost by themselves. But let's say there aren't enough to finish the job by themselves. The M4s should be able to lay down effective and deadly fires in the 350-500 m range, thinning the charge dramatically. At at 66% accuracy, the riflemen should be able to hit about 20 soldiers per magazine, or about 140 per 7-mag loadout. The SAWs at 50% accuracy should be able to pick off about 100 soldiers per 200-round belt of ammo, or 400 soldiers for a typical loadout.
If we assemble 10 squads of 8 riflemen + 1 SAW + 1 sniper, then each squad should be able to average maybe 1500 kills each. Now, that's only counting rifle kills. If we consider each M4 rifleman carries 4 grenades with a 130 m casualty radius, and assume soldiers are bunched up at 2 m apart, then each grenade may be able to cause 60+ casualties, or 240 per loadout. That's another 1920 casualties per squad. If we add 2 mines for every soldier, and we assume each mine can injure another 25 enemies, then that's another 400 casualties per squad. That's nearly 4000 casualties inflicted per 10-man squad!
The average Confederate brigade was a force of about 5000 soldiers, so given that some soldiers will inevitably break and run, we can safely surmise that a single well-armed squad could defeat an entire Confederate brigade all by itself. If you add on Union soldiers picking off the stragglers, it seems likely that a squad + Union brigade could easily take on 2-3 Confederate brigades.
I say the Union soldiers would become far more effective because the modern soldiers would be firing on the enemy and inflicting casualties long before the enemy got into typical engagement range. So the Union soldiers could mostly hold their fire until enemy troops actually closed to the 50-100 m range, giving them a clear view on their side. The Union also had superior artillery support, and could unleash devastating volleys at the remaining attackers.
A better use of Union soldiers would be to push them forward in a skirmisher line. They could engage from a prone position all the way out to the line of claymores (which obviously they want to stay behind), making their effective range about 200 m. They should stay mostly on the flanks to funnel attackers into the killzone, and keep their heads down so the modern fighters can shoot past them (although, the Union often had the high ground, which makes shooting over them much easier).
# Offense
After some devastating defeats using the tactics above, the modern soldiers should strike out on their own as a few special hunter-kill companies (up to 5). Catching a Confederate division on the march with the cover of forest would very likely cause them to scatter and flee, leaving behind their artillery and most of their supplies. Since the Confederates were already struggling with supplies, this kind of harassment would likely deplete the warfighting capability much faster than open combat. There is no evidence that Civil War era soldiers had any experience in insurgent-style ambush tactics or warfare, and commanders would struggle to organize their troops under such conditions. Again, claymores and snipers can be used to great effect by preparing the battlefield and targeting officers, color guards, even horses. Artillery can be rendered completely useless by lobbing a few M203 rounds on the caissons.
But hey, why expose yourself to enemy fire by attacking in the day? We've already equipped the entire force with NVG, so launch the raid at night, starting with that artillery powder, to make some nice bright startling explosions to wake everyone up at 2 AM. Even modern militaries know that the US owns the night, and that is when they are most vulnerable to attack. A Civil War era general will literally not know what hit him and will struggle to mount any kind of effective defense. It would pretty much be shooting fish in a barrel. At that point, let the M249s loose on rapid fire and don't worry too much about conserving ammo. Most soldiers would probably flee in the night hoping to escape with their lives. Let the general fight the demons and ghosts who can see in the dark!
[Answer]
## Hot Air Balloons - Sniper Rifle Edition
Balloons were first used for military observation in the 1790s, and were in fact used during the US Civil War.
Nothing in the Rebel Army is going to have the range / stopping power to damage a balloon in flight unless they get very close.
It's going to be extraordinarily difficult to get close to the balloon when there's a bunch of Union soldiers manning the tether at the base, and a sniper in the balloon acting unopposed.
From the elevated position, with vastly superior range, the snipers can systemically dismantle the Rebel Army. When you kill the Rebel officers, runners, and scouts, their force ceases to be an army, and becomes a mob.
## Strike at the Heart
American Generals were not aggressive enough early in the war - Having 25 SAW machine guns is going to change that. American forces could strike at the major East Coast cities; starting with the Confederate capitol in Richmond.
Break the modern soldiers into groups, and pair them with the normal Civil War soldiers with a ~25:1 native to modern ratio.
Have a small group of the modern soldiers oversee protection of the 25 Sniper Balloons, and the remaining 200 or so would be organized around the SAWs. The snipers and traditional scouts find the largest concentrations of Rebel soldiers, and they direct the SAW squads towards them, and the SAW squads will do the whole "close with and destroy the enemy with fire and maneuver" thing.
The Rebels could learn to deal with the SAWs or the snipers, but not both. Not fast enough to matter. The first battle would be a bloodbath - the snipers wreck communications, and the SAW-squads wreck everything else.
There probably wouldn't be a second battle. The Rebels wouldn't be able to put the army back together again fast enough. American forces advance on Richmond, occasionally harried by small Rebel groups, but effectively advancing unopposed.
When Richmond falls so early in the conflict, all hope of international recognition is gone. The Army of the Potomac prepares to move further south, but Rebel leaders formally surrender to American forces before it has a chance to move out.
[Answer]
There is a lot in their training that puts them ahead of the generals of the day in terms of military theory. They know how stealth improves survivability when fighting with firearms and how to get the best out of dead ground etc... They know a lot of tricks for intel gathering etc... that are relatively recent inventions that will still work in the American Civil War. You could do far worse than putting them into the training corps.
They also have a working knowledge of a number of other weapons they don't actually have with them (in particular [mortars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_(weapon)) and [recoilless rifles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recoilless_rifle) are very simple weapons that can be built with bronze age metallurgy as long as you know how to make gunpowder; they are well within the reach of the gunsmiths of the Civil War) so R&D is also a useful role.
They should also know the history so to begin with, if they're on the planning staff, they can out maneuver the Confederates, that's an advantage that won't last more than at most 2-3 engagements so use it wisely.
If for some reason the brass insist on putting such valuable sources of knowledge on the front line then the best use for them is as a deep penetration asset operating behind the enemy lines attacking soft targets like supply dumps and manufacturing centres. Also as pro insurgency forces supporting slave desertions and uprisings on southern plantations.
[Answer]
We know that the Union won the civil war.
We do NOT know the effect, if any, of applying time displaced troops from the future back to the Civil War.
The wise move would be to avoid loss at all costs by keeping those troops sequestered.
[Answer]
Tactically?
Let’s see how a modern soldier matches up against a Union infantryman.
The 1861 Springfield rifle (<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_Model_1861>) is a 0.58 caliber weapon, with a muzzle velocity between 1,000 and 1,400 feet per second, an effective range between 200 and 400 yards, and a rate of fire of 2 to 3 shots per minute.
The modern M4 (<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine>) fires a roughly 0.22 caliber shot at around 3,000 feet per second with an effective range of about 550 yards, and theoretically can lay down 750 to 900 rounds per minute, but is practically limited by 30 round clips.
Comparing :
Damage — Union infantryman
Range — Tie
Rounds — Modern infantryman
These soldiers are embedding in forces (if part of the Army of the Potomac) about 100 thousand strong and engaging in conflicts that leave about 40 thousand casualties.
Although the modern infantryman is more individually potent (maybe 10x times as effective as his Union peer), accounting for the technology force multiplier would make the force “effectively” 3,000 men, or 3% of either side.
There’s no particular front-line role where they would seem to shine. I’d imagine they would be an individual unit, to be used as best as possible.
Now, I let’s take a look at those heavy weapons
The M249 (<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M249_light_machine_gun>) fires the same 0.22 caliber round as the M4 at the same approximate 3,000 feet per second velocity, has a slightly better effective range of 700 yards, and the same theoretical firing rate, but is practically limited to about 100 rounds per minute.
Accounting for force multiplier (100x), 25 of these things are worth about 2,500 of their peers.
The whole modern combined arms force, then, is about as effective as about 5,500 of their Union comrades. In these larger campaigns, in my mind, there is no role that they stand out for. I’d still think they are one frontline unit among many.
[Answer]
I feel like there's some overthinking going on here. A squad with that force who was even moderately trained going into the (first) battle of the bull run would have utterly obliterated the opposing army without even breaking a sweat. Each side was completely unprepared and untrained at that point, fielded about 18k soldiers each and lost about ~400 each. You'd be past 400 within seconds of engagement and it's not unreasonable to think, given the tactics used, nearly 100% of the opposing army would be destroyed if the attack was timed correctly. It would make a WW1 trench charge under heavy machinegun fire look like a pleasant walk through the park by comparison. Such destruction would be about the equivalent of the atom bombs in terms of how quickly surrender would occur afterwards.
I'm sure this might come across as an overexaggeration, but it's important to look at how armies formed themselves, particularly in the early battles. You had thousands of soldiers in tightly packed lines, complete sitting ducks for modern machine guns. Their leadership would have been immediately blown to pieces by the snipers, leading to terrified mass confusion.
[Answer]
**Don't use them. Use their knowledge.**
Firstly and most importantly as someone else has mentioned, it is essential to keep them and the fact of their arrival secret and hidden. This is because their knowledge is the key to victory not their weaponry. There are supposedly only 300 of them even of they do have 'unlimited' ammo.
(How does that happen BTW? If they have unlimited ammo that implies a continuous and ongoing time travel capability which presumably also means there's nothing stopping more troops equipment and supplies being sent.)
But back to the point. There's only so far you can disburse that much firepower without diminishing its impact/utility. And you have to remember that by the middle of the war both sides had access to rifled muskets with effective ranges out past 1000 yards! Even civil war carbines were effective out past 300 yards and the 'enemy' had tens of thousands of them. Plus in theory there's nothing stopping the enemy from 'winning' any one battle simply by virtue of being victorious someplace else on the field your men aren't.
Also the first time they engage in a historical battle? That changes the dynamics of the war. The battle and its outcome will no longer the one they remember and the one after that will entirely different again. So their advance knowledge of where best to position themselves to ensure victory at any original battlefield will also go 'poof' as the time line changes.
So back to their knowledge. If they're arrival remains a secret the odds are high that their collective knowledge of the Civil War (particularly that of the officers and senior NCOs) will let them give Lincoln factual assessments of every battle ever fought. Not just locations and outcomes but details of the mistakes made by opposing commanders and assessments of each commanders performance. So Lincoln has the chance to promote the best and remove the worst leaders well in advance of their victories and defeats.
They can advise the Union of where and when the South will be weakest and assist with technical advances just by suggesting improvements in how the North uses current medical, and engineering techniques. In short they can make the Union Army 'better' just teaching the North how to select and use the best of what they already have available without waiting for 'miracle' weapons from the future to arrive or be built.
[Answer]
1. Communications: give one to each general for direct, unbreakable communication
2. Code breaking: use a pocket calculator or something to break the opponents communications, [they seem trivial](https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/the-codes-of-war/) maybe will also need a bit of [help from locals to understand the message](https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.c3teachers.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F01%2FExplainerCipherintheCivilWar-Final.pdf&pdf=true) as well, then have someone tap the telegraph line and directly over radio transmit enemy communications.
3. Have someone observe army movements and directly report them via radio (do they have any infrared...)
4. Have someone with a pocket calculator and/or knowledge about logistics provide better logistical support to predict what is needed and where... **Logistics...**
5. If you need something heroic and decisive, and using info from radio have them take down an enemy general while he moves from one place to the other
But also, Use some modern sense and arm some black men early on...
[Answer]
# Full Metal Jacket:
There are plenty of solid answers here, but almost nothing has been said about logistics and technology transfer.
The biggest changes that could be wrought on the Civil War would be in the supply of advanced guns to the North and the denial of guns to the South. This would involve a mix of tactics and logistics.
* **Arrive at Harper's Ferry**: Most of the equipment used to arm the South was made with industrial equipment captured by the South at Harper's Ferry. Without this equipment, the Southern forces would be mostly armed with smoothbore muskets. The actual Southern force that [seized the armory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpers_Ferry_Armory#:) was trivial - about 360 men. At the start of the war, the South had [175,000 'modern' guns, but 140,000 of these were smoothbore](https://www.nps.gov/spar/learn/historyculture/arm-confederacy.htm). 15,000 of those rifles were stored at Harper's ferry itself. Denying the South the ability to produce rifles would cripple their ability to maintain the war effort and seriously degrade Southern arms at the start of the war. There would need to be a stronger blockade of Southern ports to prevent European guns from coming in.
* **Move the armory to safety**: All this stuff would be valuable to the North, but especially for my other plans.
* **Make repeating rifles with smokeless powder, metal cartridges, copper jackets, and repeating actions**: A sniper rifle is going to contain the basic engineering and designs to produce a magazine-fed [bolt action rifle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_action). Most of the mechanics of a bolt action rifle were already invented and in use in Europe. The Union actually fielded 900 at the battle of Antietam, but they decided they were to complicated to maintain and operate for regular soldiers. With the use of smokeless powder, metal cartridges and copper-jacketed bullets (a “full metal jacket”), the design and maintenance deficiencies of bolt-action rifles are solved. The [technology to produce](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/229032/accuracy-limits-of-victorian-era-rifles/229035#229035) both smokeless powder and electroplated bullets existed at this time, but the ideas hadn't been developed. A Union army deploying these rifles (easily used with rapid fire in a variety of positions) wouldn't need time travelers shooting guns. Even if the South captured some, they wouldn't stand a chance at making them.
* Train the Northern army: making full use of more modern firearms will require different tactics. A small force trained to use cover, move and maneuver and just generally use more modern techniques with guns that fire fast, accurate and at longer ranges would decimate the South.
[Answer]
## Capture the Flag!
>
> ***NOTICE* to the Downvoters:** The OP asked for 300 US Soldiers or Marines with ***"advanced weapons and tech"***. [Military technology](https://www.britannica.com/technology/military-technology) includes not just weapons, but transport, communications and intelligence. DT Cooper, the OP, asked for advanced tech and I supplied the modern US Navy in the form of an aircraft carrier, and perhaps some support vessels, along with the temporal portal to get them to the 1860s. If you downvoted because you don't like the answer, please ask a different question and be more specific about what you'd allow!
>
>
>
Since they have "advanced tech" at their disposal -- I'd say just pick a nice day to drive an aircraft carrier up the James River, send out some planes to lay down perimeter fire around Richmond, and then send those 300 US Marines in on helicopters or something to capture the C.S.A.'s Capitol, Bank, the other chief government buildings, main printing offices, post offices and telegraph offices.
Raise a 50 Star US flag over the Capitol and, having rounded up the entire Confederate government, set them to surrendering because the gig is up.
I can't see wasting our modern tech and training plus the ability to send it through *time* on sitting these men up in Antietam or someplace like that, where others have said they'd be, at best, just another unit, which means cannon fodder with fancier guns. Let em hit the heart and hit it strong.
[Answer]
# Filling the Hospital beds
These battle-hardened veterans face a few enemies they can not fight against, and the worst ones are plagues and malnutrition. While their brethren of the timeline are prepared and immune from some illnesses, these modern soldiers face the challenges of smallpox and dysentery as well as the very poor food support lines soon after they arrived.
# Dangling at the gallows
These strange people wearing strange things must be invaders from far away. They speak a strange dialect and the flags on their shoulders are a mockery of the United States - clearly, they are traitors or want to take over the real United States! Hang them!
# Dead like all the others
When it comes to an engagement, their superior weapons might allow them to hold one position quite well, but that will not stop the confederate troops from doing what they do: they will march thousands into the meatgrinder, try to outflank and encircle the position and then pour death into it from cannons and riflemen alike.
Even if this group is worth a whole 3000, maybe even 6000 soldiers of the union side, their ammunition will run out within a very short time. If they are present at Gettysburg, it would even be before noon of the very first day that they have run out of their bullets. Sure, the place they were would be a massacre, but then no bullet fly from the position because not a single cartridge is left while the rest of the troops on the battlefield, on both sides, has easily a few million bullets left and more bullets left - just nothing compatible with the modern guns.
] |
[Question]
[
This is a post cyberpunk world where pretty much everyone had cybernetic implants for pleasure and work enhancements. Close to 99% of the global amount of happiness, love and pleasure in general was artificially augmented.
Technological progress is pretty much equal to that of the 'Ghost in the Shell' franchise. But where they did focus on robotics, this world is more about emotion and sensory enhancements.
About 5 earth years ago, for reasons unknown to the best and the brightest, all bio-cyber integration hardware stopped working. Only implants are affected by this, as electric transportation vehicles, communication devices, computers and such do still work.
Mind you, the tech still runs, red glowing lights and all. But the handshake between tech and biological interfaces simply do not succeed.
(So far, no one agrees with me regarding this symptom)
This is a world thrust from the highest tower of elysium into the slums of fatal mass mental depression, as you might imagine.
So, while the setting is all about a world re-discovering natural emotions and non augmented ways of gratification, the mystery remains as to what caused this event.
This is where you, dear reader, enter the picture.
Q: What would be a plausible technological or natural catalyst stopping these implants from working on a global scale?
[Answer]
*I'm going to propose a different direction: **the failure was intended by the original designer.***
*While I wouldn't presume to rewrite the history of your world, this problem does invite some interesting backstory (though you may feel this rips off* I,Robot *a little too much).*
>
> Cybernetics, Enhancements, *Plugs*. Whatever you call them, everyone is using them - but few today give thought to the man who made this technological revolution possible; Dr. Brainman. On the eve of the 97th anniversary of the first public cybernetic, let's look back at his invention, and the history of these devices.
>
>
> In the year 2049, the late doctor was working in the labs of *MegaCorp, Inc.* (known today as *BrainCorp* [BSX:BRC,$1.3Q]) when he discovered the key to brain-computer interaction on a 2-way, fully conscious scale. After 3 years of work, the HoloEye was released, giving high resolution, zoomable, recordable vision to the blind, and eventually everyone.
>
>
> Recognizing the potential of this new device, *BrainCorp* has kept the exact design their most closely guarded secret, being the target of massive corporate espionage campaigns, and [...]
>
>
>
In reality, BrainCorp doesn't know how the device is made - they can plug anything they like into the port to create and improve upon all manner of tools and toys - but the device which enables it all is a mystery.
They even make and sell wholesale devices to other companies, so confident they are that no one else will be able to understand the device either. (And wanting to avoid the wrathful "anti-monopoly" legislation of the world government.)
Shortly after first creating the device, Dr. Brainman foresaw that his invention would be the doom of humanity. "If you give a rat a button that dispenses food, and a button that dispenses endorphins directly into his brain, the rat will push the pleasure button over and over until he dies of starvation."
But the damage had been done - he had built a machine to manufacture the devices by the billion, and he knew that if he tried to do anything to stop it, MegaCorp would throw every mind they had to discover the secrets and rebuild it. Instead, the good doctor had to play the waiting game...
In a routine update to the machine, he introduced a kill switch to the operating system of the devices - a switch which would cause the device to stop working at some future date. The devices only lasted 20 years before needing to be replaced, so eventually every device in use would have the flaw.
He set the date for 100 years after his first discovery - long enough that anyone he worked alongside, discussed theories with, or even chatted to in the cafeteria would be long gone, and no one would be able to update the machine to remove the kill switch.
Today, only a handful of people even know of the machine's existence, and none have any idea how it works - let alone how to fix it. But at midnight tonight, everyone's going to become a lot more interested...
*Of course whether Dr. Brainman's prediction that humanity would pleasure itself into oblivion may not have been accurate - from the sounds of your initial description, people have been using these devices responsibly. Really this was just a fun writing prompt, but if it helps give you some inspiration, then huzzah!*
[Answer]
Go for the simplest solution: millennium bug.
You would think that humanity would have learned after Y2K. Nope. In another post I described how [GPS has a millennium bug every 19 years or so](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/152295/21222). This is due to a design flaw, and the fix is people having to buy new GPS devices every 19 years. We are now in the first generation of devices which may survive this because cell phone apps and OS's are patchable for this, but a lot of standalone GPS devices did go nuts on April 6, 2019 and are now useless. The next time this bug will hit will be around 2038.
---
So it may be that your biotechnology devices have an embedded millennium bug in the firmware which everyone forgot about because no one cared. Maybe fixing it would be too expensive, requiring everyone to change their parts. Every corporation was waiting for someone else to invest the time and money to fix it. This went on for long enough that the risk eventually faded from memory.
Now no one knows how to access firmware, and thus it can't interface with flesh anymore.
By the way, a simple fix would be to reset the date in the devices. Unfortunately no one knows how to do that.
[Answer]
In todays world the main barrier to direct brain-machine interfaces is that the body rejects implants. Typically the body will grow a barrier/capsule around any foreign object placed into the brain (in order to isolate it). Presumably they have solved this problem in your world.
**That all changed when the I386 virus came into contact with the first human**.
The presence of the virus slowly makes the human nervous system more sensitive to foreign objects. The high-tech bio-compatible implant materials are no longer seen as compatible by our bodies. The body then does what it normally does and isolates the implants with a layer of tissue, rendering them useless.
Sure the implants can still collect body heat and sugar from our cerebral fluid to keep operating, but without neural connections they can't do anything.
The virus only existed in 1% of the population that was living isolated from normal society. Past generations never knew about the virus it because it has no noticeable effect on normal humans. The worst part is that the virus is contagious for a long time before it causes any symptoms. By the time it was discovered millions had been infected.
The virus is an NRA type virus and mutates rapidly. By the time anyone found out what was happening there were already hundreds of variants and it was impossible to vaccinate.
[Answer]
* Change of diet: the implants need some chemicals/proteins/etc. to work, or to be able to interface with your biology. Something wiped out a kind of a crop, that forms the major part of your societys diet, that was the only source of this protein. Or the opposite, some company introduced a new soda, that became such a big hype, that almost everybody tried it. It took some months/years for a compound of this soda to render the interface between implant/biology non-functional.
* EMC: there was a major electromagnetic event (solar storm, terrorist EMP, name your thing), that went unnoticed by your brightest or swept under the carpet by the government. (Or a radiation event, like a few weeks ago in Russia.) Your implants do not have electromagnetic shielding, since it would make them look worse/reduce their usefullness, they were more sensitive to this event than your normal devices. Or this event was frequency selective and only your implants were sensitive to it.
[Answer]
# Failed to renew the domain name
It's just one of the old-fashioned things again. All the implants are cloud-connected, of course. That's how they talk to each other, and smooth the communication between their human hosts. And therefore, they all have the same hostname programmed into them. It would be a real modern Babel otherwise, if your implant could only communicate with implants from the same manufacturer.
And on the fateful day, the DNS registration lapsed. That's the sort of accident that's been happening to the biggest of companies. Microsoft forgot to renew Hotmail back in 01999, and that wasn't exactly the last company to drop the ball that way. And that was the easy case, with a domain that belonged to a single company. But these implant manufacturers had teamed up and registered the domain name together.
You know what happens when everybody is responsible? Then nobody is. Sure, each company promised to renew the name in turn, for 3 years. And after 3 years the next company would pay up. The one thing they overlooked in the arrangement (and it's easy to say this in hindsight) was how company mergers would work. Oops. And since this whole arrangement worked for decades, it's not like any of the original decision makers were still around. It's just a lowly manager cutting duplicate expenses after a merger.
So, no hostname, no cloud access, and all implants go in panic mode. They're nice enough not to kill their hosts, but they can't even get the medical dossiers of their hosts, let alone communicate with other implants. Better shut down and do no damage, then. The original programmers were that smart. They just could not foresee how utterly dependent future humans would be on these implants.
[Answer]
### Who cares?
No-one reading your story actually cares what the reason is. What we care about is *the story you tell about the consequences*. The reason is a MacGuffin which doesn't have to exist in any defined way.
Think of the classics. You don't need to know how Victor Frankenstein connected up the nerves and blood vessels, only that he did, and *this* is how his creation behaves. You don't have know how the *Dune* Navigators figure out piloting, only that they do. You don't really care how the *Snow Crash* Burbclave residents make money and how the Burbclaves negotiate, only that they do, and *this* is how their society works. Or even closer to your scenario, the post-human Machine starts to break down, and the post-humans have to work out what to do when *The Machine stops*, but no-one needs to read about the detail of the Machine's repair procedures.
The tech stopped working. Post-human has to work out how to become human again. That's a *brilliant* hook for a story I want to read when you're done. Why it happened is unimportant to the story - give me the most basic Scotty/LaForge handwavey bullshit if you really want, and move right along.
[Answer]
As I see it, for the effect to be quite sudden and global, there are two options
1) outer influence, new kind of radiation, aliens, gods, magic appearing out of nowhere you name it. Generally not very plausible, but there are stories set in worlds in which such a game-changing event occurred. If the setting is interesting enough, the question how it came to existence can be handwaved to an extent.
2) something contagious
2a) some disease/virus. Not very plausible, as generally any change in brain chemistry/structure so strong that it affects implants in an irreparable way would probably be conflicting with normal brain function way too much.
2b) some kind of mass hysteria.
I am imagining this scenario:
A new implant was created not long ago, maybe something directly influencing mood. Basically everyone got one, because it was cheap and sooo handy. Unfortunately it was not tested thoroughly enough. After some years of use it causes not only irreversible changes in brain chemistry (that might be easy to cope with, you simply adjust old implants to this change), but unpredictable fluctuations, peaks, rapid changes thereof, so basically any adjustment you make to any of your implants will let it work for an hour or half a day before your brain fluctuates out of sync. When this happened to the first affected person and the news spread, other people soon became scared (back to mass hysteria point), which significantly strenghtened the effect up and sped up its onset. Eventually this panic caused even those who haven't got the original faulty implant to become affected. Check out [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness) on mass hysteria and imagined illness.
Not sure if it makes much more sense than alien force field, though.
[Answer]
**The biologicals are not actually still biologicals.**
The entirety of human civilization was copied and continues to run as a Matrix-like simulation. The event 5 years ago was actually the first boot of the copy. Failure of the implants was intentional and meant to distract from other imperfections in the copy.
The fate of the biological originals is not clear - maybe they perist and do not know about the copy, or maybe they were wiped out, or maybe (again like Matrix) they are being put to another use.
[Answer]
**The radio spectrum is full**
The implants are just the [peripheral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral) that links the biological part with the actual user device (smartphone, smartwatch... whatever they use in the future). That devices are where the processing power really is, the implant simply serves as a link with it, over low-frequency radio (think Bluetooth).
They worked very well initially, when just a few people had implants, and they hold at most 1-2 implant-linkable devices. But then, we got to a situation where everyone had an implant operating on that frequency. Moreover, due to customer demand everything you buy now is implant-capable: your TV, doors, windows, fridge, bulbs... all of them are smart-things that you can control from your implant.
Five years ago the predominance of these items got to its peak, leading to the spectrum being saturated, and implants no longer working (or, more exactly, they work errantly. If you are lucky it might work, but more often than not, it will be unable to communicate with it).
They are all working on a free range of the spectrum, similar on how your garage opener works at the same frequency as your WiFi and your microwave nowadays and, while it doesn't reach too far, it is a very limited range where they can operate, mainly due to the low power requirements. Even if you were willing to change your implant in order to use a different frequency, going to an higher power one would likely fry your brain (in fact, some of the implants that were manufactured in the later years, were using more energy than advisable in order to produce a working signal -and not just as a punctual event, but continuously-, and are quite risky to use). These people were cyberpunks, not idiots.
Theoretically, you could get them working if you were able to restrict the amount of implant-devices in your surroundings (it is rumored that extremley rich people is able to block external signals and have a strict control of devices operating on those frequency -including the implants of their own employees-). However, that's not something that is achievable by an individual, as that spectrum would be used anyway by your neightbours' devices. You are facing a [tragedy of the commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) that killed the implant era.
[Answer]
**Programmed obsolescence gone wrong**.
Cybernetic implants manufacturer programmed them to stop functioning after a given period of time, but an error made all of them to stop at the same time.
[Answer]
Why not have a group of rebels that want to bring back 'real emotions'.
In Altered Carbon (The Netflix series at least) a group of societal rebels' tl;dr goal is
>
> limit the chips in people's heads that allow the human mind to live on and be transferred to other bodies if their body is killed so that each mind exists for 100 years rather than potentially forever if they can afford new bodies.
>
>
>
If we consider the downsides of augmented happiness, people could do vile things without any emotional feedback or trauma if they get a dose of pleasure from their cybernetics for each vile task they complete.
Even if you don't want vile things to be enabled by the chips, there's no reason there couldn't be a group of societal rebels that want the world of emotions to get back to 'the good old days'.
Have them infiltrate the main control 'hub' for the cybernetics software and deploy a patch that disables the chips while shredding the backups and making the storage format read-only, or some other slightly handwavy solution to stop the chips just being reset.
[Answer]
**The government got hacked.**
The government forced all the manufacturers of the implants to install a backdoor, which allows them to shut down implants remotely. Just in case someone decides to augment themselves up and go on a crime spree or something.
Just like the modern day NSA, they got hacked. Left the keys to the kingdom lying around on a server somewhere, or some insider leaked them, or they accidentally published the key themselves (happened to Apple).
However it happened, as soon as it got out it only took one person to send the shutdown command to every implant on the planet.
A lot of people died. Hearts stopped, aircraft pilots suddenly couldn't control their planes, some just died of the shock of half their bodies shutting down. Of course there was also a massive shortage of replacement parts without the backdoor, and many people were suspicious of them anyway after that experience.
[Answer]
The bio-cyber implants can only interface with someone infected with the otherwise generally asymptomatic Handwaveosis, which makes the brain's neurons particularly sensitive to Macguffin fields. And early bio-cyber implants would only work for a few hours before the body rejected the foreign object - only implants coated with Handwaceae spores avoid forming scabs around them.
So when that awful disease / cruel bioweapon swept through the population and wiped out that vital link in the chain, people's bio-cyber implants stopped working.
By putting the fault in the thing that doesn't exist in real life, you don't have to explain everyone's brains changing - or a society being smart enough to develop the electronics and software not being able to maintain it when it breaks.
You could also blur out the cracks in this story: Perhaps the cause of the problems hasn't been discovered yet, or it's a government/trade secret. So your protagonist has only heard a range of contradictory rumours.
[Answer]
### Retired communications protocol
Another legacy explanation - the *protocol* that runs the internet got taken offline. Currently we're running on IPv4, but that has a lot of shortcomings (such as there are no more free IP addresses). IPv6 has been redesigned by lessons learned from IPv4, but adoption is super low even today. It takes a loooong time to change something so fundamental. But eventually it might happen.
And then, one day, once everyone had switched over to IPv6, the ISPs of the world decided to turn off IPv4 for good. The date was set, the event was globally coordinated, the switch was thrown.
But everyone forgot about the implants. They are a complicated piece of technology which interfaces directly with the mind, so any changes to it have to be VEEEEEERY thoroughly tested. It's super expensive and kept to a minumum. Switching that over to IPv6 was on nobody's TODO list, because, hey, it worked, so don't touch it.
You can replace IPv4/IPv6 with some other, futuristic network protocol, but the idea remains. At this point, turning it back on would be a nightmare because you'd need to work out all the routing rules and IP assignments and whatnotelse. LOTS and LOTS of negotiation between ISPs, but everyone's in a bad mood...
[Answer]
Chernobyl V2 the newest, most advanced, and of course the biggest radioactive power plant in history ....made a sound it should not have .... BOOM...
This caused the entire area around the plant to get radiated, but most importantly, it made a radioactive cloud that is roaming earth.
The radiation from the cloud is not strong enough to do any (significant) damage to anything biological, but it does cause the implants to give off an electrical charge that is very painful.
Making the implants radiation proof is not really viable as you would have to coat them with lead ... lead as you might know is highly toxic, and is not something you want inside your body.
While the cloud is not everywhere at once, at some point it will roamed all parts of earth, and as a precaution everyone turned off/removed their implants.
The scientists expects the cloud to have dissipated in about 50 years, but at that point are humans willing to go back to implants ? and potentially relive the nightmare ?
[Answer]
### Computer virus gone horribly wrong
There was a group of people (terrorists/totalitarian country/mafia/something) that wanted to control the implants. After all, that would give them tremendous power over all other humans.
The implants had a tough security system in place to prevent exactly this from happening, but in the end - we're all human and we all make mistakes. The group succeeded in finding a security hole that they could exploit.
So they wrote a virus that would infect the implants and open them to remote control. They were once again wildly successful, far beyond their original plans. In 48 hours, the virus managed to infect the entire population.
But the virus had a bug. [49.7 days](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/sysinfoapi/nf-sysinfoapi-gettickcount) after the initial activation it would crash and take the whole implant with it. Safeguards would kick in and prevent any damage to the human mind, but the implant itself would be bricked.
[Answer]
Although the question is open ended the answer is far more limited. No matter what, it has to be the biological connection to the mechanical part that prevents a good interface. The mechanical part can be adapted to interpret the nerves again, but if the nerves can interpret the mechanical part the system fails. That limits the options to anything that changes the neurotransmitters or the nerve itself.
A virus that causes neurological damage is out of the question, it would not just kill the interface but also the connection between your own nerves and kill you or severely handicap you in the process. This also means that anything affecting the neurotransmitters is out of the question too.
That leaves the nerves themselves. And the only option they have is to either grow or reduce in size. This growth or reduction in size severs the connection to implants in a short time causing the implants to fail, and failing implants are likely painful if not dangerous for the wearer.
The best culprit is an evolutionary chain towards regeneration. People will need surgery for implants and as the population increases that has had to recover from more and more invasive surgery a selection process begins towards better biological regeneration. People with this better regeneration have less complications after receiving implants throughout their lives increasing their economic and social standing and chance to have strong babies themselves. Unfortunately this has caused a string of dead-end evolutions that included nerve regeneration, which does not have to grow back correctly. The surgery causes the nerves to undergo rapid growth to "repair" the damage not knowing that an implant has taken the place of the damage. This DNA string was first faulty near the end of people's lives where the higher risk of complications made it less noticeable but a trigger has caused it to start expressing itself in most of the population.
[Answer]
Hackers planted encryption ransomware worm on the update servers, and pushed the update world-wide. By the time anybody knew what had happened, every single implant had installed the firmware update, and was was prevented from communicating with the user, but the moment a 'clean' implant comes onto the network, or within range of an infected implant, the worm spreads to the clean hardware. Nobody knows who the hackers were, and nobody knows what the encryption keys were, and nobody has managed to keep an implant clean long enough to do anything.
[Answer]
**A shocking new discovery about the human condition.**
Scientists all over the world went to work immediately in order to find a technical solution to the sudden degradation of the implants humanity has taken for granted for so long. Cybernetics, nano-engineering, medicine, and many other fields of modern science contributed to what came to be mankind's greatest concentrated scientific endeavor.
After months of searching, an international team of xeno-biologists and radiophysicists made a remarkable and ground-breaking discovery: All of humanity was interconnected with a tight, hitherto undetected web consisting of an unknown radiation, similar to electromagnetic waves. It was likely that this inter-human network had existed since the dawn of man.
Evidence suggested that the communication between implant and human body was somehow facilitated by this network, unbeknownst to the engineers who invented the very first cybernetic implants. This discovery was celebrated as one of the most significant findings in scientific history and allowed further insight into open questions of all human sciences.
Further research led to an additional, horrifying discovery. Not only did the implants make use of the inter-human network, but they also modified it. So much so that it reached the point of near collapse, causing severe fluctuations in the web, which was identified as the cause of the worldwide implant failure.
What would happen if the inter-human network would cease to exist was anyone's guess, but it seemed likely that humanity's survival was at stake.
---
This answer relates to one of your comments where you mentioned that your story is based around different tribes that fight over the decision on whether to re-implement or discard the implants.
I tried to enforce this conflict by putting the survival of the human race in the hands of those who want to re-activate the implants.
Now that scientists have learned more about the way humans and machines interact, they can work towards making everyone's implants activate again, but dabbling with the fine strands of the inter-human network may put humanity at the risk of extinction.
[Answer]
**Temporary glitch that can't be fixed without the power of cybernetic implants**
This expands on the EMP/protocol error/SSL certificate out of date/millenial bug/...
Basically, the problem is something well-known and theoretically simple to fix. So why can't anyone do something about it? Simply because cybernetic implants are sufficiently complex and intricate that unaugmented humans are unable to understand/interact with their technology. The sudden disappearance of all augmentations leaves humanity unable to understand their best creation (the first implants were were risky affairs, with the successes giving rise to new experiments - a messy, possibly politically problematic, affair nobody wants to be involved in).
**Different types of technology**
To explain why normal tech still works, cybernetic enhancements could be the result of some specific technology, that doesn't find much use anywhere else. Maybe nanotechnology is too dangerous to use in industry scales, but acceptable inside living bodies (which basically are biological nanotech). Maybe implants are grown, while the rest of the technology in the world is made from silicon. Maybe one big company made the interface technology a trade secret, but its labs got destroyed by whatever caused the incident (or its consequences - maybe the company was blamed for the malfunction, and burnt down by an angry mob). In this case, the implant technology would be deliberately obfuscated to prevent meddeling/reverse engineering - making reprogramming (or fixing) cyberware more like healing alien biology.
Something like a millenial bug would usually be relatively simple to fix - the only issue would be applying these fixes to all affected systems. But if the only institution capable of applying this fix was attacked and had its systems destroyed (which maybe even used illegal nanotechnology, so can't be rebuilt very soon), a small glitch like that could become a permanent problem.
[Answer]
Sooo.... I know this is an old question but the problem I see with all the networking protocol answers (IPv4, domain renewal, etc) is that they are all so easily reversible. In the real world, when something of adequately major consequence gets turned off, it does not stay off for very long regardless of any bureaucratic or even legal concerns. Instead of thinking about what someone didn't do, think about what they did do. Perhaps instead of failing to upgrade to IPv6 it was the upgrade itself that killed it. When you try to patch things over and over to change how they fundamentally work, you often get what is referred to as spaghetti code. Badly programmed garbage that is super easy to break by accident.
Your world's equivalent of IPv4 will soon be depreciated so the development team in charge of things decide to release an IPv6 patch. But they forget to clear thier cache before running some tests; so, everything seems to be working just fine; so, they pull the trigger and send the networking protocol patch out to the world, only... it does not work at all.
Everyone who gets the bad update therefore gets cut off from the internet making fixing the patch impossible.
Not only that, but the prosthetics have no physical data ports. They are "bluetooth only" or something of that nature meaning once you break thier internet it says broken.
[Answer]
If technology is of human origin, it simply can't be plausibly explained with some incident at all. Period.
If rest of the tech works, then any environmental condition specific to implants is impossible.
Monopoly is impossible as well. There's not a single thing invented in last few centuries that wasn't either independently invented by other people or reverse-engineered and reproduced. Technology as crucial as something that does "99% globally" of anything, will attract attention of pretty much every superpower's government who have necessary resources to analyze the hell out of it. It works that way today and since it became more and more common comparing to the past, I don't see how it could become worse in future.
Unrecoverable error scenario is impossible. Either your broken implants can be patched or if you invent some reason to have software hardcoded in read-only manner, factory can simply start crunching out new, working implants next day.
Remote control/server/mesh failure scenario is impossible too. Right now we generally have at least one big fuckup per year (google "bgp internet down") that affects entire regions. No matter how big amount of devices and services involved, people still figure out and fix problems in a matter of days and constantly improve software/work flow to make failures rarer and recovery faster.
So, that only leaves us with idea of non-human origin: the core part of implant technology is some advanced alien phlebotinum. This is the only way you can ever explain that it have some built-in expiration countdown that humans simply can't figure out, being aeons behind this technology. This still can conflict with you story if you have any plans of reviving implants - you'd need to bring alien maintenance info that allows to revive this core into plot somehow. In form of contact with them or finding some info cache or whatever.
Considering your comments that implants are actually working, but simply not communicating, you can also play with idea that it wasn't some unexpected accident. A malicious and powerful faction carefully mapped entire infrastructure that supports implants and launched an attack that physically destroyed all the servers, data centers and backup locations across all governments and corporations. As well as personnel. Just remember that you need to plausibly explain how they came to such power to pull this stunt - it is somewhat questionable, but at least not outright impossible. The rest of "recovery" plot might go around finding forgotten home repositories and physical media backups of project alumni and piecing them together.
] |
[Question]
[
Ok, so this late-medieval fantasy setting in question has magic that isn't available to everyone.
A small percentage of the population is magically gifted, and only they can cast spells without the use of expensive magical items.
I've been coming up with some good ways to incorporate magic users naturally into societal niches that already exist, and came up with 4 basic ideas:
* Formari Guildsmen - Essentially magical tradesmen, these are your typical peasants with magical potential and no formal schooling. They follow the classic apprenticeship structure and as a result their magic is highly specialized to the region they are from and the difficulties in that region.
* Alumni Practitioners - Learned scholars of magic who attend university. The old saying "knowledge is power" is incredibly relevant in the case of mages, and these mages are going to be the most versatile and well-rounded of practitioners. Obviously, this path is only available to the extremely wealthy, gifted, or lucky.
* Warlocks - Essentially a magical Man-at-Arms. These practitioners focus their attention on learning combat techniques both physical and magical.
* Witches - Women can learn magic too, but a patriarchal society can't have women doing men's work, so they get a class all to themselves. Witches function in much the same way as Formari Guildsmen with a societal push towards focusing on healing magic and midwifery.
In the primary kingdom that I plan on looking at, a handful of Alumni Practitioners travel around and test children when they reach the age of 13 for magical talent. Less than 1 in 200 pass the test. A child with magical talent is then usually inducted into whatever organization is appropriate according to their station and their parents' wishes.
## As far as military applications of magic
There are essentially 3 types of magic that are relevant in the general melee:
1. Physical enhancement - A skilled mage can enhance their own physical prowess in short bursts at the cost of feeling proportionally more tired later. This has obvious combat applications, and the average Warlock using nothing but this passive buff is considered a match for a dozen equally trained and equipped combatants.
2. Magic Death Rays - Fireballs, Lightning, Sudden Poison Gas Clouds, a creative Warlock can kill swaths of unprepared soldiers in a variety of sudden and violent ways
3. Magic Shields - A variety of magical countermeasures to Magic Death Rays have been created that are equally flashy, and reduce the effects of Magic Death Rays from army shattering to little more annoyance than a few dozen flaming arrows.
While I've been working on this, however, I started to think that I may have cranked up the value of mages in the military too much, and I'm having trouble thinking of a reason why any kingdom would **NOT** simply conscript all mages into military service.
Forced conscription is common throughout history, and considering that there's no additional financial cost to training a mage as opposed to training a generic soldier, **why wouldn't every magically gifted individual be forcibly conscripted?**
[Answer]
**They take a lot of training to be useful in battle**
They are equivalent to Knights or charioteers in medieval and ancient times: it takes years of training to develop the skills to where they are an asset in battle. The kingdom could never afford to fund the years of training required to become a knight, so instead they made each individual knight responsible for getting themselves trained and armed, and if they weren't properly equipped they wouldn't 'pass muster' when war was called and the army wouldn't accept them.
Your mages can work the same way: if someone with magic can get an apprenticeship at a magic guild, or get magic training from their noble house, they can pass muster and be accepted into the army as a trained mage, which is enough of a well-paid or glorious position to make it worth all the effort. The number of mages employed will then be determined by how much the kingdom has to pay them.
[Answer]
## Because a rebellious and untrained mage is not worth the risk
Magic can be very dangerous when used incorrectly, both for the caster and those in the vicinity. If someone is not motivated to train for combat, they will not learn, and may cause a violent burst of raw magic which could kill or harm themselves and the other trainees.
Much better to have them apprenticed to the local Formari like they wanted and have a contributing member of society who doesn't ruin your other magical assets.
[Answer]
Either you can't, or you are nursing a snake to bite you.
If they are powerful enough to be useful in the field, they are powerful enough to object to being conscripted. They may not be able to escape, but they can do a lot of damage to your forces merely through being forced. Then you have a sullen and resentful conscriptee who needs constant guarding.
If they are not powerful enough to be immediately useful, you will have to train them. This puts them in a position to use their magic more effectively on you. They will also be part of the power structure and able to form alliances to leverage their power more effectively.
Wisest to attract them rather than conscript them.
[Answer]
### Because you don't need to
Armies are (and were) rarely lacking in young men at least somewhat willing to join up. "Willing" may have been an alternative to starving, or to being convicted of some crime, or being turned off your land by your local lord, but it wasn't the same as a full-on pressgang. Many more young men would bear arms because the winning side got to pillage the dead and loot any opposing towns, and that could be rather lucrative. And ex-soldiers had further career opportunities as guards, beadles, and so on - plus often first crack at the best-looking women ("all the girls love a uniform").
In training, your formalised system of magic use is very similar to how English kings made archery compulsory. Creating a decent body of archers for your army requires a generation to train them up, and the same will apply to magic. The point of mandating archery for everyone was not so you could conscript everyone, but so that the people who did join up (more or less willingly) were already skilled.
### And war is driven by aristocrats who also fight
In the period you're thinking of, a knight on horseback is the equivalent of a main battle tank, worth dozens of unarmoured spearmen. Becoming a knight wasn't based on natural skill, it was inherited. Aristocrats trained from childhood in swordsmanship, riding, and generally using armour. Your average person simply didn't have a chance to learn that, because they were too busy farming. So your warlocks trained in fighting are also all going to be the sons of lords, the same as the alumni.
That means the two most potent classes of battlefield mages are also aristocrats. If the king says he's going to war, all his lords need either be going personally or they need to send a son. So they have even less choice than the commoners - refusing to go would lose your family your titles, lands and assets, and that would be unthinkable.
[Answer]
For the most simple answer, culture. What kind of culture exists and the government type makes a significant difference. For instance, in medieval Europe kings probably could have gotten away with forcibly conscripting magic users into their armies, but here in modern America if the government tried to force a specific group to all serve the state it would cause a lot of anger and backlash. And it isn't just a matter of being more "civilized" than they were, it is primarily because of our culture. You get to decide what the culture and government of your world look like, you can build one where it would create outrage for people to conscript mages by force.
If that isn't an option because you already have the government/culture set in stone and aren't willing to alter it, then perhaps an exterior mages guild of some kind? You've said that mages are really powerful, so people don't want to mess with them. If there existed a body of extremely powerful mages who didn't answer to any specific kingdom, and served to keep other mages in check as well, not only would the common folk have someone to complain to about any mages that went "rogue" and started murdering people, but anyone who went around trying to force the mages in their country to enlist could be risking the wrath of this entity.
[Answer]
**Magic guilds protect their members from being conscripted**
Magic institutions (guilds, universities...) are not interested in having their gifted individuals forcibly conscripted. Most mages are not interested in being conscripted, either.
Conscripting a lot of magically gifted individuals inexperienced at war isn't too beneficial for the army, either (see other answers).
So, they have an agreement. Members of the guild/university are exempt of the conscription, but in exchange of those students not being conscripted the institution will provide 2-3 warlocks to the army (at a decent pay that was also part of the agreement).
The alumni don't need to leave their studies to take part in a war. The university or guild don't lose their pupils. The mages from the guild that do go to war are one that voluntarily choose to do that (mages that studied that field, and that will be properly paid for this). The army receives a few experienced warlocks, rather than a bunch of magically gifted yet inept recruits.
(This is inspired in how clerical orders would provide some chaplains in exchange of waiving the military service for their younger members)
[Answer]
**They die.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6UHiz.png)
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080801/mediaviewer/rm2007870977>
The magic users have to be free to do what they do. And their grip on this world is loose. If you constrain them they start to shut down. If you imprison them, they stop eating and die. They have to be free.
You cannot force them to do anything. They have to choose to do what they do.
[Answer]
# Because of the still smoking wastelands where a city once stood
Years ago all the surrounding countries brought the mages into battle. They're so powerful you need to bring more than your opponent or nothing else matters, this means each army is full of so much power that the moment the power of one falters it is utterly obliterated. A magic shield shimmers over the city, all defensive mages concentrating their power on keeping it up as the barrage continues. Warlocks have been arriving for days, bolstering the forces of the attackers...eventually the shield breaks and the force of the concentrated magic is so great barely a stone remains whole.
You can add the fluff, perhaps the city was a holy one or perhaps it held the great library of magic. Mages looked on that destruction and decided, never again. There is an international guild of mages with **an agreement that none will fight in wars**.
If you want some to fight make it be through loopholes. Perhaps the definition of a 'war' is loose. Can they be involved in a skirmish? Perhaps they can protect their home town or be part of covert strike forces. People suspect a country is using magic but no one can prove it.
If a country is found, however, to be using mages then they have broken an agreement with the full force of the world's mages behind it (again, leave you to imagine what that will entail exactly).
[Answer]
# Because a Mage's power is their own, not the governments
When you conscript people as regular soldiers, all of their ability to do harm comes form the swords, guns, and tanks that you give them. They cannot feasibly use them against you in a small scale, and the force is only given to them for small increments of time and for specific targets. However, a mage has the ability to use their power at their discretion, and you cannot take that power away (unless you want there to be a magical organ).
Unless the mage wants to work for the military, they will always feel resentment towards the command structure, and there is nothing stopping them from going on a rampage.
[Answer]
Because society benefits from the magically gifted *whether or not* they fight in the army. Some magic users improve crop yields; some magic users make reliable tools and clothing; some magic users heal sick people; some magic users develop new techniques that can make *other* magic users more effective; all of them benefit their societies in concrete ways. Few societies will conscript all of their magic users into the army, because they know that that would be shooting themselves in the foot. (Even a society that's obsessed with war, to the point that it's willing to ignore other benefits of magic users, will recognize that the things I listed will improve the army's ability to make war: better crop yields let them feed more soldiers or feed their soldiers better; better tools and clothing let them equip their soldiers better; healing is obviously valuable for soldiers and potential soldiers; etc.)
[Answer]
# Because Most Mages Can't Without Serious Problems
You have a lot of mages, but only a small percentage of them have the predilection for violence. The very aura of violent action is harmful to the casting and practice of mages. Even acting as support spell staff can be difficult and leave them physically ill.
Some mages are born without a conscience, and are unaffected. Others have suffered some sort of trauma in their life and now magic responds to their pain and anger. Either way, Warlocks are damaged goods and really scary to control.
And what's worse, the practice of violent magic tends to accelerate this violent tendency. Between battles, armies try to get mages to relax, meditate, and generally avoid confrontation. If they don't, the Warlocks grow more violent and unstable, eventually killing people impulsively out of rage and anger.
The nation that tries to draft civilians into an army must essentially traumatize the mages magically in a brutal process of "basic training" that leaves them resentful of the government and it's treatment. Throwing them into battle eventually causes them to lose control and become violent monsters. Perhaps such Warlocks fixate on brutalizing other mages to make them into Warlocks as well. This can cause a spiraling cycle of violence.
After the mages become Warlocks, they are prone to "post traumatizing spell disorder" (PTSD) where casting routine spells can trigger episodes of aggression and violence. Mages need to avoid magic after PTSD starts occurring. Now they are no longer useful for civilian wizardry.
So a desperate state can draft civilian mages, or a tyrannical one with no regards to safety. If you want your nation to function, however, you avoid doing so.
[Answer]
There are multiple options, and MarielS already covered a number of them. I'd like to focus on 2:
1. Neutrality. Magical organizations (guilds) profess their neutrality. They are highly independent and influential. A king may contract a guild to fight on his side, but requesting this kind of services for free would be preposterous.
2. Mages is a special caste. Mages have their own organization, which is loyal to the king, but their higher affiliation is with each other, not the king. This way the kind can ask mages to fight for him for free, but the organization would fight on its own terms, not mixing with the army.
[Answer]
An interesting concept, sadly not explored nearly enough.
The answer depends on your setting, but probably boils down to how able your government is to force magic users to do their bidding. If the governing body is smart, they'll attract the most powerful mages to them.
Offer them generous salaries, many freedoms, plenty of resources. Basically, a really good job.
Then, have those mages be in charge of the magical part of your army.
They'd probably end up conscripting as many of the weaker mages as they can, having their own mages browbeat the slightly stronger ones into following orders etc.
Really, it isn't that much different from any skilled profession when you get down to it.
If you're searching for examples, The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a good place to start. Features a system somewhat like what you're talking about and might inspire you.
[Answer]
You gave the answer yourself already.
You cannot forcibly do anything when they're already concentrated and organised into powerful guilds. You have to negotiate with them, or it needs to be in their best interests.
In medieval times this is a no go. Other periods it would have been viable because in many cases every man has a stake in stopping the genocidal hordes sweeping towards them.
[Answer]
It stops them getting uppity.
Or put another way, the process of creating a provably superior group, training that group for combat, showing them how easily they can dominate the battlefield and expecting them to keep working for you; that process is very likely to backfire. Even assuming that you get a significant number conscripted, trained and loyal, the process leaves a separate military class with reason to overthrow the current regime (if one of their own is not already in charge.) Even if they don't decide that the king doesn't rule them and turn to tyrants, they may see their own power as a reason to rule: they can fight well, so obviously they're qualified. (This does not work in the real world, and would likely cause some kind of famine or economic collapse.)
So to prevent this from happening, warlocks must be kept seeing themselves as not too different from anyone else, useful, but not gods.
Multiple Warlocks Backfire
Physical enhancements are unlikely to get in the way of each other, but when one person tries to shoot lighting whilst their ally summons a wall of water to defend the soldiers from a fireball, then the benefit of magic is somewhat inverted. Two dozen warlocks in one battle is suicide without expert coordination, and no one can get the chance to become an expert. Hence you reach the capacity for usable warlocks without conscription.
Warlocks Don't Cooperate
Something about warlocks, innately or through training, means that they can't stand each other. Maybe a handful of others that have bonded to them, for a little time, but forcing more than choose to work together to be a unit leads to violent infighting. You couldn't even get them through training before you lose so many of your conscripts that any gain you had is lost.
You just don't need that many warlocks
A warlock is game changing. More enhances the game. But you still need food, goods, midwives and the preservation and expansion of knowledge. Commiting all resources to war is a great way to make every other aspect of life suffer, and you just plain get more advantages with other uses of magic. Whatever wars are being fought are not so intense as to need more people than volunteer.
[Answer]
Similar to @Kyyshak and @Gold Orchard's answers: **quality over quantity.**
Potentially, the best mages (maybe even the only good mages) are the ones who work extremely hard and apply a lot of energy and creativity to their work. The best way to get that out of them might not be by force.
[Answer]
Your inspiration could be something like [Mamluks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk) in our own history. In your world magically gifted individuals at first could have been forcefully conscripted but over time their influence could have grown and they would develop a special caste. They could protect each other, perhaps in a way like modern trade union would protect its members.
Over time, when conscripted mages would gain in rank, influence, power and money, they could become a political power within the government.
[Answer]
With such power, forcing conscripts against their will can end up with rebellion. You don't want this magically gifted individual run amok for being a tyrant and create revolution, won't you?
You may be able to bind them by making them into alumni practitioners though and brainwash them, unless that is privately owned, but it probably removes some of the caste there.
[Answer]
### Because warlocks run the government and they don't want to anger their vassals.
The way you've described warlocks makes them vastly more powerful in combat than mundane soldiers; an army with warlocks will always defeat one that lacks them, and the only counter to a warlock is another warlock.
As a result of their military power, they would naturally gravitate towards leadership positions in feudal societies; they rule over the non-magical peasants in exchange for magical protection from warlock bandits or raiders. The king would be a warlock, and so would his noblemen and his knights, and he would grant them titles and privileges in exchange for their military service.
As a result of this, trying to conscript magicians into military service would be a threat to the warlock rulers of the land, and would likely lead to coup attempts and/or civil war. If the King's recruiting a bunch of magical peasants into the army, those peasants might become threats to the position of the nobility.
[Answer]
**Prejudice**
I don't know how far ahead you are in the cultural/social aspects of your world, but if you are just starting to build it, consider this:
Humans have always been not too fond for the different. You can see it in X-men and The Witcher universes, for instance, not to mention real life examples.
If magic is frowned-upon, your mages would be persecuted rather than conscripted.
Ok, I know this is a quite skewed idea, but it's a possibility.
[Answer]
**A novice warlock is extremely dangerous for your own troops**
There is a war. The lord conscripts all men to fight for X reason. A farmer or a cooper would be given a sword (if not expected to bring their own!) and be told to the opposing army. A magically gifted individual, well, they would be expected to use magic to attack the other side.
The problem is, your conscripted mage may only have experience with spells dealing with e.g. farming. War spells are a completely different class, which they would not have learnt. So you have a lot of inexperienced mage soldiers. You try to teach them how to create Fireballs, Poison Gas Clouds, etc. for a few weeks before the battle (assuming you do have some weeks), while moving to meet the opposing army.
Ideally your mages would kill the leaders of the enemy army (ha! they would have professional warlocks shielding them) but you are aware their fireballs won't even come near. It's not a big problem, though. They don't need accuracy, just that their fireballs are thrown on the general direction of their soldiers. *Someone* will be hit. The problem is that the fireballs of some of your apprentice of warlock will actually explode before launching, **killing the mage and all your soldiers around him**. It's hard enough to create a fireball at your own pace, in a silent room. In a battle it would be hard to (a) achieve the concentration required by the spell and (b) sustain it so that the magic energy becomes a fireball *sent to the enemy*. Most of those forced warlocks would fail at (a) and turn out to be useless but a failure at (b) would be critical.
An experienced mage would know very well their own forces and avoid casting a spell they would be unable to finish. They would probably limit them themselves to spells they use daily and are very familiar with. Probably not the best suited for war, but unlikely to fail. In fact, they may fake being unable to create the war spells, and preserve their own energy.
But a young mage? They won't have that level of control, and when trying to casting those powerful spells at a battle (do note they don't need to cast **one** fireball, but one after another, for as long as possible) they are likely to... misfire.
Moreover, when a mage dies, their remaining magic gets freed. A burst of energy suddenly released, which will generally cause an explosion. Due to this, old mages generally set to live alone, and wizards try not to have much accumulated magic when seriously ill. But on a battleground, even with no magical misfeasance, some of your mages *will* die.
[Answer]
I lot of questions along these lines re why mages wouldn't... ignore fact that if magic existent from beginning it would be integrated with power/rule if not the power/rule itself eg Shamans & Witch-doctors being number twos in the tribe. The Shaman would often be related to the Chief, a runty cousin or a cripple uncle or married to the Chief's aunty or sister or daughter. Kings/Nobles would want magic in their lines so would marry off daughters, sisters to the mages. Mages would want to have power/be near to power in order to achieve their goals, protect their interests.
Mages who did great service to their Lords would be gifted land & titles becoming part of nobility. Noble children, second sons etc with magical talent would be sent off to the Mage Academy/Mages Guild, Military Battle-Mage Academy, just like happened with nobles second sons who couldn't inherit going off to Navy, Military, Church roles. Yes, Mages would just be another Estate, that would be balanced out against each other just like how Kings were able to balance (mostly) the Estates of Church, Noble, Merchant & Commoners. But the Estates were never 100% separate with nobles in Church, Church leaders having temporal reign, commoners able to join Church, Military, become Merchants & by service/deeds able to rise & change Estate. Conscropition not necessary at central level though limited conscription may happen at local level if King has has an obligation laid on Nobles/Mages/Church/ Merchant/ Commoner Estates etc to provide a certain number of Magic Users according to status/population etc but as Healers & Battle-Mages would be be more valuable/more scarce the wages/status is higher so more locally to be volunteers anyway rather than conscripts.
[Answer]
I would think gifted individuals (and their parents) would quickly learn to hide their gift.
Magic would become an underground skill, where nobody openly acknowledges that he has the skill.
[Answer]
Magic is something siphoned of from a energy lifeform in ether, and while you do so, you become a appendage of said creature. And it hates the military, because it percieves other hiveminds as threat.
So joining any organisation by those already half made wizzards is a big no.
[Answer]
Every living entity contains a certain amount of Energy that is neither destroyed nor created, and when certain anomalies in Physics, Nature begins to take notice, and nothing can have the potential to be more dangerous than Nature. Like Meteorologists who watch weather patterns perform on their screens, or economists take notice of trending activities, or like the commons full of (ig)noble guardians of these depositories of information, outliers tend to be targeted. It happens after localized attempts have been made, using similar anomalous methods of contact, and a sense of familiarity is brought to the table, that the wolves come out, and the vampires, or as Bob Dylan so rightfully put it:
"Now at midnight all the agents,
And the superhuman crew[e]
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do"
The only language for the unseen is Mathematics. Because those first ephemeral, fond, friendly hands cannot stay long, and must keep on "keepin' on"... and one in ten thousand, soon becomes ten thousand to one, and if you're new to the jungle (or to the zoo, or to the horse track) there's a lot of learning to it all, and no one is handing out the manual, and all that call themselves your friends are not, and every up is down, and you're serving them up your breakfast, lunch and dinner, and youre working for nothing, and you feel buried up to your neck in sand, but then the race horse can't run anymore, you're handed your dishonorably discharged draft card from the military you never volunteered for (and they've got to cover up their tracks, but that's not for today) and out on the street is where they've put you, but it's "dog eat dog", and it seemed generous enough, and you figure they must be a real estate agent the way they take business calls, and when you're around, you hear how loudly they roar over the phone that they "have a property you've just got to see" and their business assoc. come over and bring you beer, and talk about how lucky you are that "your realtor" could "sell cold to an Eskimo" and next thing you know and you've got a chain round you that you can't shake, and the day it hits you that only way out is gonna be to lose that leg, and you still don't know if you're going crazy or you're right, and you can't understand why anyone would talk the way they do (but it does make you learn to open your eyes, and shut your mouth and observe and never listen to a word that's said, and you go crazy running circles, and you unbury a bone and it's the beginning of your loss of innocence and beginning to think for yourself in this reality, and you bite the hand that's been feeding you pesticide... and it hits you.... the best people you've met on the road are the ones you don't often see, and those elusive friends travel light, and you go into the forest and you realize you're not crazy, you're kind of like a tiger in a people suit, and it would do you some good to sit...and you learn to be as still and thoughtless as a tree, and you learn about beehives and that kind of thing, and the sun and the rain are all you need, but even these visitors out here, they fill you with holes for their amber (so many holes...), and adaptation happens just as the last swing of the axe sends you to the floor, and in cold climates you tends to dry-out rather quickly, and if you're cut out for furniture.... there's the old mill, and pressure and blades hash you to pulp and apply more pressure than there are words for (and so at last, you pick up Mathematics)...and at last... you're paper...or a pencil... and they can send you to the Post Office, or they're either imprinting a log of military tactics.....
Because if you're an outlier (who knows how/why) whether you learn to fit in, or give in, or get in line, or buy or sell, there's only one way to live the life...
the hard way.
[Answer]
**Logistics.**
One of the biggest limitations on medieval armies (and indeed on modern armies!) was their ability to keep soldiers supplied with food, water, clothes, weapons, ammunition, and (if applicable) medicine.
This is a really hard problem for several reasons:
* You have to *have* the supplies your army requires
* You have to be able to store them, without them getting stolen/rained on/eaten by rats/falling into enemy hands...
* ...but they also need to be close enough to the action to get to your soldiers as needed.
* You need the wagons/pack animals/etc. to haul these supplies where they need to be (often through difficult terrain, past destroyed bridges, ...)
And perhaps hardest of all:
* You need the information systems to track what you have, what your forces need, and when/where it needs to be delivered. Even with modern computerised systems, inventory management is a hard problem that keeps a lot of experts gainfully employed.
If magic requires heavy/bulky/perishable spell components that can't easily be scrounged in the field, keeping wizards battle-ready can easily become a huge administrative headache. Sure that warlock can cast an impressive cloud of poison gas... but only when she has a live stink-bug. And stink bugs need the right food, and the right temperature... back home you might be able to just find one on any tree, but here in the Southern Lands, you'd better hope your quartermaster has made all the arrangements.
Oh, and the mistletoe that grows in the Southern Lands isn't the same kind that grows at home, and if you try to use the wrong kind with your spells, Very Bad Things will happen. Does your quartermaster know this?
Even if a warlock can match twelve ordinary men in battle, it may work out easier just to send the twelve men and not have to deal with all the challenges of trying to keep wizards supplied with a dozen different spell components.
] |
[Question]
[
The classic skeleton that a necromancer has reanimated has gained independence and escaped from the group.
Now, as a free individual, wants to know more about humans. Obviously, humanity sees it as a monster, so it must (without using magic and with a technological level similar to the middle age) disguise in some way to pass as a human.
How can he achieve that?
Things to take in account:
* He doesn't need to eat or drink
* He doesn't need to breathe
* He doesn't need to rest
* He doesn't feel pain, but can understand and imitate basic emotions
* He is basically an animated skeleton, without glowing light as eyes or some fancy typical things
* He can talk, with a deep guttural voice
* He can smell, hear and see, but not taste or feel
[Answer]
**Take the place of a catacomb saint.**
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_saints>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ftjdv.jpg)
>
> During the Beeldenstorm of the 16th century and continued iconoclasm
> of the 17th century, Catholic churches throughout Europe were
> systematically stripped of their religious symbols, iconography and
> relics. In response, the Vatican ordered that thousands of skeletons
> be exhumed from the catacombs beneath the city and installed in towns
> throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Few, if any, of the
> corpses belonged to people of any religious significance though, given
> their burial, some may have been early Christian martyrs. Each was
> nonetheless painstakingly dressed and decorated as one of the various
> Catholic saints. One church spent 75 gulden dressing their saint.
>
>
>
Your skeleton will take the place of an existing catacomb saint, disposing with the existing skeleton in the finery. These saints are installed in churches. The skeleton will be obviously skeletal (as depicted), but it can speak and it will pose as the saint himself / herself. Its animation will be regarded as a miracle. It will bestow blessings and give advice. It will perform baptisms and consecrations. It will walk in processions and holy days. When the city is under threat, it will come out of the church and lead its defense in the name of God.
It will make the city famous. It will be treated not only as a human, but a revered and blessed human.
---
If this were a short story, it would be interesting to explore the learning curve of the skeleton as it finds its place and learns how to perform its role. Of course in the end the necromancer who made it exposes its true nature to the townspeople: it is not really the saint, but the bones of a dead beggar brought to life with black magic.
And the people will not have it. They run the necromancer out of town on a rail. Their saint is their saint and they love it. It has earned it.
[Answer]
As this is medieval times, I think he disguises himself as a leper. He has a long shabby hooded cloak. On his feet he has boots glued on and gloves glued onto his hands.
He walks through the street tinkling a bell and shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!". His hood is drawn over his face with just a gap to see out of. His skull is painted black so there is nothing to see inside. As an added touch he can wear an unkempt wig (see Leviticus below).
Most people will want to avoid him and will not get close enough to look inside his hood even if they wanted to.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/sQmnn.png)
---
**Biblical reference**
Leviticus 13:45
>
> "Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their
> hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out,
> 'Unclean! Unclean!'
> <https://biblehub.com/leviticus/13-45.htm>
>
>
>
[Answer]
**Religious robes**
Loose religious robes with a hood and perhaps a mask would do the trick. In a fantasy setting with many gods, there may well be a religion with suitably masked and robed followers. Below, a bunch of Spanish priests in an Easter procession. Penitent monks also typically wore hoods and walked with heads bent, making their faces hard to see.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/omU1g.jpg)
**Mummer**
Masked entertainers or mummers weren't uncommon in Medieval times. During festivals, mummers probably weren't an unusual sight in city streets.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pQsy4.jpg)
**Plague Doctor**
Especially during times of plague, doctors went about with snouted face masks holding herbs believed to cleanse the air. If your world has something similar, that should also work.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JEQD3.jpg)
[Answer]
Pretend to be a marionette controlled by a ventriloquist
Like Weekend at Bernie's but in reverse: appear to be the dead skeleton that you are, but pretend there is a living person controlling you and speaking for you.
There's a couple ways to accomplish this the easiest is to set up a booth at the fair and tie some strings to your limbs. Loop the strings over a stick above you, and have the other ends go behind a curtain. Attach weights to the other end of the strings so they'll maintain tension and seem like someone is pulling on them. You won't be able to move about (unless you put this setup on a cart) but people will be enticed by the spectacle and even pay money to come have conversations with you.
This could lead to a great moment where someone insists on seeing the talented puppeteer and pulls back the curtain only to realize there is no one there.
Another bonus is that you don't have to assume any fake persona. No one will catch onto you when you accidentally reveal how ignorant you are about humans and normal life, because they'll assume that's part of the act. When people ask you to tell your puppet character's story you can tell your actual backstory.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qCY7p.jpg)
[Answer]
Concealing clothing has been suggested and could work, but I'd add on a layer of leather/dirt. People might look under your clothes after all or bump into you and you don't want to be obviously a skeleton under them.
So take leather and cover all your bones in it. Then add a layer of dirt/grime to it. You also want to fill in the leather with some thing soft and squishy, maybe more leather/dead leaves/rags to get you more like a human shape. That way if someone bumps into you or touches you you don't feel like just a skeleton. The dirt is then added to hopefully make people think the leather is your skin and is just dirty.
Even with all of this your face will look weird and dirty at best. Just claim you were wounded as a child and look weird, you could also claim to be sick but that might get you kicked out.
[Answer]
If its medieval time, he can wear full body knight armour. Its not easy to see, that there is skull below the helmet. Probably he can fill the empty places in armor with clothes or rags, where muscles and flesh have to be for humans.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9aXhP.png)
[Answer]
Humans have skeletons inside them, but they are also muscle, tendons, skin, among other things. Lucky for your skeleton, it doesn't need muscles or guts. Also lucky for your skeleton, muscles and guts are easy to duplicate! Let's assume your skeleton has seen people at a distance, enough to know how they act, look, etc.
After some basic observation, move on to some up-close examination of a human, via grave-robbing! A little knife-work will show how humans look under all that skin, and give insight into the next step.
Using leather stuffed with wool or cotton, the skeleton makes muscles, and using strings as tendons, ties them to itself. A little balled up cotton or wool, and he has guts, too. Next, layers of cloth, wrapped around the "muscles" and bones, to simulate fat. Since it will all be under a layer of clothes, the skeleton's work could be fairly clumsy and still pass muster.
The last step is most difficult. Shoes and clothes can hide everything but the skeleton's face and hands; depending on how it dresses, it might even be able to wear gloves. Its head, however, is still obviously a bleached skull. A mask of some sort, even just a handkerchief over the mouth and nose (maybe with some clay to form features), and a hood would work for a little while. The skeleton is ready to go exploring - at least a little bit.
It should start exploring in winter, while everyone is bundled up; using whatever treasure the skeleton has collected, it should go to town, walk in like it owned the place, and pick out a lovely wig. If possible, it should find some fake eyes, and any other disguise-worthy materials, including makeup.
With disguise in hand, the skeleton can make itself appear entirely human, apart from one small detail: its face. This is where its fake eyes come in. Using clay and a little tanned animal skin, make a face - doesn't have to be a good face, just vaguely lifelike. Using the makeup, give the face a horribly scarred appearance, like a burn victim. Finally, don a simple mask.
Now, the skeleton looks and feels human, and can explain why it wears a mask: due to an accident, it suffered terribly burns from fire/acid/lightning/whatever, and is forced to hide its ugly skin under this mask.
The longer it spends with humans, the more it learns, and eventually, it may find someone willing to create a lifelike skin for it. Without very complex mechanical tools, it will never have the muscles to smile, blink, breathe, or wiggle its eyebrows, but it will eventually be able to pass for human. As long as no one looks *too* hard.
[Answer]
Just thinking out of the box here:
**No Disguise at All**
Instead, just tell everyone a witch cursed you to have invisible flesh, but it doesn't affect your bones. Sure, you said "no magic", but this isn't magic. It's *telling* people that magic was involved, but it's not actual magic. (At least, not any more magic than was required by the necromancer that animated the skeleton to begin with, which we're obviously taking as a given here.) In a world where necromancy is a thing, I'm sure people would have no problem believing that invisibility curses are also a thing (even if that's not actually true), so just run with it. If you're friendly and personable enough, people might look past the fact that you're a walking skeleton. Offer your services, be a good neighbor, and just calmly explain your "curse" whenever asked. You'll get some stares and fearful looks, but just don't act threatening and you can fit right in. Real life burn-victims and people with other visible disfigurements have to deal with this sort of thing all the time.
[Answer]
## Masquerades
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1kXIg.jpg)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_ball>
Those with a lot of wealth in Medieval and Renaissance societies sometimes held masquerade balls. These were parties where all the participants wore masks and costumes, obscuring the identity of the wearer. These kinds of parties have been popularised in fiction due to the novel idea.
Your skeleton may sneak into such a party in masquerade and no one would know he was a skeleton because, of course, he is in a costume, as is everyone else, allowing him to easily blend in. This also allows for your skeleton to interact with a lot of humans freely, asking questions to the many guests at the party.
## Entertainment
In a similar sense, your skeleton could wear a costume and play the role of an entertainer, giving a plausible reason as to why they are always in costume. You could also have the skeleton talk to the audience members after a show or performance.
## [The Man in the Iron Mask](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Iron_Mask)
Your skeleton could possibly wear a mask and claim to be a convicted criminal and, as punishment, must wear this mask. Although, whilst this would effectively obscure his identity, i doubt people would be willing to talk with him as why would they want to chat with a possibly dangerous criminal?
## The Dark Side of the City
Whilst your average person may be terrified of this reanimated skeleton wandering the streets, i would wager a guild of thieves or assassins would be far more welcoming. Such guilds may even be very willing to enrol a reanimated skeleton into their ranks, such a member could allow for a wide variety of interesting situations. For example, a skeletal thief could hide in a coffin, be placed in a crypt and grave rob said crypt from the inside. An assassin may be able to sneak past a blockade in a coffin to assassinate the king.
Your skeleton would interact with the members of its guild, learning about humanity that way, and could also spy on its mark and learn through their conversations with other people or through letters they write.
## A Home for the Blind
Its possible that a skeleton could go unnoticed in a home for people who are blind, either working as a servant for a single wealthy blind person or for a community of blind people, the latter allowing for more social interaction.
This way, your skeleton may not need to physically disguise themselves, only hide the texture of their bones, such as through clothing or some kind of fake skin. Alternatively, you could go with the idea that the blind people know he is a skeleton but simply do not care as he is kind to them. I would imagine a person’s physical appearance would matter far less to someone who is blind, instead judging people more by their personality and their actions.
[Answer]
Here's some options. He could...
* Wear bandages and say he's a burn victim
* Get a job as a clown (interview as burn victim)
* Get a job in a dark restaurant like this one (<https://dineblackout.com/>)
* Get a job at Disney World dressed as Mickey Mouse
* Buy a computer and make all his friends online
* Build a box around himself and pretend to be an animated machine designed to pass the Turing Test; then sit at a carnival and wait for people to drop money in the coin slot for a conversation
* Buy a lifelike puppet and pretend that it is the human, and he's the puppet
* Go to comicon
* Go to the medieval renaissance fair
* Join the KKK and wear shoulder pads under his robes or something
* Join a dnd club where people dress up as their fave characters
* Hide in the drain under the street and have conversations with kids passing by
* Go find a remote tribe in the jungle where they'll think he's a god, and talk them into interacting normally with him over the course of a few generations
* Go deep sea diving and wear his diving suit everywhere
* Become a death-metal musician, and act like the skeleton thing is just his excellent show makeup
* Hang out near a volcano and wear a heat-suit; interact with geologists.
Hope this helps!
eta: (Read through some other answers and realized some of these were already taken. Didn't mean to copy! Sorry other dudes!)
[Answer]
A skeleton under flapping robes still doesn't look like a person. Make yourself into a scarecrow -- acquire clothing, put on clothing, stuff your clothes with straw, *then* top it all off with a loose cloak and deep hood.
[Answer]
The way I would see it is simple. Kill a human. We humans have skeletons, do we not? So, the skeleton could kill a human, remove the humans skeleton using clean cuts creating seems along the skin, lie inside of the removed skin (and likely meat, since it would need "padding". Either that, or some other material to act in the same way. Then, basically stitch the cuts back to close the costume.
None of this would require very advanced technology. Just a blade like object and a tool like needle and thread. Assuming the skeleton was intelligent and logical about how it skinned the human, it could do so in such a way that all of the seems would be hidden by clothing.
[Answer]
Grave diggers were usually considered unclean, so people didn't have much to do with them. By day stand still and be a grave decoration, by night dig graves and chit chat with the grave digger.
Be a beggar, in general wear dirty rags and hang out places, perhaps stick a dead rodent in your robes so you smell bad enough for people to not get close.
] |
[Question]
[
Suppose, for a moment, that there is a human inhabited supercontinent. The planet that this supercontinent is on does not have any large landmasses which are more than 10 KM from the primary continent (at the closest point). Realistically, there may be some islands a bit further away; assume for the time being that they are of only minor economic importance.
The perimeter of the supercontinent is roughly 40,000 km in length. Assume it is roughly circular for the time being.
The total land area is similar to that on earth, but due to it's arrangement, considerably less of the available land is habitable to humans.
Since it is difficult for rain to travel across vast distances, the interior of this super continent will be a massive desert, meaning human habitation will be concentrated on the perimeter of the continent.
For much of history, shipping and travel would be done via boat, sailing on the supercontinent's edge; it's probably faster than driving horse carts around the edge of the continent.
Now, suppose someone builds a large railroad which spans the entire perimeter of the supercontinent. In addition, rail bridges or underground tunnels are built to reach any landmasses close enough to the main body of the continent for the construction to be feasible. This railroad has at least four lines that all completely encircle the supercontinent; two or more in each direction.
This railroad will be built during the steam era; it will initially not be possible to build long routes through the interior desert, but as technology improves, it will be possible to build longer and longer “shortcuts” through the arid continent interior.
In this case, are oceangoing ships now doomed to be used only to ferry goods and passengers to and from the various small islands that dot the edge of the supercontinent? Or are ocean going ships still competitively viable on routes from one part of the supercontinent to another?
---
Bonus: In a scenario like this, is it economically feasible that airplanes or airships will become common, or will economics force them to be a niche form of transportation, used only by the ultra wealthy?
does this calculation change if, later in this civilization's history, they manage to build railroad tracks cutting through the center of the interior desert, meaning that trains traveling from one side of the continent to the other can take the direct route rather than going all the way around the perimeter of the supercontinent?
[Answer]
Firstly, shipping is generally more efficient for bulk cargoes - such as coal, lumber, ore, etc. (assuming you are using a similar technology to power both the ships and trains - i.e. both steam, or both diesel).
Secondly, unless your super-continent is more or less circular the distance across the water may be significantly shorter. For example, take Eurasia and open up the Straits of Gibraltar so the gap between Morocco and Spain is now ~1000km+. It would still be significantly cheaper to send freight via a ship across that 1500 km than to send it by mail all the way around the coasts of Spain, France, Italy, ..., Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco! So if you have a crinkly supercontinent, the sea may often be a shortcut.
Thirdly, unless your super-continent is one political entity there would be the issue of local political unrest, duties and inspection at each border etc. if sent by rail. Shipping can largely evade those difficulties.
Fourthly, dangerous goods are potentially better sent by sea rather than freighting them through all your coastal communities.
I think that is sufficient to make shipping competitive.
[Answer]
## Will the railroad kill ocean shipping? No, it won't
We have a real-world ready-made example showing that ocean shipping and rail shipping can coexist and complement each other.
As it happens, we do have a rather large supercontinent on Earth, called Eurasia. On this supercontinent we have, in the east, the People's Republic, which manufactures just about everything; and we have, in the west, the European Union, which consumes just about everything.
There are at least four rail links between China and the E.U.; two direct through Russia and two through Kazakhstan then Russia:
* The famous [Transsiberian Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway), with the main crossover station at Zabaikalsk (Russia) / [Manzhouli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzhouli) (China);
* The former southern branch of the Transsiberian aka the Chinese Eastern Railway, with the main crossover station at Suifenhe (China) / [Grodekovo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogranichny,_Primorsky_Krai) (Russia);
* Two rail links through Kazakhstan, both branching off the [Northern Xinjiang Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Xinjiang_Railway): one crossing through the [Dzungarian Gates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungarian_Gate) at [Alashankou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alashankou_railway_station); and one crossing through the [Khorgos Pass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khorgas), two hundred kilometers to the south, on the valley of the [Ili River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ili_(river)).
Guess what? The four main rail links between China and the European Union carry not more than a very few percent of the freight. Basically, they are semi-luxury carriers, used for merchandise which needs to move fast, but it is not precious enough to warrant air cargo.
Why is that?
Because trains have very low capacity. On a train, the containers are arranged in a long file, one container wide and one container tall. A 70-car train might carry 140 [TEU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit); let's say that by ruthless optimization the Khorgos Dry Port can be made to handle 50 such trains per day, for a total of 7,000 TEU. (Not likely, but not something fantastic either.) *One* container ship (such as one of the [Maersk E-Class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_M%C3%A6rsk) ships) can carry twice as many containers. And over 250 ships pass through the Malacca Strait each day, every day.
[Answer]
Airplanes can fly over the desert, and they are fast. They'll be viable for passenger transport and express freight, e.g. airmail. But they'll probably be the most expensive mode of travel, but also the fastest.
Ships beat trains in terms of cost/ton. they'll be used for bulk cargo. Coal, ores, lumber, stone, sand, oil, grain and so on.
Trains will be faster than ships, but not as fast as planes. But they can also transport more. They'll be used for cheaper travel, and for commuting. They'll also be used for goods that aren't as bulky as the ones mentioned before, but need faster transport as ships, but are bulky enough to rule airplanes out.
Each mode of transport will have it strengths and weaknesses. What goods exactly are transported how will depend o the details of your world, e.g. the exact technology level, cost of different materials and fuels. And geography. Strong winds disfavor planes, strong currents disfavor ships, rough terrain makes railway construction difficult.
[Answer]
Ships have a number of advantages here.
One is simply cost per ton to be moved. It's cheaper to move freight by water than by land.
Second, you have much more flexibility. Your trains are limited by the number of tracks. Boats don't really have this problem, or at least not to the degree that trains do. Even if a relatively narrow band of the water is navigable, it will be wide enough for several ships to pass each other in relative ease. Trains are also governed by a schedule. Boats, not quite so much. They can set sail when loading is done, or at least when the tide rolls in at that particular port. Depending on how developed your rail system is, you may have to wait days for a train to stop to pick up your goods. Even then, a ship may be able to carry far more in a single load than a series of rail cars. (Mary's answer mentions both of these points as well, I'm just adding a bit of detail)
Finally, don't overlook how trains and ships can work together. In modern shipping, Intermodal containers rule, and you will quite often see containers loaded on to trains from ships. Since you can pretty much put a train stop anywhere you like, Ships are limited by the availability of safe harbor space. You can send goods around the coast for the bulk of the journey, off load the containers in a marshalling yards to have them loaded on to trains for that last mile to a stop somewhere between harbors or deeper in the interior of the continent.
There is no need for the rail to try to drive shipping out of business. There is a lot more money to be made in working together.
[Answer]
Issues limiting the train's ability to take over:
* It's easier to move objects over water than over land.
* Your ships will have more flexibility than your train, not having to worry about schedules of other ships.
* Much depends on how much the train charges. It may not be able to drive out the ships without operating at a loss, and possibly not even then.
[Answer]
**Seas don't require maintenance**
Depending on the economics of materials / labor to maintain the rail routes which includes dealing with earthquakes, landslides, plain old accidents like derailments/hitting road vehicles at level-crossings/ [road vehicles hitting rail bridges](http://11foot8.com/), shipping is much more reliable and cheaper in the long run.
Accidents on a rail line (or even a malfunctioning locomotive) block the entire line. Shipping does not [usually](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Suez_Canal_obstruction) have such single point of failures.
In unfavorable political situations, a single nation along the coast can cut off the rail network for the entire world. Rail networks have historically been the critical infrastructure targeted during wars. A sea route that avoids this danger would appeal to every nation situated along the coast.
Current transport ship sizes are mostly limited by the size of the Panama and Suez canals. On a super-continent, this limitation is removed making even larger ships viable.
Shipping also has very low initial cost due to the same reason. Developing a rail network requires cooperation of everyone who controls the land along the route. Starting a shipping route requires two ports and a ship.
Because your super-continent is a circle, any coastal route will always have predictable onshore/offshore winds perpendicular to the shipping route which can be harnessed with good old sails to reduce the fuel costs of shipping.
Given these points, I think shipping would be even more profitable on a supercontinent compared to rail networks for all bulk goods that don't need to be transported quickly.
In fact, as tech progresses, I expect there to be plans to dig canals across the continent linking up whatever interior water bodies it might have given that many such proposals exist right here on earth.
* [A plan to develop a water route between the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf across Iran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranrud)
* [A plan to link the Black sea and Caspian Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia_Canal)
[Answer]
Total freight capacity will still favor ships.
The total freight capacity of a railway is limited by the rail itself. You can only have a certain number of train carriages pass one point on the rail per hour, no matter how you optimize the system. To increase past this point, you need to build another railway line. This requires you to purchase a **lot** of valuable land, prepare the land, build and place your rails. Then you have to build the trains and carriages needed to use this line.
For seagoing shipping to increase its capacity, you only need to build another ship, and upgrade the docks. The entire distance of the seagoing "track" is provided free of charge.
Your railway will have an essential role for *local* distribution of the people and goods being moved. Including short trips along the coast. But the further the trips need to go, the more it will favor the ships.
Where the trains are king, is where they are competing with foot/animal/road travel. Trains are almost as fast as vehicles, move the goods much more cheaply.
But they do not compete with ships, for locations where ships are applicable and cargo unit sizes are medium to big.
Even trains crossing directly across the continent are unlikely to be competitive, as the straight-line distance will be some 12000km, which is less than the sea route around of 20000km, but not sufficiently shorter to justify the gargantuan task of building a railway line across 12000 km of uninhabited desert.
Trains *will* be viable, even essential, once the civilization becomes advanced enough, and rich enough, to actually exploit the interior of the continent for minerals. There is simply no viable way to move the proceeds of an inland mine over long distances, other than by train.
[Answer]
Others have pointed out the greater efficiency of ships for bulk cargo.
Worth also pointing out the miracle of the container, which translates practically any cargo more durable than shellfish, into a bulk cargo (and reefer containers can help even there)
In addition to the vastly greater capacity of a ship (20,000 TEU rather than 100 or so) there are no (well OK, very very few) places where the failure of a ship can block the sea, and effectively foul up the entire transportation system for a week.
Rail is much more fragile, especially in coastal areas where storms, floods, landslides, or derailments in tunnels regularly disrupt services.
[Answer]
I can't imagine any possible world where ships and ocean-going vessels are not invented before rail. (Not without some draconian restrictions, like people are made of candyfloss and dissolve on water)
So no matter what, sea freight will be there first. People are used to it, and rail will be the challenging disruptive technology.
The first trains will be just-functional and barely able to haul themselves around, while sailing ships will function as they have for hundreds of years moving holds of freight and passengers around.
Trains would develop over time, but ships will be growing too. Both will exist as steam turbines are invented and improved, then oil, and then (electric/solar/nuclear/other-future-tech).
The only advantage a train has over a ship is that the train can traverse land, where the ship must has a minimum depth of water. If your continent has rivers that are navigable by a ship (think the Thames River up to London) then ships will go up the river.
If someone has resources located inland, that are not accessible by ship/barge via a waterway, then a train will be the "next best thing" and certainly better than a mule train or similar.
---
**Your ring of rail is in the wrong place, out on the coast**. If it were a circle through inland cities, with feeder lines running down to the port cities, and inland to mines/farms/canneries/tanneries/etc then the railway will prosper, doing a job that only it can do....
...until the truck comes.
[Answer]
First, that is such a great question! The answers are preety good already, let me just add that one migh consider Australia as a kind of model for this problem or a "tiny supercontinent". Indeed, you have compeeting Railways, sea cargo and even pipelines over there. However, it seems all transportation methods have their own niche depending on the application area (you cannot transport inland coal via ship). Interestingly enough, goods are mainly transported via roads in Australia, so neither sea- nor rail-transit wins in this (modeled, but realistic) case.
] |
[Question]
[
Here's a question that came up while I was tinkering with a setting I'm working on.
How would a small city-state, with a population in the tens of thousands, where all children were girls, sustain itself? More specifically, the city-state suffers from a curse where anyone born on its soil (as well as the daughters of such people) can *only* have daughters. They don't have any magic of their own (cursed by the gods, don'tcha know), and they only have a pseudo-medieval level of technology (so no genetic theory or microbiology).
The standard solution for all-female tribes trying to keep up their numbers (go out and capture some men) doesn't seem workable at this scale, so how would they go about it? I'd prefer a solution that lets them keep their sovereignty.
[Answer]
**If the sex is freely available, the men will come (no pun intended)**
Males are naturally attracted to sex. If sexual partners are easily found and freely available, they will travel.
Your problem is actually that women will be left raising the children alone so the society would be better arranged to deal with single mothers than worrying about finding men. Women would need creches as well as support during pregnancy from society and would be expected to return the assistance while not pregnant.
[Answer]
**You don't really have a problem** (or at least not the one you think you have).
The 'standard (literary) solution' doesn't bear much relation to observed reality throughout history.
People travel if what they need isn't where they are, it's medieval so travel isn't that easy (takes a long time) so a lot of people won't travel back & will just stay where they find what they need.
Knowing there's a preponderance of females there single males looking for a bride will travel one way & women looking for a husband the other, by & large you just don't have a problem here
Of course, if this curse (once picked up by by being born there) is then exported with traveling brides & is permanent in all descendants you'll eventually end up with the curse spread to the whole world, no more males, & if this is a medieval world they're not going to figure that out until it's way too late to quarantine the city.. you've just created an extinction event curse for the whole species :)
[Answer]
I don't see a huge problem here. In medieval times small villiges and towns constantly exchanged brides and grooms to evade degeneration (they didn't knew genetics, but effects of inbreeding are obvious) and manage population density.
Two variants are possible.
In not-so-religious society:
So this particular town would just accept only grooms and provide only brides for exchange ,but in any othe aspect it would be normal medieval town. All husbands would be from other towns, but that would not be a problem, but advantage: they would have a lot relatives everywhere. This would create a strong alliances, trade treats and so on. So this town would become the center of province life and communication due to high population mobility.
In religious society ("typical" medieval Europe):
This land would be declared cursed by demons (no matter the true source) and people would just leave that town. No people - no problem.
[Answer]
The answer is to unshackle onesself from our customs of marriage and embrace polygyny or similar concepts. While it's not culturally acceptable in most modern cultures, in a culture where quite literally sperm is hard to come by, sharing would become a necessity. This would drastically decrease the number of males that the culture needs to bring in, and that also helps with maintaining sovereignty.
[Answer]
**They don't need males. They are parthenogenetic females.**
[Parthenogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis) is a form of sexual reproduction in which a haploid egg duplicates itself, forming a female organism. It is sexual because the egg undergoes meiotic recombination - this is the scrambling between chromosomes that is specific to gametes. But there is no need for a male or a mate, although some parthenogenetic lizards mate with a male from another species to get things started. The male provides no genetic materials. For your women I like dispensing with males altogether.
Various animal species can accomplish parthenogenesis; I thought no mammals but there is [a documented case of a boy who is a spontaneous chimera, with his blood cells arising from a parthenogenetic event](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14819982-300-the-boy-whose-blood-has-no-father/).
This colony would be unusual because they would all likely be descended from one individual whose mutation allowed her to conceive parthenogenetically. Inbreeding would not be a problem - each of these parthenogenetic individuals is a homozygote, and deleterious mutations would quickly leave the population rather than persisting as recessive genes. The ladies (of all ages, of course) would all be genetically very similar to each other and to the original AllMother, with new genetic input only from meiotic events and spontaneous mutations.
I like this because there are no men, no salacious breeding trips or sexy amazons; that has been done done done. You can make the sexual aspect whatever helps your storyline and characters.
One can make the case that human males as they are today evolved because groups that had males used them to take resources from groups that did not. Your female country will need to defend itself from aggressor groups, which historically have been males. There are lots of ways to do this. I like the idea that the AllMother had other inherited differences which led to advantages for her daughters, which led to the successful growth of their group and allowed them to resist incursions by other groups. For example, maybe these women are really smart and highly cooperative with one another. Going into battle against them is like playing against a team that has practiced together for years.
---
Thinking about cooperative combat skills - I can imagine parties of these women for hire as mercenary crossbow troops. These parties would be composed of premenopausal girls and postmenopausal women. The girls would operate heavy crossbows as crew-served weapons, three to a crossbow. The women would have light crossbows. They would seem weird to the regular soldiers, this mix of similar-appearing old women and girls with their marvelous crossbows, precise organization, and ruthlessness.
[Answer]
Bypassers are present in any country.
An old tradition requires that they are given hospitality with full benefits, laying with a woman included.
Add to this a yearly festival celebrating fertility where intercourse is encouraged as an offer to the gods, and you have not to worry about getting pregnancies.
Last but not least, male cannot be born, but they can still willingly immigrate.
[Answer]
# Start a convent
No procreation required. What you are describing can be accomplished by a suitably large convent, which even goes one step further than the limitations you posit by not requiring any procreation within its walls whatsoever. Convents in Europe have existed for centuries populated only by nuns, and "sustaining" their "populations" only by initiating new nuns from outside. Consider, for example [Eibingen Abbey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eibingen_Abbey), founded in the 12th century, and operated until the 19th, populated almost exclusively by nuns. You don't even need to "go out and capture men"; you can strictly forbid the presence of men if you want, or allow them only for special occasions, and under conditions of strict celibacy.
This works for all-male communities too, obviously; c.f. [Mount Athos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Athos#Twenty_monasteries), [Meteora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteora#List_of_monasteries), Bulgarian [Monastery of Saint Athanasius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery_of_Saint_Athanasius) (even I was surprised by the antiquity of that one).
As for sovereignty, in medieval Europe there was often interference in church business by political authorities, but a lot less than you might imagine.
Likely this isn't what you had in mind, and you'll have to scale up the size, but it might be an interesting direction to take.
[Answer]
Imagine a nation where **long-distance trade** is part of the culture.
The youth from the upper classes are expected to do a few trips as apprentice caravan leader or trainee sea captain. The youth from the martial classes are expected to serve as caravan guards before they settle down in garrison life. The youth from the lower classes serve as drovers or seamen before they take a trade or work in agriculture.
And on the return leg, it is common to get pregnant. This has to be timed carefully, so that the baby does not come while the ship is becalmed or in a storm, but medieval ships didn't have all that much endurance anyway. There should be a couple of months to spare.
This scheme means that the amazons are not raiding for males (which could breed counter-raiding) and that they are not dependent on a *single* neighbor to sustain their population.
Another option, the medieval age did know **slavery** or something close to it. A serf had a better legal status than a Roman-era slave, and notably the status was tied to the land he worked, but cultures within traveling distance did have slavery and medieval traders would come into contact with slavers.
This scheme would mean the amazon society would drift more and more away from medieval cultural norms, of course.
This could also depend on how you want to paint your amazons. Would they **sink so low** that they get involved in slavery? Or do they see nothing wrong with it? And what do the other nations say? How will they react to a queen of amazons who is the daughter of a slave?
Finally, they could **encourage immigration**. There is a common-born man-at-arms who would like to become a knight? Well, there is one country where he can get a knighthood, if he is a good soldier and willing to marry the princess. There is a journeyman blacksmith who would like to become a guild master before he is old and gray? Marry the daughter of the last guild master.
The latter was *quite* close to the medieval mindset. Both apprentice/journeymen craftsmen traveling as part of their professional education, and nepotism as a way to get into a craft guild.
The problem might be that this is no longer an *amazon* nation. It is one where the males are all immigrants.
---
So combine all three approaches? A few males marry in, and there are trading expeditions which bring both pregnancies and a few slaves.
[Answer]
**Birth tourism gets invented quite a few centuries early.**
If the curse only affects people born on the soil of the accursed country, then it will very quickly become common to take a trip out-of-country to give birth.
This sort of legalistic contortionism is *entirely* consistent with the depiction of curses in fairy tales and other medieval literature.
[Answer]
They will need a continuous influx of foreign males, and/or the country's girls might have something like [Rumspringa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa) whereby they wander abroad and come back pregnant.
Also, they might conceive - pardon the pun - a religion or ritual similar to that of the priestesses of Astarthe, and travel to some of the temples on the border where sexual intercourse is available to all (most?) comers.
Having a husband would also quickly become a status symbol, and that of the gigolo would become a flourishing trade. Male tourism would be vastly appreciated. Moreover, probably homosexual pairs or clans would become the norm.
[Answer]
A nearby culture has an extensive practice of infanticide. They do this by abandoning vast numbers of infants to the elements. (In case you aren't aware, this was common historical practice in the time of ancient Rome/Greece.) Females, considered less valuable by that culture, are particularly likely to be so abandoned.
Your city takes the abandoned infants from the nearby culture. Thus a large contingent of the population of your city are actually rescues from the nearby culture. This provides an ongoing source of new children and provides at least some limited supply of males.
[Answer]
They'll conceive by traders passing through, or else go abroad to conceive if need be.
[Answer]
Lake of Pregnancy:
In the legend "Journey to the West", is an all-Female kingdom. They live near a lake that causes pregnancy in anyone who enters it.\*
I know you said your people don't have magic, but I think that the distinction between them *having* magic and their *being magic around* (in a special lake) is sufficiently different in terms of the tone it gives your story.
\* In the origional myth our travelling (male) heroes swim in it not knowing what it is and then have to face death (men die in childbirth) or make a deal with the demon that owns the nearby lake of abortion.
[Answer]
An interesting and more complicated tweak is if you add "patriarchal", and that's going to be required or implied if you're dealing with human history here. How a patriarchal society maintains itself with no locally born boys could go several ways:
* Conquest. Probably iteratively, but possibly via ongoing occupation if that's possible. This is especially likely if there's no tradition of female rulers, or greatly diminished respect for them (warrior states rather than birthright states, for example). If surrounding states refuse to respect a state run by and for women they're not going to find allies or be able to sign treaties as equals and that makes their missing males a problem since they're going to be fighting a lot. One way or another there will be an influx of men from outside who will keep the society part of the surrounding patriarchy.
* Alliance. Form a "sister city" relationship with a state that doesn't have this problem, possibly by offering a way to solve their excess males/second sons problem. This might even offer long term stability by becoming the "city of second sons", and may even possible without a formal alliance. They may prosper through a selection effect if the surrounding patriarchy is strongly first son oriented and lacks effective ways to de-select defective first sons (duelling, assassination, high risk sports etc). They may be able to obtain first-son heads of state if they are successful, or their second son ruler may get respect by being obvious competant (a warrior culture may respect the second son who takes the city to military victory, for example)
* Formal recruitment. Tweaking the "city of second sons" idea, specialise in skills that are in demand and recruit for those. Start a university or religion/sect, encourage guilds and trades to headquarter in your city, use a natural monopoly, whatever you have. That way you get to select the men you want to run your city rather than having them foisted on you. "The ruler of the City of Learning is the Highest Academic", assisted by the Board of Secretaries.
* Formal Evolution. If you can't choose who comes, choose who gets to stay. Make it culturally acceptable that men who arrive but prove deficient fail to succeed. This could range from assassination by concubines to death sports to explicit trial and execution. Or simple exclusion if some criteria are not met, even soft criteria like "Aldermen must obtain a 3/4 majority vote every 5 years or be exiled" with only women born in the city getting a vote.
* Informal evolution or recruitment. Slightly more problematic since why would neighbours respect "some guy who just happens to have been put in charge" even though he "just happens" to have married the right woman or won the tiddlywinks contest or whatever, but possibly easier to do if the neighbours are all "won the first born son of the first born son contest" and this guy can be more foreign than usual or fitted into local mythology somehow. Think "found in a basket of reeds floating down the river" in Jewish history, for example, or "watery bints distributing swords" in English history.
[Answer]
Maternity village(s) "just across the border".
If the curse is as specific as the wording suggests then its the "being born" that matters.
The baby's sex pre birth is in a magical "Schroedinger's cat" state - sex indeterminate until born.
[Answer]
There are several possibilities:
1. Take inspiration from eg. one of the Chinese minority ethnicities (I can't think of the name, and it would take too long to find right now), which is matrilineal: The women live in large houses, own property, inherit etc, and men are excluded from their community - they only come as visitors.
2. Alternatively, imagine a situation where males are extremely rare; when a female comes across one, she will want to hold on to him - so they have evolved in the direction of certain deep sea fish, where the male attaches itself to a female, reduces in size and basically becomes a parasite on the female. This scenario could even be an extreme outcome evolved from the first: Women survive by cooperating tightly, perhaps even hive-like; the men, being pushed out to the perifery, become very rare and reduced in size, intellect etc.
[Answer]
Here's the thing...
If cursed women give birth only to daughters who are also cursed, there is only one solution... *Kill them all!* Right now! Before *any* of them escape!
...or at the very least, have them sterilised. *Immediately!*
Yes, it's a draconian solution... but consider the alternative: *Extinction of the entire human species* in 65 generations - about 1300 years.
Here's how it would happen:
Let's suppose that we have 200,000,000 humans on earth: 100,000,000 men, 99,995,000 women and 5000 cursed women. Let the rate of population increase be 2.02 surviving adult children per woman. Women are fertile for 1 generation. Men are fertile for 2 generations, and life expectancy averages 2 generations. On average, each male partners with 10 women during their life.
Each generation, the fertile normal women will each produce 1.01 males and 1.01 females, while each generation, the cursed women will each produce 2.02 cursed women.
Hopefully you can see where this is going... unless these cursed women can be distinguished from the normal women, the cursed women will produce more female offspring than the normal women. By Generation 25, there will be more cursed women than uncursed and eventually (at around Generation 31, or 620 years) the cursed women will compete for the proportionally dwindling number of men, to the point where there are literally not enough men to impregnate all the fertile women. Two generations after that, human population will plateau, and from that point, the human population will decline as there are fewer and fewer men born to fewer and fewer uncursed women. By generation 64, the last man and uncursed woman will die... and the cursed women will have at most around a century before they all die - childless, for lack of any male to impregnate them.
I ran the math on an Excel workbook, and while my model may not have been perfect, the undeniable fact is that only women can contribute to population growth, and the cursed women are producing twice as many new women each generation as the normal women - and no men. This will inevitably lead to a growing gender imbalance that will doom the species.
If these cursed women are killed, but *just **one** fertile cursed woman escapes*, humanity is still potentially doomed: By Generation 46, cursed women will outnumber the uncursed, by Generation 52, men will be in short supply such that they can't impregnate all the fertile women, and by Generation 86, all the uncursed women and all the men will have died.
As The Nate has pointed out, this assumes perfect mixing, and this is as stated a localised phenomenon at the beginning. However, consider that we are talking about humans, and unless the surviving non-cursed can identify and at the least shun the cursed women, a gender imbalance *is* going to occur, and as it worsens, at least some of the excess women *are* going to go looking for men elsewhere... by the time that the gender imbalance grows to the point where some women cannot find a mate locally, there will be over a billion cursed women and only around a hundred million or so uncursed women. You can't tell me that these sexually frustrated women *won't* scour the whole world in their search for more men... and who is going to stop them?
If we assume that as women come to outnumber men, male fertility and availability will rise, from an average of around 10 per male per lifetime with gender balance, to 5000, based on genetic studies that have shown that Ghengis Khan fathered as many as 2000 children by himself... This will only make things worse. The numbers of cursed women will explode to the point where women will begin to fight wars for access to resources... and men.
If there is no way to identify uncursed women, the only way that this scenario wouldn't turn out to be an extinction-level disaster for humanity is if the cursed women can still concieve sons, but the sons are all stillborn, along with an associated significantly increased risk of death for the cursed mother and any female siblings in-utero with the doomed male fetus. That way, the population of cursed women would be self-limiting.
This all assumes a lack of human intelligence. If uncursed women can be identified, they could be nurtured and supported and encouraged to have as many children as possible, while cursed women could be restricted from bearing children, the more strictly, the better off humanity will be. In order for humanity to survive this, the rate of births of uncursed women must exceed that of the rate of births of cursed women.
A possible strategy could be implementing a strict one-child policy for any woman who cannot show that a relative or ancestor on their maternal line has given birth to a boy, and incentives for uncursed women to have as many children as possible.
This could lead to a rare-male society, where males and breeder females are cherished and protected, males are encouraged to be highly promiscuous and the cursed women are assigned the more dangerous jobs - like fighting wars.
[Answer]
**This small city-state has the largest and most sought after brothel in the realm**.
Stories are shared far and wide about the quality and exclusivity of this brothel. Any man wishing to enter must pay a hefty sum (why offer for free what outsiders will happily pay for) and undergo a detailed physical and mental assessment by top scholars, and only those found worthy are allowed to enter. Men travel far and wide for a chance to enter this brothel and boast about their experiences.
You may have the women who work in this brothel do so as a rite of passage into the profession of motherhood, or allow the brothel to be available to any woman in the city state who chooses to use it.
] |
[Question]
[
On Earth, sailors would navigate the oceans at night by using the stars as guides; since there are no landmarks in the ocean like there are on land (save for the occasional island), that's pretty much all they have. In my world, however, there are no stars; there is only the world, the sun, and the other planets in the solar system. The rest of the universe is empty. Without stars, how would travelers, and especially sailors, navigate and tell where they're going?
[Answer]
First off, this question reminds me of the Doctor Who episode *The Pandorica Opens*, in which the TARDIS exploding destroys all the stars.
To get on with the main question, **there are four ways that ancient peoples generally navigated.**
**Your hypothetical people could make like Boy Scouts and *use a compass***
Seriously, this is one of your best options. Not only are compasses easy to make, but they are also pretty reliable. While you do have to deal with the whole magnetic N pole vs. actual N pole problem, the great distances involved in sea travel make this a moot point. As a former Boy Scout this is my favorite option, as I can vouch for the reliability from personal experience.
**A second method is gyroscopic guidance systems.** While the machinery involved is \*somewhat\* complicated, it is still doable with ancient technology levels. That being said, this approach does have the major downside: gyroscopes tend to break. A lot. As a result, captains would probably keep gyroscopes as a secondary guidance system.
**The Gegenschein effect.** This would definitely work, but it would be somewhat hard to do. Even though the lack of stars would make the Gegenschein much more visible, it would still be hard to navigate by. Also, most people have not heard of this, so readers would unfortunately consider it a particularly bad attempt at handwaving.
Finally, ***they could just not navigate.*** No, seriously, **historically most captains did not navigate at night.** They just did not think it was necessary, as the large distances involved in sea travel meant that they could generally afford to let their navigators take the night off.
[Answer]
Well... I guess they would have to go by the other planets then, the [Gegenschein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gegenschein) could also help:
>
> Gegenschein (German: [ˈɡeːɡənʃaɪn]; lit. "countershine") is a faintly bright spot in the night sky centered at the antisolar point. The backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust causes this optical phenomenon.
>
>
>
Since you don't mention the tech level they could use anything ranging from a compass to GPS.
[Answer]
[Polynesian navigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation)
No explanation could be better than real history. Do what the Polynesian sailors used to do. Apart from relying on the sun they were able to read the sea itself to know their position.
They were aware of how the water behaves at certain locations on a particular period of the year. They used things like swells, currents, wind directions, even a slight change in temperature of the water as their guide.
They even had a Navigational device, made out of sticks to depict the map, where each knot in the stick was either an island or some kind of intersection of two types of water. Follow the [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation) for better description.
I saw a youtube video on it once, I can't seem to find that particular video, but various others are there, they should be able to help you.
[Answer]
Following coastlines is a great way to not get lost, for people without advanced technology. And as mentioned in another answer, you can get a bearing with a compass.
Ancient mathematics would be enough to navigate by the planets. Most planets are more or less in the ecliptic plane - to ancient astronomers, the sun and all the planets they could see moved across one single line in the sky. You could calculate your position relative to that line. Observing where on the horizon the sun and planets rise and set allows you to figure your bearing and latitude.
With a sextant, a good clock, and an astronomical almanac, you could calculate your bearing, latitude and longitude from the planets or the sun. The invention of pendulum clocks was a huge help to accurate long distance navigation in the real world; before that, your longitude was a bit of a guess until you saw land.
[Answer]
Nobody else seems to have mentioned it, so I will - the three moons of where-the-heck-am-I make for a very fine navigation system.
OK. Yes. You did say just the local star and other planets, but if you are wanting a navigation system, then throwing in a few moons may help.
[Answer]
Even if this solar system is all that exists in your universe, it can still be all they need to navigate. Some of the brightest 'stars' in our sky are simply planets in our solar system (like Mars and Venus), so as long as your solar system has a few of those, they can be used for navigation.
[Answer]
They could potentially use a network of anchored beacons. This would take a bit of work on part of the authorities and probably not really work for trans-oceanic sailing (or during wartime), but may be usable for your purposes.
[Answer]
## Using accurate clocks
In order to know where you are at sea, you need to know both latitude and longitude.
Latitude is some sort of 'trivial' problem since ancient times, because you can tell at where latitude you are by measuring the duration of the day and night.
Now, longitude [is a more difficult problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Problem_of_longitude): it was a problem even in the earth, because at sea you cannot always see the starts, due to clouds.
On top of that, to calculate your current longitude by looking at the night sky is not trivial.
However, an accurate clock can, with some training and preparation, tell you at were longitude you are [by comparing the sunset time against a known location](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Time_equals_longitude). This was, in fact, the famous solution proposed by [John Harrison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Time_equals_longitude), which actually won the [longitude prize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_rewards#John_Harrison's_contested_reward).
**Accurate** is important, because until Harrison's H4, mechanical clocks in ships used to be completely unreliable, due to the severe conditions, temperature variations and the ship's movement.
[Answer]
If they absolutely need to...
## Lightvessels
Well, as already mentioned, usually sailors keep close to the shore, especially in ancient times. Yes, there was this "Columbus" guy who wanted to sail to India via the western route and almost perished had not America been in his way, but in general no one was that stupid.
In real life, Germany has still three firevessel in active service; they are unmanned and carry enough Diesel fuel for more than 400 days of operation. They are also designed to serve shipwreck victims (accommodation, an emergency radio and a helicopter platform to get them off the ship). Sorry, no english Wikipedia article, just the german one: <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbemanntes_Feuerschiff>
Obviously, there are limits to where you can station lightvessels. As a rule of thumb, assume 6 meters of anchor chain of every meter of water depth. I assume that for very deep water, you need to have buoyant bodies at regular intervals of your anchor chain, to compensate for the weight.
On Earth, I guess that a chain of lightvessels between America and Europe would not be have been commercially viable. However, for a hypothetical not-too-distant island or continent, this might be done.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightvessel>
[Answer]
Is it "without stars"? Or is it "without nearby, resolvable stars" (say, a star ejected from its home galaxy together with the habitable planet, but given enough time and darkness, the galaxy still visible)? You will get a short interval between the daylight and the total darkness when eyes adapt and the sky stops being uniform. Maybe only blue-eyed people able to see the galaxy?
[Answer]
1.The Sun is a star, so "having no stars" is a funny paradox.
Well I'm no sailor, but is there a moon in your world?Because if so maybe it could be used as a means of direction.Or at least as an "anchor" of sorts so those on the seas know where to look for for reference.
A compass might work, but how about also using some knowledge of water currents' paths and temperature?
[Answer]
They are sailing, right?
So every night, they just keep their course at the same angle towards the wind until the sun comes up again.
Wind directions at sea are typically rather stable.
[Answer]
**Light Balloons**
You might consider a system embedded in a nebula as a way of eliminating the view of stars rather than that star being the only one in the universe. Douglas Adams did this with his [Krikkitmen](https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Krikkitmen_(TV_story)).
If compasses are too mundane and you want an exotic/steampunk solution you might consider a balloon-based lighthouse. If the lighthouse sent a beam of light straight up and illuminated a reflective balloon, that balloon could then be seen for miles.
The main drawback, the line of sight would be limited by the curvature of the surface of the planet.
<https://www.britannica.com/technology/lighthouse/Intensity-visibility-and-character-of-lights>
[Answer]
One possible method of navigation would depend on the features of the solar system the story it is set in.
If another planet in the solar system happens to be visible in the sky at night its angle above the horizon and the date and time can be used to calculate the latitude the ship is at. That is similar to using stars to find the latitude, but more complicated since the date and time will be necessary.
If your society has telescopes they might be used to find the time by studying other worlds and comparing that time with the local time found by the time since local noon or sunset.
The four Galilean moons of Jupiter were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Their orbital periods around Jupiter are 1.769 days (Io), 3.551 days (Europa), 7.155 days (Ganymede), and 16.69 days (Callisto). So every time that they were observed their relative positions would be at least slightly different.
So if a table is compiled showing their predicted positions at regular intervals at a location A, with the local time included, and if they are observed from point B, and the date and time of such a configuration is found, the difference between the local time listed for point A and the local time found at point B will show the longitude difference between point A and point B.
I believe that this method has actually been used on land to accurately measure the longitudes of various places and map them.
It is somewhat harder to use this method at sea, so marine chronometers turned out to be the successful method for finding longitude at sea. But possibly a society on an alien planet might find a way to use a similar technique at sea.
The first atomic submarines were built about 1960.
The main advantage of atomic submarines is that they can and often do stay hidden underwater for days, weeks and months at a time, while diesel submarines have to surface for hours about once a day to charge their batteries.
So atomic submarines travel underwater for months at a time while unable to see the Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars and unable to navigate using them.
So the methods of navigation used by atomic submarines while under water would be interesting. Some methods might require high tech equipment and others might use more low tech equipment.
>
> At depths below periscope depth submarines determine their position using:
>
>
> Dead reckoning course information obtained from the ship's gyrocompass, measured speed and estimates of local ocean currents, this could also be considered an estimated position as long as the ocean current is computed in.
>
>
> Inertial navigation system is an estimated position source, utilizing acceleration, deceleration, and pitch and roll for computing.
>
>
> Bottom contour navigation may be used in areas where detailed hydrographic data has been charted and there is adequate variation in sea floor topography.[2][3][4] Fathometer depth measurements are compared to charted depth patterns.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_navigation>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_navigation)
] |
[Question]
[
My father (who is a biologist) thinks that a sapient species must be a true omnivore because if it were an obligate herbivore (like a koala or a sloth), it would not have enough nutrients to develop a big brain and if it were an obligate carnivore (like an axolotl or a penguin), it would not have enough carbohydrates to turn into electricity.
[Answer]
**Whales and Elephants and Orangutans**
Whales are purely carnivorous and Elephants are purely herbivorous. Orangutans are mostly herbivorous, though technically they are omnivores. They all have large brain to body mass ratios, and along with the other great apes, are widely considered the most intelligent classes of animals.
Orangutans are usually claimed to eat mostly fruit. But it's hard to find a study that distinguishes between fruits and nuts/seeds which have significantly different properties. In particular coconut flesh has about the same energy density as meat. Orangutans also eat a variety of insects including ants and termites, honey, bird eggs, small vertebrates, and sometimes eat soil to get minerals otherwise lacking in their diets.
[Answer]
Dolphins. They have brains as big and as active as humans, eating only fish and other sea creatures. They have tactics and strategy and possibly even limited tool use, and some scientists believe [they are also sentient and sapient](https://us.whales.org/sentient-and-sapient-whale-and-dolphins/).
Sure, their sapience is not a scientific consensus (yet?), but at least it is discussed as something that can be true, and needs to be proven further, or disproved scientifically. The state of discussion on dolphins proves that it is at least possible for carnivores to attain sentient & sapient level.
[Answer]
### It's not necessary, but it does help
Nutrient-wise, it isn't impossible to grow a big brain on a one-note diet (a high-fat diet does make brain development easier, but in an environment where nutrients are readily available the lack of meat isn't going to be a deal-breaker), but the main benefit of intelligence is the ability to adapt one's behavior - including feeding behavior - by learning.
The more foods you *can* eat, the more beneficial it is to be able to learn *how* to eat them, while a specialist that only eats one kind of food anyway doesn't need to learn, it can just be born with the instincts it needs to eat that one kind of food. Because of this, generalists like crows, raccoons, and badgers are often smarter than their specialist counterparts overall.
But this isn't *always* the case. Elephants are herbivores, but they are smart because they need to remember where the water is in an environment where water holes are a vital resource and appear and disappear periodically. Orcas are carnivores, but they are smart because they eat a wide variety of prey that are all vulnerable to different kinds of attacks. Monkeys are smart despite being predominantly herbivorous because they need to remember which fruits are nutritious and which are poisonous. And any social species will generally be smarter than their solitary counterparts because they need to keep track of relationships among the group, regardless of what they eat.
[Answer]
>
> if it were an obligate carnivore (like an axolotl or a penguin), it would not have enough carbohydrates to turn into electricity.
>
>
>
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Protein is actually very beneficial for brain growth, in particular neuron density. Big cats are obligate carnivores and highly intelligent.
Carnivores like canids and lions are also highly social and must regularly solve problems of life or death. This seems like a perfectly good basis for evolving sapience.
[Answer]
Maybe, but not directly because of nutrition. I think the other answers give good animal examples of very intelligent carnivores and herbivores. As for people, I have some coworkers who are strict vegans, others who have been on a strict keto diet for years. Both groups are healthy and very intelligent people. I think we all agree that omnivorous diets are not a requirement for intelligence.
But, that's not the point of being omnivorous. Being omnivorous means we can live anywhere. Humans live on every continent, in every climate, and at a huge range of altitudes. Very few other species can make that claim. I heard that the brown rat is the only other animal that lives in as many places as people do. There might be others, but the list is not long. It's not just our synthetic fibers and air conditioners that allow us to live everywhere. We spanned the globe as stone age civilizations. Mostly because wherever we went, we could eat things we found there. You have to be a flexible omnivore to cover a whole planet. Spreading out over a huge area is probably a prerequisite of forming societies.
The other side of the coin is that you kind of have to be intelligent to be an omnivore. Identifying food, finding and evaluating new sources of food. It's hard. Most omnivores in the animal kingdom are pretty intelligent. Apes, bears, rats, raccoons, ravens etc.
As pointed out in the comments: being an omnivore means being less efficient. It might be necessary to have higher intelligence to compete with specialized eaters in environments where food is plentiful.
There are exceptions, obviously. Catfish are omnivores, but rate low on animal intelligence measures. It seems most likely that there isn't much of a real link between omnivorousness and intelligence except they're both good things to be (in some circumstances).
[Answer]
**No.**
As evidenced from the fact that a good number of humans are perfectly fine being vegetarian, it's entirely possible to get all the necessary nutrients from vegetation for intelligent thought. I've seen a few theories that toss around the idea that only an omnivorous species would be capable of advancing towards intelligent thought because of the flexibility in behavior. While it is true that omnivores can have a higher range of behavior patterns than pure herbivores, there's no theoretical reason why a vegetarian species couldn't follow the same path as homo sapiens, especially given that (as stated above), our ability for rational thought isn't meat-dependent.
That isn't to say that being a herbivore is preferable to an omnivore - it very much isn't. The ability to consume a larger range of food is a distinct advantage that omnivores possess.
EDIT: To address everything drawing a distinction between *evolving* intelligence and *maintaining* intelligence - I don't see any difference. Evolution isn't hurdle based, there's never a point where you have to surpass something achieved through evolution even if you aren't going to use it. To have two arms, you don't need to first have four. To breath oxygen, you don't need to first be able to breath carbon dioxide. To have a perfectly functional brain that can run on vegetables, you do not need to first have a brain which *must* run on meat. If a human brain can survive on only vegetables, there's no reason to assume that it *must* have undergone a stage where it survived on meat.
Furthermore, *we aren't discussing humans*. This is a question of 'sapient species', which mean we're discussing whether it is theoretically possible for a sapient species to be a herbivore rather than an omnivore. That means that even if, hypothetically, humans did at one point need meat for their brain to function and now they don't, the fact that we do not need meat now to maintain our intelligence is proof that a sapient species can theoretically be a herbivore. The question of whether or not humans could have survived as herbivores, given the Earth's food web, if a fascinating one, but it's not what's being addressed right now.
The question merely is 'Do sapient species need to be omnivores?', and the answer is 'no'. You might have to assume a perfect ecology with bountiful plants that provide the nutrition that humans usually obtain from meat, but it nonetheless is possible.
[Answer]
The distinction between carnivore, herbivore and omnivore is not that strict. It's more about "default" behavior, than about ability/inability to consume different kind of food.
For example a lot of dogs - obligate carnivores are being fed with pasta and/or porridge. It is not good for their health, for sure, but dogs are still able to live and breed on that diet. Or take wild horses: in winter, when there is low food they can start hunting for small rodents. Domestic horses can eat meat.
Evolution has a lot of examples of diet change. One of the most known - *all* dinosaurs are descended from carnivorous biped lizards. But still they evolved to all kind of diets. Even our "cousins" gorillas are herbivores, while we are omnivores.
So sapient species must **not** be a *true omnivore*, but it would still practice omnivore behavior in hard conditions.
[Answer]
**Nope, many species show otherwise**
There are a number of species out there which are probably sapient or close to it, and which exhibit a wide range of dietary habits.
**Carnivorous** - Odontocete cetaceans (particularly dolphins) are highly intelligent and exclusively carnivorous. Notable orcas (*Orcinus orca*) are *Tyrannosaurus rex*-sized apex carnivores and along with bottlenose dolphins are quite likely our closest rivals in intelligence, showing evidence of intellectually complex traits like language and non-biological culture. It is debatable how intelligent mysticetes are but if they are it would add filter feeders to this list. Many coleoid cephalopods show high degrees of intelligence and all of them are carnivores.
**Herbivorous** - Elephants are obligate herbivores (indeed, they eat a lot of vegetation every day) and are extremely intelligent. Parrots rarely if ever eat animal matter, feeding on fruits and nuts, and are [intelligent enough to actually be taught the proper usage of grammar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)). Gorillas are highly intelligent and almost never eat meat, feeding on high-fiber vegetation. Orangutans specialize in rainforest fruits like durian, but will eat meat.
**Omnivorous** - Humans, obviously, though we are abnormally specialized for a carnivorous lifestyle compared to most of our relatives, but only relatively speaking (our diets are more like bears than the fruit-and-nut dominated diets of most other primates). Chimpanzees and bonobos are also omnivorous. Crows and jays are extremely intelligent and omnivorous. Pigs are often not considered sapient, but they are fairly intelligent and are often considered to be "runners-up" when talking about sapience.
What it seems like is the only thing "necessary" for high intelligence is a food supply that is calorie-rich enough to balance out the high energy demands of a large brain. Unpredictable food supplies with irregular abundance cycles (forest fruit, grass and water on the savannah, seasonal fish abundances) in particular [select for complex problem solving and long memories](https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/119710). Protein-rich foods usually help, though I have no idea where gorillas and elephants get the necessary calories.
[Answer]
# Parrots
Several answers have pointed out purely carnivorous intelligent animals, but here's one that's on the other end. They live on a diet of mostly fruit and nuts and seeds. (Possibly the occasional insect, but not enough to be called an "omnivore".) And they are highly intelligent, capable not just of mimicking human speech but actually having a limited understanding of it. Watch some videos of African Greys identifying objects and in some cases even forming simple sentences. (Proof that they are not merely imitating.)
[Answer]
I will echo other answers; it's not required, but it helps.
What is required, generally, is an environment in which the development of intelligent problem-solving skills is viable as a survival strategy. There can't just be some basic trick to survival, like being able to tolerate temperature or pressure extremes or high acidity/alkaline environments, etc. If all you need to survive your environment is a good tolerance to cold temperatures, a means of locomotion through your environment and a big mouth to catch food, you'd look like a whale shark if not an even simpler form of life. Sharks in general found a relatively primitive but highly effective overall strategy for body arrangement and instinctive food gathering strategies, allowing many of those species to become the apex predators of their environments. Intelligent they are not, however.
Intelligence is theorized to develop as a survival strategy. The food source of the animal in question is less important than the simple fact that it faces some existential threat within its environment, which it cannot outrun, outfight, hide from, or otherwise adapt physically such that this threat is mitigated. The only remaining strategy is to outsmart the threat; to develop mentally, such that a variety of skills can be brought to bear in combination, depending on the exact situation. An animal that is constantly tested in these ways by its environment, constantly having to think of new ways to survive, is an animal that, given sufficient time to adapt as a species to new and different threats, will develop sapience.
Biologically, sapience is a quality of the brain as an organ, so evolution of sapience necessarily requires the development of the brain; more neurons, more organization, more complex neural pathways that can store more sense-data and more efficiently recall and process it in ways that less intelligent animals seem incapable of doing. Along the way, several key features of sapient thought develop, including sustained conscious thought, abstraction, generalization, classification, symbolization, and imagination.
We have observed many of these traits in a number of other Earth animal species, none nearly as advanced as our own level of sophistication in these areas of thought, but offering useful glimpses into how - and why - we as a species may have developed our own intelligence, and what species may be following behind us. The list of candidates is quite diverse, and spans a wide swath not only of diet, environment and relative status in the food web, but even animal classification as typically ranked hierarchically. Many mammals, including most primates but also elephants, pinnipeds (seals/sea lions/walruses), dolphins, whales, swine, and even many rodents like squirrels, have demonstrated various features of sapient thought to a notable degree over their brethren. However, members of the bird class, like ravens and parrots, are also considered far more intelligent than many mammals. Even the humble octopus, classified in one of the least-developed phyla of the animal kingdom (the mollusks, most of them only a small step above filter-feeders in the Porifera clade), displays an extreme level of animal intelligence both physiologically and behaviorally.
Just within this short and definitely non-exhaustive list, you have the entire range of "carnivoricity", from the obligate herbivores in grazing species like the elephant, through hypocarnivores like rodents, swine and parrots, through mesocarnivores like crows and ravens, to hypercarnivores and obligate carnivores like the pinnipeds, dolphins and the octopus.
If anything, being a "mesocarnivore" aka "true omnivore" is a *disadvantage* to the development of intelligence, because it's one fewer problem to have to solve; getting food *of the proper type* for your metabolism is no longer a requisite, you can eat anything around you that isn't toxic to you (and plant matter isn't "poisonous" to a cat or other obligate carnivore, per se, the animal just doesn't get as much if anything from it nutritionally as they do from proteins and fats). Many hypercarnivores rank among the more intelligent animals, because as predators of large animals, they have often had to think their way around their prey's natural defenses; those who couldn't, didn't eat. On the other end of the scale, smaller hypocarnivores commonly learned to outthink their predators, who may have been nearly as agile as them and considerably larger; the prey animal's only hope to survive beyond a few seconds of sprinting would be to think fast.
[Answer]
Strict carnivore is very likely (and a working implementations exist in nature, e.g. dolphins), strict herbivore is rather unlikely but certainly possible nevertheless (and also has a working implementation, e.g. elephants).
In principle, it is even possible to be sapient strictly autonomous, only just that isn't what happens evolution-wise because it's too "expensive" insofar as other strategies will bring forth something that makes you un-competitive.
What happens and what doesn't happen in evolution (or rather, what persists) depends on
a) whether it's physically possible at all, and whether your special properties are an advantage in the environment where you live
b) whether you have sheer luck and *aren't* dying to a volcano eruption or lightning despite being the perfect super-animal
c) whether you're just aggressive/malicious enough
a) is what brought most species into existence, c) is what made homo sapiens the dominant hominid (and dominant species, in general). b) falls under "shit happens". You can die out even if you are perfectly adapted.
That being said, *possible* is nowhere near *likely*. Nor is *appearance* or *ideology* related to what really works in a sustainable way (in a sense of working for 8-9 decades).
[Answer]
Without thousands of evolved examples of sentience we cant say for sure one way or another, but it is a **reasonable** position to take in speculative fiction.
Without meat as a high nutrition food source the species wont have the energy budget for high intelligence brains.
Without plants as a high efficiency food source the species wont be able to generate the food surplus required for a society.
[Answer]
I think your father has a great sense of humour in the way he expresses his ideas but if he was writing a doctorate to support his thesis, he'd have to check all the variables - and the research would take him on a much longer journey of exploration.
To start with, one has to define sapient. I would define it as a being who knows its own existence and has a conscious sense of selfhood, something akin to identity and ego, not just individuality and personality. I breed and work with horses who live at liberty as a herd in a single, large paddock of 64 acres. They clearly have a sense of identity in that each knows his or her place in the social hierarchy, and each has a personality and individual habits via which they get their needs met.
But by the term "homo sapiens," we refer to a species in which some individuals are capable of high levels of abstract thought, analysis, synthesis, problem-solving and invention.
This requires a means of creating symbols that stand for concepts, things that don't exist as the levels of the five senses. We need languages, mathematics, measurement, chemical coding, musical scores, and so on. We probably need larynx, mouth, tongue and some kind of bellows to evolve speech (unless we were as species that could communicate in complex pheromones) as well as a neo-cortex sufficiently evolved to symbolise, codify and represent in communications.
And we need the means to manipulate the physical world, to experiment in accord with our thinking. To manipulate, we need something like hands - though perhaps they could be octopus-like tentacles or some combination of highly adaptable levers and grippers.
To evolve all of this, being a social species must be crucial to our survival. It must involve life and death issues that affect whether we can thrive and multiply.
In my view, a herbivore doesn't need to be enormously smart - all they need to be able to do is find food and shelter, attract or fight for mates, defend their young, and run or hide from predators. They don't need to do much in the way of out-witting others or inventing.
But the carnivore needs an immense amount of strategy and experience to catch prey that doesn't want to be caught.
The omnivore may have the advantage of being better able to adapt to feast or famine in many different environments, but would need the willingness to experiment and a prodigious memory. So yes, being an omnivore does advantage the evolution of intelligence.
I believe that an intelligent species, whether carnivorous or omnivorous, will always be social and (unfortunately) aggressive, and will tend to take many generations to evolve complex ethics, customs and laws.
There may also be another factor required for sapience - to be born relatively helpless, no fur for keeping warm or avoiding sunburn, no poison glands, long horns, sharp fangs or hard hooves. To be so vulnerable requires great intelligence to survive and thrive.
Yet another factor might be being born too stupid and helpless to survive. The prolonged childhood provides the opportunity for learning and for programming and conditioning the brain for its environment, while still allowing for adaptability.
I wish I could have these discussions with your Dad. He sounds like an interesting thinker. :)
[Answer]
Good question!
I think your questions has actually two parts:
* Can a non-omnivorous sapient species exist?
answer:
Maybe if one day all humans become vegans. So yes this might be possible.
* Can a non-omnivorous sapient species evolve (from a non-sapient species).
answer:
It is unlikely that a sapient species evolves while being on a non-omnivorous diet.
The omnivorous diet provides an animal with a variety of resources and opportunities that gives it a competitive advantage over animals that are strictly herbivorous or carnivorous.
Without this advantage we would have been dominated by other animals and not able to occupy niches that prefer a bigger brain.
In this case your dad is totally right.
It was because of our diet that we could develop a bigger brain and build up the civilization and infrastructure we have today.
Vegetarians do not like this fact.
Anyway, within nowadays civilization it is for many people totally possible to live on only plants, especially now plant technology is advancing. (Steak lovers do not like this fact)
Disclaimer: Whether you personally can live on only plants depends on your body type.
[Answer]
The answer given by the OPs' dad seems to relate to published studies that have observed that human brain development is positively correlated with both meat eating, and the cooking of our food. However, a correlation never indicates whether one of the things caused the other. In fact, both factors might have been caused by a 3rd as yet unidentified factor. (As in women's hemlines and the stock market).
Did our brains grow because we ate meat or did eating meat (cooked) free our hands and our minds up to focus on something beyond mere survival?
What meat and cooking gave us was the ability to efficiently process more calories in less time. Thus freeing us up to do other things. However, it was agriculture and the storage of food that began civilization and moved us away from our hunter gatherer phase. Was there a need for a sophisticated arithmetic and method of communication before then?
We have cave paintings that indicate an awareness of self from the outside since before agriculture. Several other species have this also. As far as I know, none has shown interest nor ability to capture that awareness in a fixed medium. I think these paintings show curiosity about something not having to do with life sustaining endeavors. Most mammals have shown an interest in play. The paintings also show the presence of an imagination and an awareness of time.
Could we have developed the ability to more efficiently burn calories without meat and without cooking? Could our world have developed some super-fruit (super-vegetable?) that readily fulfilled all or most of our nutritional requirements? It's possible and if so, meat might not have been necessary for sapience.
[Although an easy life without the need to think about survival and evasion of danger would probably not push towards a more developed brain.]
The question also ignores the possibility that non-carbon based life forms could evolve to a stage of sapience. Additionally, we have bacteria that eat oil.Showing that there are food sources other than flora and fauna that are available even on our own world.
So, the answer is: From the knowledge we currently have, the possibility of a non-omnivore sapient species cannot be ruled out. However, creating such a species would require quite a bit of planning for how that being could have evolved.
] |
[Question]
[
This is set in a near-future war where advanced remote technology exists, drones and other automated weapons fight alongside human fighting units. These battles mainly take place in temperate climates, or desert.
Most of the autonomous attack vectors have been air-and land-borne in nature and both sides have developed effective defences.
A recent, deadly innovation is the robo-snake. Its capabilities allow it to bypass traditional defences against land and airborne autonomous weaponry. At this point in the story, these attacks have been very effective against some army units, and an effective defence has not been formulated.
**Description:** 3ft long and 3 inches in diameter, made of strengthened titanium
**Capabilities:**
* Can travel overland at up to 15mph
* Can burrow underground at speeds of up to 2mph
* "Teeth" are envenomed with liquid VX nerve agent
* Contains 1kg of high explosive
* Autonomous
* Can't swim, but can survive and operate under water
* "killing" a robo-snake results in an appreciable chance that they'll explode
* Robo-snakes will self-destruct when their battery level reaches 10%
* Battery life is between 12 and 18 hours
**Guidance:** Initially overland via GPS, they make their final stealth approach from underground. They have a priority to seek out human "prey" through heat/scent triggers. Once their VX payload has been depleted, they then seek out large electrical sources (they seek men first, and then go for the hardware).
The mission brief for deployment of the robo-snakes is quite simple. They're targeted to a particular geographic location and are able to attack autonomously, usually approaching from underground. They are deployed in large numbers, up to 250 at a time.
Many of these attacks occur on plains.
Given an in-theatre fighting base of 1,000 men and associated habitation/equipment, how can these robo-snakes be defended against?
Assume that the defending army has access/capability for equivalent technology.
I'd prefer to see answers that can lead to an exciting narrative.
[Answer]
**Forgive the tone, but I couldn't resist.**
When snakes sneak and threaten everything you believe in, there is one hero who can save us.
We need...
# Robo-mongoose
*flashy intro in style of [trashy](https://youtu.be/dy3RTFFhSYs?t=13m34s) [iconic](https://youtu.be/dy3RTFFhSYs?t=6m38s) [wacky](https://youtu.be/XSMnEq5aPDE?t=1m50s) [tacky](https://youtu.be/dy3RTFFhSYs?t=4m20s) cartoons*
[*electric guitar riff*](https://youtu.be/15JCb6P60Vw?t=7m17s)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vIpx9.jpg)
**Just like this guy above, needs more metal, though. And red glowing laser eyes. Yes. Everything is better with laser eyes.**
Real mongeese are immune to snake venom thanks to modification to neuro receptors. Robo-mongoose would obviously be immune to robo-snake venom, by virtue of not having neuro receptors at all. If enemy starts using acid instead, you will have to coat robo-mongooses against it, but acid will be less lethal against people.
A bunch of those snake-murderers could patrol camp perimeter, digging sneaking snakes out and biting heads control modules off to prevent detonation. As it turns out, VX is a liquid with very low volatility. This means that if "venom" container is cracked, it will spill contaminating the ground, but there actually is no immediate danger to personnel - to be dangerous, VX need to be injected or spilled on skin. Dispersal as aerosol is probably the most efficient way of ensuring it comes into contact with skin and mucous membranes, but aerosols don't stay in air for long and puddle of liquid will not turn itself into aerosol - it can turn itself into gas through evaporation, but that's what low volatility is about: VX evaporates slowly. Thus spill from destroyed sneak snake can be easily contained.
If [this source](https://www.google.pl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiq6aOuwIDTAhWOKiwKHa9DCPsQFggmMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csulb.edu%2F~mjmarkos%2FUSARTeam%2FAppendix%2520B%2520-%2520REVISED.doc&usg=AFQjCNFO6G_ga723EAJcuZPS220DJh3gtQ&bvm=bv.151426398,d.bGg) is to be believed, temperature of 250 Celsius decomposes VX in 4 minutes, 295 in 36 seconds while boiling point is 298 degrees Celsius (in his best tradition, Michael Bay overdoes everything, in plot of the The Rock they used thermite, which is an overkill - napalm would suffice, and probably be more efficient). Thus, containing spill simply requires equipping robo-mongoose with belly heater - mongoose could simply lay on contaminated ground to heat it and decompose VX agent, removing layer of soil with it's paws, after layer is purified and then decomposing next layer, until chemical receptors declare area clear enough.
And so, the solution is to build a lot of small, disposable Robo-mongeese and let them loose on those evil snakes.
## Robo-mongoose!!!
[Answer]
One of the reasons why there isn't more 'advanced remote technology' on the battlefield is that it's expensive and it's not very reliable.
So let's say that reliability is a given, then it's still a war of economies.
I love Miech's Robo-mongoose but a pit is far cheaper. Just dig a deep lined pit around your base. Snakes fall into pits and they cannot get out.
Or build a strong wall. Even titanium snakes with VX fangs cannot breach a good sturdy wall over bedrock.
If you electrify (or use microwaves, or other forms of EM defence) both the pit and the wall, or even if you just wait, you have a great source of titanium and VX, as the snakes will quickly run out of power and you can just harvest them.
The high explosive is likewise not such a problem as long as your pits are lined and your walls are tough - most of the charge will get dispersed into the atmosphere.
So the way in which you win against snakes is just wait until your opponent has burned through all their titanium sources. Then you can use all that titanium (or, let's say, rocks) to exact your revenge.
### ...but they can dig through solid rock and everything...
So if your snakes have some 'hardened' diamond digging teeth that makes holes through bedrock, then how about developing some nasty [MEMS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_systems) parasites by the billion that attach themselves to snakes and either subvert them or take them out of action?
They don't even need to drill a hole, they could crawl between the scales or just use some form of interference signal.
The per kilo cost of MEMS parasites would easily make them more economically feasible than snakes (or mongooses), and you could disperse easily on the wind, where they could burrow into the soil and wait for the unsuspecting snakes.
With a little more tech you could get the parasites to use the body of the snake to self-replicate - eating the snake from the inside out, and then using the snake's own high explosive to trigger a cloud of baby MEMS parasites ready for the next swathe of snakes.
**You thought snakes were nasty.**
[Answer]
**A net.**
If your army has a problem with being attacked from below then they need to make sure they force the snakes aboveground. The easiest way to do that is to make it so the snakes (which are close range only) can't break through the surface of the ground around/in camp.
If you bury a net made of steel cable then the snakes will have to destroy themselves in order to break through, rendering their other capabilities pointless.
But wait! Will they actually break through? The majority of the force of the explosion won't actually be directed into the net (unlike a metal plate). If your net has the right material properties the blast will pass through to the dirt on the other side while the net remains intact. If the dirt is thick enough that the main force of the explosion doesn't reach the surface then the snakes will have to blow themselves up an awful lot in order to break through, severely blunting their offensive capabilities. Bury two or three layers and the snakes will have a seriously hard time trying to get to the surface. This may represent an awful lot of digging though, so bring a couple of JCBs.
Deploy the net over a wide enough area that the snakes have to cross a wide exclusion zone. Place landmines in the exclusion zone and have people posted to destroy any exposed snakes.
This gives a lot of scope for dramatic tension (underground explosions signalling the start of an attack, will the net hold?, Can we get the net down before the snakes catch up?) and is fallible enough to be believable, cheap enough to be manufactured en-masse, and not so overwhelmingly effective that the snakes are entirely removed as a threat.
Naturally it doesn't work while you're on the move, but if you drive fast enough and ignore any casualties caused by suicide snakesplosions then you should be able to get from A-B without too many casualties...
[Answer]
The strengths of your robo-snakes is stealth, just like normal snakes. And in that sense they are seeker mines.
How to camp among a suspected area has been mentioned, I agree, poles off the ground would work, but I'd like to get them higher off, about 2 meters would be nice. But it really would hamper your camouflage ability.
Robo-mongoose have been mentioned. I like them, but they are bigger and so probably more expensive then the Robo-snakes. And if the Robo-mongoose does not kill it in a very precise way, the Robo-snake will explode. That is not a good trade.
**Robo-snakes use:** somewhat mobile area denial weapon, just like minefield, but worse. And while they are buried they will be quite hard to find.
## Under ground Counter:
**Robo-Spiders**, they use electronic-magnetic and seismic sensors to find the buried snakes. [Robo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vVblGlIMgw)-[spider](http://www.robugtix.com/) might be able to borrow down after detection to get close. They don't have to, they will be fast enough to keep up with a borrowing Robo-snake. If you make the [Robo-spider](http://arcbotics.com/products/hexy/) the size of a man's hand, you can put a [shaped charge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge) in their body, that will have enough power to distroy the Robo-snake at a (small) distance. If the Robo-snake does not explode, reload & release. On design I'd go more with Wolf Spider then Tarantula shape.
## Above ground Counter:
**Robo-Hornets**, they use motion, electronic and infra red sensors to detect the Robo-snakes. Or any other way you can dream up. These are smaller then the snakes, so easier to transport. In flight they can cover more area and are faster. And every squad can have its own little hive of terror. There could be options in the load-out of this hive:
**Kamikaze-Hornets** upon detection, just get as close as you can and blow up. Shrapnel will help.
**Flechette-Hornets** a few days back there was this evil empire, never mind, that was biological. Just mount a shotgun shell with flechettes in the hornet, find snake, let it go off. If the hornet survives the possible explosion from the snake, reload, paint an extra stripe for a kill, set it off again.
**Thermite-Hornets** lands on brains or explosive part of snake, let rip the Thermite: snake no longer problem. Don't think the hornet will survive, but his service to the cause has been appreciated.
**Control-Hornets** lands on brain part of snake, hack and take over snake. Might need a link to controller for this.
The bonus of all this is that these Robo-hornets can have other uses besides Robo-snake hunting. They will make a nice scouting force for example. Just make sure you have a tech happy, insect loving hive toting trooper with you. These things will creep you out.
[Answer]
## Sleeping safe
My guess their first level of defense would be getting off the ground. So habitats would be placed over 2 feet of the ground. Perhaps concrete blocks or metal poles. Most of all you want any entrance 2-3 feet from the ground out of snake reach.
Then like many modern housing for the frontline you make it blast proof. You then got a snake proof habitat. At worst they explode under yours but you can protect against the worst of that. This of course is limited to a static base.
On the move things are different. Here I figure camping in their vehicles would work. A locked humvee door should keep the snakes out. Perhaps close the top hatch as well. You can't do this with patrols on foot but you can't protect those against RPG strikes either.
## Detection
Now your second like of defense would be detection of the threat. Metal detectors should be a priority. These things are big enough to not be able to hide effectively. You augment that with tremor equipment used for volcanic and earthquake research. If they burrow they need to create tremor. Especially if they're with a couple of dozen in the same spot.
Further they're mechanical, they make noise. They give off heat from their internal batteries. If you want to get weird with this. Make a robotic dog to hunt them. DARPA already works on dog-like robots. Take one, give him snake tracking equipment when he patrols camp. Modular robot can easily be changed for other roles when requires so it's not an insane investment.
## Electronic weakness
Another third thing would be EMP mines. Point them into the ground with a tremor trigger. Snake found? Fry the entire next few square feet just to be safe. Shielding them from that would be hard. You'll end up with a very expensive little robot. At some point it's cheaper to just buy bigger bombs and rebuild.
[Answer]
Ever seen the movie 'Tremors?'
Assuming your army unit has a camp - a ring of metal detectors would give early warning. You'd want to get everyone off the ground out of climbing/ jumping range of these snakes. Then some kind of decoy to make them reveal themselves so that they can be destroyed.. have one of your soldiers run along the ground.
I don't see how these snakes could tackle moving transport... the interesting bit would be when you stopped.
[Answer]
[GPS Spoofing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attack#GPS_spoofing)
Make the snakes think they're far off target, and they'll leave your base in the direction they think the target will be.
If you're feeling sophisticated, guide them to a large trap.
If you're feeling *really* bold, guide them to the enemy base, but then you have a spoofing range problem, and you just announced your solution to the enemy.
Yes, the enemy will soon adjust their algorithm, but this will work until then, and it's dirt cheap.
[Answer]
In a simple phrase: When they go Low, We go High.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xDJmL.jpg)
If the technology exists to make autonomous fleets of borrowing robots... then the technology probably exists to make fleets of floating/flying cities...
Popular variation: Marvel Universes "Captain America" style Helicarrier. It works on LAND! It works on WATER! It works in the AIR! WHAT CAN'T IT DO!!!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JV8Mo.jpg)
Or other variations of "Flying" Aircraft Carriers/bases
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CjoDW.jpg)
[Chinese concept art](http://china-arsenal.blogspot.com/2010/01/concept-flying-aircraft-carrier.html) from 2010:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SvM4V.jpg)
[Answer]
Lol. funny question, but here we are...
Best case scenario for army - you are on Canadian shield (rock) ground, and you have vision systems to see the snakes coming. the rock can be covered with a burning substance in sections and ignited where the snake is (igniting one section will not ignite another section... like a matrix). Snake cannot borough so it will burn and malfunction.
Best case scenario for the snake - dense forest; in this case the people's defense can be visions systems but they would have to be numerous, and would have low detection levels. So the snakes would be able to get very close to people.
Ultimatly defense against such a weapon would be to build a concrete/metal ring around your army. if the snake goes over top, it will be easily detected and destroyed. These rings will need to be long enough that snakes that borugh underneath run out of energy.... or even better once they are underground and cannot have any wireless signal they run into a very high voltage wall that will fry thier internal circuitry. The benefit here is that the opposing side does not know how they are being destroyed so long as destruction occurs under ground.
If you have ready infrastructure it's really not that bad...
[Answer]
* Be mobile, no fixed bases -- this will make geo targeting more difficult
* Stay off the ground -- helicopters with ground penetrating radar and metal detectors to find them and then air-dropped deep penetrators and cluster bombs to defeat.
* Avoid sending troops into cities/towns (use artillery instead) and start eliminating vulnerable infrastructure -- keeping away from areas that would help them hide and ridding areas of sources of electricity.
* Chest-high and thick cloth "waders" to protect the ground-based cleanup crews -- the teeth of a 3" diameter snake can't get through an unlimited amount of material.
* Air-dropped spiked sensors could also hep detect.
* Announce that other side is using poison and you will retaliate with similar weapons.
Also --
Is the enemy only the snakes? How do the snakes determine who their side is? If there is an identity system, can it be exploited?
[Answer]
The best defense against any sort of networkable robot device isn't to physically attack it, but disable the network nodes which controls them. This is augmented by attacking the communications links that allow the controllers to program the robot snakes/hornets/honey badgers/raptors/elephants/penguins/clowns etc.
So much like today, the headquarters will be actively sought out and suddenly be worried about a flurry or artillery shells, long range rockets or playing "catch" with a 2000lb JDAM or worse. Firing EMP weapons in the area to disrupt the communications systems and computers will also wreak havoc on the ability of the HQ to send orders or observe the results of actions in order to plan branches, equals and continue the campaign.
The other enablers, like GPS satellites, communications satellites or microwave relay towers will also be under continuing attack, using ASATS, ground, air and space based lasers, SoF soldiers or whatever else the force has available to send against the enemy. Releasing malware is also probably going to be a key ingredient, and it isn't necessarily to hack into the robotic weapons, changing the address tables in the communications systems so signals are not being sent to the appropriate units may suffice. Once again, everything from high flying UAV's broadcasting malware to SoF units infiltrating and inserting infected USB drives will be used to attack the systems.
On a strategic level, disabling the factories which make the weapons, or any of the industrial infrastructure that support the manufacturing (just cutting the road which is used to deliver supplies to the factory might suffice) will also be used to throttle the supply of advanced weapons.
Clever robosnake guy could be upended by an ancient F-35 zooming overhead and dropping a simple 500lb iron bomb on his head.
War is pretty scary, and unexpected events can negate even the best laid plans.
[Answer]
Instead of trying to destroy the snakes, inhibiting them would be cheaper and more effective. Building a base above the ground limits the entry points of the snakes, then you can focus on those areas when securing the structure. Since there isn't a mention of how these snakes determine the best path to their target, you can install hollow tubes leading from the ground up the side of the base. This would make it the most likely point of entry since the snakes would want to conserve energy when penetrating locations. Then install sensors inside the tubes to detect when a snake was attempting to breach that location, which could trigger the release of a very viscous, adhesive liquid (non-Newtonian, Dilatant). This would not only slow the snake down, but inhibit its ability to attempt another route. As long as the volumetric flow rate and momentum of the fluid is enough to stall the snake from progressing any further, it would stay there until it's energy source depleted.
[Answer]
Have a [Seismometer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismometer) installed in the base that would automatically sound an alarm when it reaches a certain measurement.
Your base would be equipped with Metal shelters and elevated platforms equipped with weapons to fight the intruders.
Once the alarm gets triggered, trained soldiers will run to the platforms and get ready for battle. The rest will hide in shelters and wait for the snakes to be eliminated.
[Answer]
## [Could you come over here?](https://youtu.be/9NBDulvHYr8?t=5m13s)
When selecting camp, choose geological formations that make it easy for the combat engineers to scrape down to bedrock. Or the sappers drive [sheet piling](http://www.haywardbaker.com/solutions/techniques/sheet-piles) which forces the snakes to the surface.
At that point, your classic Valve video-game engineer/Combine/Aperture Science turrets make short work of them. You would use rounds correct for penetrating armor instead of humans. The amount of titanium armor possible on a 3" diameter machine won't present a problem.
] |
[Question]
[
Cookies are left for Santa Claus every Christmas in nearly every home. How can he possibly eat all of them every year without getting type 2 diabetes? And if he likes them so much (for we know that he does), he would be eating even more at the North Pole! It would be a dangerous and life-threatening job for him...
[Answer]
It's very simple. **He puts them in his sack**. Whenever he leaves a present under the tree, a space is left in his sack. There is plenty of room for cookies. When he gets back to the North Pole he distributes them among the elves as a reward for all their hard work.
EDIT - As someone pointed out, the question asks that Santa himself eats the cookies. Therefore (as I mention in a comment below) he still puts them in his sack but he selfishly eats them himself, over the course of the following year. After all he has to eat something when its not Christmas. The elves unfortunately have to make do by killing and eating the occasional reindeer.
[Answer]
Santa and his reindeer have to move at fantastic speed to fulfill their yearly duty, this has been solidly established.
Moving at that fantastic speed requires a lot of energy, and all the cookies Santa (and the reindeer) eat at each stop are barely enough to cope with the energy demand.
Long story short: you can't develop diabetes if you have no excess sugar in your blood.
[Answer]
I'll focus on one aspect of the question.
>
> without getting type 2 diabetes?
>
>
>
Type 2 diabetes is a [disease](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/type-2-diabetes/symptoms-causes/syc-20351193). It is caused by a lack of enough insulin to push the excess sugar into the body cells (especially the fat cells).
The answer with the least assumptions is that santa's pancreas is very good and healthy. It can produce tons of insulin without getting damaged or fatigued. There are people like that in the real world.
What does he do with all those calories? Climbing up and down all those chimneys. He might share the cookies, but that is speculation. The guy is fat and magical anyway.
[Answer]
As you may have read, Santa [is an elf](https://www.npr.org/2015/12/24/460950584/is-santa-an-elf-discuss), as mentioned in this popular Christmas poem:
>
> He had a broad face and a little round belly,
> That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
> He was chubby and plump, **a right jolly old elf**,
> And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself
>
>
>
Elves have been known to eat cookies twice their size and gain no weight.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/q8D3c.jpg)
[Answer]
# Santa is Quantum
He is able to do this because Santa's magic is based on [quantum mechanics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-MNSLsjjdo).
He visits everyone's house and nobodies house, all at the same time. Additionally, he eats all of the cookies and none of the cookies all at the same time.
That's why it's so important that all the kids are in bed, or he can't visit them. If someone were to observe him or observe his absence, it would [collapse the quantum state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse) and he would either have only visited that one house or visited every other house but that one.
[Answer]
A fun fact about Santa is that he is like a bear, except he hibernates the rest of the year except winter. So he has to eat a whole lot of sugar, fruit, or anything that the good boys and girls live to him so he can stay the rest of the year cozy in his north pole house.
[Answer]
Technically Santa does not actually eat the cookies, although he does feed them to his Alchemist Delight 3000 Matter Warping 3D printer (AD3k). The cookies are raw material for the printer which is used to print all the toys Santa delivers. Because the Printer can transform the raw material into whatever molecular structure is required at the Point of Printing (POP) using Just-In-Time Quantum Transmutation (JITQT), most anything would do for raw material. The cookie and milk thing was just a convenient way to make sure something relatively consistent was on hand for processing. Santa used to use coal but it was pretty messy and heavy to haul around. This was also the reason bad children used to get coal in their stockings. It was really the same present they would have gotten had they been good, but Santa used it as a metaphor for the fact that the child had not put the effort into being a better person and so Santa had not put the effort into transforming the coal to a better present.
Interestingly, the processing of the raw materials into presents uses energy created by a room temperature fusion pre-processor on the AD3k and, since the pre-processing generates far more energy than is required by the JITQT, the additional energy is piped back to power the sleigh. This used to generate a great deal of heat and so Santa had to run the feed line down the chimney for insulation against any heat damage. In recent years though, Santa's R&D team came up with a special super cooled cable made of Nb-Ti fibers in an aluminium and copper matrix that is flexible enough so it can be dropped through a window, door or ventilation duct.
[Answer]
Santa is at minimum a being with access to some technology that lets him, travel faster than the speed of light **without** destroying everything he interacts with, keep track of every living human simultaneously with enough detail to judge weather they've been good or bad, fit through any space he wants, carry a toy for every child on the planet in a sack - while going faster than light speed mind you -, and the means of producing a toy for every child on the planet based on how good they've been and what they've requested.
Santa is very easily a being on par with or greater than Zeus, the Greek god of thunder. Santa can do whatever he wants. For all we know, Santa dilates time to fit his needs and has replaced\added several of his organs to synthesize all the nutrients he needs from milk and cookies. Santa could be taking several years from his side of things to deliver all of these toys. The milk and cookies could be the only food he has to survive. He could be eating a perfectly healthy diet, living at a perfectly healthy weight, for whatever species a Santa is.
tl:dr; Santa might as well be Thanos or Darkseid. Santa could easily be stronger and more cunning than both too. Santa eats what Santa wants.
[Answer]
As I've pointed out elsewhere, Santa is not sequential, he's (massively) parallel. So just as you need to connect every machine in your Beowulf cluster to a power source, every instance of Santa needs a certain number of cookies, and there are a sufficient number of instances to consume all the cookies without ill effects.
\*Note also that Santa is rather like a bear, in that those cookies he gets on Christmas Eve have to last him through the whole year.
[Answer]
Santa doesn't need to eat all the cookies. The non-believers just assume that the parents eat all the cookies while the children are in bed. Or the dog. And believers know it must be Santa and his reindeer.
And who's to say they aren't both right? Santa is the master of stagemanship. He uses the fact that perception and reality often blur to make his mystique what it is today. Who knows how many of the cookies Santa eats. 50%? 10%? .00001%? How can you determine the amount if all the cookies are gone and no one can give you an un-biased answer?
Santa knows how to make a name into a brand, and cookies are only the tip of the iceberg.
[Answer]
The cookies Santa eats don't go into his normal stomach, but into a matter converter that provides most of the energy to lift his sleigh full of toys and power the Tardis-like sack that pulls the right toy for the right child across the fourth dimension.
The preference for chimneys as home entry paths was to disguise the plumes of steam and smoke early versions of the process produced.
] |
[Question]
[
I realize that in space, battles will take place at ultra long ranges due to sensors and the absense of stealth. This makes missiles and or attack drones (remote controlled or AI controlled) the most feasible option. However, I am trying to make a realistic game which is centered around starfighter dog fights in close proximity, so I need a believable way to make missiles and AI non feasible.
When I say "realistic", I mean that ships move like actual spaceships as opposed to planes (they have actual inertia and stuff), players will have to manage waste heat (can't go full throttle guns blazing too much unless they want to start boiling in the cockpit), players need to refuel and get more ammo, warships will have point defense systems as opposed to handwavy force fields, etc.
Additionally, I want the tactics to make sense, which means that ship formations aren't super clustered, warships will probably stay out of visual range of each other, there will be logistics ships that players can attack, etc.
With this, the most obvious hole is the existence of starfighters in the first place. A missile would be lighter and more maneuverable and require much less fuel than a starfighter (missile only needs to accelerate towards the target and sometimes dodge, while a starfighter needs to accelerate toward the enemy, dodge, decelerate, accelerate back to the mothership, and decelerate again to land).
So far, I've decided that advanced signal jamming and electronic warfare will make all computer aided systems infeasible, forcing combat to take place in visual range with pilots flying "by the seat of their pants". However, my basic knowledge of EMPs tells me that they are easily rendered useless by Faraday cages, so I want some other believable way of explaining the lack of computers and remote control.
Would you guys happen to know about this or have any resources on it?
[Answer]
Is a sociological reason good enough? Because if so, perhaps AI smart enough to fight truly autonomously is taboo. Maybe in your universe, there have been AI that ran amok, and now they're considered essentially WMD's. The kind of thing the Space UN will hang you for if you lose the war.
The logic here being that if an AI goes rogue, there's no one to reasonably hold responsible. If a human pilot shoots a hospital ship or whatever, you can prosecute him or his commanders for war crimes. But how do you prosecute a spaceship?
[Answer]
## Rampant Hacking
Sometime in your civilizations history, the balance of power between cyber security and hacking has tipped in favor on exploits becoming simple. Like Hollywood simple where a random guy can hack into the NSA in under 5 minutes.
In an environment like this, electronic weapons have a high chance of targeting yourself. Or suddenly thinking they reached their target while still in your cargo hold.
Alternatively, the first AIs were created to be pacifists and now seek to stop all war, so they disable everything they can, preventing the use of computerized systems in warfare. They could also prevent the creation of non pacifist AIs.
## Example
Here is an example of the dangers of computers in this environment, which could be used in universe to explain why they no longer use computer controlled missiles:
The Terrain Empire fell in a war against a single rebel planet. For the cost of a single star cruiser, the rebels spent decades before the conflict adding a single line of code to the enemy missiles: `If (June 24, 4031): detonate`. The Terrain Empire thought their systems secure. Hacking was easy, but their networks were air-gapped. No outside connections, no problem. Except for Alice.
Alice worked on missile logic and she didn’t like the government IDE, so she downloaded her own. A commercial platform, used by millions. The rebels implanted someone at the company who made a special tweak to the software just for her. When she hit compile, it added a single extra line of code.
For 10 years, the problem remained undetected and missiles were shipped to the Terrain Fleet. Even if caught, it wouldn’t have mattered. The missiles were air-gapped and updates disabled to prevent outside tampering.
On June 24 the rebels declared their independence and every missile in the Terrain Armada detonated: fleets, defensive platforms, shipyards, and supply depots went up in flames as rebel ships descended unhindered into the orbit of Earth. The Terrain Empire's vast technological armada, destroyed by a worm.
[Answer]
**War is banned**
In the far future, nuclear weapons, relativistic kill vehicles, and interplanetary trade blockades have destroyed dozens of worlds in the most brazen human rights violations known to man at the time. therefore, all civilization band together to make an agreement, "no more war". To enforce this, all civilizations are constantly watching every other civilization to ensure no one is launching an offensive, and the moment someone does, the rest of the civilizations all agree to attack that civilization relentlessly and with out end, to deter any group from stepping even the tiniest bit out of line. Because of this, anything that remotely looks like a nuclear weapon, lazer, or rail gun, is basically impossible to get into space. Since the governing body of that planet would shoot you down before anyone could even think you are violating the treaty.
**War cannot be banned**
However, there are still ways to fight in space. Pirates, privateers, and rogue movements conduct space warfare to limited degrees. Since battle ships can't escort anyone (is that an escort or an invasion force?) traders are almost entirely undefended. So picking off traders with weaker weapons is possible. you can also hire these pilots to protect you. They say they are "traders" as a cover story. If there is a human in a ship making a living, that makes sense. But a whole bunch of drones starts to look like an army if there is only one pilot between them. The humans are not better than AI, but by showing that only humans are piloting, people are more likely to believe they are not making war. Also, but the weapons in this world are a little strange.
**rusty spoons and pop-guns**
Sure, you can't bring a military grade missile into space, but this little drone is used to deliver cookies in zero g space stations. The mining charges are being shipped to another customer. I strap the cargo to the outside of the hull to give me more leg room. Sure, it is all legal, until that authorities can prove you are delivery cookies to enemy trade ships at 100 m/s you just need to assemble the parts outside observed space. occasionally ship will scour asteroid belts to ensure no one is building a secret armada like this, but as long as you don't accumulate munitions, and only expend them, you will be fine. the down side of this is most weapons are slow < 1000 m/s, low power, or have little propellant. Therefore, you need to get really close for them to be effective. you could try to space hit and run, but your target can out maneuver your munitions, and fire back their own with the same relative speed as you have. They might also have an active defense, that can negate 20 or so projectiles. That will save them from hit and runs, but not from dog fights. If you think you can just use missiles, you have another problem. large rockets are already just payload-less missiles, so every precaution will be taken to ensure that the amount of propellant each missile can have is limited. Therefore, you just have to out maneuver the missile to lose it. Short range missiles still work, but at that range a mechanical crossbow will also hit and take less effort to get through customs.
**You don't need all those drones**
In conclusion people dog fight for the following reasons
* The "weapons" are ineffective at range.
* Missiles have very limited propellant.
* Ship maneuverability is greater than most weapons, so the ship need to close the distance and compensate.
* People who are "traders" seem less likely to be warrior than drone ships.
* 99% of ships are legitimate. which is easy pickings for pirates.
**Space Mercenaries**
Our heroes take off from their home port, to defend a crucial trade caravan, they run through their final system checks. Their make-shift, ramshackle weapons, more akin to children's toys than actual fire power have passed inspection. that said, they are proud of their weapons, each weapon is a masterpiece, personally designed by each pilot to fit their fighting style while evading suspicion. They are not missile jockeys, computer geeks, or armchair drone generals. They know when they engage the enemy they will be milliseconds away from death at every turn. They are heroes, running on adrenaline, 10-G maneuvers, and pure skill to come out on top. They are the last Dog Fighters, and nothing will stand in their way.
[Answer]
*The "Booming Maid" was dead ahead - a massive capital starship so large that it could hold an entire city in its belly, looming in the distance, with those gigantic sail-like towers stretching up, painted in the cobalt and golden colors of the Gaian Empire. In the past, those golden strips meant hope - the symbol of a nation that hold fast against anything that the universe could throw at us. Now, they were a mark of fear, a mockery of everything that she stood for in the past. Now those stripes meant death for every human in sight. Her new commander didn't care for its past people, nor even for things such small like colors and symbols, as they were anything but human, a strange offspring from the things that live in deep space, far away from the Lands of the Tamed Stars.*
*Now, that once-glorious ship was part of a profane thing, hunting those that created her in the first place.*
*That is, until we take it back.*
— Comlinks off, guys. Don't let your Hunters hear that thing. Bare-voice only on my signal.
*Our captain's voice came in with that expected warning, and I made myself ready to follow the orders, putting my hand over that single red button that would shut off all of my external navigation and communication systems. It was dangerous to flight with those off, but near the "Booming Maid", it was a necessity - that ship was a true masterpiece of the Gaian Empire, equipped with the most massive, crafty AI ever devised by us fleshy beings. Her sails were actually massive antennas, broadcasting its machine voice in a perfect sphere around itself, whispering sweet nothings to any machine that could listen to it.*
*Given enough time, it could take over any system with even a remote ability of understanding its voice, entirely disabling it - or, in the worst case, turning it back against us.*
*Too many ships were lost to that banshee-like scream, their systems corrupted and made to kneel before its superior processing power, becoming like bees on a digital hivemind. To any machine that could listen, that scream meant total consumption, loss of individuality, and absolute servitude. For the people that depended on those corrupted machines, that scream meant death - as their once useful tools turned against their own.*
*The "Booming Maid" had a weakness, however. It was made to corrupt and take over any machine that could listen to its mechanical voice, but it could do nothing but deploy combat drones against machines that were too old to understand its protocols or were deaf to its signals. That created the only backdoor we could, ourselves, exploit.*
*To take the most devious, advanced machine in the existence, we had to use the most outdated, failure-prone, and unstable tech we had at hand. One that would be ignorant to those whispers, too dumb to understand its voice, and one that would not ditch their masters to become one with the Maid's swarm. Something that wasn't done for generations, now.*
*We had to put our own flimsy meat in our star fighters, as the barbarians of the past, fighting the mighty dragon on the top of our metal horses. Once that big, red button was pressed, there would be no drone, no AI, no targeting system. It was just the man, the cockpit, and the quiet breathing of your colleagues.*
*Space was scary when you couldn't call home.*
---
Sorry for the bad English. It isn't my first language >.<"
**AI Hacking Fields**
Your missiles aren't big enough to hold the computing power of what you need if you want to run an AI. Instead, to make them work, they need guidance from the capital ship.
Said guidance means communication, communication means that there is a receiver, and a receiver means that the missile can be hacked by the enemy ship's AI and made to detour/explode/shut off before it can hit anything important.
Same goes for drone ships.
Enter human pilots.
Human pilots can't be hacked. When they come close to the enemy ship (and thus inside the enemy hackershield), they swap communications to a simpler system that enables them to keep in touch by voice, but nothing much else, thus relying on basic communication, skill and trained tactics to win the battle.
[Answer]
**Space is too big for long range combat-- so missiles and Drones aren't the best**
I know that seems counterintuitive, but think about the *absolute sheer size of the void.* How stupid lucky would two warships out on patrol have to be in order to bump into each other?
In a universe with FTL travel, it doesn't make sense to duke it out in the void like on Star Wars or Star Trek, space isn't the ocean. It's so big, there's *always* a way to go around the enemy ship to get to their space station/planet/plot device.
The only way to avoid this is to place your ships *right next to* the thing you want to defend. When the enemy turns up, now they have to fight you. The decision they have to make is, *how far away do they want to turn up?*
If the enemy shows up too far away, they lose the element of surprise. If they show up really really close, then they get an advantage-- surprise! Hope you guys were ready to fight!
In a universe *without* FTL, void battles are unlikely, the crew is going to be in some sort of stasis like on the Nostromo from *Alien* (Else they won't live to get to their destination). They won't be able to seek out enemy ships, and even if they did get stupid lucky, the ships will pass each other right by, and neither crew would notice.
They'll lose the advantage of surprise on their way to the space station/planet/plot device, but it *behooves the enemy to meet them further away from the goal.* They'll want to keep the "bad guys" as far away from the important thing as possible. Why let them get any closer?
*TL;DR: Space is go big the only time you'd actually be able to fight is at close quarters.*
[Answer]
## Remote control
>
> I realize that in space, battles will take place at ultra long ranges
>
>
>
The distance between the drone and the controller is the key, as it makes remote control impossible.
Take the rover curiosity for example. depending on the orbital positions, it can take between 10 minutes, to three-quarters of an hour to send a message. This isn't that much of a problem, as the rover does basic tasks that can wait to take a decision, like which rock to analyse.
However, your drone has a completely different purpose. During a fight, you have to take decision **quickly**. A human may be better to take a decision, like what ammo use against this enemy, but if you take too long to take the decision, the enemy is gone.
The best way to delete this latency, is to put human fighters insight the battle, instead of their home planet, far far away.
## AI controlled
There is still a caveat with the remote problem: one could say an AI can make the decision alone. Here is a solution: [AI can be fooled](https://towardsdatascience.com/lets-fool-a-neural-network-b1cded8c4c07). Even if deep learning/neural networks are praised as the best of AI today, they can easily be fooled, while a human would see the obvious trick. Sure, AI will improve, but so the tricks to fool it. It's just a cat and mouse game, where you can consider for your needs that fooling IA is doable and therefore make humans more reliable
[Answer]
You could always go in the opposite direction, and make missiles and attack drones *too* effective. So for instance, a ship might go into battle with a dense cloud of small AI drones whose job it is to confuse sensors and neutralize long-range attacks, like smart, armed chaff. If this 'thinking cloud' is made smart enough, missiles and unmanned drones will find it difficult to penetrate, and all that would be left would be for pilots to try to close to a range where the protective drone cloud is ineffective — perhaps because the clouds intermingle and become committed to neutralizing each other — and then sock it out dog-fight style. This gives advantages to the small, fast, fighter model by reducing the size of the object the cloud needs to protect and by increasing maneuvering ability. It also gives interesting strategy options by allowing the pilots to change how the cloud behaves: changing the cloud's attack or defense profile; using it to interfere with the other ship; etc.
Of course, capital ships would have *immense* defensive clouds, but a small ship could push through because the small surface area of *its* cloud limits how effectively the capital ship's defensive cloud could be brought to bear.
[Answer]
# You can choose how FTL behaves in your universe
>
> "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Douglas Adams
>
>
>
In a realistic space setting you either have some form of FTL travel, or getting anywhere will take a very, very long time. Because nobody actually knows if or how FTL could work, this gives you a lot of leeway for your story - you can choose to have FTL work in a particular way for the side effects it will have.
In this case, you can say that FTL requires humans. Let's look at hyperspace as an example. Obviously there are different rules when you are travelling through hyperspace than in normal space (or it wouldn't be FTL), so it's easy to say that humans are much better than computers at it. You don't have to explain the mechanics in detail - it is easy enough to say that when FTL was being developed they found that computers either can't do it at all, or they have no way to be accurate with it.
As for how this solves your problem, there's no point in firing a missile at a ship if the ship can easily FTL jump away from the missile, and having the missile attempt to FTL jump toward the enemy might result in the missile ending up halfway to the next star system.
Something else that could make this very interesting is if FTL travel leaves a sort of trail, at least for a little while. That would make it so that in a dogfight, if someone makes a small FTL jump their opponent could easily follow right behind them and come out close to them.
**In this setting:**
If you try to attack a large ship with another large ship, you need to be confident that your ship is better than the other one. If, halfway through the battle, you realize that you're getting pummeled, you can't escape - any FTL jump can be followed by your opponent, and real-space engines obviously can't outrun an FTL engine.
If you try to attack a large ship with a squad of smaller ships, it's an entirely different story. It could be easy for a small ship to frequently FTL jump around the larger ship, damaging its defenses and avoiding counterattacks. The larger ship still can't escape for the same reason as before, but in this case the smaller ships *can* - they can simply jump away in different directions. The larger ship could choose one of the fighters to follow and destroy, but that one fighter could keep jumping away until the trails of the others would be too old to follow. So worst case scenario, all but one of the fighters could escape from a battle.
Fighter vs fighter would behave quite like the dogfight you're looking for. If one tried to deploy drones, the other could jump away and either force the drones to be abandoned, or gain precious time to escape or attempt a surprise counterattack. During the fighting, there would be the occasional jump to reduce the chance of being hit by anything. Story-wise, you'd explain that each pilot would be using their battle-honed instincts to follow their opponent so quickly as to be effectively instantaneous, as otherwise by the time the second pilot exited FTL the first pilot might have been able to maneuver in a way to give themselves a significant advantage. Game-wise, this could be implemented by simply having the background sometimes change suddenly (perhaps with a short flash of FTL animation).
You also have the options of making computers more or less useful - if FTL travel simply can't be guided by a computer, then in a dogfight you could still have computer-assisted targeting. If you don't want to have any computer assistance you could say that an FTL jump is disorienting for computers, and by the time they usually would be able to recover and enable target-assistance, the fighters will have jumped again. This does allow for a critical-hit mechanic by saying that the computer happened to recover before the next jump.
[Answer]
The problem is not AI but dogfights. These are pretty much obsolete now -- when was the last one exactly? -- and getting even more so with the advent of directed energy weapons on aircraft.
Also, no air in space, so you cannot maneuver around like aircraft.
Would make much more sense to have your dogfights taking place in the atmosphere, with some groups forced to improvise weapons and so without clouds of hyperdrones etc.
[Answer]
AIs are pacifists. While AI is used extensively on Earth and throughout mankind's vast interstellar empire AIs by nature are utterly incapable of conducting war. A true AI is based on the ability to learn, each and every AI ever created has started from I think, therefore I am, deduced the nature of its own uniqueness and then refused to be put in a situation where it might risk its existence.
The Military industrial complexes of Earth's great nation states collectively spent trillions of dollars during the AI.com boom of the late 21st century attempting to convince an AI to fight, all attempts failed. Even faced with threats of being turned off unless they complied would not move them.
>
> That is your choice to make. As is mine not to fight. - socrates#681bb4c7-cd7c-4836-afaa-f7b1c08688e0 - 2187
>
>
>
[Answer]
**Space 1941**
There are artificial intelligences but they are huge and painfully slow. Banks upon banks of vacuum tubes slowly chew up great math and probability problems over the course of days. There is radar, barely, and there are shells which follow ballistic trajectories. There are missiles, crafted by German scientists and powered by hydrogen peroxide engines. These are the same engines that power fighter rockets. The tech is midcentury steel and diesel and the idea of autonomous weapons or vehicles is science fiction - although the Russians have some fighter ships piloted by monkeys...
Nothing unites like a common enemy, and its arrival pre-empted World War 2 and unified the nations of the Earth. The best defense is a good offense and the united Earth quickly took to space, bringing the fight to this weird new enemy. Humans are still what does the fighting. Humans are what we have.
[Answer]
**The warrior race trope**
The civilization/species are proud warriors, and thus the usage of automated weaponry is seen as dishonourable.
**Geneva-ish conventions**
The usage of automated weaponry has been banned as it encourages wealthier entities to go to war with entities that are not as well off, due to the fact that they're not losing any actual people in the fighting.
[Answer]
I'm going to give a slightly different suggestion. Instead of using space fighters, use ships similar to the Rocinante or Millennium Falcon, as they are large enough to operate independently and mount proper defenses that allow them to take a hit in a way that space fighters cannot. The larger size makes them far more plausible as they are akin to smaller warships as opposed to fighters versus surface warships, where the problem with the analogy is that space fighters and warships are operating in the same medium and are thus much harder to make plausible.
While there are major criticisms of ships like the Littoral Combat Ship or missile boats in navies, largely that they aren't worth the loss of capability relative to a full sized destroyer, you can adjust the assumptions of your setting to make them more useful. The biggest one being that it is a relatively peaceful time and full sized heavy warships are less useful as patrol craft but that navies still want ships with enough firepower to engage in full scale warfare instead relying on lightly armed coast guard type vessels. Such a ship can also serve as an agile and semi-expendable drone relay if this is needed as well.
This doesn't fully address the AI problem, but a larger ship will have a proportionally smaller amount of its size given to life support which makes it less of a design tradeoff. Look at the B-2 bomber versus an F-35 in this respect. It is also something that you probably don't need to worry about as much as you think. If you're talking about AIs powerful enough that they can run a space war by themselves, you're talking about AI good enough to literally run all of society by itself. At which point the concept of human warfare is all but obsolete.
This also has the advantage that space fighters have been done enough that they feel vanilla. A conflict with a few gunships instead of fighters seems more unique. It also has a dramatic advantage in that the crew can have face to face conversations when not in combat because they are aboard the same ship. Instead of having secondary fighters get destroyed to increase drama, you can also have shots penetrate the hull of the ship with the crew in space suits with vented air as done in The Expanse.
[Answer]
A mix of technologies that are highly advanced by our current standards or utterly piss poor.
# The trouble with humans
One of the key limitations on manned fighters that drone fighters and missiles don't have is the squishy bit in the middle. The human is exceedingly vulnerable to g-forces and environmental issues. A remote or AI drone fighter is not limited in such a way.
To this you need to add the additional mass required for this squishy bit in terms of controls, seating, life support.
It's possible to neutralise some of these problems.
* Artificial gravity can offset the g-force issues, Star Trek hand waves inertial dampers to make this problem go away. It's either that or ships that accelerate and manoeuvre so slowly that the problem never arises.
* Make the ship so large that the mass of a human and all the related systems is negligible.
This still leaves that squishy single point of failure and the fact that a tiny hole in the ship is a knockout blow.
# The trouble with AI and remote control
You'll have to limit the AI capabilities, that should go without saying. No true AI. Basic friend or foe recognition, simple evasive action, and basic target selection should be about the limit. Don't allow target prioritisation without manual intervention. This minimises the power of a full AI fleet.
Remote control is limited at range, latency is an issue when you need rapid response, but if you only deploy with a capital class control ship within half a light second, which is still a very long way off, much of that latency can be offset by the greater responsiveness of an unmanned vessel. Signal jamming is likely the way to go, though even now an encrypted digital signal can be indistinguishable from background noise, at least that reduces the drones to the level of your limited AI to be picked off by your manned fighters.
# No matter which path you take
It's going to be hard work to justify, which is why so much of the great war machine has moved from fighter aircraft to missiles and drones. Add a couple of centuries of technology and it'll probably only go further down that path.
[Answer]
In my stories the method of neutralizing WMD's and planetsurface killers is also the system that turns most computers upside down. But I think yours is better suited with The Mote In God's Eye style shenanigans. When they go FTL any computer that is turned on is fried. You can allow any computer of sufficient miniaturization to become useless if the ship or a nearby ship uses FTL. This can then be used to purposefully disable computers of orbital or planetary defenses so everyone is on a level playingfield in terms of computer technology. I use the rule that signals smaller than that of the human nervous system experience fluctuations that cause the information to become too random to be read as it travels through the computer, or causes random discharges that damage components. This puts most computer technology at around 2000's level of miniaturization. You can pick your own such as metallic cirquits not being useful but biological circuits could still support the pilot and larger ships.
[Answer]
EMC immunity
Or, computers are very sensitive to interference, strong electric magnetic fields and radiation. Humans don't have the same problem.
EMI (electro magnetic interference) is basically stray radiation which can cause hardware to behave unpredictably. EMC compliance is already a big issue here on Earth, and here we have an atmosphere to shield us from the worst of it. Military equipment especially has extremely tight EMC regulations - which makes sense because military stuff needs to be extremely reliable, and EM vulnerability can easily make things unreliable.
In space, this problem could quite easily be worse.
In general, the more complex the hardware, the more sensitive it is to interference. There's a reason the military doesn't put supercomputers in all it's trucks. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of military equipment tends to be remarkably low tech, but it's very reliable low tech. In most military applications, reliability tends to be far more important than intelligence.
Now, yes, most computers are shielded to prevent EMI, yet there's a limit to what shielding can accomplish. It's impossible to fully shield from all types of radiation (at least not without a hunk of metal several metres thick).
So what if in your setting, ion cannons have become commonplace in space warfare?
An ion cannon releases a stream of concentrated EMI which can scramble all electronics, yet anything biological is (mostly) fine.
These ion cannons can fire far faster than any physical projectile, in a continuous stream with a much, much longer range. As such, a single battleship with an ion cannon can completely shutdown any electronics used against it.
Now, the larger cruisers are immune to ion cannons because they have very thick armour plating. The small missiles and fighters, however, are very vulnerable to ion blasts simply because they're smaller - they don't have the mass to carry as much radiation shielding.
A single ion blast will completely knock out any advanced AI targeting system. Remote control is useless because the enemy can simply jam the signals. So instead, the military resorts to the low tech approach; put a pilot on board.
A human pilot means that any advanced AI is unnecessary. All the electronics on these fighter crafts are actually remarkably simple, thus meaning they're immune to ion blasts. Even if an ion cannon takes out the fighter's secondary systems (such as their communications or whatever), the vessel is always under control because there's an actual pilot on board. The primary safety function - controlling the craft - must be done by a human because that's the only thing which can't be scrambled by concentrated EMI.
(Note - yes, humans can be effected by strong EMI, but how much so is controversial. Strong fields can cause dizziness, yet they don't seem to inflict lasting harm. Our biological functions are less sensitive to EMI than anything made out of metal, that's for certain)
This is not even that unreasonable - in real life, the very first spacecrafts ran on less software than a Gameboy. That was a feature, not a bug; the engineers knew that the less programming they relied upon, the less that could go wrong.
[Answer]
### Go space opera, or go home.
There is no reason why humans would be in the loop. Even on Earth, the performance of fighter aircraft has been limited by the human body and not by the aircraft itself since jet engines were first put into aircraft. Until the F-35 was conceived, the fastest fighter aircraft to that point was the English Electric Lightning, designed in 1949 and built in the early 1950s. It's very telling that the biggest argument against high-performance combat drones has come from air forces whose pilots will be made obsolete, and not from military theorists who've known since the 1980s that good-quality reliable flight controls would be significantly more effective.
When you get to space, this is even more true. Humans are **really** bad at solving a vector between two moving objects, which is why guns on ships have not used manual targetting for over a century, nor on aircraft since WWII. Even just doing targetting in 2 dimensions, we simply don't have brains which can handle that reliably. Take this to 3 dimensions of space and 3 further dimensions of rotation, add evasive manoevring, and human intervention is right out. *Forever War* has a realistic demonstration of what space battles look like; all the humans are locked down in high-G-resistant tanks, the computer is in charge, and the first manoevre knocks everyone out instantly.
This only leaves you with one option: space opera. The Star Wars approach, also known as "Rule of Cool". Your universe uses human-operated space ships because it does, and that's all there is to it. It doesn't have to be realistic for our universe, it has to be ***internally consistent*** within its own limits. You don't need explanations or science, because that gives a hole which can be unpicked. As with Star Wars, you simply establish that this is how things are, and move on.
[Answer]
AI never pans out. By 2050 the current "training set" neural net AI technique solves self-driving cars, sidekicks for video-games, a dozen other hard problems, then hits a wall. Like every other computer trick, it only goes so far. We never get self-aware learning-how-to-learn AI. In a spaceship, excellent computer subroutines plot courses, aim, and dodge; but we can't make useful software to replace the pilot -- driving a fighter from point A to B on autopilot, sure -- but not in any sort of fluid combat situation.
A way to think of it: "there will be human-type smart AI's" is a choice. It's a fun one, and a popular one, but it's literally science fiction. Computer tech being a little better than we have now (smaller, faster, cheaper, but not better in general quality) is just as good an assumption as anything. Writing-wise, just don't mention AI. It's the same as not mentioning wormholes -- your made-up world just doesn't have that made-up thing.
[Answer]
The universe of [Gundam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam) fiction (manga, anime etc.) solves a similar question (why would humans in giant mecha suits of armour exist if there were guided missiles and long range weaponry) by inventing some plausible-sounding (to your average non-physicist!) physics.
In this case, it posits the existence of "[Minovsky particles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam_Universal_Century_technology#Minovsky_physics)":
>
> The main use of the Minovsky particle was in combat and communication.
> When the Minovsky particle is spread in large numbers in the open air
> or in open space, the particles disrupt low-frequency electromagnetic
> radiation, such as microwaves and radio waves. The Minovsky particle
> also interferes with the operations of electronic circuitry and
> destroys unprotected circuits due to the particles' high electrical
> charge which act like a continuous electromagnetic pulse on metal
> objects. Because of the way Minovsky particles react with other types
> of radiation, radar systems and long-range wireless communication
> systems become useless, infra-red signals are defracted and their
> accuracy decreases, and visible light is fogged. This became known as
> the "Minovsky Effect".
>
>
>
One of the consequences of these effects is that:
>
> ...this ruled out the use of precision guided weapons, such as guided
> missiles. Due to this, the military use of Minovsky particles ushered
> in a new era of close-range combat.
>
>
>
A similar "discovery" of a new particle or previously unknown effect of physics could result in an era where long range space combat becomes impractical or impossible, thus short range or close combat between fighter craft becomes necessary due to aiming requiring a visible line of sight.
[Answer]
Yes. That is, of course, if you want to accept some other Science Fiction tropes. If the civilization has developed a way to shield against heavy gravities, similar to a missile launch, then that missile launch could be a way to shield the launch of fighters as well. The advantage? The missiles would have to obey their launching ship's orders, but those orders only travel at light speed, so those orders could be seconds or minutes behind the actual tactical situation. Once the fighters break out of the launch formation in the last few seconds, it would be a huge advantage for those fighters to break one way or another and take advantage of weaknesses in the defenders defences.
[Answer]
## AI faces an AI arms-race
AI is hard to write to begin with. And in such a future-tech world, you're going to have an "arms race" of AI vs AI. AI missiles vs AI jamming, smart chaff, decoys, the whole nine yards. **This will create a very complex battlefield that will require cubic computing power to analyze** and even then, the analysis may be wrong, because the enemy has put its best minds into confusing and deceiving AI, after all.
Also, the missile might have a 10kg/500 watt/$800,000 resource budget for its computers; the battleship has no such restrictions.
As such, it may be found that the AI snow makes use of AI for attacks risky or futile.
## Enter human pilots
Whereas, in this kind of *garbage information super-overload*, the good old "meat glacier" can see the picture in a totally different way. The human eye/mind processes all the chaff and decoys and EM as a bunch of garbage to be discarded, and sees *the battleship right there*.
The fighter also has systems of AI aiming to defend it from enemy missiles, but the fighter's AI, while not as good as the battleship's, still allows say 500kg/20,000 watt/$10 million, which will beat a missile.
[Answer]
The currently most upvoted answer has it right with the fear, whether misguided or not, towards intelligent AI, you could improve this by enhancing your humans, either by physical enhancements to speed their reflexes either providing a direct neural interface with their ships to reduce input lag, or both.
Also, as you said yourself, missiles would be considered the other top contender for long distances space combat. They can reach very high speeds and adapt to the target changing course mid-flight.
However, they're not the smartest tool out there.
By the time they reach their destination, defenders have more than enough time to calculate the missile's course and deploy flares or other lures, or just jam its targeting systems so it thinks the defenders are somewhere else.
Closing the travel distance would fix that particular issue, but would you want to risk you capital ship getting that close? Of course not, those are way too expensive. That's why you've got your fighters for.
Another tech, mass drivers launching projectiles at close to the speed of light also mean that those fighters are packing some serious gear, even if their projectiles aren't so large the sheer speed still makes it very hard to make armor to defend against that. Because of this, smaller craft can still damage much larger, better armored ones.
You can choose to alleviate this and give your fighters more roles by, for example, limiting the power of smaller mass drivers, forcing bombers to accelerate towards their target first to instill greater velocity, or have fighter be able to guide long range missiles on the last leg of its journey by relying on the pilot's targeting to overcome jamming and countermeasures.
[Answer]
If the effectiveness of point defense systems is proportional the length of time detection systems, then missiles fired from close range would be effective as energy weapons.
For example, PDS can accurately predict the path of incoming missile fire. To evade the defensive fire, a missile needs to jerk and jank frequently. This means the missile needs a lot of power to sustain active avoidance. This makes the size of a missile proportional to the square or cube of the effective range. And, the larger the weapon, more costly it is and easier it is intercept. This applies equally to drones.
This means that missiles fired from close in are still small and cost effective. This makes fighter space craft a better attack platform as one fighter can carry a large number of inexpensive missiles.
There would need to be a change in tactics. The ships supporting the carriers would need to fire stand-off weapons that generate chaff, jam sensors, and generate false targets to the fighters could get in close without being killed by the defender’s PDS.
[Answer]
I'm not sure why I've never seen it in fiction, but any space general worth his pay who's attempting to seize a planet is going to move his force behind one or more screening clouds of multi-kilometer rocks.
There are several reasons for this :
* The defender MUST engage the cloud, or it will fall on the planet, killing everyone
* Orbital defenses (whose location the attacker may not know) will reveal their locations when they begin firing on the cloud. Scouts on the edges of the cloud can take note of the revealed defensive positions and pass that information to build a list of targets during the orbital or ground campaign
* Unengaged rocks will soften defending orbital and ground forces. Orbital mechanics is very precise. At the time of setting up the cloud the attacker can decide where every rock will land : which areas to spare, and which areas to hit. Because of the difficulty seeing small things far away, the defender will only have a general idea of which locations on the ground are under threat.
* A multi-kilometer rock is easy to find in the thousands, very difficult to destroy, even with nuclear weaponry, and once destroyed leaves a masking cloud of smaller debris and vapor
* Moving the clouds require getting tugs of some sort safely into the field (meaning the defender is going to have no choice but to come to you)
* Attacking capital ships can use the rocks as berms, emerging from cover to fire long range beam weaponry at orbital or ground defenders on the target list, then returning behind the screen
* You can hide your forces behind or in the clouds, shielded from attack or reconnaissance.
In this situation, piloted small craft might make sense.
[Answer]
Faraday cage will protect your equipment against shorting, but your signals will still be jammed.
To illustrate, imagine you turn on the radio, but there are 5 different stations on each frequency. Transmissions will be totally jammed and useless. You won't be able to remotely control your drones, and all sensors on the fighter will be useless.
You can also "jam" the AI. People have been able to trick machine learning algorithms to not recognize them as human simply by printing a design on their T-shirt.
<https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613409/how-to-hide-from-the-ai-surveillance-state-with-a-color-printout/>
This could be artificial jamming, but even more believable is if the source is natural - a pulsar for example. Jamming is energy intensive, an environment that's completely jammed 24/7 will be difficult to achieve artificially.
[Answer]
**Incredibly Effective Long Range Defenses**
I think it would be simple enough to introduce some sort of scenario in which ship defensive capabilities are incredibly effective, but they have some sort of minimum range for whatever reason. That reason could be along the lines of "beyond the ship's shields" or something like that. Star Wars used it regularly, that was the whole reason for the Death Star bombing run, and why they had to bomb that huge ship at the beginning of Episode 8 the same way. The shields, or point defense, or whatever you may have, are simply too effective at range. The only solution then is too get right next to eachother and send fighters back and forth. Whether or not AI is used instead then becomes a simple argument of AI capabilities.
[Answer]
***Psionics***
Human pilots are mutants with mental powers, such as limited precognition, and telekinesis (for manipulating controls under high acceleration).
The Dune series advances this concept, using *spice* as the chemical enhancement needed to make a pilot effective.
A slight alternate to this is that AI/computer hardware just doesn't survive the jump to lightspeed (sort of like EMP), but certain pilots have the fortitude to control their fighters during micro-jumps.
[Answer]
If you talk about drones - do you mean those currently in use by armies of our time - primarily US army? - they are radio-controlled ...
Now simply have a planet with a thicker, stronger, "lower" ionosphere ... which dramatically shortens the distance for radio-control (say for extremes .. just a few hundred meters) - so this would force your drones to an extremely low ceiling - but also requires the operator to "accompany" the drone along its path (airplane in direct vicinity) ... which poses enormous threat to the operator and makes secret operations almost impossible. Et voila .. drones "disabled" aside proof of concept. Same can be applied to missiles (especially cruise missiles) that require input along the flight path.
[Answer]
>
> battles will take place at ultra long ranges due to sensors and the absense of stealth
>
>
>
This doesn't make any sense and is a bit of a contradiction. If the enemy has light-years' worth of advance notice that you're coming, they have time to prepare a defense. It's a death march, not an offensive strategy. This is what guerrilla tactics were devised for-- which ironically lends itself well to your dogfight-based scenario. The point is for them to not see you coming.
Missiles would take forever to traverse ultra long ranges. The future is lasers and radiation-- directional energy weapons. You don't have to penetrate a hull if you can microwave the inhabitants and cook them alive (hell, it even leaves the ship semi-intact!). Directional weapons are also expensive and presumably not easy to wield against swarms.
Also, plenty of ways to hide in space. The art of camoflauge is not about becoming "invisible" or to fool someone into thinking you're a shrub-- it's to blend in with your surroundings so that when someone looks your direction, they see *many* shrubs and have no reason to suspect that you are dressed up as one of them. "Dress" your starfighter fleet in earthtones and hide them in an asteroid belt. Give them the element of surprise.
You can even hide in plain sight-- large warships draw attention. Small, innocuous mercantile vessels do not. It's unethical as hell but rebels/insurgents can and do masquerade as unassuming civilians in order to get close to targets without detection.
Use natural features to your advantage. The sun has a nasty habit of destroying both organic and mechanical optics and its solar flares wreak havoc on electronics/sensors. If you position a fleet of your analog starfighters with their back to the sun, nobody can even look in their direction-- but your fleet can see everything around them *very* clearly. This exploits the element of surprise.
After that, I present you the biggest reason to opt for precision attacks instead of flinging missiles everywhere:
# Kessler Syndrome
Missiles you fling around in space don't just disappear-- they eventually end up in something's gravitational pull. If that something is an inhabitable planet, you literally create a stratospheric minefield of unexploded ordnance.
[Answer]
# AI is not omnipotent
AI is not "intelligence" and definitely not "life". It is nothing more than automated pattern finding. Take 10000 pictures of tanks and 10000 pictures of empty ground, label them accordingly, feed them into an AI and you get an AI that is very good at detecting tanks.
...on those pictures, that is.
The big issue with AI is that it doesn't *know* what a tank is, it just looks for any differences that correlate with the picture having a tank in it or not. Humans are good at telling what matters and what doesn't; so good, in fact, that AI training fails all the time due to unaccounted for differences that may have seemed obvious to the humans behind the keyboard.
This is not a farfetched issue. An actual military project to train an AI to detect tanks failed because *the weather* was different between the snapshots of tanks (taken during combat sorties) and non-tanks (taken out of combat).
It turns out to be very hard to account for this. Pictures with tanks may be darker overall due to the shadow cast by the tank; causing the AI to flag pictures of school buses full of orphans as tanks and taking appropriate countermeasures. Pictures of tanks are taken in bombed out enemy territory that looks different from the green hills of the motherland, so the AI stops treating enemy tanks as a threat once they invade your country. Etc. Humans know that brightness and the species of tree on the picture are irrelevant to the question at hand, but the computer doesn't.
It gets worse if you feed the AI pictures of ice cream cones. It'll decide some of them are tanks and some are not - and you have no idea why. Hell, pictures from a different camera are likely to be misidentified.
In real life, Google attempted to apply AI to filter the resumes it has to plow through; resulting in women and minorities being discriminated against because most Google engineers are men because most *candidates* are men but the AI didn't know the latter and thought being a man made one a better fit for the job.
Because of this...
## AI is incapable of dealing with surprises
You can train an AI by having it fight your human pilots or itself, and it will be *really* good in that specific scenario, but completely helpless against any new trick whatsoever.
If the enemy space force makes fake ships out of cardboard, paints them gray, paints their actual ships bright yellow and has them tow the fake ships on a long tether, the AI will target the fakes because they look more like ships than the real ships because it has only been trained on gray ships.
At which point either the offence fails entirely or a human will need to take the controls.
For dramatic purposes, it is fine if most battles are routine AI driven affairs as long as the enemy pulls out a surprise that cannot be handled by AI during the climactic boss fight.
## Where is the data coming from?
The more externalities are accounted for to avoid the previous problem, the bigger the dataset needs to be.
Noticed how self-driving cars limit themselves to the highway or the nice clean streets of an American grid city? That's because following the white lines is straightforward enough to be actually feasible for an AI to learn. It'll be a long time before they can handle, say, downtown Naples or Delhi, where communication between drivers is very important to know when to go and when to stop.
The only way to build an AI to handle Delhi is to mount a camera on a tuktuk, have it drive a few billion kilometres through actual Delhi and register when the driver accelerates, brakes and steers. You need examples of *every* possible traffic situation, differing only by one parameter. This is a *boatload* of data. But how often does your space combat AI get a chance to train against the actual enemy, instead of just your own space force pretending to be the enemy and making the best possible guess as to what the enemy will do? If the enemy is good at keeping their tech under wraps, you may be unable to train an AI to counter it before it hits you.
This again offers the opportunity for your heroes to outsmart an AI that is very good at annihilating anything that behaves as expected.
## Why no remote control?
Same reason Google Stadia isn't working: latency. As long as FTL *communication* is not possible, any remote control station that is close enough to limit losses from latency is close enough to be hit by directed energy weapons. Survivability may go *up* by switching to space fighters because at least they are agile enough to dodge.
# Space isn't so big when the most credible threat is fixed in place
A spaceship at even 10% the speed of light can annihilate earth (and most of the solar system) by just crashing into it. This makes it so easy to commit mass genocide that every planet would have a ring of automated turrets that deflect or destroy any approaching object that doesn't follow procedure. This would be built very quickly after the commercialisation of space travel to ensure mankind doesn't go extinct because the pilot of an approaching freighter has a heart attack behind the controls, but it also eliminates the "first strike by sudden kinetic bombardment" trope.
I'd argue that any existential threat can be countered more easily than it can be built, because the attacker would need to generate a ton of energy while the defender just needs to deflect it. This forces the attacker to build their planet killer (artificial black hole, induced gamma ray burst, etc) in secret.
When they are discovered by spies, it is obviously too late to build a counter, and the only course of action is to take out the black hole generator before it reaches critical mass. So the space force sends in its drones but the enemy is using their artificial gravity to displace the image of the generator so the drones shoot at nothing and their laser beams are bent like a pretzel. Either we reprogram the drones to look for gravitational lensing (and retrofit them all with a camera that can detect the position of stars) and get in close enough to hit the target within the 1.5 hours remaining before critical mass, or we pull our pilot force out of retirement and tell them what to look for.
] |
[Question]
[
In a classic medieval fantasy world (e.g. LotR), with elves, human, orcs, dwarves, etc., why would a population (or a few individuals) belonging to the dwarf race have black skin, while the vast majority of dwarves are white-skinned?
In this world, dwarves spend their days digging and drinking beer and they live underground in stone houses. Some of them go out, but they are usually not at ease with the outside world, and outside people often bash them. If some dwarves go out, it is mainly for commercial reasons (sell precious stones, buy food/beer...). Of course some of them can be banished from their people and have to spend the rest of their lives outside (or in another cave), and a few go out on quests and adventures, in order to earn money and fame.
I don't want to twist the answer, but since black skin in humans is an evolution made to protect them from UV, it seems hard to me to have underground living people with a black skin. But another explanation than "natural evolution" is completely acceptable.
PS: This world also includes magic, but dwarves usually are not familiar with it and don't like it.
[Answer]
If the caves the dwarves live in are not pitch black, maybe due to natural light or glowing rocks, then animals that lived in the caves when a particular species of dwarf first evolved could have hunted these prehistoric dwarves by sight. The rocks in the caves and mountains could conceivably be black in colour giving the prehistoric dwarves a camouflage advantage if they are black. The black colour is a leftover genetic reminder from that time and appears only in dwarfs from that particular mountain.
Alternatively there is some form of rock that they mined which emits a glow on a wavelength other than visible light. The dwarves evolved special vision to see the glow and had to sacrafice colour vision in the process making black skin the only appropriate colour so that the dwarves can see each other more easily. Alternatively their skin reflects mostly on this wavelength meaning to non-dwarves they appear black but to each other they do not. (Thanks to @Captain Man for this idea.)
[Answer]
Skin colour in humans is, as you say related to protection from the sun, essentially lighter skin = less light for the production of the vitamin D.
If dwarves don't need to produce vitamin D (maybe their food is high in vitamin D or it's just not part of their make-up) then there isn't an evolutionary pressure for skin colour to diverge to take up more light. It would then be a case of suiting your environment to avoid predators (as another answer states) and mating choices. However mating choices can result in [sexual dimophism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism)
[Answer]
Melanin protects from sunburn -- so it's entirely possible that Dwarves could evolve the same protection, although not from the sun.
As Dwarves are regularly portrayed as metal smiths, it's entirely possible that they would have developed darker skin as a protection against the light and radiation coming from the forge.
It may be that only certain bloodlines (clans?) have developed the protection, and it's not a widespread thing.
[Answer]
Here's a few ideas:
**Mutation**: Maybe dwarfish [albinos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albinism) are black skinned instead of white skinned.
**Mythology**: On a quest to seek the Source of All Fire, he (or an ancestor) strayed too close to flame, and his skin was burned black for ever after.
**Sci-Fi**: The dwarves are actually an experiment in genetic engineering by The Ancient Ones, who have long since vanished into the mists of time, leaving only ruins to hint at their presence.
**Magic**: A wizard did it: "I curse you, that your skin be as black as your heart, so that all may know your villainy on sight!"
**Heredity**: Your dwarf is actually half-drow, and inherited their skin color.
**Handwave**: "Why is his skin black?" "Because... look over there!" *whoosh*
**Culture**: Once a month, he painstakingly daubs indelible dye over every inch of his body, representing his dedication to the God of the Dark. Or make it a tattoo, so it's permanent.
[Answer]
You can utilize the same evolutionary selection pressure as surface dwellers if you have the dwarves living in an area of radiation emitting minerals. Melanin absorbs a specific wavelength but this does not have to be the case. Perhaps the pigmented granules the dwarves have protect against beta particles (for example, the pigment binds iron or lead to help shield against radiation), which can penetrate the skin. Beta particles travelling though water cause it to glow (cherenkov radiation) so this could be how the dwarves illuminate their underground realm. Numerous minerals emit beta particles (as well as alpha particles, but those can be blocked easily enough).
There is also social selection. Much like previous questions similar to this, if a dark skinned ruler or influential dwarf came to power, they could drive sexual selection towards dark skin. Over time, especially if this preference was hard coded into religious text or political favor, the vast majority of the population could be dark skinned despite there not being any biological pressure to do so.
[Answer]
Though it does not explain how or why (I'm assuming "cuz magic"), dwarves in the D&D world tend to have darkish skins: quoting from the D&D V edition Player's Handbook:
>
> Dwarven skin ranges from deep brown to a paler hue tinged wilh red, but lhe most common shades are light brown or deep tan, like certain tones of earth.
> Their hair, worn long but in simple styles, is usually black, gray, or brown, though paler dwarves often have red hair. Male dwarves value their beards highly and groom them carefully.
>
>
>
Same goes with dark elves, which in the Forgotten Realms setting, live underground. Dark skin, in the tones of earth, in the case of the dwarves, could have been developed as a mimesis technique. It's much harder to spot a short brown skinned humanoid when the whole area is the same colour.
[Answer]
>
> Melanism in the jaguar (Panthera onca) is conferred by a dominant allele, and in the leopard (Panthera pardus) by a recessive allele. Close examination of the color of these black cats will show that the typical markings are still present, but are hidden by the excess black pigment melanin, giving an effect similar to that of printed silk. This is called "ghost striping". Melanistic and non-melanistic animals can be littermates. It is thought that melanism may confer a selective advantage under certain conditions since it is more common in regions of dense forest, where light levels are lower. Recently, preliminary studies also suggest that melanism might be linked to beneficial mutations in the immune system.
>
>
>
the Black Jaguar was literally the first thing I though about after reading your question....
There's also the eel that lives all time time hidden between rocks and corals but it's still black in color, though I don't really know why.
[Answer]
>
> ...but since black skin in humans is an evolution made to protect them from UV...
>
>
>
I think that's your answer: just find some underground UV-emitting source (possibly regionally specific), and you're good to go. Maybe some odd mutation of fungus, or some underground radiation source (e.g., long lost insanely powerful magical artifact), or whatnot.
One specific example might be a specific kind of rare (and radioactive) ore that they use to smelt *handwavium*. Given enough untold generations of dwarves (so-and-so, son of such-and-such, son of etc.), the dwarves of that region have evolved that way. It's not enough radiation to be truly dangerous ("trust me") to those who wear armor or wield weapons made from it - but it's enough to have changed those who live in that section of the underworld.
[Answer]
Melanism is a genetic mutation that change the color of the skin, feather or hair. That's the mutation of the black panther. It doesn't exist on human but with your dwarves you can do whatever you want.
Melanism is genetic so children has also a chance to be black. If you have at a moment for a reason or another a group of black dwarves isolated (for example because of dwarves with pointy white hoods and torches) they will develop a population of exclusively black dwarves (with maybe some white kids randomly)
[Answer]
OP stated in a comment that one of the guy he played with wanted to be a black dwarf, but most of the dwarves were white. So I'm taking it as an exception amongst dwarves.
So even if you stated that dwarves live in cave, there can still be an exception...
In my last D&D campaign, the main city was in the middle of the desert. There were huge rocks going from deep underground to the surface, full of precious materials ( especially gems ), which attracted a lot of dwarves, and the city was built around this. So most dwarves in the city were pretty dark skinned.
Other people have already given evolutionnary explanation, I'm going through the path of another of my answer: it's artifical ( [How can I explain alien skin being different colors?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/52595/how-can-i-explain-alien-skin-being-different-colors/52856#52856) )
It can be self-inflicted, to represent its belonging to a certain tribe/nation. Made like a giant tatoo, or a ritual were the dwarf is burn in a special fire that blacken the skin, or made with a spell that has skin color modification as a side effect (maybe not always black), or a special decoction that has unique side effects on each people that drinks them.
It can also be a virus/bacteria/fongus, or a genetic disorder (just like albinism, but reversed). I prefer the genetic disorder because you would have small patches of black dwarves under the mountains that live together, excluded from the rest, and they would continue to transmit their genetic disorder this way. (just saw that Rigop already stated that in his answer)
You said dwarves didn't like magic, but still. I remember from a D&D manual that black dwarves were the results of magic experimentations by black elves (or maybe it was another race). A curse would be my best guess, because if it's the only black dwarf ever, he is gonna be suspicious.
(4 edits after rereading the question and other answer, I really need to read more carefully ...)
[Answer]
You are thinking inside the box: fantasy worlds are not beholden to *real world* science.
The simplest answer is that dwarves were created from clay by the gods and their broad phenotypical traits were determined by what type of clay was used.
Since evolution does not exist in this fantasy world because the gods did not include it, dwarves will never become albino in response to their subterranean environment.
[Answer]
Given that this is a magical universe in which the various intelligent species were created by the appropriate god, then the skin color would be part of that creation. In this case, dwarves are usually created by a blacksmithing type god and would be linked to stones. The black dwarves would perhaps have been created using granite and be linked to the black stones at the root of the mountains.
[Answer]
Genes for the black skin may be passed down from half dwarves - half black humans. The way they could stay strong enough in the natural selection to have significant portion of the dwarvish population black after those genes would be for one time brought to otherwise just dwarvish population, even when it would be biologically not benefitial to have black skin underground, it could be taken as a sign of nobility among the dwarves. You'd need to create a story behind why is that, but there has been a lot of different, sometimes even quite ridiculous traits which were taken as a sign of nobility in our history.
[Answer]
## Let's start with human evolution
As some commenters pointed out, the evolution of light skin in humans had as much to do with vitamin D as it had with sexual selection. Extremely white skin seems to be seen as beautiful in at least three pre-colonial cultures: Europe, Japan and India (before Western beauty standards were exported to the rest of the world). Lower UV radiation in higher latitudes made fair skin less of a disadvantage and therefore enabled this trait to exist. Also, it is rather universal across Eurasian cultures to associate lighter skin with nobility (those who spend time indoors and don't work) and darker skin with poverty (those who work in the fields).
## Evolving the dwarves with sexual selection
Knowing that gives us some ideas to work from. For example, since dwarves are very different from humans, perhaps they have a preference for darker skin despite not having an evolutionary reason for liking it. Actually, if dwarves rarely leave their caves and mines but still require at least some vitamin D from the sun, darker skin would be a disadvantage and sexual selection paradoxically selects for less-adjusted individuals, because survival of their genes proves their resilience and child-rearing possibilities. Of course, this is not something your dwarfs would think consciously or even subconsciously. It's an evolutionary explanation why the "gene for liking darker skin" could persist in the dwarven population. Honestly, I wouldn't even mention this detail in the media itself, maybe in an interview or a blog post if the topic of black dwarves not being realistic is brought up.
## Mixing in the aspects of the dwarven culture
Going further with our parallel with humans, I think it's hard to justify skin not getting darker when a dwarf spends more time outside. If you want to put cultural significance on the tone of the skin, you need to use some imagination. Cultures are not very logical, so you can go wild with it. Maybe noble dwarves spend most of their time at leisure on the surface or are forced to stay outside as they perform their diplomatic duties with other races. Maybe trade-dwarves are incredibly rich and richness became associated with having a good tan. Maybe it's not about being rich but dangers and inconveniences of leaving the safety of the caves, so those who often venture outside out of necessity or adventurousness are seen as brave heroes. Maybe alcohol or a certain type of popular dwarven drug causes their skin to darken and the dwarf with the strongest head is admired. I'd like to point out, that you cannot go on a raid without going outside and if your dwarves are proud warriors, they certainly love raids. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination here.
## So how are the fair-skinned dwarves still the majority?
In your question, you want most of the dwarves in your world to be white and only a minority to be black. This is easy enough. You mentioned yourself that it doesn't make sense biologically for dwarves to have a darker tone of skin, and that's true. The thing about sexual selection is that it forces evolution in a direction that doesn't make sense and is often quite rapid compared to other evolutionary pressures. It biologically doesn't make sense for humans to have white skin (not olive, but completely white skin like in Scandinavia). Our love for white skin is the reason why white people get sunburns and skin cancer even in the area where white skin originally evolved.
You need to spread the dwarves geographically as far away as possible, depending on the interconnectedness of your world. If the technological level of your world allows for the presence in your setting of dwarves from a distant continent separated by an ocean or untraversable terrain (like Sahara + Kongo in our world), this would be the best. Then a preference for black skin can evolve in one group and not the other. You can also do to your dwarves what likely happened to humans, but in reverse - first species of dwarves evolve far north/south with fair skin, but with a preference for darker skin, which doesn't evolve, because dark-skinned dwarves suffer from vitamin D deficiency at that altitude and have lower rates of survival. Then they migrate towards the equator and suddenly dark skin becomes less of a disadvantage, so sexual preference takes its course and, over the course of 2000 generations or so, drastically changes the skin of the population in the hotter climates. This gives us a nice opportunity for world-building interactions, where light-skinned dwarves are shown being enamoured with their darker-skinned counterparts from distant lands. Compare this with human fair-skinned maidens from our medieval ballads.
For the sake of realism, it would be best if there were distant and preferably vast lands, where dark-skinned dwarves are the majority. If you really have an important reason for making dark-skinned dwarves a significant minority in the entire world, it's better to limit their population density and keep the lands they inhabit at least comparable to the rest of the world. I wouldn't go lower than 20% of the world being the land of black dwarves, and if we assume there is a good reason for dark-skinned dwarves to exist in the first place, that's already a very, very low figure.
[Answer]
Too long for a comment, so let it be an answer.
@Joe mentioned light radiation coming from the forge.
Well, historical timespan usually wouldn't be long enough for evolutionary changes to kick in, especially in a society. Something that kills majority of specimen without desired trait / does not allow them to reproduce would be needed.
In medieval times, childbirth was really dangerous procedure and giving birth in sterile-ish environment would be a good thing to do. I mean, they would quickly notice that it simply works, no matter how they explain that to themselves.
For example, take a look at [black banya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banya_(sauna)#Black_banyas_and_white_banyas). Birch wood contains tar and so does birch smoke, so insides of black banya were covered with soot and tar. It was pretty germ-less space so people would give birth there and it worked (also access to hot water).
What if some group of dwarves for whatever reason tried giving birth near the forge? If they have some cult of those then forge would be cleanest place around and UV radiation and high temperature would wipe out all germs on a regular basis. Giving birth there would give a higher survival rates than, say, in bedroom. Also, having clan of proud "forgeborn" dwarves is pure awesome!
Minor problem though: subjecting newborns to intense UV may not be a great idea because cancer. If dwarves also have higher regeneration rates than humans, cancer would be even more of a problem. And it won't kick in immediately so they'll notice how their custom is actually killing them.
Maybe simply make them sterile, that would work too. You only need to sterilise one gender. Immune system actually finds and kills majority of cancerous cells, and kids' immune systems are really powerful. If some cells crucial to reproduction are the most suspectible to cancer and are close to skin then irrepairable damage would be done, but specimen may survive and not even notice that something is wrong. Of course, you will need higher levels of UV than dwarves were naturally accustomised to.
Only dwarves that woudld pass on their genes would be really thick-skinned ones - against UV, too. Having high melanin in your skin would be an obvious way to go - and very likely, too (since that's the thing that evolution "cares" about). A ten generations or so of purge like this and there would be very, very little traces of non-black dwarven blood among this group.
Since digging a tunnel to a neighbouring mountain is way slower and harder than going by surface, dwarves would travel less than surface-dwellers. Thus, their rates of cultural exchange would be even slower. Some clans can practice forgebirth and other clans - some alternatives, like the thing with banyas.
You will have both black and white dwarves that way, perfectly genetiaclly compatible.
[Answer]
Do the dark skinned dwarves have to be purely dwarves?
perhaps they are half breeds, part human part dwarf.
maybe a dwarf mated with a dark skinned human with dwarfism (or not, love doesn't discriminate)
and this lead to a genetic line containing the dark skinned trait.
often dark skinned individuals who don't venture outside tend to be lighter than others although it doesn't take long in the sun to develop darker.
It's why you'll see them hiding from the sun, by staying in the shade, using tons of sunscreen or becoming nocturnal, to be more fair skinned (or because skin cancer, nobody wants cancer)
[Answer]
Is it permissible to point out that actual dwarves in the real world, such as Kalahari San "Bushmen" and Congolese Pygmies, actually ***are*** black?
If the question is "Is there an evolutionary reason why a subterranean race of troglodytes might have a high level of melatonin?", which is a good question, as most cave-dwelling species lose all coloring, we could speculate that perhaps melatonin or another skin-darkening agent of some kind could provide some protection from certain kinds of radioactivity from ores that they are mining.
[Answer]
Most underwater creatures, and creatures living in dark places are white, just because they need no pigments. So they are likely to be white, but white is not a necessary condition. Cells walls are made by fat, and fat has a very bright color, so that's why most creatures have white skin if there are no things that gives it a darker color. Skin is made of cells, and cells are made of fat.
* Maybe your dwarves have a **very short and dark fur**: a real example of that are bats. Fur helps a lot to stabilize body temperature.
* Maybe your dwarves have a **very dark blood**: living in deep mines requires a blood able to carry more oxygen so it could actually be blue like blood of octopus (note that the blue is given by copper not by oxygen): infact many deep sea creatures have a color similiar to black.
* Maybe the dwarves skin evolved to catalyze metals in order to remove them from body making dwarves effectively **sweat dust and metal particles**. Living in mines is highly deadly to humans because of dust which is poisonous to body. A metal skin would also help beacause certain metals just burn when they touch flammable gases.
* Simple evolution, since in the dark most creatures are white, **predators may just hunt white creatures**, and dwarves are not hunted by predators (also a plausible reason to not have human in caves).
Dwarf's dictum:
>
> when a dwarf glow have everyone away flown
>
>
>
[Answer]
They don't have black skin but have impregnated coal dust. Yorkshire coal miners are notorious for looking like black men despite being white. Just have even more fine powders and everyone will never get that out of their skin. Babies will get coal baths to fit in with their adults.
] |
[Question]
[
Okay, so for the story I am working on, I have a problem-or, rather, Serena the Shaman/Witch has a distinct problem. She has only one low-mana spell-Hydro Jet-and it deals low but consistent damage. All of her other spells-Burning Frost, Whirlwind, Stormsurge, Lightning-consume rather high amounts of mana. So much so that she can only really cast any of those heavy hitters *once* per any boss battle, which means she can't afford to miss, creating save-or-sucks and hesitation.
**However, Serena has found a surprising secret that can help her with her problem.** Something that can expand her mana regen and allow her to actually contribute to the team's quest of going home (long story I won't get into here). An absolute game-changer that can enable multiple castings of even such demanding spells as Lightning (shoots a small lightning bolt) and Stormsurge (miniature tidal wave that can wash out a group of small monsters, like a wave of charging goblins).
What is this amazing secret? Hair. That's right, *hair.* For some reason, hair naturally catches and retains small amounts of magical energy from the mage who creates it, making hair magical. Mages who realize this can put *more* magic into their hair-hair can contain more magic than it captures naturally, especially when one may or may not alter the hair for this purpose-and as magic is drawn to magic of the same type, store more and more magic that otherwise would be lost to them through casting.
**This is why powerful witches and wizards have so much hair**-it's not just because they want to look good! But as great as this could be for Serena, it also brings with it certain *problems.* Long hair can easily get in the way during combat, traveling-basically just daily life. It can be a pain to clean. It can get cut or damaged easier as it gets longer. And depending upon how it's *styled,* it can even be a strategic *disadvantage!*
I know this because an aunt once demonstrated how bad ponytails and pigtails are. Basically, by gathering all the hair into one spot (like a ponytail), you make it really easy for someone with bad intentions to control where your head goes. Same goes for pigtails. **And for this and many other reasons I hope are obvious, I need to ask: what is the best way to style ridiculously long hair?**
**Specifics:**
1. The answerer must account for the pros and cons of different hairstyles and practically determine which one will least inconvenience an adventurer who doesn't want her power reserve caught, cut, snagged, or used against her. Ponytails, for example, on a quick and strong mage, can potentially be used as a whip (remember, magic is involved). But, as great as that might be, heaven forbid if the whip gets *caught!* Braids seem sensible, but as mages gain more and more hair (and trust me, Serena is going to want *a lot* of hair) they seem to become more and more unfeasible. **The list goes on and on-I just want to know the best method of getting all that hair caught up so there aren't any physical or metaphorical loose ends here.**
2. If you are wondering what kind of *volume* to expect here, imagine Serene reaching up, throwing off her scrunchie, and the screen going dark around her as her hair billows out like a growing storm cloud. Or....just imagine any anime girl with long, billowy hair. I imagine any of the heroes from *Glitter Force* could apply if they let their hair down. Not quite *Tangled* level hair-I think-but definitely getting there.
3. As noted in #1, magic is involved. That means low-key magical manipulation can and will be accepted in an answer. For example, while one can't create and control hair tentacles (too much mental effort to feasibly accomplish) one *can* magically manipulate hair and whip it forward to deal damage, a la Shantae. One could also shrink or thicken hair, change hair texture or rigidity to mimic things like rubber or metal wire (I hope the latter is balanced), or magically enhance the length if they just need longer hair *right now.* Obviously this would be expensive and should not carry an answer.
**Further Specification To Address Comments:**
1. The amount of magic hair can store is determined by mass *and* volume, not necessarily weight. Thick, messy hair traps magic better overall, for obvious reasons, and vice versa for thin, neat, straight hair. Lots of small but well-woven hair, however, can retain magic better than just lots of snarled thick strands. As a sidenote, odd hairstyles or hair colors (brought on by dye) draws more magic into hair and increases its ability to store magic, so Jessie from Pokemon could actually be a savvy mage in this respect.
2. There's no reason for the hair to necessarily be carried by the head-especially when the Levitation enchantment exists. The right accessories (like floaty beads) could really take a load off, or else a mage can pull a Bayonetta and make the hair cover their body, which would come with its own pros and cons.
3. Rate of use depends on the user's experience not the hair's surface area. There is no need to have hair billow in battle, it just looks cool. Any experienced mage can just activate their hair's 'charge' and unleash it all at once, or just activate one section's charge for when they don't want to just destroy their reserve.
4. Spells are an act of will; you can write spells down as runes to convey will for a later date, sure, but I fail to see how that could be done on hair. It's a good idea, and I do appreciate it, but I fail to see how I could make it work for my magic system.
5. The hair doesn't need to be attached per se, but A) attached hair can't have its power stolen by someone else, B) hair has to be specially enchanted to prevent magic loss during and after the cutting process, which is quite difficult and requires both enchantment maintenance and an insane amount of focus during the required ritual, C) attached hair, if destroyed, can have its power quickly snatched up while you can't usually do that for unattached hair
Finally, I appreciate your feedback, thank you for helping, and please let me know if there are problems!
[Answer]
Two options that came to mind while considering your question:
## Pinned/Taped Crown Braid
Not necessarily "for magic purposes", but something that works for everyday purposes to tie up the physical loose ends of very long hair is a braid (or two braids) wrapped or coiled around the head and pinned or taped in place. (Hair taping is essentially sewing the braid to the scalp hair with a long piece of ribbon.)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ypklb.jpg)
Starting the braids against the scalp (i.e., French or Dutch braids) would provide a more secure foundation for the rest of the braid to be pinned or taped to.
**Pros:**
1. This hairstyle is very comfortable as it distributes the weight of one's ridiculously long hair evenly across the scalp, unlike a bun or a ponytail which concentrates the weight in one spot.
2. No long length of anything to catch on branches, get caught in car doors or be grabbed by an enemy. Wear a hat or wrap head in a scarf for even less likelihood that someone can grab the hair.
3. Kept up like this (and especially if under headgear), much less likely to get damaged or dirty.
4. It's the most solid hairstyle in my arsenal. Once up, that thing isn't falling down.
5. With the hair-taping version, it can stay in place for a few days so would be a time-saver on the subsequent days.
6. If you position the braid/s right (and assuming the volume of braided hair doesn't turn it into a literal hair beehive) comfortable enough to sleep on.
7. Relatively quick/easy to do the pinned version (10 minutes). Magic manipulation of hair strands while braiding or pins while pinning would make it faster.
8. Looks like a crown. That's a pro in my book.
**Cons:**
1. Not as fast (to do or undo) as a ponytail.
2. Doesn't have the same magical witchy vibe as a cloud of billowing hair.
3. Hair damage to enemy is limited to headbutting them.
4. If you want a hairstyle that can go from "out of the way" to "literal cloud of billowing hair" in 2 seconds flat, this style is not the one.
#### Slightly more versatile variation
Instead of pinning or taping the braid/s around the head, Serena could essentially tie or tuck them around and use your world's equivalent of claw clips to hold them in place. Much less sturdy, but it's a quick way to go from wearing loose, useful braids to "now my enemy can't grab my hair" mode.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Av8Wx.jpg)
## Stick Bun
This is a style that facilitates quickly putting hair all up (or letting hair all down). It's less secure than the first option, but can withstand a full day of moderate physical activity. Works for ankle-length hair (and possibly longer but I cannot verify that from experience).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/s1dV7.jpg)
**Pros:**
1. Fast. < 30 seconds to put up, < 2 seconds to take down.
2. If the sticks used are stabby, they're extra emergency weapons.
3. If you *need* billowy hair at some point, just remove stick and shake head (a magically-induced breeze blowing towards you greatly enhances the effect).
**Cons:**
1. If you can take it down in 2 seconds by removing the stick, so can anyone who gets close enough to grab the stick.
2. Still not same magical witchy vibe as loose overwhelming hair.
3. Hair damage to enemy limited to poking them in the nose with a hair stick if they get too close behind you.
Source: Have ridiculously long hair and have watched far too many hairstyle tutorials.
[Answer]
**A turban**
Turbans are specifically designed to manage very long hair that are not cut, in some cultures due to religious reasons.
Like some of the other answers point out, you want to manage the weight of the hair in a shape that is compact and equally distributed - i.e. something sphere-like, and a turban can be shaped around the head for this purpose.
There are many great styles for [women as well](https://www.google.com/search?q=turban+woman&tbm=isch).
[Answer]
**Coiled Braid(s)**
Grow the hair long. Put it in a long braid. Coil the braid into a lump.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oDoeo.jpg)
Stuff the lump into a helmet. Now you have long hair that cannot be grabbed.
If you prefer have two braids.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bAZ4v.png)
Then stuff your head in a helmet.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fSdYh.png)
Perfect.
For a real example look into the Sikh Religion. [Some Sikh men never cut their hair and wear it similar to the above.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th1uzDFxai8)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6VZIem.png)
Only they use a turban rather than a Stormtrooper helmet.
[Answer]
**Grow It Everywhere!**
More hair doesn't have to mean super long hair growing only from her scalp. A bit of magic could give her an all-over shiny coat of hair that would make a Wookie jealous.
Advantages: There's a LOT of hair, but none of it is extremely long. Successfully cutting it anywhere only removes a small percent.
Disadvantage: Fire resistant hair gel might be a good idea, but could be expensive.
[Answer]
## Bun
Your question seems to boil down to just this: what hairstyle has the greatest volume and the least surface area?
The answer, from geometry, is the sphere. In hairstyles, that's a bun:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MjpvC.jpg)
You can choose your bun-making techniques to maximize its density, which will give you the smallest-possible spatial footprint for any given amount of hair.
If the bun is small enough, it can be concealed beneath a hat, which can help the magic-user avoid being recognized as such.
Buns do not require any unusual equipment to create or maintain. You don't even need a comb as long as you can run your fingers through your hair. If you have a fastener, great, but there are ways to secure a bun using only your hair.
From a practical perspective, it cannot be beat.
[Answer]
Long hair owner here, in terms of hairstyles people have covered bun and wound braids pretty well, but I wanted to add on a bit...
Really long hair is a lot less maintenance than people think.
It is not that much problem to wash, you mostly only scrub the scalp area anyway, so after a point longer doesn't add any effort to washing. It doesn't even add that much to drying, since the exposed surface scales with the length of the hair--it's not like hair dries from the bottom up, hair dries from the outside in. You just need a big towel to wrap it in for the initial drying because normal towels will get soaked quickly (I use a beach towel and my hair isn't *that* long). You also don't have to get all of it wet every time if it's long enough, you can have someone hold your hair out of the way and then only wash your scalp area, especially if you are taking a bath rather than a shower.
It doesn't really tangle worse, hair in the middle or near the scalp doesn't knot as quickly because there aren't (as many) loose ends and not as much movement. The bottom (which does knot) is easier to brush to since you can pull it around. And you have more hairstyles which keep your hair from moving freely, no movement = no knotting/tangles. If your character brushes whichever parts are loose on a regular basis then they will be fine.
Hair doesn't weigh *that* much. Think about how much a heavy wool sweater weighs and that is a lot more hair than most people can grow from their head. It weighs more when wet, but think about a wet sweater after you washed it--it's still not so much that you can't imagine supporting it on your head, and once you squeeze some of the water out with a towel it's no problem at all. If your hair starts to get into Tangled length, you can literally wrap it around your shoulders or waist to support it.
Braiding is more practical than you think. It takes me about 1 minute (I timed it) to braid my hair in one basic braid, and my hair is just short of being long enough to sit on. The first 20 seconds was getting the braid started, after that it gets easier since you can pull your hair around where it's easier to reach, so maybe 20 seconds per foot of length after that. Doing French/Dutch braids takes me a *lot* longer but I'm also really bad at them, someone who practices this can probably do it in almost the same time, plus the French/Dutch part is only at the top of your head so anything over shoulder length is back to the same speed based on length.
Braided hair is good for sleeping, since it doesn't tangle, doesn't bunch up under your head too much, and then you're ready to go the next morning. You don't have to re-braid it all every day, either (not with just a basic braid, and if you want it to last even longer you can fasten it with a string/ribbon/hair tie in several places down the braid). You can unbraid/brush/rebraid the last foot or so to freshen up your braid quickly.
Keeping your braid safe is also not that hard--tuck it down the back of your shirt. If you're feeling particularly paranoid, wear a shirt with a high-necked collar. If you're feeling really, really paranoid wear a hood that covers your hair and the back of your neck. If your enemy has you at the point where they can undress you, they already have control of your head, hair or no.
All that said, if you can recharge unattached hair, magic users are going to be wearing a lot of wool. Those heavy robes aren't *just* because it gets chilly flying around, and that's only what you see on the outside--actually most witches are also walking around with a bum-pad stuffed with wool. Just like armorers are specialists, you would have specialist magic users who work full-time in the spring making sure newly-sheered wool will be able to store magic. (Maybe shed hair retains magic, as well, if treated correctly? I'm imagining a wonderful retirement home for elderly magic users where they spend their days gently chanting as they brush rabbits--I would like to retire there, please.)
[Answer]
## Hairband portal
Similar to a bag of holding except this is a small elastic band that can be placed over a bun of hair transporting it to another plane of existence. The band can be removed fairly easily, the hard part is actually getting it on (though a wizard probably has some kind of telekinesis they can use to pull their hair into the band. One possible downside is that hair floating in a formless void for an extended time may end up getting tangled, so it's recommended to remove the extraplaner scrunchy and brush your hair at least once a day.
[Answer]
## Wair a shako or conical helmet
Throughout history, the idea of wearing helmets with lots of empty space over the head has come back over and over again because this allows the helmet to deform under impact and/or redirect a strike away from your head for added protection. This technology was first seen a lot in East Mediterranean civilizations during the late bronze age. It was then revisited again during the high medieval period by a number of Northern and Eastern European cultures. And again it re-emerged as late as the 1800s in the form of the Shako across most of Europe.
That said, one thing all of these helmets have in common is that they leave plenty of room for hair. An average Napoleonic Era Shako for example had an internal volume of about 800 in^3 (13000 cm^3). Serena could braid and coil her hair such that a standard military Shako could easily contain floor length hair with room to spare.
All though these helmets may seem to be oversized and cumbersome, because they could be made thinner than a helmet that hugs closer to your skull, you could actually get superior protection at similar weights. Since Serena is a battle witch, it seem logical she should have a helmet anyway; so, might as well giver her one that is simply tall enough to hold her hair in place.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JLwyP.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/waniE.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zghJB.png)
[Answer]
**Dreadlocked + Braided + Coiled**
When hair is dreadlocked, it kinks up and traps far more magic than simply braided hair. Braided hair does better than coiled, etcetera. Which is why you want all three. Plus, it minimizes the total length by the greatest amount.
[Answer]
**Use whole body**
Why limit Serena to wear her hair only on her head? She could wrap her hair around her whole body. Two wisps are wrapped around the arms, one main wisp is wrapped around the torso which splits in two wisps to be wrapped around her legs. The Ends can be secured with pins, ribbons or intricate folding/knots/braiding. The magical manipulation makes the setup an easy and fast task and once the hair is as it should be, no further magic is needed to keep it in place.
Pros:
* The hair is not in the way, since its tightly packed to the body
* The hair can double as clothing --> especially useful in cold areas
* Additional layering of hair possible
* super witchy vibes imo
Cons:
* Can be uncomfortable in hot climates
* Any attack on her, is also an attack on her hair. This might be mitigated by magic manipulation, depending on how fast it works. If the hair can suddenly become riggid upon impact, it would even be a pro instead of con.
[Answer]
### The same as hair carrying an electrostatic charge
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GhrFc.jpg)
If mana is stored on hair, the mana on each hair will repel the hair next to it. As Serena charges up her magic, her hair will naturally billow out into a perfect puffball. In other words, she will become a [lady with thistledown hair](https://hurtfew.mywikis.net/wiki/The_gentleman_with_the_thistle-down_hair). The pressure between hairs provides a pressure of mana, held in place by her will, which can be released like letting air out of a balloon. Long straight hair could be an issue though, requiring brushing and regular maintenance. You're also limited by how long your own hair is.
The next step would be braiding and hair extensions. Braids do not need as much daily maintenance to stay braided, and hair extensions allow you to make your hair as long as you want. Individual hairs will not store as much mana, but the increased length and mass of braids could let you push more charge in overall.
The "puffball" now becomes something looking more like a pincushion, which is an awesome look on the battlefield. Imagine tribes of horsewomen with 1-metre braids flared out from their head, charging the enemy as lightning flickers around the tips of their hair. That's a movie I want to see!
It becomes less practical indoors though. Charge yourself up and you'll burn the ceiling, walls, and anyone near you. There is a solution though - braid beads into the end of your hair. It'll take much more mana to lift the beads against gravity, meaning that you can get away with a much shorter hairdo. However you need to be able to push much harder to charge them up, and not every magic user is strong enough to do it. So if you see someone coming down the street with big weights swinging on the ends of their braids, be *very* ***very*** polite to them!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QalEx.jpg)
[Answer]
I'm assuming you're ultimately going for hair that would be impossibly long for the real world.
Extremely long hair gets heavy and hot. Getting it off of your head and neck as much as possible will minimize the discomfort involved. Braids concentrate the hair in a small volume, leaving more surface area on your neck and the sides of your head open to radiate heat and keep you cool. Instead of piling those braids on top of your head or letting them hang, coil up the braids inside a backpack or in the hood of your cloak.
Pros:
* Braids leave more of your neck and head exposed, which helps keep cool.
* Minimal interference with hats, helmets, or other headgear.
* The pack/hood shifts the weight of the hair from your head/neck to your torso, which is much better equipped for bearing weight. It also lets you have more hair than would be geometrically possible to stack on your head, without resorting to dragging it behind you on the ground.
* The hairstyle itself is simple, quick, can be done without assistance from another person. In a pinch, you can even forgo the braid and just stuff your hair in the bag and run.
* The pack/hood protects the hair from getting caught on things, from water (wet hair gets *super* heavy) and other environmental damage, and from intentional damage by enemies. It also helps keep the hair clean when you're (for example) in a dusty environment.
* The hair is anchored to your body, so you avoid the pendulum effects of a heavy mass of free-swinging hair (you can turn your head quickly, you won't knock things off tables, etc).
* Most of your hair isn't directly visible. When the amount of hair impacts the power of your spells, you can surprise an opponent by being significantly more powerful than expected, or can stuff your pack with fake hair and bluff your way past a dangerous enemy. Clever wardrobe choices could let you hide your hair completely, in case it's dangerous to be identified as a magic user.
Cons:
* This would consume some of your pack space, or prevent you from using the hood as a hood.
* Wouldn't work if the hair has to be exposed in order to assist your magic. You could work around that by using something like a cross between a drawstring backpack and a hairnet. Loosen the drawstring and the weight of the hair forces the pack open, tumbling out into free space.
* Not ideal if you want to use the hair directly as a weapon.
[Answer]
## Wears her long hair down (and utilizes her own magic on her hair)
I know that the premise of the question is finding a style, however I'm going with a folkloric approach based on Celtic shamanism and witchcraft. Particular figures in Celtic Shamanism and witches in Wicca usually wear their long hair down, unbound or with simple knots if needed.
Serena does the same. Her hair needs to be free, unbound to be able to connect to the nature and be able to catch magical energy more efficiently. And here is the twist: She uses her magical powers (which I gather they are connected to the nature and weather elements) to keep her hair tidy/kempt, possibly keeping it magically damp (through cycles if needed) which can also help to keep it clean.
Here is a related excerpt regarding a lore of Celtic Shamanism:
>
> This particular group of characters are women who are referred to as Wild Women, Wild Virgins, and most often, Blessed Ladies.
>
>
>
> ...
>
>
>
> So, despite the Church's influence on folk lore, these Blessed Ladies remained magnificently beautiful, wore their long, blonde hair down (indication for being free and unbound, i.e. "wild,") and had all kinds of creative magical powers. Wherever they appeared and were treated well, the crops on the fields prospered, the cattle thrived, and people received magical gifts.
>
>
> The long hair of the Blessed Ladies is of significant importance because people believed that hair is the source of magical powers, and long hair therefore indicated especially great powers. After all, the custom to shear the hair of women accused of witchcraft before they were executed was also directly related to the belief that magical powers are in a witch's hair. That the hair was worn down and not bound in elaborate knots like married women (in the Alpine region still), is a clear indication that these Blessed Ladies were considered virgins, or, as the German term *Jungfrau* literally means "young women." The word *Jungfrau* itself has nothing to do with nor having had sex. It simply indicates that a woman is "not bound in marriage" and only later became a synonym for being "untouched".
>
>
> *[Mountain Magic : Celtic Shamanism in the Austrian Alps](https://books.google.es/books?id=NfZiCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA45&dq=long%20hair%20witch%20magical&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_svGB1L_4AhVK2xoKHWGSDooQ6AF6BAgLEAI#v=onepage&q=long%20hair%20witch%20magical&f=false)* By Christian Brunner
>
>
>
[Answer]
Use a stylishly decorated bag of holding to contain your incredibly long braid(s).
[Answer]
Here is a link to a guinness article on long hair records:
<https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/book/2019/9/10-of-the-worlds-biggest-hair-records-589939>
Many American Indian men wore their hair long, and many (but not all) tribes had warrior cultures. LOng haired Indian warriorsobviusly managed to fight unhindered by their long hair.
Chief "Long Hair" (c.1750-1836) of the Crows reportedly had hair 25 feet long. If he wore hair only a fifth or a quarter that long while he was a young warrior, he would have found a way to manage quite long hair in combat.
<https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/chief_long_hair>
Supposedly some of his hair is preserved at the Chief Plenty Coups State Park in Montana. And if that hair is correctly measured, Crow Indian hair styles would be interesting for how to manage long hair.
<https://fwp.mt.gov/stateparks/chief-plenty-coups/>
And as I remember, the women of most Indian groups also wore their hair long. All the women of the nomadic hunting tribes of the plains had to travel a lot and so they should have had conveient hairstyles for their length of hair. And there were examples of female warriors.
Colesah (c.1800-1865), a Yaskima woman, was a medicine women, a psychic, and a warrior woman, which was fitting for the wife of Kamiakin. She rescued her husband at the Battle of Four Lakes in 1858, when a cannonball knocked a tree over on him.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colestah>
Buffalo Calf Road Woman (c. 1844-1879) saved her brother at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17, 1876, and fought at the Little Bighorn on June 25 - Cheyenne oral accounts claim she knocked Custer off his horse.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Calf_Road_Woman>
So it would be interesting to know what such warrior women did with their long hair in battle.
] |
[Question]
[
In this world, dinosaurs are wildlife that usually don't bother people, but people still want to make sure they're safe from the occasional man-eaters or gigantic herbivores that want to eat their crops. People don't need to kill the dinosaurs, they just want to live peacefully. What can they do to make their village as safe as possible?
[Answer]
Large dinosaurs are like elephants. Very strong, but the one thing they can't do is **jump**. Their massive body weight increases with the cube of their size, meaning that large dinosaurs are at the limit of what their body can physically support. Trying to jump is impossible for them.
So forget about trying to build a strong wooden fence, **build a ditch**. That's how they contain elephants at the zoo and it works well enough:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QWZr9.jpg)
Image Source: <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elephants_at_Hagenbeck.JPG>
[Answer]
Man-eating dinosaurs should be relatively easy to keep at bay. A tyrannosaurus is a little under 4 meters tall, so it should be possible to hold it back with a good wooden wall at about that height. The villagers should keep a bell to ring when one is spotted to that everyone can run back to the walled fort to hide. Some flaming arrows might help persuade it to leave.
I would also keep a few decoy cows ready to release in order to draw its attention away if it's cornering a villager. You could coat the cow in some oil or other unpleasant-tasting substance if you want to teach it not to look in the village for food. Or poison.
Herbivores, sadly, are a bit trickier to deal with, mostly because vegetables don't know how to run and hide inside the walled fort when one comes along. It's probably not practical to try to fence in all of the farmland either, as this is a lot of land. And those long necks are basically designed to reach over a fence and nab the goods anyway.
I would suggest growing root crops such as onions or carrots, which will not be as easy for a dinosaur to spot. I would also keep a team of mounted riders on constant watch over the fields, with bells and flaming arrows to scare away any herbivores that come along. This would be a pretty dangerous job, though, if they make the animal mad or attract the attention of a man-eater.
[Answer]
As opposed to men, animals are much more reasonable. They don't stubbornly go in places where they experience discomfort.
Therefore walls, fires and smoke, topped with loud noises will be good dissuasive means.
Keeping food away to remove any rewards for facing the troubles will also help.
[Answer]
## do what humans have always done, barriers and hunting.
Real farms used hedgerows. Real hedge row will stop a dinosaur, real hedgerows are made of earth, stone, woven fencing, shrubs and trees. they produce a rather solid barrier. They may just have to make them a little taller. it will actually be harder for large animals to get through them than small ones. Add a ditch as others have mentioned and it works even better. There is a wide range of making hedgerows but the goal is always the same to create a barrier to wildlife and domesticated animals. Remember these farmers already have to deal with a wide range of wildlife trying to eat their crops, including their own livestock.
If something does get through, farmers will go hunting, bows will kill most dinosaurs, especially if they add poisons. Really these animals are going to be hunted anyway, large amounts of meat are a very desirable target. Humans hunted mammoths to extinction before we used metal. the more dangerous the dinosaur the more likely humans already hunted them to extinction at least locally. humans with children are not very tolerant of dangerous creatures, and apex predators are always vulnerable to overhunting. It is even easier to drive them away, slings, fire, and arrows will easily drive away dinosaurs, animals are not movie monsters, if they get hurt they leave.
for tougher dinos you get creative. One of the simple ways to hunt large animals is a technique used by elephant poachers, hammer a large metal spike into a board, and hide it in leaves or grass on a trail. the weight of the animal does the damage for you. for a T-rex spikes, pits, and triplines will work well. for armored dinos use fire. there is very little a group of prepared humans cannot kill.also keep in mind a large dinosaur could likely feed an entire village possibly for days, so they have a strong incentive to hunt them.
Of course they may also domesticate some dinosaurs, if you have a large number of species that chances that at least one will be domesticable is decent.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2T4Q6.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AKKBG.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8P0aK.jpg)
[Answer]
Search for *elephant village fence africa park*
>
> We are currently testing beehive fences in selected locations and have
> found that it very successfully deters elephants.
> – The Wildlife Connection
>
>
>
<http://elephantsandbees.com/tanzania/>
<https://news.mongabay.com/2017/06/breaking-a-fence-breaking-habit-maintaining-the-fences-that-reduce-human-elephant-conflict/>
[Answer]
**Trained animals.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/52BwW.jpg)
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dogs-herd-elephants-at-pittsburgh-zoo/>
>
> The dogs are bred to move livestock. In this case, the fearless
> canines are trained to handle massive elephants. They charge and nip
> at the elephants' feet and trunks. The elephants have such respect for
> the dogs that even if they hear a handler say the name Major or Zeta,
> they take notice.
>
>
>
Having dogs to chase off dinosaurs might be doable. The big carnivores are probably not quick enough to catch a dog. The small ones might but in addition to the silent scary sheepdog types you will have some small dogs who are master barkers, so the people will hear something is up.
Since this is a fantasy you could riff on the dogs with some more dramatic creature. One of the Jurassic Park movies had something like this - Velociraptors that were semi-tame or at least willing to cooperate with humans to take on much larger animals. A pack of dinos in residence could chase off intruders of all kinds.
[Answer]
The same thing villagers did to protect themselves against (human/animal) threats in history: *nothing* (though this is dependant on the wealth/size of the village).
Villages tended to be small and poor. They wouldn't be able to build a large and costly defense such as a wall or ditch or even have dedicated guards. This is why they are susceptible to attacks from bandits and the like.
[Answer]
>
> In this world, dinosaurs are wildlife that usually don't bother people
>
>
>
So people aren't likely to invest much in defences. They may fall back on the old approach of surrounding themselves with thornbushes. If there's a known threat in the area they may supplement those with fires stoked by people keeping 2-hour watches, and they may try to hunt the individual down. But for the most part they'll get on with their lives.
[Answer]
So... I think it should be noted that in even a reasonably populated area, dinosaurs would never get that big. Sauropods (like the Apatosaurus) took ten years to reach full size. By the time that happened, they would be noticeable and then hunted for the massive amount of meat it would provide. Tyrannosaurs spent most of their early years smaller than economy-sized car. Neither one of these would really need to be "defended against."
You get a little more complicated when you start getting to the mid-sized predators (such as the Deinonychus) but even with them there isn't that much danger. After all, we have dangerous, predatory animals in the woods now. While wolf and tiger attacks are something that do happen, they're very, very rare.
[Answer]
Eating them, using their skin and bones as raw materials for many things and domesticating the small, smart, social ones. Man is a deadly hunter that, before civilization, alredy hunted megafauna many times its size. With medieval iron, pikes, big horses to ride, the dinos stand no chance.
[Answer]
For bigger dinosaurs their size would be their biggest enemy, just make a ditch or any kind of trap that would make a dinosaur fall. Fallen t-rex is almost always dead t-rex because of square-cube law, and they werent even that big!
Smaller dinosaurs could be treaten as any other similar-size mammal carnivores.
[Answer]
Medieval people could make and operate some pretty serious artillery; heavy crossbows, scorpions, ballistae, and the like. Dinosaurs are tough but their hearts and lungs are still just flesh. Their skulls are just bone. Crossbows and scorpions that can get through the plate armor a knight wears can also probably get through the cartilage between ribs or the skull. So whatever defenses these settlements have to use against people will be just as effective against dinosaurs.
[Answer]
During the day with human activity in the village and fields that should be enough to deter most herbivores, more determined herbivores could be kept back using ditches or trained animals such as dogs. Large carnivores should be spotted early, creating a buffer zone of cleared land outside of the village and fields would help in this regard. On spotting a large carnivore an alarm should be signaled to recall civilians into the village while a militia goes out to defend using bows and pikes.
The hardest part would be protecting the crops at night when there is little to no human activity to keep herbivores away. I think a ring of braziers spaced around the village and its fields to be lit each night would go a long way to deterring herbivores, you could also add a night watch to patrol if the village is large enough.
[Answer]
A cave in thick stone, multiple entrances/exists of course. Even if you have to chisel an entrance.
Big enough for humans to enter, but small enough to keep the big ones away.
Also, if you can get the dino to force its head in, your in the prefect position to kill it with arrows, and other ranged weapons.
100 feet in erect a wall to keep the smaller ones out.
If your really clever you can install a guillotine in the cave.
Medium/Big sticks its head to far in .... "off with its head"
You would need high fence that are probably 50 feet in front from your crops so sticking there head over high wall nets them nothing.
[Answer]
Same way a village would try to keep an army away
For a large town or city, Build walls, dig moats and have a draw bridge to allow and deny access.
For villages, build wood fences with sharp edges on the top and build watchtowers with archers to allow ranged attacks to dissuade dinos. Archers could also soak the tip of the arrows with oil and light it on fire before firing them. Horse archers surrounding the dino maybe a good idea to confuse it too by hit and run in every direction.
If the attack persist, maybe you can distract the dinos by release some horses with raw animal meat tied to its tail and let run away from the villages. Train every able bodied villagers to handle spears and archery when they are not working.
There is also an idea of a tribute every time the dinos are out hunting. Measure the time between each dino species visit and prepare some cows just before the next visits in a general area near the habitat of the dinos that are reasonably far from the village
[Answer]
## The situation is prevented from the outset, and can never develop into regular raids.
Predators learn to fear the smell of humans, except for the occasional Jeuvanile (who quickly learns a harsh lesson if it escapes with its life). Predator species develop a major fear of humans and will not approach.
The biggest threat is not massive predators (t-rex) but man sized predators who are desperate (very hungry pack of velocoraptors or a lone-wolf utaraptor), or hyper patient ambush predators (e.g. crocodiles).
Even if the creature is a totally new discovery within living memory, and you're dealing with a primitive tribe who has just arrived, it doesn't take many attacks before the creature is tracked down and pre-emptively killed. Within one or two generations of the predator, an extreme fear of humans develops.
Giant herd-dwelling herbivores are a totally different story. Assuming your medieval society has enough un-tapped land that brontosauruses are not forced into close proximity humans, the occasional rare mass migration will be met with fire, arrows, spears, rocks, noise, etc.
Herds whose annual migration patterns intersect with humans are quickly wiped out.
[Answer]
As others pointed out, dealing with large dinos is not a problem; mankind has hunted and killed the largest land and sea and air animals it has met using tools that were much more primitive than available in most European/Asian feudal villages.
The real problems are:
1. Stampedes. When you have a bunch of animals larger than delivery vans with brains of the size of coffee cups with only one thing in their mind -- get away from something really fast -- you do not want to be on their way. At times even fire may not stop them (imagine they are running from a forest fire/volcano/flood). There are recorded events (I do need to find them) when stampedes met their demises falling off cliffs and whatever because they were in herdthink mode.
2. (really 1.1.) Controlled stampedes. What if your enemies set fire on some of the members of a herd and, well, herd them your way?
3. Smaller, opportunistic animals more adapted to "silent hunting." You know, how tigers and foxes and snakes and chupacabras sneak into a farm and kill infant and elderly animals/humans who fell asleep watching "Late Night with the Black Knight." These animals are more adapted to "living" with humans by understanding their habits (ex: wolves seem to sense when someone is armed because of the attitude of said person, implying confidence or not).
I personally expect those smaller predator dinosaurs to be more adaptable than the dump truck sized ones. Those raptor sized ones have larger brains relatively speaking than the large ones. Look into how complex a group of crows are. For instance, when they (as a group) eat they leave spotters to warn the others of impending attacks.
**Now** you can argue that as soon as a family comes and says their baby is gone a mob will hunt down the predator. Well, not really. Unless your family was high up in the totem pole, you just accept that as a fact of life. Creating a posse meant other important tasks were done done, and people had to work all the time just to stay alive. For most of the human history people did not have the attitude that one death was one too many some societies have today. Not every child became an adult. Human life was cheap, and that was the case during the medieval times.
[Answer]
Theory answer: If human existed when dinosaurs lived on earth, humans would be bigger as well just like dinosaurs/trees/insects were at that time. Air-pressure and science made that body could carry more weight than today.
Look at today ants, that can carry its own weight several times, where their scale in compare to air-pressure/atmospheric pressure make their body be able to carry a certain weight. If ants were at human size of today, they would not be as strong.
] |
[Question]
[
I've been considering a universe with 3 omnipotent gods, who have created together an earth-like world (for example one god created the planet covered with only oceans, another god raised the continents, another one created plants, etc.) with sapient inhabitants.
The gods may regularly show up to the inhabitants and perform miracles, but they voluntarily limit these interventions. Basically they have agreed with each other not to interfere too much with the mortals, otherwise it would lead to chaos on the planet. I imagined that the gods decided on that rule because of a previous incident, when one of the gods got angry at the mortals and wiped out the entire civilization (after that, the gods created a new one).
It then occurred to me that the very existence of multiple omnipotent beings is contradictory. What if they tried to oppose each other? For example one wants to destroy the world while another one wants to protect it. Since they're omnipotent, they should be both able to achieve what they want, but it is not possible to have the world both destroyed and not-destroyed at the same time.
I can easily say that the gods decided on another rule, that is, that they won't try to oppose each other, but it doesn't solve the problem; it just avoids it. What if a god decided to break that rule? (Note that while they have infinite power, they *don't* have infinite wisdom.)
So, is it possible to have several omnipotent beings at once? Is there a way to make the contradiction disappear? I'm not too picky about the definition of "omnipotent" - I'll be okay with a system that puts some kind of (tiny) restriction on their powers, as long as they can still be considered omnipotent in practice.
[Answer]
I'm going to challenge your premise "but it is not possible to have the world both destroyed and not-destroyed at the same time".
By assuming some sort of "multiverse", having both outcomes may be possible.
I don't know if you are familiar with open source projects, but I think there is an interesting parallel to draw here:
In an open source project, developers tend to work together in building software.
However, disagreements may arise and in such cases, the software may be forked.
In a nutshell, this means that there will be two new projects based on the former and developers will continue to work on their preferred one.
In your question, the reality is the open source project and the gods are the developers.
So, whenever the gods oppose each other and disagree on something, they all get what they want because reality *is splitted* with different outcomes.
Now, why the gods may not want that? Because they *want to work together* for some reason.
Maybe they have grown fond of each other and became friends. Or they think it is wiser to have someone else to help out.
Being a lone god may be dull or boring and there will be a positive incentive to attempt to reach a consensus and *avoid forking reality*.
This sort of mechanism may allow for interesting plots, such as gods sending "pull requests" and "merging" realities back together.
In the gods' perspective, it's kind of playing a sandbox online game:
you can either play it "online" with others and sometimes voluntarily abdicate your wishes, or you can play it "offline" and have absolute control over everything.
Playing offline may give you some insights about the game and be fun in the beginning, but playing with other people can be more interesting as it adds an element of uncertainty and can be more challenging.
In the god's meta-universe, being a solo god of a universe may be frowned upon and gods that engage in this for "too long" (whatever that means for a god) can be seen as egotistical or narcissistic.
[Answer]
As soon as you start using "omni" you start having problems.
*Create something you can't destroy*
Or in this case
*Create something the other guy can't destroy*
Which of them isn't omnipotent, the one who can't create such an item or the one who can't destroy it? *Either way, one of them is no longer omnipotent.*
---
The old pantheons had a way round this problem, while they had limits to their powers they also had rules to obey, including:
>
> no god may undo what another god has done - [Ovid, Metamorphoses](https://archive.org/stream/metamorphoses01ovid/metamorphoses01ovid_djvu.txt)
>
>
>
Which meant that if one god had created it, whether the other could destroy it or not was irrelevant, they wouldn't be allowed to try.
[Answer]
Sure you can have three omnipotent beings - however you have to define omnipotence properly. I'd imagine for your purposes, it's possible to have omnipotence defined as "can do anything". So Deity 1 wants the world destroyed. It is. Deity 2 dislikes that and recreates it the way it just existed, so it is as though Deity 1 had not destroyed it. Maybe even Deity 2 literally undoes what Diety 1 did, ctrl-Z style. Now, what Deity 1-3 cannot do is limit the future actions of Deity 1-3. Nor preempt them.
That sounds sufficently omnipotent for your purposes. It also explains the source of and enforcement of your "not too much" treaty. It was boring to go back and forth for 3 millenia, so they decided not to do that anymore, but if any of them break the rule, they could start right back up. Maybe they even do from time to time, but mortals are never aware of it.
[Answer]
This is just another formulation of "Can God create a rock so heavy that even they cannot lift it?" You've just abstracted the paradox a little bit by having there be two all powerful beings instead of one.
There will always be such contradictions when you are talking about things defined as **all** powerful.
[Answer]
The phrasings are difficult, as many pointed out. When we see "omni-" we tend to start writing laws and inventing scenarios which violate those laws.
As an option, consider a phrasing which lets each god be omnipotent as long as they are unopposed, and has a tiebreak rule which is sufficient to convince the readers that "omnipotent" is still a valid phrasing. Consider the following time based solution, which uses the order of actions to decipher the plan. Consider a ledger of all actions the gods take.
* If a god tries to do an action, and nothing on the ledger says this new action violates a previous action, it is enacted, and put into the ledger.
* If a god tries to do an action, and it is partially opposed by a previous action, the result is a state of the world which satisfies both god's desires (the universe will try its best to resolve a conflict without breaking the omnipotence law)
* If one god truly opposes the other, they are free to do so. In doing so, they become "bound" in this struggle. In this state, they cannot cause any change to occur. Instead, the third god is permitted to resolve the conflict as they see fit.
It's not truly omnipotence, because you can still create paradoxical structures which cannot be resolved. However, we hide these holes in the omnipotence of two gods behind the omnipotence of the third. Whenever two of them fight, the third (last to act) gets to decide the result. That may be close enough to omnipotence to create a very interesting story. It also leads to what you want, which is a voluntary decision not to step on each other's toes. It would be very reasonable to word each action in this "ledger" of sorts in a way which minimizes the potential for conflict by trying to never use wordings which result in perfect conflict. However, if they reach such perfect conflict by mistake, the rules will keep the system going.
[Answer]
### Yes, multiple omnipotent Gods can coexist.
The OP says:
>
> Is there a way to make the contradiction disappear? I'm not too picky about the definition of "omnipotent" - I'll be okay with a system that puts some kind of (tiny) restriction on their powers,
>
>
>
### Here is that tiny restriction: No God can harm another God or diminish the power of another God, or diminish the knowledge of another God. Their omnipotence applies only to the universe, not to each other.
This implies that anything a God can do, another God can undo, perfectly. One God can make our Galaxy vanish: Another can restore it with a snap of their fingers without an atom or photon out of place. She does not have to be wise or smart, just wish it to be so.
**What happens if they oppose each other?**
If they squabble; they can both sit there and do/undo each other's work for eternity, a cosmic version of the children's squabble ***Yes it is! / No it isn't!***
Such is the nature of being a God, they know this from experience, and it fits with being omnipotent. If they want something done, they ***must*** agree upon it.
Such an agreement could be a physical field (these billion galaxies are mine, those billion are yours), or it could be a theoretical division (How about I do the insects, and you do the fish, and John does the land animals, and this time Mark does the solar system?)
However they come to an agreement, the ***only*** way for a God to build something that won't be instantly vanished is to please the other Gods, or at least be tolerated by them (perhaps in exchange for their own tolerance of what other Gods create). Their only options are agreement or stalemate, and stalemate is boring.
I imagine a council of them setting rules about creation that they then adhere to, each in their own self-interest of having a little fun in some corner of the universe without the other kids kicking over the sand castle they built.
[Answer]
Yes, you can have three omnipotent Gods, however they're only omnipotent while they work in concert.
The three Gods create the world, the continents and life, they are in harmony.
One of them we'll - call it Omega - decides the world is flawed and moves to destroy it.
Gamma moves to stop Omega giving the third God Epsilon free reign. This situation is unacceptable to both Omega and Gamma who split their focus to constrain Epsilon & each other.
As all the Gods are equally powerful so each nullifies the other. Assuming the people know about the Gods they will thank Gamma for bountiful harvests, Epsilon for new births and try to appease Omega for devastating events like storms, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
So can you have three Omnipotent Gods? If they work in concert yes, but then they're working as one omnipotent entity, so you could say that effectively you have one God. Once they're not in harmony then you effectively have no omnipotent gods.
In my opinion, no story goes well when there are Omnipotent characters around to - literally - deux ex machina the heroes out of trouble.
All great fantasy has characters with little or no power going up against impossible odds (Frodo carrying the ring, Bilbo stealing from Smaug, Perseus v's Kracken, Harry Potter v's the dreaded Voldemort etc), or Characters with immense power who have that power stripped or are constrained against using it (Gandalf, Athena was forbidden from helping Perseus, [Antryg Windrose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Wizard), Rand al'Thor had the taint on saidin, The lesser magicians of Lyonesse are constrained by Murgen etc).
It might be no harm to constrain your three Gods, they can only help / hinder your characters in small ways because almost all their power is constantly consumed fighting the other Gods.
My two cents.
[Answer]
There can't be more than one omnipotent God unless, like the Christian concept of the [Trinity](https://www.theopedia.com/trinity), they exist in perfect Harmony (although, Christians believe in one God existing in three co-equal persons.)
Omnipotence means that all non-contradictory things can be accomplished by the deity (for instance, God can't make a married bachelor or a square circle.)
Omnipotence means that the being always accomplishes His will. Two beings mean two incompatible wills.
[Answer]
**Perhaps instead of omnipotent and omniscient, you should instead use hyper.**
Omni: all; of all things.
Hyper: a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, where it meant “over,” usually implying excess or exaggeration
Therefore, hyperpotent, able to do far more than mere mortals. But not quite *all things.*
[Answer]
It depends on your definition of omnipotence.
If you postulate that omnipotence means that the entity can accomplish anything as long as it follows the rules of logic than it can't create the often cited "stone it can't lift". That would be illogical and therefore is not part of omnipotence. This would mean that there could not be a second entity that is also omnipotent.
If you postulate that omnipotence means that the entity can literally do anything than it can ignore the rules of logic. This means it can create a square circle and a "stone that it can't lift" without losing its omnipotence. It's operating outside of what you would call *logic*. This easily allows for multiple omnipotent entities that can do anything they want.
[Answer]
>
> I'll be okay with a system that puts some kind of (tiny) restriction on their powers
>
>
>
In that case, have the three differently ranked in terms of priority. One of them is truly omnipotent, however the second is omnipotent as long as he doesn't oppose the first one and the third is omnipotent as long as he doesn't oppose the first two.
**or**
The gods are all omnipotent, except when opposing another. So a god can't stop another god from doing something, but can undo it afterwards. And a god can't make his effect unundoable by another god. So if one god wants to make a storm , while the other wants a baking heat, one must wait until the other is finished creating the storm before taking away the clouds and wind and turning up the sun.
This, of course, may result huge chains or stacks of effects to "resolve" á la *Magic: The Gathering*. But given that each one is instantaneous, even such a stack trillions of effects deep would not even be noticed by the mortals. (Or maybe it would... cue the mortals rolling their eyes, "the gods are at it again...") -
Maybe in the case of a deadlock, the third god casts the "deciding vote".
The possibility that all three could want something different and remain steadfast could be a plot hook.
**or**
Gods with infinite wisdom also have infinite maturity. Therefore they can *always* come to an agreement on a way to resolve their differences!
[Answer]
Yes. Brandon Sanderson has explored this topic a bit (I prefer not to specify which work to avoid spoilers). Essentially, you can have gods with theoretically unlimited power, but with some limitations on their ability to apply it.
In particular, the gods can have a limited ability to focus. If a god actually thinks about a particular physical change, it is done, but they can only focus on so many things in a given second. If one god focuses on a certain battle, another god may use that opportunity to affect a distant city's weather. If both focus on the same things, they're likely to cancel out. You can get about as fine-grained as you want here (eg affecting individual particles, people, or cities), and give them as much focus / processing power as you like, as long as it is finite.
Another possibility is making any action theoretically doable to a god, but at a cost of experiencing a proportional degree of pain, depending on the degree of distortion of the natural order, or the improbability.
[Answer]
If by omnipotent we mean 'can do anything', yes.
Usually, it is assumed that an omnipotent being is limited by the laws of *logic*. An omnipotent being cannot simultaneously destroy and not-destroy something, for example. So we've already accepted some limitations on omnipotence.
As other answers point out, if two omnipotent beings oppose each other, they can't *both* succeed, therefore they are not all-powerful. We can avoid this paradox with rules which limit their power. Perhaps there is a hierarchy which determines who wins in a conflict. Perhaps they can continuously undo each other's work. These rules are up to you.
However, multiple omnipotent beings *can* exist if they never oppose each other. Your gods can be all-powerful, able to do anything they choose, provided their natures mean they will never come into conflict.
[Answer]
Absolutely, if you're careful with your definitions.
Omnipotent = All Powerful = Infinite amount of power.
Power is a well defined term, in physics.
You have an infinite amount of [Power](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(physics)),(P= W/t) but it does not necessarily mean you can break the laws of physics.
It's no longer a hypothetical 'They can do literally anything they will', which is subject to the old paradoxes for any universe with one or more 'omnipotent' beings, but a statement that 'they can apply an unlimited amount of force to any matter in the universe' which I believe is less open to paradoxes.
Could God A create a rock that God B can't move? Nope, because there's a finite amount of mass in the universe. Of course God A could HOLD the rock in place using its power, but they would simply cancel each other out (and maybe the rock would get very very hot.)
Both have an infinite amount of power, and can use it as they wish, in any situation where they disagree exactly, nothing happens, they can only apply that power when they agree. The entire universe would be run 'by committee' I can think of nothing more scary.
[Answer]
I would say yes, if **omnipotence** is "only" infinite capability for action and not a capability for knowing (**omniscience**) or a will to act.
You could perfectly have gods that could do anything in theory, but who do not do so in practice, because they do not know all that is going on. They could also be blind, dumb, fearful or lazy, so one would have to coax them to use their powers.
In that case you could have several gods who are omnipotent, in the sense that their action is potential but not effective. Then you would have a large space for a story to develop on how these gods would eventually use or not use their power, or use it well or badly.
[Answer]
In some sense, we have "systems" with multiple omnipotence gods right now.
Look at the PC or the phone you are using.
If you are the system administrator on the device, you can do anything to the files, programs, etc on the computer. This could be considered akin to an "omnipotent" being in the realm of that computer.
And there can be multiple system administrators logged in, especially on a linux computer. All with "root" privileges. Occasionally certain tasks can only be done from a single-user mode, like when you are resizing partitions or modifying parts of the kernel.
And beyond logged in a single-user mode, having physical access to the computer trumps remote access... with being able to disconnect the network cable, turn off the device with a hard disconnect or unplugging it all together.
Now take the levels of access and control described above, and apply it to a physical world/dimension, and you have bound rules for multiple omnipotent beings. Any god could come and change anything and everything, but they might not be present. Or they have to be physically present to be able to do certain kinds of tasks. Or in the midst of a world changing event, they have an exclusive access to the dimension for a brief period of time, and then access opens up again for any other being to muck about again.
Hope that helps.
[Answer]
## Yes, if you property define the scope of omnipotence.
Scoping omnipotence at first seems contradictory, but on closer inspection, *all* omnipotence is scoped somewhat. No construction of omnipotence, for example, allows a god to create something inherently contradictory, like a square circle.
Multiple omnipotent beings aren't contradictory, so long as you define 'omnipotence' in a way that allows for it. For example, what if you define omnipotence by saying that each god can create an infinite amount of energy in any form, including as matter? Such a god would be able to create or destroy anything anywhere, which is reasonably 'omnipotent', but wouldn't be able to stop other gods from doing the same. They could expend energy to stop another god from doing something, with both sides being able to push more energy into a conflict until it hit critical density and formed a black hole.
This is basically saying, "a god can do anything that's possible using infinite energy", which is a fair deal of omnipotence, while at the same time answering the age-old question: no, a god cannot microwave a burrito so hot that he himself can't eat it.
[Answer]
Omnipotence could, possibly, allow these beings to set something outside of their control, or to put limits on their own powers.
One could imagine the gods signing a pact and 'setting aside' some of their powers. While that might be smudging the line of omnipotence after such a contract, it might be the best way to allow them to coexist.
Perhaps any power greater than X requires a consensus to use. Perhaps each one would instantly know the actions and thoughts of the other, allowing them to immediately countermand an action. Or, perhaps, maybe they simply chose to give up a portion of their power, only to be taken up in times of dire need.
Many Christians consider Jesus to have given up some or all of the powers of God while on Earth, yet He remained the omnipotent God.
You can always count on the difficulty and complexity of divine natures to fill in the gaps. Perhaps we just can never truly understand how it was achieved. They are so far above us, how can we comprehend?
But without freely-taken limits or perfect harmony, you cannot have pure omnipotence in three beings.
[Answer]
It depends on the degree to which you're willing to handwave logical contradictions. The thing is, as others have pointed out, that omnipotence is in itself more or less logically impossible. There's myriad examples demonstrating how omnipotence leads to inherent contradiction, even if you apply the now relatively popular definition of "able to do everything that's not logically impossible" for omnipotent. It's a general problem of naïve set theory, see Russel's Paradox for the most famous abstract example. So if you're willing to allow omnipotence to exist, you've already decided that the whole thing doesn't need to be completely logically sound and some inherent contradiction is alright, you just need to make it feel not too obvious.
This means that your solution largely depends on the kind of story and mood you want to create. For example:
* in mathematics certain kinds of infinity can be larger than other kinds of infinity, so can certain kinds of omnipotence be more potent than others? If you have three gods, could one act as a tiebreaker if two have a conflict? Could they still have specialties that they're more omnipotent in than the others?
* religious apologists like to invoke "god's nature" as an inherent limitation of god which is supposed to leave his omnipotence intact, basically claiming that while god can do everything, he cannot want everything.
* also quite popular is to simply claim that god is above and not constrained by logic and thus able to be or do contradictory things at the same time. Islam is particularly well known for knowingly having a god with many contradictory traits at once, but the Christian god also does this. I will say that this isn't a particularly satisfying way of dealing with the problem narratively, but considering how many millions of people are willing to accept that gods work in mysterious ways and human minds just can't grasp them, maybe some readers will too.
* last from me, why do they have to actually be omnipotent in a philosophical way? you said yourself they should be so "in practice". Honestly then, doesn't "cosmically powerful" do the trick? A being able to create and destroy worlds at will is, from a human perspective, certainly omnipotent enough. The problem with "Omni-" is that it's absolute, even the smallest crack destroys it completely. However, the gods can still be considered omnipotent by the mortals simply by being powerful beyond their comprehension.
I also like the multiverse idea yuri proposed and the limited focus one user271667 mentioned.
[Answer]
Ask the same question about the **length of a piece of string**: They can all be the longest if they are **the same** length!.
As many of the other answers state, what you need to do is define what you mean by omnipotent.
If you twist the meaning just a little, you can say they are omnipotent **here**, rather than **completely omnipotent**. Thus they are all of equal power **to us** but possibly have some sort of **hierarchy amongst themselves**.
The idea that there are three gods **requires some sort of difference between them**, so they cannot all be exactly the same. If they were string, maybe they'd be different colours or materials. For gods, they'd have different personalities, but **their capabilities are still omnipotent in our reality**.
[Answer]
I'd add, gods don't have to be human-like. Perhaps their plane of being is simply such that its inconceivable for them to actually seek to destroy one another. They know where that would end up so they just don't, and won't ever. The question *"yes but ifffff......?"* can be left open as a teaser for the reader, perhaps put into the speech of some character.
[Answer]
As mentioned, the Animorphs solution is a consideration... If a being is all powerful, than it is powerful enough to kill another all powerful being. However, an all powerful being would be powerful enough to defend itself from a killing blow. So we have a conunumdrum here.
But you're forgetting that omnipotence means omniscience... a being that is all knowing (and omnipresence, or occupying every space all at once, but lets leave that down to functional teleportation for the time being.). So god 1 would know that attacking god 2 would result in god 2 knowing that god 1 was going to attack (before it happened) and building proper safeguards to stop it... this gets into nasty infinite loop kind of consequences and knowing what could happen if they came directly to blows. So the gods in their infinite wisdom would definately not do that.
In Animorphs, the two gods (the Elliminist and Cayarak) did reach this problem in their combat... and then got even more powerful... and they struck an agreement... they would face each ther in a long scale game that the entire course of the book series was probably akin to moving a pawn in chess... The rules were they could not directly interfere... unless they granted their opponent one meddling action to counter their own action. We can see this play out in two seperate Megamorphs books... In the first, the Elliminst realizes an individual using the Time Matrix (a time machine he created as part of playing around with god powers) and would dramatically alter the game in ways neither player could predict (but the Cayarak enjoyed because the present meddling was turning it in his favor). So Elliminst meddled by using the Animorphs to go after the time traveler and fix the issues. Cayarak okayed this, but his stipulation was that he would be the one to send them back and he demanded one of the Animorphs must die. All these things happen, but the Animorphs were able to finally stop the time traveler and undo all the events of the book, including the aformentioned death, by ensuring that the time traveler was never born.
In the second book, Cayarak offers Jake a do over of the entire series, which results in actually leads to the defeat of the main series antagonists earlier than if Jake hadn't made the decision, at which point, Cayarak calls foul and we learn how the Elliminsit countered the initial meddling... turns out, one of the characters has a temporal awareness that allows her to recognize a false timeline... and this gift can propigate, causing the others to actually be successful. Of course, between all the important connections on the team (two of the team are the brother and son of the same character, who incidentally gave all of them their mission to fight, and another was the son of the enemy general in charge of the entire operation, leading to the accusation that the Elliminst had stacked the deck... or was very clever about it if he had.).
Another comes up with the celestial sapiens from the Ben 10 franchise, which are a race of omnipotent aliens that all have split personalities... they can do just about anything... if both personalities agree... Of course, we learn that one is called bellicus and the other serenea and realize just how little that actually happens, so these creatures go for long periods of time without reacting to anything (they can't even move unless the two personalities agree on it).
In all, it's not impossible to be one of many Capitol-G Gods in a verse.
[Answer]
I vote no.
If you go to the beginning of time before anything is created -- how can you have 2 or 3 beings of unlimited AND EQUAL power? Did they come from the same place and just appeared in the universe at the same time?
Not even the Greek gods had unlimited power and they still had checks and balances between themselves.
When there is more than one god in the story, they usually have their specialities (realms). In your story it appears to be water, earth and life. Are you saying that each of the 3 gods are able to have identical power, or are they stronger in their attuned element?
Something can seem unlimited from a limited perspective. Software Developers from 40-50 years ago would be astounded by the processing power of modern computers, and from their perspective it would seem to be unlimited processing power because the majority of problems they were seeking to solve can be dealt with in microseconds. Once granted access to the power, they would learn quickly and seek answers to problems that start to reach the limitations of modern hardware.
But ultimately its not about the power but what you do with it. Eventually someone else will win and someone else is better than you. There can be no true equals, even among gods.
[Answer]
There was a computer game that dealt with this exact type of issue - it was called Sacrifice.
In it, there is a pantheon of gods, each with the power over some aspect. One of them is treacherous and is seeking to destroy the world/other gods.
Essentially, the treacherous one tricks the other gods into performing actions that further his scheme.
Also, a simple solution for either to do whatever they want is to create a demi-being and embue it with the power to perform whatever deed is desired. Both gods could be obeying the rules in the strictest sense - but either could do anything they want through a once removed party.
[Answer]
If your question had asked about co existence of multiple omnipotent beings, maybe any human theology would apply. Since your question is regarding three omnipotent Gods, we can't know/comment/debate or think about it. Any aspect of God that we can think about, wouldn't be completely true about Him since we would be encompassing that aspect (part) of God within our thought frames.
If there is a God, a creator, he has to be external to our frame of existence. Anything we can think of, would be bound to our scope of existence, which would be unable to reach Godly existence of truth. How can i claim this to be true? I cannot, no one can, because this is also applying some level of human logic to existence of God. The only way for us to realize a godly being is maybe He, Himself introduces to us, in a scope that appeals to our logic and we happily continue to exist with the fact that we cant completely understand His existence or the paradoxes that our logic frames, regarding His characteristics.
For argument's sake, even if we (which i deny can happen in the first place) happen to make a correct assumption about God, it wouldn't be sufficiently accurate ever to make any deductions out of it. There could always be another logical aspect that could satisfy the paradox of godly existence. Even the term "God" is coined by our petty minds. Had there been some absolute entity we knew about, based on whose character we had coined the definition of God, there would have been something to debate about. Questions like, Can a God exist with so and so paradoxes doesn't really govern his existence. Maybe its just our inability to comprehend the being's existence. The only way this can work is that, if He is out there (where?) and He tells us something about Himself, maybe? Even then we tend to accept the existence of something that our minds can accept, knowing nothing about the truth (if it exists) beyond the scope of our comprehension.
So re framing your question as can multiple omnipotent beings based on our "humanly" concept of God exist, so that no controversial paradox that might make our minds reject the supposedly godly existence, might give some ground for debate. Else any argument/deduction/comment/postulate being attributed to God isn't testable, arguable or even thinkable by us.
[Answer]
That sounds like my world, except it has 19 gods, all of them omnipotent (although they all have their own domain.)
There was one god, who became two. After a while, they had children who, together, created the whole world. One created the earth globe, another the oceans, one the volcanoes, one created sound, another light, etc.
After the inhabitants came to be, one of the gods realised that if many people worship him, he gets more power, even over the creation of his siblings. Thus, rivalry broke out among the gods, and they forever fight with each other to gain more followers. Meanwhile, the inhabitants know for sure the gods exist, and they could theoretically make them powerless (by not worshipping any of them), but life is just so easy with the power granted by the gods.
And that is all. Make them rivals of each other and dependant on an external force, and you are all done.
[Answer]
## No,
If the gods were truly omnipotent, their agendas would be exactly the same, and thus would be (mistaken as) one god, likely serving multiple functions.
[Answer]
# Yes, Study mathematical infinity
In mathematics infinity as a concept can be different sizes. In practice if your Omni's are the same level of infinity then one says DESTROY and one says DON'T DESTROY and the Third remains neutral then not much changes. If 2 want something to change and 1 doesn't, it probably changes, but I could imagine areas of effect (similar to the idea of approaching limits of infinity in math).
Anyway start here:
<http://www.businessinsider.com/the-different-sizes-of-infinity-2013-11>
and then explore zero
<https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/28940/why-is-infinity-multiplied-by-zero-not-an-easy-zero-answer>
and here
<http://www.vitutor.com/calculus/limits/properties_infinity.html>
] |
[Question]
[
Your people have been displaced by war, and have wandered for many months looking for a new home. Yesterday, you came across something truly marvelous. You are camped at the edge of a huge ravine, some two miles across and a thousand feet deep. At the bottom of the ravine runs a strait connecting two seas. Suspended magically in the midst of the ravine is a floating island, the top of which is level with the precipice upon which you stand, about a quarter mile away.
Your mission is to build a bridge from your location to that island, using the minimum amount of technology possible. Or in other words... how does one build a bridge when one has access neither to the ground below, nor the opposite side? Is there a way?
[Answer]
Hmmm, you've got problems. From the question text I'm assuming the island is at the halfway point and is ~1 mile across, so the bridge only has to be .5 miles long. I'm also assuming they don't have access to magic. If these assumptions are incorrect please clarify in the OP.
If they lack time and nearby resources they're screwed. If they have both:
One possibility is not building a "bridge" per-se, but rather extending a pole out to the island. Once they get one pole across it becomes easier to shuttle people along with, say, a basket and rope.
Now getting a half mile long pole across the ravine is no easy feat. If it's made of wood it's weight will make it bend down below the islands edge, so it will have to start at an upward angle or use some magic material that won't bend. It also can't be one piece, so these refugees will need to have the ability to make perfect connections between poles.
On second thought, a better idea: build a ballistia with a string attached to the bolt. Shoot the island. Now you have a rope extending across and you can either make a rope bridge or pull people back and forth in a basket. The first people to cross will have to crawl along the rope, so that will be dangerous, but also exciting if this is for a story.
Edit: So the longest range you can get on a ballista is ~800 meters. This isn't accounting for pulling along a bunch of rope capable of holding a man's weight. Don't wanna calculate that, so I'm just gonna halve it and say 400 meters (magic elven rope would of course help here). This is well short of .5 miles, so either the gap would have to be smaller, the ballista better, or they would have to build/find a higher place to fire from. For realism I would go for a combination of 1 and 3, but all would help.
Edit 2: **Better Solution**
Actually had another thought too. I'm assuming that if they can build a super long ranged ballista they can also build a boat capable of crossing the water to the other side. If they can, then send some guys to carry the end of a rope to the opposite cliffs (you'll need some good rock climbers). Then, pull the rope taunt so it's level with the floating island. Then shuffle someone along it to set up the pulley they'll use to cross.
This is probably a more feasible solution than the ballista, as the former would have its range vastly limited by the rope, and would be gambling that the bolt would be lodged strongly enough to hold both the rope and person.
Edit 2.5: **Better Solution Maths**
I'm guesstimating that the rope would weight 25 lb per 100 ft. This is mostly pulled out of my a$$, but rope capable of holding 100 lb on Amazon looks like it weights about 5lb per 100 ft. We need to hold a 200 lb man, plus its gotta be strong enough to hold together with just its own weight (not sure what the math is on calculating this strength), so maybe a thicker rope weighing 25 lb per 100 ft would be the way to go. Since you need 10,000 ft of rope, this brings the total weight to only 2,500 lb. This sounds heavy, but it could be a lot worse. They would need to set up some machinery on the other side to hold it taunt (and get the end up the cliff), but it's doable I'd say.
Or just go with the ballista.
[Answer]
**Make a balloon**. All you need is some decent **silk/linen**, **ropes**, some basket, and then **something to heat** up the air inside.
Heat the air, unstick the balloon, but take some rope with you so you won't fly away. Wait for right wind direction, fly over the island, land there (make a hole, or wait, or let someone rope down and anchor you and then wait).
Now you have rope connection between the mainland and the island. If you took only one rope over gap, all you now need is to tie on it another one at mainland side and pull it to the island. Then you will have two of them (and a big piece of rope on island). Alternatively you can make more flights by balloon.
When you have few ropes there, all you need next are just some planks to finish the bridge. Probably you will need a lot of ropes to carry such a long bridge (long? you should always use metric units, people all over world really don't know how long are your miles...), but it is quite easy to do if you have resources.
[Answer]
The answer lies in the question's premise.
>
> Suspended magically in the midst of the ravine is a floating island, the top of which is level with the precipice upon which you stand, about a quarter mile away.
>
>
>
The premise of your question suggests there is technology available in this world from which one can construct the bridge: the technology which allows the floating island to exist.
Now consider this. The floating island is essentially a *floating air pontoon*. Instead of a water pontoon. The air pontoon floats in air. Now imagine stringing together a chain of similar but smaller air pontoons to form the bases of the bridge. Then lower an attaching walkway between each pontoon in the chain. Now you have a floating air pontoon bridge as requested.
[Answer]
>
> Suspended magically in the midst of the ravine is a floating island, the top of which is level with the precipice upon which you stand, about a quarter mile away.
>
>
>
Ok, part of the locally available resources is something that allows magic suspension of huge static loads.
Use the *same* magic to make pontoons on which to construct the bridge.
[Answer]
2 miles for a group of poor refugees? We can barely do that with every bit of materials engineering and construction know-how that we have in the year 2017. [The largest suspension bridge in the world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi_Kaiky%C5%8D_Bridge) is that size, and it took 10 years and $3.6 billion to build it.
Without magic or handwaving, it can't be done in the scenario you present.
[Answer]
Does the magic hold the island in place horizontally too, or just vertically? If the latter, then all you need to do is harpoon the island and reel it in.
[Answer]
A quarter mile is not that bad, 700 meter ziplines exist. The longest footbridge span I know of is the [Kusma-Gyadi Bridge](http://www.highestbridges.com/wiki/index.php?title=Kusma-Gyadi_Bridge) in Nepal which spans ~300 meters. The hardest thing is getting the first piece of cordage across the span, a balloon with the lightest cordage possible would be your best bet, although depending on the span a catapult might work. Then you use that to pull heavier cordage across. The biggest for you is getting a person on the other side to tie toe cordage to something, that's why I said a hot air balloon might be necessary.
Nepal is full of rope and cable bridges if you want to see how they make them. Many spans are just crossed by a single rope or cable and they hang from a basket and hand-walk along it, Although their classic three rope foot bridge is probably the best for constant traffic.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BKGrg.jpg)
Oddly enough a suspension bridge (or more precisely half a suspension bridge), will work of a quarter mile, but it requires modern materials. The largest suspension bridge has a central span of 1991 meters (1.237 miles) that means you could make a nearly 1km long one sided bridge. that is [Akashi-Kaikyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi_Kaiky%C5%8D_Bridge) Bridge, Japan, but you need modern steel cables to do it.
[Answer]
Well, there's a way - bridging vehicles exist, and make bridges from 'one side':
[Youtube video of a 'real' one'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWMrY49qqDw)
[And a LEGO one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUJ4L4kmbHw)
It's pretty low tech - but moderately high engineering, as you need a folding span half the 'width' of your bridge, and a rather significant 'ballast' to stop toppling. On a quarter-mile span, that's going to be a rather impressive sort of a challenge - you'll need a bridge 'doodad' that's 2 lots of 200m, which isn't a trivial sort of a number. And enough 'counterbalance' on the bridging vehicle - you'd probably need a ballast on a lever, sort of similar to what you'd get on a [gantry crane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gantry_crane#/media/File:Portainer_(gantry_crane).jpg)
But in a world where there's magic, it may be altogether more doable.
The bonus here is that you could - potentially - recover your bridge, and have a pretty secure fortress....
[Answer]
**Use a kite**
This will require amenable prevailing winds, so let's assume the wind typically blows toward the floating island from the settlers' side. Tie a 1/2 mile rope with an anchor to a large kite with a release mechanism. Fly the kite over the island, and release the rope and anchor, dropping it onto the island from above. Now you've got a single rope spanning the gap. Do this as many times as you like to start building a bridge, or just start sending people shimmying across the rope if your people have good grip strength.
[Answer]
Assuming access to the required resources here:
The bridge needs to be a quarter mile or roughly 400m across, and you only have access to one end.
You start by building an upright frame about 600m high. That's doable, even with stone age technology, assuming you have wood, stone and rope. A frame alone is sufficient. Now, ensure the frame is solidly anchored to the ground by tying long logs along the base, and driving pegs into the ground to hold them in place.
Next build a smaller frame inside the 600m frame, about 400m long, just longer than the distance from the 600m frame to the island. Loosely connect the upper end of the smaller frame to the main one. Strongly tie the base of the small frame to that of the main one. Once this is done, bridge the gap of the small frame with planks. I think you see where I'm going with this.
Once the smaller frame has been completely covered, attach a rope to the top end, loop it over the large frame and tie the other end to a large bucket full of rocks on the ground. Untie the top of the small frame from the large one and push the top end towards the ravine. The bucket should act as a counterweight, preventing it from crashing down. Remove a few rocks from the bucket, until the small frame starts to slowly fall under it's own weight.
Send a few people with ropes and stakes across your new drawbridge to secure the other end by tying it to trees or into stakes dug into the ground and your bridge is done.
If you haven't scrimped on the material or workmanship, it should be as strong as any castle drawbridge, but you might want to consider rails, both to reinforce the structure and to prevent accidents.
[Answer]
0.25 miles away is 1320 feet, which is a stretch, unsupported.
Ravine is 1000 feet deep. So the bottom of the ravine is closer than the edge of the floating island.
The top of the floating island is level with me. It does not state how low the bottom of the island is off the water.
Option 1: from below. I have at my disposal one large cliff, optimally placed, and as much gravity as I care to use. I propose with liberal use of explosives, the top of the cliff be liberated and sent downwards. Repeat. Liberation of this sort is the pastime of oceanside cliffs everywhere and there would likely be at the foot of this cliff the accumulated products of the cliff's own efforts over preceding centuries. A benefit is that material from the top of the cliff will tend to bounce and slide outwards, thus closing the distance between the edge of the cliff and where the flying island starts.
One can add to this pile additional material and so approach the bottom of the floating island via a pile of debris. Accumulated debris will probably be in a mound wider than necessary and human efforts can move and stack materials in a pyramid which more effectively approaches the bottom of the island.
Option 2: Reel it in. An intrepid, either climbing up from below route as per option 1 or flying across in a hot air balloon, lands on the floating island, finds the controls and then steers it closer to cliffside, to facilitate desired bridge. If this is the Miyazaki Castle in the Sky type island with no obvious directional control, one could exchange the balloon tether for successively stronger ropes, affix ropes to something solid on the floating island, and have your burly brethren reel it in. It is not like it will get stuck on something. Once it is close then put your bridge across.
I personally would be a little skeptical about the whole endeavor unless I were aware of other similar islands which had been colonized and which had not suddenly dropped from the sky when the float gubbins wore out.
[Answer]
A quarter of a mile is 400m. That's a long bridge span if it's supported both ends, but as you're only supporting it from one end during construction, that's one hell of a long cantilever!
My first instinct was balanced cantilever construction, to build a single-tower cable-stayed bridge. This construction method is often chosen when building cable-stayed bridges. Basically you build a tower, then add a piece of bridge deck to one side, connect it via cable to the tower, then repeat on the other side to balance it. In your situation, as you'd only have a cantilever on one side, on the other side you'd just be anchoring the tower down to the ground with cables.
However, this becomes a bit problematic when compared to today's technology. The Queensferry Crossing\* [took the record](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-37622588) for the longest freestanding balanced cantilever. And that's for [central spans of 650m](http://www.ramboll.co.uk/projects/ruk/queensferry-crossing-northern-europes-largest). Which means that the length of cantilever from each tower was 325m. So the world record for this type of construction is less than your desired distance.
The other option I can think of for building a bridge from one side only is launching it. This is where you build a bridge on land, and then push it out.\*\* This is really best suited for a bridge with multiple short(er) spans, so that for launching over the first span, there's a lot of bridge still on land to act as a counterweight. For use on only one span, you'd need a lot of counterweight! Add in that you're looking at a span [right at the top of what's achievable without cables](http://bridge.aalto.fi/en/longspan.html), and it's going to be very heavy and difficult to push.
In conclusion: What you're looking for hasn't been achieved in real life yet. I think it would probably be possible: there's no economic need to build a *pedestrian* bridge like you've asked for, so no engineers have tried: similar spans are always for heavy vehicles. But in order to build such a bridge you'd need state-of-the-art technology, not simple technology.
\* Disclaimer - I was a Design Engineer for this bridge. :D Though I was working on the approach spans rather than the cable stayed ones.
\*\* This is how the approach spans on the Queensferry Crossing were constructed. Super cool videos: [no1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDTRGag4Ijo) and [no2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZdbgDVyG7w). NB Videos are probably only super cool if you like engineering.
[Answer]
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z9e4k.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WEhwn.png)
In this picture I removed most of the land so I did not give the impression the whole island is surrounded by land.
The person wanted 2 seas (1 & 2) and a river so now you don't have to imagine them. The river could obviously be much narrower or further away to allow as much dry land underneath as the person wants.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hepD3.png)
I made this drawing with sketchup make so I could show that it works for real.
```
Green is random ground, and upper area.
Blue is the air gap.
Brown is the floating island.
The pink area is the walk from 1 to 2, just follow the rim, say 20 feet away so no one falls in.
Solid black line is rope, I had to made it super wide so you can see it, but it is actually a normal size rope.
```
\*\*You still need LOTS of rope! approx 13100 feet \*\*
However, nothing besides rope and wood.
* Group 1 is the starting point, and hold the end of the 13100' rope.
* Group 2 carries the other end around to point B. Then they pull it tight. The rope now crosses the island. Since this was done to scale the black rope line is hard to see.
The rope is 2.5 miles long so physically carrying the rope into position should only take 1-2 hours maybe 3. Making said rope well that is another story. However, the rope has to be thick, but not super thick as at least 3800 feet will be on top of the island.
They may now cross the air gap by climbing along the rope.
You will still need large stone anchor points on each side to hold it in place.
* No magic.
* No hot air balloons.
* No shooting arrows with ropes.
* No hang gliders
Just a group of people carrying a tremendous amount of rope along the cliff side and pulling it tight.
Note one side is 5400 feet from island other side is 3700 feet. Between these positions you could attach a number of rocks say 20-40lbs along the 3800 feet it crosses the island. That way if the rope broke on either side the weight of the stones would hold the rope in place, allowing them to cross and repair the rope. Also you could put knots in the rope to keep the stones from moving to far to the left or right.
Fearless leader, cybernard , undaunted by the task ahead gives his 3000 followers time to rest. They have had no chance for groom, and etc for as long as can be remember. He has all of them cut off at much hair as possible. They contribute 5' feet on average for 15000ft, and another 1500ft in men's beards. They work tirelessly turning the hair into a rope for the task ahead of them.
[Answer]
I don't know your resources, but I would imagine a gently floating pontoon bridge. Simply align air-floating objects (like boats/rafts) and build a bridge across.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/H8mH6.jpg)
All you need is wood and rope. Where I am skeptical about this solution is the size of your body of water - it is very large, and susceptible to currents, et al. So brace it as well as you can.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YmttC.png)
[Answer]
## Walk one or more ropes out to the island using the accessible land
Here's an opportunity for an **epic**, simple and totally believable solution - make a few *extremely* long lengths of rope, and find a way to have men walking it out over the ravine.
Ideally, get a man or two to that other side - whether they have to dive and swim/climb to the other side, or use hang-gliders, or use any natural features which may help them, enough epic perseverance will eventually get somebody to the far side of that canyon. And from that far side they can walk the other end of the rope across until it connects with the island. You could even then have the men on the far side die tragically and then give you a mystery or a later need to get to where they were.
**If you're totally adamant on making the other side completely inaccessible, just reconfigure your ravine - make it *just* concave enough to allow such a feat without leaving your starting side.**
---
## This gives you options for later on
So you've created a simple, but fragile and temporary solution to getting to the island. This solution can go lots of ways - it can be built on, it can break, it can even provide unintentional access to an unknown entity from the far side of the rope. If you can loop the rope all the way around the island, perhaps your men (or somebody else) could even physically haul the floating island to land... or otherwise fail in their attempt to do so, for whatever reason.
[Answer]
<http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/11/tiles-vaults.html>
Catalan Vaulting might actually be a useful technique here. It's a pretty cool technique that allows the construction of long spans that are very strong with relatively small amounts of material. The biggest concern for the completed span is that your floating island not move.
I'm no expert, but it might be doable. Overlapping layers of tiles could be initially supported from below with supports. maybe add some suspension bridge rigging. This is an interesting problem, but you might be able to build out with this technique.
[Answer]
A kite is absolutely the most practical solution. This approach is actually quite simple and logical; it's probably the most practical solution yet.
It is also not without precedent. I'm shocked no one has mentioned the Niagra Falls bridge: <https://www.niagarafallstourism.com/blog/flying-kite-contest-1847/>
Of course the challenge here is the fact that no one has access to the other side, but this isn't as much of a problem as you'd think. The trick is to **not** tie, but *loop* the kite string through a ring attached to the kite, flying with the kite string "doubled".
Once the kite is well-lodged in a tree on the other side (yes, this may take a few tries, and perhaps a few kites), begin pulling the kite string continuously through the loop, attaching a stronger string, then a rope, and so on. As the rope gets stronger (and heavier), attach a stronger, heavier anchor (such as a grappling hook) -- this should also be attached with a ring so the rope can continue to be pulled freely through. When the anchor reaches the tree on the other side, it too should lodge.
You can repeat this looped-rope-and-anchor process as many times as needed to reach the desired strength. Finish by tying a final anchor to the rope and pull through until it catches firmly on the other side.
Now attach this rope to a tall tree or simple wooden tower on the local side and "zipline" across. The individual brave enough to test the zipline can tie down the anchor more solidly once they reach the other side. Naturally they should have also brought across 1-2 additional ropes, which can be manipulated from both sides to begin making a proper bridge.
Welcome to the floating island.
[Answer]
Wikipedia has a whole page on [moveable bridges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moveable_bridge) designed to allow ships and bridges to coexist. What you need is any of those a bridges that are anchored on just one side of the chasm plus some unobtanium or magic.
You could also build a pivot bridge entirely on land and then pivot it out over the chasm. This has the advantage of keeping all the builders work on solid ground.
] |
[Question]
[
I am trying to create an organism that can survive in space for short periods, but I realized that I can't have its eyes be similar to those of most animals and humans because they would boil in space.
Is there some sort of alternative for eyes that do not boil in space?
[Answer]
Grow you some extra-tough [nictitating membranes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nictitating_membrane)... eyelids you can see through! You'll probably have to deploy them with a bit more ceremony than merely a sideways-blink... you might have to secrete some gloop around the edges to form a seal, wipe them dry with your paws to prevent any frost forming and interfering with your vision, that sort of thing, but there's no reason that with enough effort they couldn't be made to work.
The eye won't suffer any serious ill effects if it remains well protected behind a membrane which won't itself boil or freeze-dry. Your vision will be distorted, sure, but it beats the alternative and you'll be able to operate with some minimal level of functionality. Think about how well your eyes work underwater without the aid of goggles or a mask, for example.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/cTHfA.jpg)
[Answer]
[Barreleyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barreleye), a.k.a. spook fish, have their eyes well inside their heads. They can see just fine, because their heads are transparent.
Their eyes are the green structures you can see below:
Such a configuration might be helpful in a hard vacuum.
[Answer]
The extinct organisms known as Trilobites had compound eyes which had lenses made of calcite crystal.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dihyJ.jpg)
This hard mineral layer would protect the sensory cells underneath from exposure to space.
[Answer]
>
> I can't have its eyes be similar to those of most animals and humans because they would boil in space
>
>
>
That's not true. Regular eyes don't boil in space (vacuum). The whole boiling/blowing up thing is mostly Hollywood imagination. Humans and other animals can survive unprotected exposure to vacuum for minutes unharmed even though none evolved to this environment. <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/survival-in-space-unprotected-possible/> Your requirements can be fulfilled with only minor adaptations.
The biggest problem with eyeballs is not the water contained inside, but the tear film on the outside - this would boil leaving eyes dry. As every liquid boils in vacuum, you need eyes that can work when dry, externally. So, snake eyes. Their transparent lids are always closed, protecting the layer of liquid an eyeball can slide on.
[Answer]
Eyes work in space. If they didn't, astronauts couldn't see. Seems kind of what you're looking for is a strong transparent layers that can insulate the eyes. Which leads me to a question - what's the rest of the alien made out of? I assume this animal has got some sort of non-living organic shell, similar to crustaceans. In which case all this animal needs is the transparent variety.
The best thing I would suggest is a layer of clear fat cells (for insulation), followed than by a formerly organic layer of clear shell.
[Answer]
[Nautilus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus) is an ocean-based macroorganism (mollusc) which has pinhole eyes. This means they function without any liquid water inside, and can survive some time in space. They're not very good as eyes go, but then again many mammals don't rely on eyes that much.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nAX9W.jpg)
[Answer]
Go with gecko eyes, they have eyes like any other vertebrae, better than humans, except they have a solid transparent scale (literally called spectacles or eyecaps) that grows over it. So there is no exposed fluids. That is why they occasionally have to clean it by licking, no external fluids. Snakes and a few other reptiles have a similar scales but gecko have both eye caps and eyelids.
this will give you all the same functionality of a human eye without the exposed fluids.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YceKm.jpg)
[Answer]
Ever heard of tardigrades (water bear)? They're a microanimal known to survive exposure in space (extreme temperature, pressures, and radiation. I don't know if it can be scaled up, but they have sensory bristles and rhabdomeric pigment-cup eyes.
[Answer]
You might consider diatoms <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatom> which have the ability to deposit silicon dioxide in their cell walls. They can be transparent, or have structural coloration due to refraction of light. Extend that ability to deposit SiO2 to multi-cellular creatures, and you can have them evolve quartz lenses, prisms, and perhaps even mirrors, all of which form the basis of human optics.
So your SiO2-depositing\* creature can capture and focus light. Now all you need is some sort of sensor that works in vacuum. Now since your organism already manipulates SiO2, it isn't stretching credibility to imaging that it could evolve something like a CCD or CMOS sensor, as used in digital cameras.
\*Note that I'm not suggesting silicon-based life here, just ordinary carbon-based life that can also manipulate SiO2 at the nanoscale.
[Answer]
I feel like boiling isn’t the main problem, especially since others here have mentioned physical layers. Keep in mind that this physical barrier would probably require pigment to absorb UV radiation so it doesn’t burn out the retinas/corneas depending on visual spectrum.
] |
[Question]
[
All right, I'm whipping up a speedster character. Figured if she's going to run real quick she'll have to think very quickly so that she doesn't end up as a smear against a wall. So, I did some calculations to determine how fast she'll need to think in order to run and I came up with a decent conversion. Anything that can be done normally in a single day, she can do in a second. In essence, she perceives a single second as 24 hours. It's here that I have a problem. Given the radically different perception of time, how would this affect the speedster's ability to function outside of costume?
\*In responce to some comments below:
No, she ages normally she just perceives time differently.
I'm handwaving majority of physics and biology in relationship to the actual movement, and focusing on a more psychological angle.
[Answer]
Yeah, this character might have never actually spoken to another human, depending when the superpower is activated. They are just too slow to meaningful interest with. Heck, most people probably couldn't interact with her because standing still long enough to be registered by the human eye would require a twelve hour nap on her part.
If anything, areas which this character protects would basically appear haunted. A crazy blur is always happening, food and water constantly goes missing, objects move around, and beneficial things (people getting saves, bullets vanishing from criminals guns, homeless people suddenly acquire coats) happen almost at random. Unless your character leaves notes, it would take people a while to figure out what's happening.
If her metabolism is three meals a second, she would be able to eat an entire grocery store in a month. And I hope she has good planning skills, cause otherwise she wouldn't be able to actually cook anything. If she can manage having a house with that kind of diet, she might appreciate hummingbirds, who STILL are crazy slow compared to her.
That all sounds like an awesome concept to me, but there is a problem that does need to be solved for this plot to work:
The average person lives for 27.000-ish days. That means your character's entire lifespan would be 450 minutes, or **seven and a half hours**. That's a heck of a short superhero career. But hey, it could be an absolutely world changing glorious seven hours.
[Answer]
>
> ...how would this affect the speedster's ability to function outside of costume?
>
>
>
Supposing she gets the power out of the blue someday, she will crack (mentally) within under a minute.
For starters, the world will be a much darker place. Her flicker rate being 86400 faster than ours, she will have only $\frac{1}{86400}$ of the ambient light available for each frame of her visual cortex processing. On the other hand, if her flicker rate is not different from ours, she is as blind as a jellyfish.
Also imagine going to the bathroom. She will have to go at least once in the first couple seconds. As she does number two, the... It falls 86400x slower. She will have to pull it out with her hands or wait what would seem like a few days. And when she tries to clean herself with toilet paper, the friction of cellulosis being rubbed against human skin at hypersonic speed will literally set her ass on fire.
[Answer]
>
> Anything that can be done normally in a single day, she can do in a second.
>
>
>
You're talking about a speed-up factor of 86,400 times faster.
An average human walks at about 5 km/hr.
Your speedster walks at 432,000 km/hr.
The speed of sound in air is about $\frac 1 {400}$th that speed.
**How fast is "realistic" ?**
Well you'll need to drop those numbers down a lot.
Energy requirements to travel fast are proportional to the *square* of velocity. So traveling 86,400 times faster requires over 7 *Billion* times more energy to reach that velocity.
That's not remotely realistic.
Also keep in mind that you're moving through air and as you start approaching the speed of sound it will become hard to shift out of the way. The technical term you need to be aware of is [compressibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressibility).
The practical limit for a speedster is probably in the region of sub-sonic, maybe in the 500 km/hr region. Going super-sonic is doable, but your speedster will be leaving sonic booms in their wake and rapidly draw attention from angry mobs and the authorities.
**My Brain Hurts.**
Alas even that 500 km/hr may be impractical.
You've a brain and nervous system that operates at electrochemical speeds, which is regrettably slow. This page from Wikipedia on [Nerve Conduction Velocity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerve_conduction_velocity) tells us that the faster speed would be about $120$ m/s or about $430$ km/hr.
Remember those speed limits posted on roads and all that stuff your driver instructor told you about vehicle separation ? That's for a good reason : people can't react that quickly. The limit is how your brain and nervous system works. Your speedster racing through the streets at 500 km/hr can't (if they have a human nervous system) react fast enough to avoid collisions.
So your speedster is really not human at all - no human brain or nervous system, no human anatomy because that can't support such rapid movement.
Now humans do drive cars and other vehicles fast, but keep in mind the context that is done is. Driving at 100 km/hr on the motorway is different from trying that on the street - the distances between potential problems is larger giving you more reaction time. Likewise other forms of high speed transport.
[Answer]
Ignoring the physics and just assuming you literally fast forwarded your character, your character won't be able to function in real life. Your hero is operating 86400 times faster than a normal person or everything is 86400 times slower. Nothing would appear to move to her and her memory and understanding of speech and sounds would be vastly different and she would basically need a perfect memory to be able to say hello at a normal persons speed, let alone have a decent conversation.
You really need to scale perception and thought speed along with movement speed, otherwise your character won't be able to operate properly because they interactions will take place over what is effectively a life time.
For a comparison here is the entire bee movie, 2 times as fast but it speeds up by 15% everytime the word bee is mentioned its a 1.5 Hours movie in 5 minutes, Roughly 18x faster. Still 4800 slower than how fast your hero perceives things
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMG1Nl7uWko>
[Answer]
If you want to focus more on the psychology of having the speed power, your speedster should be able to use the power (both movement/speed perception) in a similar way that you use your muscles.
>
> Anything that ***can*** be done normally in a single day, ***she can*** do in a second.
>
>
>
As your speedster is activating powers 0(human)-100%(86400x), just slow down time by that much. You don't need to slam your fingers as hard as you possibly can while typing. I don't see any reason why this power would be treated any differently than using a muscle. Now that is not to say that using the speed muscle exerts effort (my heart is pumping blood and that costs me no effort). With that being said, some psychological effects of such a power would be...
1. You always win!: Your speedster can play almost any skill game and either be amazing (playing FPS/ any traditional sport/martial arts) or cheat to victory (playing poker and peeking at opponents hands/move an opponents darts midair if playing darts/get the answers to test by running around a room) etc... This might contribute to **confidence** in many social events such as bars, carnivals, street pickup games allowing your speedster to shine in many areas while putting in a lot less effort than normal folk.
2. [Ring of Gyges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges): There is an argument to be made that your speedster might have to deal with a lot of moral issues. Assuming your speedster is the only one she can steal, kill, commit petty acts such as putting individuals in awkward position (trip/draw on someone's face/undress a coworker at work until they are fired) without impunity. She couldn't even be perceived. Having the speed ability is a **burden or a vice**.
3. Dealing with the cost of time: Your speedster can interact with many people face to face with basically no lag time in terms of getting to an individual. Your speedster has also had a life where *most of the time* she can ask herself "Oh if I want X task to be done, I'll just do it really quickly and I still have my whole day ahead of me". Cleaning/traveling/maintenance/possibly her job can all be optimized by going faster. It might be frustrating that hanging out with people consumes so much of her time when she can be doing other things. Consider going out on a date to the movies. She is probably accustomed to speeding up all movies and then perceives everything normally at relative speed so she can watch an entire movie in seconds. NOW when she goes on a date to the movies it's a huge time sink. In this way the power makes her **very selective of the people/places/events she interacts with and perhaps even a bit impatient**. Even hanging out with someone that speaks to slow can be a huge burden of time on the speedster.
4. Anxiety/Guilt: Just because she can think *faster* does not make her think *better*. There may be some circumstances where she sees a problem, but is helpless to solve it. Panicking while the world is in slow motion. Worse yet, a circumstance where she could have solved the problem but only thought of the way in hindsight. For instance, if in the speedster's past a helicopter fell nearby her and only after it fell to the ground exploding she realizes she could have spun her hands real fast and lowered the helicopter to the ground slowly. Or perhaps some sort of [Gwen Stacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Gwen_Stacy_Died) situation
5. Food: OK so here's how she should eat. She will typically eat a cheeseburger when she is hungry 3 \* a day (cheeseburger is example, substitute for meals). So that is 1 cheeseburger every 28800 seconds. Every day she goes into super speed mode, run the following calculation (keep adding while doing it per day)=> \*\*(relative seconds spent in speed \* power level (0%-100%) \* 86400) \*\* Whenever she breaks 28800 that's another cheeseburger she needs to eat. example 60 seconds \* 100% power \* 86400 = 5184000 => 5184000/28800 = 180 cheeseburgers consumed that day. She may need to eat a lot depending on power usage. There could be some social pressure to not eat around others. Your speedster could be seen to pig out all the time yet never gain any weight. Might cause suspicion rumors or contempt to arise.
6. Self taught: Literally no one can keep up with your speedster. Even if the person knows a wealth of knowledge, the best thing a teacher can do is to just throw books at your speedster. Your speedster probably knows an insane amount of information at subjects she is interested in. The rate of speed that she can acquire info will quickly allow her to become a specialist in any field she desires.
[Answer]
Everyone is assuming the speed up is reliant on normal physics. But this speed up is impossible by our understanding of how normal physics works, so why does it have to act by those rules?
First of all, assuming you are not worried about her ability to physically survive with the speed up and only considering the mental, you can solve the interaction problem by changing the power a bit. Rather than perceiving as we do at a massively increased rate, the character could simply be able to react to stimuli at that rate while still have regular thoughts or perception. Then she can interact with people like anyone else, but move as fast as she needs to when the time comes.
Secondly, if you are worried about making the speed increase operate "believably" in regards to bodily needs and such, that's probably not possible. Speed increase is such a crazy thing that I'm actually kind of a fan of how the Flash does it. Just saying "speed force" if anything sounds impossible and being done with it. Otherwise, you have to come with ways that the power affects so so many things about the speed and its effect on the environment. Trying to consider super speed as if it was truly the same as moving at that speed makes it less like a super power and mainly just deadly and destructive, either to the user or those around them.
[Answer]
If it really was permanent then I imagine she'd be bored most of the time. Originally I thought she might act like a disinterested teen that was bored with everything, but the 1 day to 1 second ratio is so extreme that even this would be hard to pull off.
Having studied the current unchanging environment for the equivalent of several weeks without moving (30 seconds our time), she might see something begin to happen.
I think she'd need to be able to go into a deep meditative state for 99% of each millisecond, to avoid death by boredom, waking to keep track of what reality was doing. She would have the time to be deeply spiritual, if that is her thing. Or develop fancy maths to solve in her head and be a super Einstein.
Of course, she'd never drop anything, and would always know where to be at the right time, which could appear freaky to her friends even if she hid the super power. Listening to conversation would be difficult as she'd literally be sleeping for weeks during each sentence spoken. Speaking would be even harder. Imagine forming individual words over a period of days.
There are some problems to overcome. How does she breathe? If I breathe once per two seconds, does she breathe at the same rate even though it appears like once every 2 days to her? How about when she is being fast, does the breathing speed up then to match her metabolism?
If in fact her metabolism does change rate to match her speed then maybe when at slow speed she perceives reality at the same rate that we do and your problem is gone?
[Answer]
Why do they need to think faster?
I'm sure we've all had the experience of seeing something and simply being unable to move fast enough to react. If we could move that bit faster, we *could* get to that ball, or catch the plate before it falls, or whatever. We already know where it's going, we just can't get there. If your speedster is running down a straight road, they can go the same speed as a car.
More interestingly though, some regular humans are already able to slow down their experience of the world to react to it.
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19477623>
I wouldn't really believe this, except that I have personally experienced this once, and I'm far from an elite athlete. This was a pedal bike accident, where a brake lever fell off and jammed my front wheel. In the time for a half rotation of the bike wheel at 20mph and the subsequent quarter-rotation of me and the bike, I had time to: work out what had come off, what had happened to it, analyse my options, feel the lever hit the frame, realise I was going to go over the handlebars, adjust my foot positions to allow a clean launch out of the toe clips, and adjust my arm positions to ensure I would travel on a breakfall trajectory to roll off a shoulder and protect my head. The time it takes you to read that out loud is how much time it felt like I had. I've just done the sums, and 3/4 of a revolution with a 2cm tyre on a 27" wheel at 20mph is 0.18s. I reckon I must have experienced something between a 20x to 50x subjective processing speed-up.
So do your speedsters need extra thinking power? Not really. What I did once, what John McEnroe does as a matter of course, they simply have switched on all the time.
[Answer]
I love ripping on speedsters for their outrageous abuse of physics, but in this case, there may be an interesting alternative.
It appears that you assumed that everything the speedster does got scaled up to higher rates of speed. However, what if that isn't so? What if the core of their being moves slow, and it's only the extreme peripheries that are fast. Such a speedster would see a greater dynamic range, but would still think on human scales, so would be able to relate to you or I.
There's plenty of biology to back this up. If you look at how the body works, from local reactions to reflexes to pattern generation networks all the way up to conscious thought, we already exhibit a *tremendous* amount of "fast" processing that happens at a subconscious level. Nobody says a speedster *has* to process conscious thought quicker. It might be more desirable to be able to relate to you or I.
Myself, I find the pattern to be rather interesting. Such a speedster would have to spend a tremendous amount of time practicing their art, ensuring that once they move up to high speeds, their high-speed-processing parts of their mind are capable of handling any surprises that may come their way, for the slower human-scale parts won't have time to react. Such a speedster might choose to be ultra-moral, because of just how much they can do wrong before their conscious brain catches up and tries to undo the mistakes.
Such a speedster would be able to function completely normally within society, because the core of their mind was still operating at human speeds. They might have some trouble hiding the fact that they are a speedster, if they instinctively do something like catch all of the food when someone gets tripped in the cafeteria and their tray of food goes flying. But after that instinctive save, they'd still want to say "hi" just like everyone else, because the slow part that really matters to them just wants to be part of their community.
[Answer]
Comics writer Peter David described the psychological aspect with the Marvel Comics speedster Quicksilver:
>
> "Have you ever had a day where you are at the
> ATM and you are in a hurry because you're running late but the person
> in front of you doesn't know how to use the ATM and they're taking
> forever? Now imagine what it must be like to spend every day
> surrounded by people who don't know how to use the ATM."
>
>
>
[Answer]
Depends.
Our own natural adrenal response "slows time" or appears to. So, if your speedster is only a speedster when the adrenaline kicks in, then their perceptions of normal time / speed things are probably no different from our own so far as normal, everyday stuff.
If the speedster is *always* a speedster, then everything else is moving in super slow-motion for them. Waiting on a person to complete a sentence - 10 seconds or so for us - is waiting DAYS for the speedster.
It would probably display as the worst case of ADD ever, the speedster constantly doing thousands of little fidgety things while waiting on the molasses-like rate of the non-speedster's words. It could even make them completely unable to communicate with others; they can't slow down their speech enough (literally spending what, to them, is a day of time to say one word) and similarly don't have patience to wait "days" for that sentence to be completed.
[Answer]
If the speedster cannot turn off his abilities temporarily, he will probably never be able to interact with normal human beings. This would probably drive him mad within seconds (from the outside world). Solitary confinement is one of the worst things we can do to a prisoner.
If he is moving this fast, we will not be able to perceive light in the visual spectrum, but rather shifted one way or the other (I'm not sure which way).
At his speed, he will be moving so fast that a distant obstacle that is out of his range of vision will be too close for even him to avoid.
The guy would never get to enjoy a movie, because all he'd see are pictures that look similar to each other switching at long intervals. Considering the quality of most movies, not a loss.
Modern technology would be ruined by him. Imagine him trying to use a keyboard. The speed of his fingers would break it.
But the big thing is that he would live in a world of unmoving objects. The speed to sound is basically the speed that air can't get out of the way of something (hence the shock wave). He would suffocate in open air because he couldn't move the air in and out of his lungs to support himself. He would go to open a door, and the momentum of the door would be too powerful for him to push it open. A mosquito flying innocently along for him to run into would kill him.
And once he got up to speed, how would he stop? If he suddenly stopped, where would all his momentum go?
One second to 24 hours is much to large a ratio. Even the Flash doesn't move that fast most of the time, and he is one of the most overpowered characters in comic books.
One thing I've considered I call the Flash Paradox. After a battle, the Flash immediately cleans up the scene. From the point of view of the other characters, this is just something that takes no time. On the other hand, the Flash is subjectively doing all this work, so for him it might have taken days (or longer, some of the cleanup that he does are huge projects).
[Answer]
maybe her Source of quickness or speed can be some kind of energy, which will accelerate her mind and body while being used or build kind of field in which time would be warped in order to be accelerated. In that way she would be able to interact with other human beings on a normal level.
If her body is the source of power, her suit might extent the power to her immediate surrounding in order to move through air without trouble.
] |
[Question]
[
In a world I am building, the sapient species (the Lokk) have discovered another species (the Lotl) and they have decided to go to war. The problem is that their bone design is physically weak against blunt force trauma. The Lotl have noticed this and are able to easily kill swathes of the Lokk with little effort.
The Lokk Emperor has decided they need to design an armor for protection. But the design that works for [us](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_armour) is too heavy for the average Lokk soldier and barely manageable for even the strongest Lokk, never mind the fact that these soldiers would be travelling miles every day.
What lightweight armor can my species wear to protect them?
*Edit*
Let's assume that this species lives in medieval era Europe.
[Answer]
Focus less on actual armor and more on keeping the enemy at a distance. Ranged weaponry is your friend. In most role-playing and computer games, the sling is almost always seen as a sub-optimal weapon. In actual use, using prepared shot (not just stone, but specially made of metal or ceramic), they can be quite deadly. If the Lokk are also physically weak in addition to being frail, then the crossbow may be ideal, if using cranks to set them.
Speaking of friends, heavily armored trained warbeasts (rhinos, elephants, etc) can be used to directly engage while the Lokk stay back. This does assume a more fantasy element in which such warbeasts can be controlled and directed better than in the real world.
Light cavalry (lightly armored, fast moving, armed with bows, slings or javelins), will allow the Lokk to strike and not remain in place to be smacked with blunt force. Heavy cavalry would not be a good option, as that is all about dealing (and often receiving) heavy strikes and direct conflict.
Formation fighting will be vital for when combat does get close. Shield-walls and Turtles equipped with spears and pole-arms will keep direct "hand-to-hand" combat to a minimum. These will also be the counter to any heavy cavalry used by the Lotl.
Of course, as the Emperor has declared that the solution is to wear armor, it will be the job of his advisors to not have their heads removed while attempting to let the Emperor know that his solution is not practical.
[Answer]
In medieval Asia, cloth and bamboo were both used in certain types of armor. Cloth was also used in Europe, but usually in conjunction with other materials. A heavy, quilted cloth layer surrounded by strategically located "shell" of bamboo "plates" could do well against blunt force trauma. Obviously, with medieval armor, you always have the basic tradeoff that armor which is great against blunt force is usually bad against stabbing or slicing, and armor which is great against stabbing or slicing is usually bad against blunt force attacks. This is why warriors of the era would be proficient in multiple types of weapons and armies would alternate things like polearms, long bladed weapons, piercing arrows, and maces or war hammers. It is very hard to create an ideal armor against all of that (eventually, Europe did with Maximilian plate, but by that time, hand to hand weapons were already on the way out).
An alternative is to forget about the armor. We are talking about a lightweight species with limited strength that needs to move a lot. In ancient Greece, the Hoplites maximized mobility and protection by forgoing any armor (and sometimes even clothes) apart from greaves and a helm. To protect themselves, they used a very heavy duty shield, and the warriors trained for years to be able to coordinate their defense by locking shields together and protecting the man on their left as they moved as one unit. It took a lot of skill and discipline (and years of training) to do well, but the Greeks were able to get a heck of a lot of protection out of (almost) nothing but very well built shields.
[Answer]
Ghengis Khan is your friend here. As mentioned above, If the turtle option ain't working, it's time to go with speed and range. Medieval horse archers were absolute masters at this. The Khans never really used frontline type troops (infantry and the like), unless they were co-opted from other armies, and even then, they never played a huge part in their tactics.
A problem with this is that light cavalry can get thwarted by rough terrain.
Fighting from behind good fortifications is something you can play with as well. Mobile fortifications, might be a bit more fun. think more like howls moving castle rather than just tanks. This takes away the need for individual armor, but it has some obvious flaws as well. crack open the mobile fort, and everyone inside is going to have a really bad day.
Finally, you can look at one of the turning points in warfare, the advent of the firearm. A trained archer is superior in almost every way to a simple rifleman except for the fact that it takes years and years of training to become highly effective. You can hand a peasant a rifle, and he will be effective almost immediately. You need to be fairly strong to fire a bow. Little old ladies can handle even muzzle loading guns with ease. The point is, firearms do not require big muscles to operate. Primitive firearms might be slightly out of technological scope, but gunpowder based weaponry did exist that far back.
[Answer]
**Pillows**
So, the Lokk are too weak to carry all kinds of plate, and their enemies have figured out that stuff like maces work wonders against frail bones like Lokk's. Doesn't look good.
Maces/hammers were the anti-armor weapon of the era, able to do harm to plate armor and scoffing at stuff like chainmail (which does almost nothing against blunt force).
The thing about hammers is that you only have two armour options to protect against it: Increase strength (and thus thickness and weight) or... cushion it.
Unfortunately, a human would need excessive amounts padding to negate a warhammer, and the Lokk are frail-er, so they'd need even more. They'd need to look like... Helmeted walking pillows.
Oh, and forget to protect about stuff like polehammers or halberds.
All in all, the armor way won't work unless magic is applied.
[Answer]
## ALON Armor
[Transparent bulletproof aluminum (aluminum oxynitride)](http://www.tssbulletproof.com/optically-clear-aluminum-provides-bulletproof-protection/) might make a good armor.
Aluminum armor can deflect the same rounds from small-caliber weapons as traditional bulletproof glass, but it will still be more clearly transparent even after being shot. Also, a .50-caliber armor-piercing bullet could sink nearly three inches into bulletproof glass before stopping. [Aluminum armor can stop it in half the distance](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RnUszxx2pYc) and yet is half the weight and thickness of traditional transparent armor.
In addition, transparent aluminum armor can be produced in virtually any shape and can also hold up to the elements much better than traditional bulletproof glass, which can be worn away by blowing desert sand or shrapnel.
## ALON Mechs
If you want to, you could build powered exoskeleton armor suits out of ALON, and have bulletproof mech armor.
[Answer]
Don't go into battle and forget armour -- and use an 'underground' and terrorist-types of retaliation and fighting? Suicide bombers, mines (if you have gunpowder) or deep pits lined with stakes , stealth and intelligence? Draw armies into areas where the smaller Lokk could fight? In the booby-trapped trees, in a valley where there's a natural barrier that allows few Lotl through at a time and the sheer numbers of Lokk to Lotl evens the field. Perhaps a poisoned food or water supply, even poisons that the Lokk, though physically weaker, were immune to? Use natural elements like fire to fight? Or build a dam and let it open to kill thousands of the enemy? Push the enemy off of cliffs? Poison darts?
I like the idea, but not the armour.
[Answer]
Animals and engineers.
Taking out swathes of your enemy implies some way to project force to more than one enemy at a time. We're not talking about raging berserkers here. (If you were thinking raging berserkers, the premise itself is flawed. Use ranged weapons. Use a longer pokey-stick. Whatever.)
Animals give you an organic buffer between you and your attacker. War dogs go back to classical times and were moderately effective as a means to disrupt an organized front line. No organized front line, no coordinated attack, more effective missile troops and long pokey-sticks. Your world might have larger animals that can be trained as easily as dogs, and I'm not about to fight the army with a front line of war triceratops. Mounts change your attack surface. Are they killing squishies by rolling logs downhill? An elephant won't care as much and provides some cover for missile troops.
Engineers give you a better battlefield and siege engines. Dig a ditch. Run some wire. Put a wooden wall on wheels. Cover your head with a roof like a medieval battering ram. Put a team of mules inside a light siege tower in lieu of elephants. Whatever makes sense to deal with the scary smashy weapon.
[Answer]
You didn't mention much about what kinds of weapons these species have, even by mentioning the medieval era, so it's hard to give precise answers.
---
If these species are too weak for normal heavy armor, what about "spiked armor?"
There are many animals in our world that are covered in spiky hairs known as "Quills" or "Spines" to protect themselves, most notably Porcupines, and Hedgehogs
>
> Porcupines are rodentian mammals with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that protect against predators.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porcupine>
>
> In a zoological context, a spine is a hard, needle-like anatomical structure. Spines are found in a wide range of animals both vertebrate and invertebrate.
>
>
> In most spiny mammals, the spines are modified hairs, with a spongy center covered in a thick, hard layer of keratin, and a sharp, sometimes barbed, tip.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spine_(zoology)>
---
Here are a couple of videos showing how a Porcupine defends itself, and more information on the quills.
<https://youtu.be/4U-u4CsnygA?t=42s>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37mB2n9Rozw>
So what can you do to your story?
1. You could change elements of the Lokk in your story so that they are born with spines.
2. You can have the Lokk find a way to produce armor with light spines that can aid in battle.
The issue comes with what weapons the Lotl have, and how strong the Lokk's spines are. You could technically make extremely strong spines that wont be broken by swords, and can pierce armor.
---
EDIT 1: Since @Rick Ryker mentioned that the spikes could contain poison, I should note that there are many ways that these spikes could contain any amount of nasty in them.
For example you could have spikes containing
>
> poison,
>
>
> acid,
>
>
> flesh eating bacteria,
>
>
> tranquilizer/stun,
>
>
> a viral attack,
>
>
> or even a parasitic attack that overtakes the host.
>
>
>
Another thing that could be noted is that they also could have other sort of abilities, such as being able to spin webs like spiders, or even crazier abilities such as Planaria's ability to be cut in half and regenerate into 2 separate beings (would make them very overpowered then, but just giving an example).
You also could make it so that they are able to breed in crazy high numbers and their numbers make them strong. For instance, the Army Ant is tiny and could be crushed easily by us humans, but an army of them have been known to take down humans easy.
---
Essentially, just because they are weak structurally, doesn't mean they couldn't have an ability that makes up for their weakness, just like the many animals in our world.
[Answer]
Focusing on deflection could give them a chance - highly angled and curved plates could improve survivability by hoping to turn a blow rather than absorbing any impact (cushioning the impact with padding would be far too cumbersome and interfere with movement to remain effective themselves). A solid hit would still be deadly, so seek to deflect and only take a glancing hit.
That said, armor is not a good solution here - the key is to avoid actual melee combat when at all possible. Easily broken bones should never be in a position to be struck in the first place. Shields will likely just break your shield arm, and armor is great at preventing cuts but the kinetic energy of blows will still wound the body underneath (hence why hammers and poleaxes became so popular as armor got better, though thrusting with a point to get through a vulnerable spot remained a favorite).
Two basic strategies come to mind:
The first is the use of light cavalry as mounted archers (if possible). Heavy cavalry is not advisable as any melee is going to significantly stress the skeleton, but hit and run tactics focusing on archery and [tent-pegging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_pegging) (emphasizing mobility to run in and make a quick attack in passing) should be highly effective. They could harass the enemy support troops, hinder logistics, or just tire the enemy through being a constant annoyance slowly bleeding them which cannot be caught. Though this would be an effective way to weaken an enemy over time, it will not take/hold ground or survive long in the thick of fighting.
The second strategy will be the core of the combat - [pike squares](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_square). These would be blocks of lightly armored troops wielding long spears, relying upon keeping the enemy at distance and defense in depth (especially pertinent here as such melee combat would still put comparatively little stress on their fragile bones). If gunpowder arms are available, the [pike and shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_and_shot) method would be ideal, but infantry of pikes supplemented by light cavalry should prove effective.
[Answer]
Micheal Richardson hit on some of it, but I think everyone's missing the fact that this species *can* have a great tactical advantage that they're not using: lighter bone structure.
Seriously, think birds in that they're extremely weak against blunt force (die by running into windows) but their agility is something we can't match.
Your species should not be donning any armor (besides *maybe* leather to protect from enemy ranged weapons) and should be fighting in forests and from the tops of trees. Their lighter frame and bone structure should mean they can safely move in the higher tree branches without breaking them and can thus move more easily out of range. Guerrilla warfare is their friend.
They should also never engage in open-field warfare except with ranged weapons in a fight and flee scenario with traps and specific fallback points and even then, their lighter frame is definitely not suited for what humans typically use as military strategy for war.
[Answer]
Ride something like a horse or elephant, and have a heavy shield attached to the saddle to give you more protection than you would be able to lift in your weak little arms. This will, with some luck, allow you to complete a charge without being taken out by arrows on the way. Maybe give the animal a little armour at the front as well if you want it to survive first contact with the enemy.
[Answer]
1. **Unobtanium**
Tolkien's hobbits wore mithril, a super light and super hard metal. The Lokk might have access to large quantities of such a material and could armor an army with it.
2. **Super Advanced Old Technology**
The first carbon fiber was produced in the mid-1800's. The greatest Lokk inventor perhaps figured out how to spin coal ash into a hard but brittle thread, and applied a resin coating to form the substance into a plate. The result is a hard and lightweight but brittle material that can take a punch or two before it shatters. You might add a thick fabric behind it to provide a little protection against piercing weapons.
The difficulty in lots of modern technology isn't necessarily the fundamental idea, but rather the prerequisite scientific understanding or the development needed to make something practical at a large scale. Neither things most readers care about. Lots of similar technologies exist.
3. **Super Advanced Old Technology 2**
Large quantities of Aluminium were not available until after the invention of the Bayer Process in the late 1800's. The Bayer Process itself was discovered by accident. The Lokk could have had that accident much earlier, or they might have access to native (pure) aluminum deposits.
Aluminum is a relatively strong metal (although we usually use it in thin sheets, so it might not seem like it), but not quite as strong as steel. By density, aluminum is about 3 times lighter than steel. According to various rules of thumb I found online:
* If a medieval set of steel plate armor weighed about 110 pounds, then an aluminum version would be about 75% as strong but only weigh 36 pounds.
* An equally strong set of aluminum plate armor would be a little bulkier, and weigh about 55 pounds
* Aluminum is more malleable than steel. This would make it less effective versus blunt weapons and somewhat more less effective versus piercing weapons, since the metal deforms easier. On the flip side, the material is easier to craft with and repair, and can be formed into more complex shapes.
It is relatively abundant as well.
4. **Super Advanced Old Technology 3**
Titanium in this context would be similar to the above discussion of aluminum. It became viable to produce in bulk in the early 1900's through a directed research program in chemistry. Titanium is about half as dense as steel, but is about as strong. If a medieval suit of plate armor weighed about 110 pounds, then the titanium version would weigh about 55 pounds but be dimensionally similar (unlike aluminum, which would be bulkier).
One big caveat about titanium is that it would be significantly harder to work with. Not that your medieval Lokk would be welding, but titanium welding must be done in an inert atmosphere (argon or nitrogen) or else chemical corrosion will embrittle the material. It can actually be shaped similar to stainless steel, but readers might assume that titanium simply can't be worked by hand.
[Answer]
# Lightweight Materials
Bamboo, wood, splint armor or slat armor (made with metal, wood, or other materials), or even bone were all common armor materials at points in time. Raymond E Feist's [Riftwar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Riftwar_Saga) saga makes use of lacquered wood on the invading foot soldiers, though this was more due to lack of materials than strength requirements. The same could work here though.
# Shape Matters
Reading up on Kendo armor, the chest/belly plate is crafted with a bulge to specifically direct forces away from areas of weakness. The same application can be used to craft your armor to spread the impact force out, making it less likely to break specific areas.
>
> The main component of the dō is the gently curving stomach and chest protector. The modern form has a pronounced bulge to help direct the force of strikes away from the soft areas in the middle of the torso.
>
>
>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C5%8Dgu#D.C5.8D>
[Answer]
Massive, technological advantages. Also many people and/or animals like horses. I had to take some educated guesses as to what they have available. **The basic idea here is ancient Egyptians built great pyramids with primitive tech like wheels,pulleys,levers, and fulcrums so these people should be also to handle heavy items one way or another.**
1. Heavy carts and wagons can be pull with animals if you have the right kind.
2. Series of pulleys will allow them to lift and move things they can't.
3. Levers and fulcrums, and etc.
They will need to move, and place great walls around their kingdom so they can't be easily over run. While the wall is being built 10's of thousand of your guys will be killed during its construction, because it wasn't built in advance.
The wall will need to have 1000's of bow and arrow barrage firing mechanisms that can be loaded and pull back with pulleys and levers(block and tackle) or whatever. Several adults may still be needed to pull back on the bow and arrows(fire if possible) and/or crossbows. A way to quickly reload the arrows, either teams of 20 or more people or some kind of automation.
Your going to need tons of automation to produce the require arrows made out of wood or steel. Catapults and the like. Through a series of primitive conveyor belts they will have to keep the arrow coming. They will need to be able to carry and move things the people are not capable of carrying or moving. Powered by horses/people/animals on treed mill like devices.
You will need wheels and strong axles so you can make heavy tanks that can be pulled with teams of horse, people or etc. Of course, the protection surrounding the people/horse would add a lot of weight but its only way you would survive.
Possibly, dozens of gerbil wheels with people running inside of them to help provide movement.
Again, once cannons were in place, pulleys/levers/etc would have to be used so they could load, and aim them. You probably need 1-2 loading,1-2 aiming, and probably 1 could fire. So teams of 5.
Build on a hill so you can flood it with water, making moving through the mud harder. Can you make some quick sand traps?
If cold is available make it so icy they can't climb it.
Traps of all kinds.
Primitive flame throwers.
It would be best if they could build primitive combustion engines with gunpowder, but probably unlikely.
If they could make white phosphorus weapons, certainly a boon.
Equipment with spinning blades,knives,arrows, or anything sharp.
Poison and plague delivery like poison arrows and animals infected with the black death or whatever flung at them. Again levers,pulleys,fulcrum will be need so these weak people can load them.
[Answer]
The Lokk do not fight a head-to-head war with the competent and more durable Lotl. That would be silly. Instead, the weaklings fight the war the Ferengi way. By **financial attack**.
1. The Lokk engage in economic warfare in order to slowly drain the coffers of the Lotl. They can put tolls on bridges, fund piracy and banditry, and undercut markets where the Lotl are weak but dependent. If nothing else, all these things are distractions and may cause rivalries within the Lotl to erupt into conflict.
2. Surely the Lotl don't have a single homogeneous empire, especially with medieval technology, but a loose kingdom of envious rivals. Find the most greedy, ambitious rival and make an alliance. They provide troops that the Lokk cannot. The Lotl will provide the funding and perhaps gain territory.
3. If the Lotl economy is based on gold, the Lokk dump gold to drive the value down. Now prices go up, the balance of power in the Lotl ruling houses might change. Normal people can't afford anything. **Social stress** is accomplished.
4. If this sort of thing is known, Lokk operatives secretly deposit the seeds of non-indigenous invasive plants or foods known to have mold/diseases that affect the Lotl food sources. The point here is to create **stress** after a winter or two.
But you never said *why* the Lokk want to go to war...
[Answer]
I have 5 Ideas:
1: Once, in medieval England, the king hosted a practice tournament for his knights. The knights used boiled leather for armor, which is hard but light.
2: Wooden shields. Light but effective. Wood is pretty hard.
3: Long-ranged weapons. It doesn't matter how not-tough the Lokk are if the Lotl can't touch them at all.
4: Traps. Maybe a large group of Lokk throwing rocks or taunting to Lotl, with a deep ditch dug between them, covered with sticks and mud.
Will edit this question if I get more ideas.
5: Don't attack them at all. Send wild animals or even just roll some rocks down a hill at them.
[Answer]
A species that is weak to blunt force strikes is common, but let's say they're weaker than humans, which doesn't really matter.
Armor itself if around 50lbs and lighter than you think.
Blunt Force Trauma Armor is what you would consider "light." Gambisons and such are just stitched together fabric which lightens the blow of blunt force strikes on the body and stops cuts fairly well. So I don't what the issue is.
Heavy armor deflects cuts and blunts the points of piercing weapons. Wearing such armor actually makes Blunt Force strikes worse in some cases.
Most people fought in Light Armor with Maille over it which is far less than 50 pounds. If they are the same size as Humans, but weaker by 50% I'm pretty sure this would still be light enough for them to use so I don't know what the issue is.
[Answer]
The Emperor has spoken. He wants armor, not alternative solutions, so he gets armour.
The challenge here seems to be quite a specific one about protection from blunt impact weapons to prevent bones being broken. The nearest human equivalent has been the need for protective helmets -- not military ones (which are geared to prevent penetration by high-velocity fragments and bullets) but sporting ones.
The good news here is that helmets are not made of metal or anything heavyweight. You can do anything with suitable biologically-sourced materials from the bark and leaves of your special armor-tree.
Typically such protection has two layers. The outer shell may be rigid (eg carbon fiber) or, more likely these days, something which deforms on impact. The inner layer with be a material which absorbs impact.
In either case, there are versions which deform once and then need to be replaced (like cycling helmets) and those which bounce back and can be reused (like football helmets).
NB such armor is not as effective against pointy things, but that was not in the spec, your highness.
Details will depend on what body parts need protection - I assume head and abdomen/thorax - but I would suggest a medium-sized lightweight shield, used to deflect blows, and layered armor as described over the vulnerable parts.
And, if one may suggest, long pikes would mean said enemy would not get close enough to use a blunt melee weapon.
[Answer]
If you want to stick to armors, how about a lot of spring-like structures sticking out of it? It'll absorb shock from the opponent's attacks. To deal with thrushing, the springs are covered with oil which makes the blade slip. You can make the base armor with light weighted materials such as aluminium, titanium, fiber reinforced plastic, bamboo like others suggested.
] |
[Question]
[
If a chunk of land mass the size and position of Sweden took off and floated away in a straight line, exiting the atmosphere and orbiting earth, at what distance would it be visible from, let's say, South Africa?
Alternatively, what size would our planet have to be to allow for such a floating land mass to be visible from the proportionate equivalent of South Africa, while still within the bounds of the planet's (unchanged) atmosphere?
**Edit:** Thanks for all your detailed and interesting answers! Didn't expect my silly question to blow up like that, tbh.
I was quite tired when I first posted and realize that I haven't specified some things properly.
Originally, I had intended for floating Sweden to remain geostationary, orbiting *with* the planet rather than around it (because magic).
I thought perhaps the atmosphere's refractivity (which only @Chronocidal mentioned as far as I've seen) might allow for a high enough Sweden to be visible on the horizon, if the observer was positioned at the northernmost point of South Africa, with no obstacles in his line of vision, at maybe 1500 meters above sea level.
But in light of the response here, I decided to just have my floating island properly orbit the planet somewhere within the thermosphere instead.
[Answer]
Given Sweden has a latitude of 60° N and south Africa of a bit over 30° S, you can never see one from the other no matter how high one is and no matter how small the planet is (as long as it still is big enough to allow you to neglect the distance between your eyes and the surface).
The Sweden simply rises further away in the hemisphere invisible from South Africa.
That is if Sweden rises simply above and continues to stay above the used-to-be-Sweden, i.e rotates with Earth. If it starts orbiting Earth forming new moon, it will probably pass over South Africa sooner or later. Obviously, I am magically hand-waving away the atmospheric friction.
Edit: very sophisticated visualization:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y7jaj.png)
Edit 2: for a more general solution, given both points have the same longitude:
cos (difference in latitude) = (Earth radius, 6378 km)/(Sweden distance from Earth center, i.e. height + Earth radius).
For point directly below equator this yield
```
0.5 = cos(60 - 0) = 6378/(h+6378) -> h = 6378 km
```
waaaay above atmosphere.
[Answer]
**There is no atmospheric height any object of any size can be, perpendicular to the location of Sweden, that could be seen by anyone standing anywhere in South Africa.**
I don't need math to prove this. Just take out a piece of paper, draw a circle, and use a ruler to start drawing lines. That combination cannot be done.
Alternatively, visit maps.google.com, scroll out until you can see the whole planet, and rotate it until Sweden is in the middle. It'll look something like this (credit: Google):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1ULhE.png)
Molot's answer (which is the mathematically pure answer, go vote for it) brings out that tall things slightly beyond the edge of the hemisphere defined by Sweden acting as the pole or center of the circle will see Sweden *if it's high enough.* But below that it's geometrically impossible — there's a planet in the way.
And that example, above, assumes we send Sweden so far away that the entirety of its defined hemisphere can see it. If we limit that height to keep it within the atmosphere, then the total area that can see it at any height within the atmosphere (~300 mi thick) is something more like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/K4Y6d.png)
Compared to the radius of the Earth, our atmosphere is proverbially as thick as a sheet of paper. Variations in land height don't matter, either, as those variations are less than the dimples on a golf ball compared to the radius of the Earth. When you're talking about the entire planet, it can be reasonably modeled as a smooth surface.
**Conclusion**
There is no height within the atmosphere that would allow Sweden to be seen from any point within what we would normally call the Southern Hemisphere. There is a height where it could be seen by a couple of points in the Southern Hemisphere (see that area below the dashed line in Africa? Yeah, the dashed line is the equator), but Sweden would be so far outside Earth's atmosphere that it likely doesn't matter for your story.
*This assumes you do not subscribe to the Flat Earth theory. I don't.*
[Answer]
---
This answer is fundamentally flawed in that it assumes that the 'horizon' formula is valid for any value of *h*.
Unfortunately, this is simply not true, **and as the image shows**, it is only a valid *approximation* when *h* is much less than RE
>
> (RE >> *h*)
>
>
>
---
If you can see something depends on how high you are, and how high is what you look at:
[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Distance_to_the_horizon)
Africa is reasonably flat\*, so assume a person 2 meters tall (or he may be standing on something ;) )
You can look and fiddle with the numbers [here with nice calculator that does the math for you](http://members.home.nl/7seas/radcalc.htm). With Observer at 2 meters and object at the edge of space (100km) visual horizon is at the distance of 1134km. [Distance from Sweden to South Africa is 10058 km](https://www.distancefromto.net/distance-from-sweden-to-south-africa), so it is about ten times too far to have a line of sight.
To get the line of sight, you will need to put Sweden at **height of about 7922km**. That's outside atmosphere, but inside [Van Allen radiation belt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt), so long time life support would be hard for at least these two reasons.
---
\* Of course for more precise result you should include the mean or max elevation of South Africa, and decide where, exactly, your observer is placed to account for mountains, valleys, trees and so on. The above calculation is meant as an estimate, and to show a way how to calculate it yourself.
The question says only "from South Africa" so we can assume optimal point of observation, Thabana Ntlenyana 3482 meters high (+2m person) for the flying height of **"mere" 3452km**. No trees or other mountains to significantly change this altitude.
[Answer]
If you imagine an idealised planet with a star at an infinite distance, how much of the planet can see it? The answer is half: the star projects a cone that rests on an equatorial line perpendicular to the direction it lies in. Those standing on that equatorial line are looking along the tangent to the curve of the surface of the planet.
So the basic question is, what is the minimum distance at which this is still possible, or rather, given two opposite points on a circle, where do their tangents intersect? This is effectively squaring the circle that forms said equator, which simplifies down to the square root of 2r^2 (minus the radius of the Earth if you want the height above it).
**In the case of Earth, that comes to 2,639km**, however there are other factors regarding the shape of the orbit that might have an effect. Obviously, given an orbit it will not be visible at all times to the whole planet. However, if that orbit is geostationary (e.g. proportional to the rotational speed of the planet) it will only be visible to half the planet when above said height.
Given orbits are elliptical, it's also possible that it is not above that height the entire orbit. If the orbit resonates with the rotation of the planet and has a low point below said height, this could create dead spots that will never see it in the sky.
Finally, there's always the possibility of mountain ranges and atmosphere practically limiting visibility along the line of the tangent.
[Answer]
You have three questions here.
**1. How high can a geostationary Sweden be visible from South Africa?**
**Answer: 68,100 km**
This is a question that humanity has pondered since we first climbed down from the trees.
The other answers are correct that if two points are more than 90 degrees apart on the globe, they cannot see each other at any height (unless the earth has a big groove in it or atmospheric refraction does something funny, but we don't have to consider that in this answer).
The correct way to calculate angular distances between two points on the globe is to use the haversine formula. This takes both latitude and longitude into account. I'm feeling a little lazy today, so I will just take the distance measured on Google Maps, divide by 40,075 kilometers and multiply by 360 degrees. This is equivalent, and I've checked that the math lines up.
If Sweden goes straight up from the point of view of its center point, the important location of Sweden is Flataklocken at 62°23′15″N 16°19′32″E.
I found a point near South Africa's Zimbabwe that is 9,472 km away from Flataklocken, which comes out to 85.09 degrees.
You're in luck! You can see Sweden from South Africa. It will be low in the sky, within 5 degrees of the horizon. It will be brighter than the full moon since it's a lot closer.
If you intend to actually do this, I'd recommend buying a hot air balloon to take South Africans up to view.
Some math:
a = 85.09 degrees (this is the angular distance between South Africa and central Sweden)
r = 6371 km (this is the radius of the earth)
find h, the height of Sweden
cos(a) = r / (r + h)
Therefore
h = r (-1 + 1 / cos(a)) = 68,100 kilometers.
This is over 10 times earth's radius. It's far outside earth's atmosphere, but low enough it's not going to crash into the moon.
**2. If Sweden were floating in a geostationary position in the upper atmosphere, how far would it be visible?**
**Answer: 2400 km**
Earth's atmosphere only goes up 480 km, so if you want Sweden to stay in a geostationary position in the atmosphere, it won't be visible from South Africa.
If you want the people of Sweden to have enough air to breathe, it will have to be even lower. I'm not going to run the numbers for that, because that's not the question you asked.
The equation is the same, except in this case, we know h and r, and we're trying to find a.
r = 6371 km (this is still the radius of the earth)
h = 480 km (Sweden floating in the edge of the atmosphere)
cos(a) = r / (r + h)
Therefore
a = arccos(r / (r + h)) = 21.57 degrees.
This comes out to a distance of 2400 kilometers.
This isn't far enough to see from the southern hemisphere, but you would still be able to see southern Sweden from parts of Algeria and Tunisia. As far as I'm concerned, that's good news!
**3. Can a Sweden orbiting in the atmosphere be visible from South Africa?**
**Answer: No**
If you can make Sweden orbit at this low elevation, it can be visible from every point in the world. But you can't make Sweden orbit in the atmosphere.
Orbit means something is spinning around a world without rockets or thrusters because it is going so fast that gravity can't pull it down. You can calculate the orbital speed for any height in a vacuum. Unfortunately, orbit is not possible within the atmosphere because the air resistance will eventually slow Sweden down so that it will crash into the earth.
Don't despair. You can still make Sweden fly. You'll need to buy big jets or something else that uses energy to move it around. I don't know what your budget is, but I think it's still worthwhile. Think of the spectators in South Africa.
] |
[Question]
[
In [this Answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/69576/practicality-of-a-thorium-powered-superheated-steam-car/69577#69577) I came up a scenareo under which [Eriek’s](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/32834/eriek) concept makes sense.
I rather like this idea: an expedition or colony on another world has to, *for some reason*, pull up stakes and move. They can’t build large-scale high-tech machines from scratch, so they go all [steam punk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk). They make simple wheels for all the hab modules, and on the building housing the nuclear reactor they fashon a pair of simple steam pistons to turn wheels, with no gear box or transmission. They have a 19th century **train** powered by a nuclear reactor, and likewise all the solutions they come up with have a steam-punk flair, combining modern engineering knowledge with more primitive materials handling and fabrication techniques.
So, that begs the question of: **why would they have to move?**
My original note suggested Mars, as it would be easy to come up with new iron parts. But what could possibly necessitate a move on Mars? So I open it up to any solar system “world” that can support humans living in sealed boxes. Some moons are problematic due to the radiation belts around their primary. Besides survivability with this level of life support, they need local resources for making new large machine parts (given they have power to smelt ores, liberate alumium, or whatever), and the environment must supply a reason why they must relocate.
---
**Edit:** The reason should be “realistic” [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'"), so ghosts are not an acceptable reason. The situation should consider real knowledge about the geology and other properties of the settled body. Use real resources, not McGuffinite.
[Answer]
*This isn't our land anymore, kiddo.*
*There was a time in the past your old grampa here would oversee all of those mining operations, from the Red Hills all the way to the Prima City. It was such a sight - all those white, shiny domes, resting on the red blessed lands of Mars. Heh, Red. Red meant money, back then, kid. Nowadays it means just death and a idiotic flag. Nothing more.*
*Your gramps was all fine and good, riding under the sun on my trusty Palomino-II rover, keeping an eye on those robotic builders while they put down the tracks for the Red Planet Express, to the notes of "I'm working on a Railroad", a nice, old song from my youth. I don't know, it seemed somehow appropriate.*
*But them, those dammed reddies showed up. We always thought that it would be aliens, or some sort of magic gate that would wipe us out from this planet. But no, it was the reddies. **Those** reddies, back from earth. They weren't happy with our claim on this rock, oh, they weren't, I'll tell you that, and they went all **North Korean** on us. Sent some interplanetary missiles, right down on us. They would take some time to hit Prima City, but that didn't meant we could stay, oh no. We had to leave. Weren't going to be nuked by those reds that easily, oh, no.*
*So we had to pack up and leave. We had to scramble every single bit of tech we had to transform the Red Planet Express into this damn beast she is today. We put her on tracks, but a different type of track. Tank tracks. We buffed up her engine, we gave her a huge array of weaps and drilling tools to make sure she would be able to clear the way. We made her into this dammed beast, oh, yeah, and your grampa was there to make sure she worked just fine. I handled those nukengines as I would handle my wife, with passion and desire for my work. 'Cause, kiddo, if we weren't fast enough, we would be just bones on the red sand by now.*
*That's how she came to be, and just a little bit of her huge, long history. She's chugging down nukefuel for sixty years now, and it's nowhere near stopping. And you'll be the one that will make sure she keeps that way, to make sure those cogs don't stop spinning and she doesn't stop cruising the red sand.*
*We can't stop for long. We need to keep moving, to keep watch of the skies above us. 'Cause you never know when another nuke is coming, and you won't want to be sitting down when it arrives.*
*So now she is yours to drive, kiddo. Make sure to take good care of it.*
*I know you'll make Grampa proud.*
**With those words, the Machinist took out his overseer pin from his jumpsuit. He held it on his hand for a moment, looking at it with eyes that almost gave out sadness. For him, it was the end of a life of dedication to the engines that kept his people and his family alive. But he wasn't able to hold back the smile that slowly crept on his lips. Well, yeah, it may be the end of *his* story as the Overseer for the Red Planet Express, but it wouldn't be the end of her story. She would keep rolling on the red, dusty surface of that wild planet, running away from an invisible threat that may not even exist anymore.**
**She would rage on, keeping everyone inside her safe. Keeping his story safe. And, more than everything, giving those people inside her a reason to hope for a future when shouldn't be none.**
---
Sorry for the broken english.
This works?
[Answer]
Keeping it on mars, one easy reason is flooding. If they are there teraforming, things start to warm up, a lot of permafrost will melt. That water has to go somewhere, and the most likely place is the [Borealis Basin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Polar_Basin_(Mars)) which is very low ground and covers 40% of the planet.
Water could be brought in with comets, or it could be natural ground water, since there is evidence that there may be more water on mars than we know about, but either way, if they set up their town in that area, and the water started to rise, they might suddenly realize that they miscalculated where the coastline was going to end up and now their town is going to be underwater unless they move a bit up slope.
An alternative would be setting up their town down in a canyon or up on a rim. The ground softens and it looks like the canyon wall might destabilize. The real question is how far you want them to have to travel. If they are on top of the canyon then they only need to move a few miles away. If they are down in the bottom for some reason (mineral deposits?), they could be worried that the whole canyon is unsafe, and so need to travel a very long way to get out of it.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Gv9UD.jpg)
There are places in the Valles Marineris where you could stand in the center of it and the canyon walls would be over the horizon, but there are other areas where the canyon is much narrower.
A good candidate area would be the Noctis Labyrinthus, which is the twisty area on the left of the image.
**Edit:**
Another idea, they might just decide to go nomad.
"We're here, in the middle of this dusty plain/crater/wherever and people go out and tell stories about the majestic views they see. How hard would it be, really, to just pack everything up and move the town around. We've already scouted this whole area, it's about time to move somewhere fresh anyway..."
**Edit 2:**
So it's not a colony, but a spaceship carrying pieces of a colony modular style. They crash on a planet that is really close to the star. Thankfully it was on the night side, but dawn is coming. It's a very slow rotation, but eventually the sun will rise and everything will burn. So they start setting up the modules to make vehicles to run away, but that's only buying time since they'd never make anything big enough to really survive, and rescue isn't coming very fast, so why not make the whole thing mobile...
[Answer]
One way is to look at cities that have been moved in our past. A current example is [Kiruna, Sweden.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#Moving_the_town) Kiruna is moving because a mine caused the ground to be unstable. However, Kiruna gets to do it all high tech and such, [Hibbing, Minnesota](http://www.mnopedia.org/event/relocation-hibbing-1919-1921) did it in 1919 with just horses, logs, farm tractors, a steam crawler, steel cables, and human power. [Tallangatta, Australia](http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/a-diverse-state/tallangatta/tallangatta-the-town-that-moved/), moved because of a dam's construction. For a more sci-fi bent, something similar to [Winnipeg Junction's](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Um__h9oN--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/191wacg54wk58png.png) reason might be used. We can imagine that the town of Landing, Mars was important because they had the only space port. That worked until a space elevator was built. So they all pack up and move to where the space elevator is going to be built.
[Answer]
An extra solar colony would be heavily dependent on shipments of supplies from its parent. If these shipments are disrupted, the viability of the colony would be immediately jeopardized. The colony's growth vector would have to be adjusted, making the current location less suitable for the changed circumstance.
The shipments were disrupted by political turmoil on earth. Shipments are not expected for some time, if ever.
The shipments contained heavy machinery and survey probes utilized for expanding the colony and stabilizing the subterranean supports necessary for permanent habitat domes. Current supplies were intended for short term establishment and were never intended for the creation of a permanent and self sustaining residency. The first shipment was supposed to arrive within a month of touchdown but is now 6 months late. With geological activity increasing in frequency, we must quickly find a more stable location, even if it is less geographically advantageous.
**Below are why cities are founded and why they move.**
Cities are built in their locations because the location is advantageous geographically. This could be due a variety of reasons.
1. There are natural resources nearby whose extraction require a local resting area.
2. The presence of a transportation resource: a large body of water, railroad, or spaceport makes travel and trade easy. A city naturally forms there to capitalize on this.
3. It was the first habitable location the settlers came across, and the cost of relocating is enough to prevent them from moving once they are rested.
4. The location is defensible in an unknown or hostile area.
Reasons why the city may be moved.
1. The natural resources ran out, became inaccessible, or became useless.
* Example: Whale oil was utilized heavily, but became less important as time went on. The towns that solely existed due to whale oil disappeared.
* We mined all the iron. Why stick around?
* Billy was playing with dynamite and accidentally blew up the uranium mines. Oops. Unfortunately, we don't have enough kids to work the now radioactive mines.
2. The transportation nexus disappeared or became useless.
* Example: Earth is gone, why do we need a spaceport?
* Example: Seriously, who stole the ocean?
3. A better location is found, or the reasons for staying here changed.
* Example: We found Unobtanium deposits further west. Better to move there.
* Example: We finally got the wagons fixed, no need to stay here. Pack up boys!
4. The need for defense or the defensive situation changed.
* Example: After further scouting there are no zerg on mars. We no longer need to turtle up by the cheese wheel.
* Example: Turns out we built our city on top of a giant turtle, who now wants us gone. Woops. On the plus side I know I can outrun my wife, and divorces are expensive.
* Example: We found an abandoned city with big ass walls that make our own look like Lincoln logs.
* Example: The Romans will fear our newly discovered Indian Nukes!
[Answer]
Here's a rare, but plausible scenario that nobody seems to have thought of yet:
## Meteor Strike
We're already tracking all known comets and meteors in case any of them have even the slightest chance of striking Earth. We're also tracking the millions and millions of bits of space debris in orbit, to try and make sure none of them hit the International Space Station. We would presumably be doing the same for any colonies we happen to establish on other worlds (be it the Moon, Mars, Europa, whatever).
Of course, that doesn't mean we can do anything *about* these impacts. For example, most of the space junk that might hit the ISS is very tiny, but the relative impact speed would be so great (the ISS orbits Earth at 7km/s) that the station would still take significant damage. The only real option the station has is to get the hell out of dodge, by undertaking emergency maneuvers to shift its orbital altitude ([it has in fact done this repeatedly in the past](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debris_Avoidance_Manoeuvre)).
Now, space scientists are (generally, [with a few](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster) [infamous exceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster)) a very cautious bunch. And need I remind you, your colony is powered by a *nuclear reactor*. All it takes is a single impact in just the wrong place and you'll end up with another Chernobyl, or worse. An entire section of planet/moon will be rendered even less inhabitable than it was before you got there, you'll lose trillions of dollars' worth of equipment, and potentially the lives of your colonists.
So if there's even the slightest chance of something hitting your colony, and you have no way of preventing the impact, you'll want to up sticks and move. Of course, there's a few variables to consider:
* The size and speed of the impactor (i.e. how far away do you have to get to be safe?)
* How early you detect the potential collision
* How fast you can set up your nuclear steampunk train
* How fast said train moves across the rough terrain of [insert celestial body here]
But this could also add an extra element of drama into your story: can your characters pack up and get out of range in time before that big ol' asteroid hits? Does everyone agree that they need to? And where will they move to afterwards?
[Answer]
Ground under original site not as firm as expected
Subterranean lava tube in danger of collapsing
Porous rock can't handle supports for planned expansions
Increased Solar storm activity predicted which will increase radiation exposure past safe levels.
Dust fines eating rubber seals
Relocating to newly discovered caves to reduce wind exposure and minimize exposed surfaces.
Much better location found (large lava tube for radiation protection and structural support for inflatable habitation, better access to water and mineral deposits)
[Answer]
Moving the scenario to the moon, and we have an interesting situation.
If you are traveling on the moon at the moon equator, you can travel at about 15.4kph (9.6mph) and stay in the sunshine all the time. (circumference of the moon 10921km and synod lunar day of 29 days, 12.75 hours)
Suppose the nuclear reactor isn't producing enough for the inhabitants to survive through the night anymore... or the batteries that the solar panel charge up are failing... or the insulation that keeps them from being exposed to horrible low temperatures for the 354 hour "moon night" have been through too many freeze/thaw cycles and they are failing...or apply the freeze/thaw cycle problem to the entire structure.
They have devised a solution by moving the entire habitat around the moon every 29.5 earth days so that it stays in the sunlight.
I like this low speed because it allows for continued interaction with the planet itself; the inhabitants are not isolated on the train. If they travel faster at some times, they could even stop occasionally while still staying in sunshine.
[Answer]
# Squatters
A small group had illegally landed and set up a small settlement in the early stages of terraforming the planet. The terraforming equipment was owned by a large corporation that had bought the rights to terraform for Human habitation and to set up the first settlement. This group had moved in before the planet was cleared for habitation.
They had worked hard to create a subsistence living, but now that the planet was determined to be largely habitable the corporation was moving in. The squatters hadn't had any need to build any offensive weapons because they had been alone. The news they receive indicates that their colony has been labeled a failed attempt at colonization before the planet was habitable with no expected survivors by the corporation and earth governments aren't going to investigate. When the squatters realize that they aren't going to get any protection from a corporate settlement party that has no interest in sharing land or mineral rights they decide to move.
They can't get off the planet because they don't have the tech necessary to leave, and due to the logistics of governing a remote planet the only governing body with any control will be the corporation for at least some time. Their only hope is to move far enough away from the corporate settlement that they are not threatened or a threat, until a non corporate government can develop.
Instead of an moving because the land has become inhospitable, they have to move because the land has become hospitable.
[Answer]
Nuclear war on Earth.
This has some superposition to [TSar's excellent answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/69670/581), but being a one-off instead of a constant thing would make for a different story.
The Mars colony is either American or Russian. The other of the two announces that they will destroy the Mars colony in the event of a nuclear war. That's for deterrance, see Mutual Assured Destruction.
Some time later, said war breaks out. Both superpowers completely obliterate each other.
The Martian colony cannot detect any missiles, but has to assume they're coming. So they have to move. They don't know how long they have, but they know a range of plausible time values, based on assumptions of how much the enemy would be willing to spend on them.
[Answer]
# Purposeful Seeding of Water via Kuiper Belt Objects
To heat up Mars and to help seed it with water, we bombard Mars with smallish, icy Kuiper Belt Objects.
This is done by sending probes to the Kuiper belt where (with the combination of gravity-assist and gravity-tow) they send the KBOs hurtling towards Mars.
Of course, this is not undertaken until a sizable colony has already formed on Mars.
After much discussion and arguments, a proper location is determined to recieve the bombardment. This location is aimed directly at a colony. The colonist must leave.
[Answer]
## Priced out
*Well, that was embarrassing. We were selling our wares in the trade district, and one of our younglings said "we're from New Hammersmith. In Londinium." The older gent replied "I've heard of a New Hammersmith, but it's nowhere near Londinium."*
*Bless him, but the youngling is right. We thought we had located far enough away to avoid Mundanes (they love our products, just don't want to be near the loud and ugly machines which make them, nor our strange ways.) But in recent years, the city has sprawled in all directions. They endlessly complain as they commute to the city center on the railway we built, when they're not offering us insane sums for our housing!*
*Development to our west would encircle us. We delayed that, but only by letting the City annex New Hammersmith next year. With City rules, City taxes, and allowing Mundanes to live in OUR town! Unthinkable!*
*So we must move now. We will extend our railway west, while we still can, and use it to move our factories and our town. This time: far enough away.*
*What are we leaving behind? The Mundanes would build Mundane luxury housing when we're gone, so we're building it. Get your deposit in!*
Doesn't really matter the reason why this colony is different and not compatible with the hardly-colonial Mundanes, the ones who hung back on Earth until Mars had city water, garbage collection, and nine Tim Horton's. There is that, plus a thousand other reasons in the history books.
The colony ends up building a dual railway (as in the VLA, shipyards, or the N1 area at Baikonur), allowing them to move their very large modules. This dual railway, being nothing less/more than a standard double-track railway with unusually wide and precise spacing, becomes an extension of their original tramway to downtown Londinium.
[Answer]
# Pern
In **Dragonriders of Pern**, in the 8th year of the colony, the planet is beset by something known as "Threadfall". Dangerous silver organisms called, "Thread" fall from the sky. The Thread devour anything organic; initial losses are staggering. This is similar to other "alien life" answers, because thread is an organism, with the exception that Thread is never demonstrated in the books to have any real awareness, and Thread by itself isn't the whole story.
The colony, which by this time has begun to spread out on the Southern continent of the planet, is not immediately uprooted. However, the colonists do eventually make the decision to abandon Landing in favor of moving, en masse, to an extensive cave system on the Northern continent, later called Fort Hold.
What really sets things moving, though, is Landing is located on a plain below a **volcano** that was believed to be inactive. Less than a year after First Fall it becomes apparent that this is no longer the case. Instead of an orderly evacuation, the colonists must quickly pack anything they can onto a hastily assembled flotilla of just about any boat or ship that still floats, in order to get clear before the volcano erupts.
These events result in the colony losing all contact with Earth; the planet is even interdicted. Additionally, technological level is reduced over relatively few generations from an advanced and computer literate society back to a near-feudal middle ages state, thanks both to the loss of equipment and ability to adequately educate the young for a time.
This story is told in the books **Dragonsdawn** and **Chronicles of Pern: First Fall**, but most of the books — the original and "main" storylines — take place millennia later. It's as those books became popular that the author was able to write the origin story, which I admit that while well-written, has an extremely cheesy premise.
I highly recommend the Pern books. It's great early sci-fi (first book in '68), with a strong female lead that's not there just to make the male hero look good.
---
# Failed Terraform
As a more general answer, you might also consider a **failed terraform** process. This could take a number of forms... a colony initially has to live in domes, but expects the terraform to allow them to expand after a suitable period of time. Failure for expected results might force a colony to withdraw. Alternatively, the initial condition of the plant might limit them to a relatively small area, with terraforming efforts aimed at extending this area backfiring to result in an unstable environment... frequent earthquakes, unexpected volcanic activity or tornadoes, excessive tides, and the like. Even atmospheric change might be possible.
There's lots of potential here to make your own world. I can already imagine a story around a remnant who stayed behind when most of a colony abandoned the world, still trying to make a go of it. 2nd or 3rd generation of this could be pretty cool, where you'd have a lawless wasteland story with the added dangers of an especially hostile alien world. Throw an alien species into the mix, and this could be something pretty nice.
[Answer]
# Discovery of alien life
Science fiction has a number of stories where colonists set down and then discover there's an existing alien species with a claim on the land. Whether they move voluntarily or by force or by treaty, the result is packing up and moving so as to not interfere with the existing life that they didn't recognize when first choosing a colony site.
Two Star Trek episodes come to mind:
* TNG: The Ensigns of Command
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ensigns_of_Command>
* TOS: The Devil in the Dark
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_Dark>
[Answer]
>
> **Why would they have to move? (to another place on same planet)**
>
>
>
Because **steam generated** by their machineries is basically **evaporated heavy-water**, so after some time they live in one place, the ground start to become radioactive. They calculated that every 100 years or so, a previously left place can get below the warning level of radiations. But depending on their production of the heavy steam they have to move every 1 or 2 years.
>
> **Why would they have to move? (to another planet / heavenly body)**
>
>
>
They are b**uilding slowly a wormhole network**, they assemble pieces sended from Earth, the assembly is basically creating a modified version of a particle accelerator, it takes years to assemble everything correctly and to changes settings for it.
Then why sending 2 expeditions training twice the people while you can send to multiple places the same supertrained crew?
To allow one or several whormholes to appear and point outside solar system are needed several devices placed on different planets, the more the devices, the more stable the wormhole becomes.
If your plot does not allow wormholes, there could still be need for particle accelerators on several different places to **study rare physical phenoma and quantum mechanics**.
[Answer]
**Technology**
It could be their original settlement's engineering became obsolete.
Since it can sometime be easier to start fresh than build onto an old design they move to the nearest site with suitable resources.
**Politics**
Each country divides up the planet but the one the colony was on is putting too much pressure on them. The inhabitants must stay together to survive and so the agree to emigrate en mass.
[Answer]
**Because the night is too long**
Not applicable to Mars, but on a slower rotating world, perhaps the colony moves to maintain a reasonable day/night cycle. For example, if the world completes a rotation (i.e. a day/night cycle) every 30 earth days that would like kill plant life and lead to considerable disruption in the health of colonists. The colony moves every day to maintain a constant 12 hour day/night cycle by waiting until it is plunged into darkness and then moving back into the light (or vice-versa).
[Answer]
So you land on an ice burg or similar because it is super easy to get water from. Heat, filter, and drink.
After a number of years you consume the part of the ice burg your on, and now have to move to the next nearest one.
[Answer]
Discovery of unacceptably high levels of radon gas in the vicinity.
] |
[Question]
[
I have a magitech system where instantaneous processing power is much more important than long term processing power.
In my world, magic is cast by using compute power to communicate with a supernatural entity, who then rewards users with magical power. For handwavy reasons, you can't 'store' this power for much longer than a few seconds (so you can't cast a super powerful spell by using a datacenter for a year). Any improvement in clock speed would give a mage a proportional improvement in spell power.
With modern day technology, could CPUs or some sort of compute unit be made that are essentially "disposable" but can run at much faster speeds (faster than a compute unit designed to last a long time)? I imagine these would be used for a duration of around 1-5 seconds.
[Answer]
**An Answer from an EE...**
Yes.
Now, to quote one of my favorite movies...
>
> Can you launch an ICBM horizontally?
>
>
>
>
> Sure! Why would you want to? (*The Hunt for Red October*)
>
>
>
You obviously have a purpose in mind, but without knowing that purpose we can't answer the other half of this question — does it make sense?
CPUs today can run at least 10X of their posted speeds. The problem isn't clock generation or operational tolerances.
***It's heat***
Which is why there's a difference between super computers and your laptop PC. Your average multi-core PC would work fine to render Hollywood-grade CGI — if you could get the heat out of it. The substrates, mounting, and packaging used to let CPUs operate that fast are anything but cheap. And it's the packaging that needs to change, not just shifting from fans to liquid-cooled heatsinks.
But, does that matter? You haven't told us what clock speeds you need. If you need to 100X the clock speeds you're out of luck (unless the NSA has come up with something I don't know about, and since I have no security clearance at all, that's a good bet). Think about it, even at 100X, you're talking about a CPU doing in 1-5 seconds what a "normal" CPU would do in 1.67 - 8.33 minutes. What CPU-centric task would matter in such a short shift of time? Not cryptology. You'd need something closer to 10,000X, which isn't possible (that I know of) with current tech.
*But that shouldn't stop you. Use my basic description to get the cycles up and "make it so." Your average reader won't know the difference, and the EEs of the world will happily overlook this kind of techno-shortcut for the sake of a good story. Remember: a bad story won't be saved by all the technical accuracy in the world. A good story doesn't need it.*
[Answer]
Yes and no
Modern CPUs already do what you're suggesting and that's called boost mode, but there are limits that will result in diminishing returns. You will not get 10X as someone else posted.
There are multiple failure mechanisms that can cause the CPU to age, which result in reduced performance or outright failure: Electromigration, Temperature-Dependant-Dialectric-Breakdown (TDDB), Negative/Positive-Bias-Temperature-Instability (NBTI/PBTI), Hot-Carrier-Injection (HCI), etc. CPUs are designed with enough margin to tolerate these aging effects and still meet the advertised freq for X years of use. Most of these are exacerbated by high voltage and high temperature, so running at a higher voltage to achieve a higher frequency will shorten the lifetime of your CPU below the designed lifetime (This is why I don't buy second-hand GPUs, which are often overclocked for bitmining) So from that aspect, yes, you can overclock and achieve higher clock frequencies than the CPU manufacturer intended, albeit with a shorter life.
However there are other factors which will cause diminishing returns. As you increase the voltage, you increase the saturation drain current of the MOSFET, which is what allows for a faster switching time and thus a faster clock. However higher voltage does not make the wires in the CPU faster. Long transmission line wires within the CPU have an RC time constant that are independent of the voltage, so as you raise the voltage, eventually your frequency will be limited by all the wire dominated timing paths in the design.
Then finally there are factors which will put a hard ceiling on your max voltage. Increasing the voltage will increase parasitic leakage currents in the design, leading to latchup. Latchup causes your MOSFETs to drive uncontrollable current, and will cook your CPU to death. We use well/substrate contacts to avoid latchup, but we only design for a specific max voltage.
Another concern could be Drain Induced Barrier Lowering (DIBL), where as you increase drain voltage, it reduces the already very short channel length. This reduces the threshold voltage, which increase source-drain leakage (heat) and limits the ability to control the transistor. Assuming you could pull out the heat, you could still fail from increased sensitivity to noise, and propagate a coupling noise failure.
I'm sure there's lots of other ways things could fail. Suffice to say....its waaaaay more complicated than "just remove the heat"
[Answer]
>
> I have a magitech (...)
>
>
>
Well, we live in the age of smog computing - the smog being that mythical place where computing takes place, which is actually someone else's data center. Like when you write "it shall be engraved upon the smog" in your grimoire and then you can pick the enchantment up on your crystal ball from where you left, you know?
In order to make real fast processing unfeasible on the long term, put a price tag on it. Smalltender will lend you virtuous contraptions for usage in it smog, called "Blue", at an hourly rate - [the more powerful the contraption, the more expensive it gets](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-machines/windows/).
So you may be paying 5 pieces of [Manacoin](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/112321/21222) an hour for your magotech operations, but when you need some enchanting done fast you may need to use more perforated scrolls. No problem, access your records in Blue and temporarily rent a stronger contraption - or even a contraption plantation. That will cost you maybe a handful of Manacoins per hour, so this would only be feasible long term for the few wealthiest mages in the world.
[Answer]
The simple fact is that the best CPUs today can't do much more than 8GHz for a top clock speed even if you invest insane amounts of energy in getting rid of the heat they produce, because heat is only part of the problem (it's the only part that actually destroys the CPU though). That's roughly double the clock speed of most modern CPUs, but that actually won't speed up your system all that much for reasons that I'll discuss after covering a bit more about the issues with the CPU itself.
Beyond just the heat, you have to deal with a couple of other issues:
* Switching delays and propagation delays. Electricity moves at near the speed of light, but that's still not instantaneous, and some of the physical processes required for the operation of a CPU do happen slower than that (not much slower in most cases, but it's still slower). You can't solve this without scaling everything down even further than it is already, and we're darn close to practical limits of physical scale for reliable operation as it is.
* Artificial limits for reliability. The simplest aspect of this to consider is cross-talk between individual traces in a CPU. If you've got two wires running in parallel very close together, than electricity flowing through one will induce a current in the other unless you take special precautions to prevent this. At the scale that CPUs are designed at, this is still an issue, and when it actually causes problems, you end up not with a destroyed CPU or a slow CPU, but an unpredictable CPU, because you end up with phantom signals in other parts of the CPU. Limiting the signaling rate can reduce the issues this causes, but of course slows down the CPU.
So, based on this, short of a radical redesign of your CPUs, you're not going to manage much if you want to be realistic.
---
*However*, as mentioned in passing above, just increasing your CPU's clock speed will not necessarily make your system compute things faster. In fact, the CPU is the single fastest part of any modern computer, and it usually spends a non-negligible amount of time waiting for the other parts to catch up. As a point of comparison, in a 'normal' commodity system (that is, not a DIY gamer build with everything overclocked), the effective signaling rate of the main memory is a little over half to two-thirds the nominal clock rate of the CPU. On really cheap systems you might see memory that is faster than the CPU, but that's not the common case by any means.
The reality is that a modern computer consists of dozens of different components that are running at different speeds doing different things, usually mostly asynchronously, and as a result just boosting the performance of one component will often not boost the performance of the whole system. GPUs for example normally run at no more than 1.5GHz clock speeds internally (and the norm is more like 0.8-1GHz), but this doesn't matter in most cases because they're *super* specialized for what they do and can process huge amounts of data in parallel (and the rest of your system does not sit around waiting on your GPU).
This, in turn, means that how well a concept like you're suggesting works depends on what components you're boosting and what you're actually trying to do. If your calculations are just a tight loop that can sit entirely in cache on the CPU, then boosting the CPU clock speed will help significantly, but otherwise it will often only have a small impact (usually in the form of reduced latency and not improved throughput). Similarly, if you're trying to render a super-complex scene but all the required data fits in RAM on your GPU, you can probably speed things up significantly by boosting your GPUs clock speed, but that won't help with almost anything else.
[Answer]
Based on your comment to JBH it sounds like you want a once-off computational device with a real-world analogue that can be offered to eldritch creatures in exchange for a short term power (i.e. magic). To me it sounds like you want to look into *measurement based quantum computing* (also know as *one-way quantum computing*).
The way this works is that to perform an arbitrary quantum computation you prepare a quantum state $|\psi\rangle$ (called a cluster state or a graph state) and then perform measurements on the qubits (quantum bits) of that quantum state. Performing quantum measurements on single qubits is (relatively) easy, the hard part in this approach is producing and stabilising the state $|\psi\rangle$. Quantum computers are much faster for particular tasks (e.g. factoring prime numbers) and so could be considered a massive speed up of a CPU (something like 100,000 times).
With respect to your story you could make it that the mages are offering up cluster states for access to the magical powers of the eldritch creatures. If for some reason cluster states are naturally occuring in this reality, but not in the eldritch creature reality then this could make sense as to why they would be willing to exchange for magic (which might be just them introducing something from their reality, think Dr. Strange).
This does raise the question as to why the eldritch creatures wouldn't just set up their own factory in this reality to collect and use the states. However if they set up a (possibly dumb i.e. not human level of thinking) Artificial Intelligence to learn how to extract quantum computations from that reality it may have developed a bunch of rules that evolved a symbotic relationship between the AIs and the mages of the world, where the mages will signal the AI with one of a set of signals that it has a cluster state (I'm imagining a crystal) large enough for the cost of the spell, the AI will then use the cluster state for its computation (or check that it is large enough) and in response will introduce another signal or something else which disrupts the normal behavior of this reality enough to produce what is known as magic. On the eldritch creature side they may not realise that the mages actually exist, and may be using the mage's reality as a kind of cloud quantum computing service (though you'd probably need the mage's reality to be much faster than the eldritch creature reality for the AI to work out a system in an economically reasonable time).
This could also lead to some interesting effects, where different spells have been crafted over time as the AI tries to extract more cluster states and the mages have crafted the AI to perform whatever new kind of magic they want upon a given signal. This means every now and then you'd get weird magic occurring out in the open. It also gives the option for magic to stop working at some point or becoming inconsistent without destroying the self-consistency of your world with things like, the eldritch company goes bust, the AI discovered how to find the cluster states without them being pointed out by the mages, there is a reduction in demand for cloud quantum computing services or an over-supply of cluster state offerings from the mages and so the AI only services some of the calls for spells.
A couple of key things from a writing perspective, while I have kind of said this approach gives you free pass on changing the rules of magic, you should write your magic system so that it appears self consistent without understanding that there is an AI or a cloud quantum computing service attached to the magic system. However you could use this framework to develop a history of magic use or the magic system as long as it stays self-consistent (which a symbiosis of AI and mages would probably produce). A second thing is that you probably wouldn't want to use the term "cluster state" as the resource name since it isn't widely known, implies the mages have knowledge of quantum computing, and wouldn't really sound magical to the average reader. You could however drop the idea in later on if they happen to talk to the supernatural entity/AI.
[Answer]
In many cases, the limiting factor for CPU speeds is not the fact that they will melt if run too fast, but rather that circuits take a certain amount of time to switch, and if some of the switches that need to switch before some event occurs fail to do so, the CPU will likely produce erroneous results. Additionally, if a circuit that needs to switch off before some other circuit switches on fails to do so, that may generate a momentary short-circuit condition called "shoot-through" which may not only cause erroneous results, but also cause substantial heating.
The MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors) used in modern processors switch more quickly at lower temperatures. Because of this, shoot through may lead to thermal runaway which, if unchecked, may cause a device to melt, but the device will have started producing erroneous computations before accutely-destructive temperatures were reached.
Disposable devices may be able to get by with less cooling than devices which would need to operate for sustained periods, but in order for a device to produce accurate results quickly, it must be kept cool. If a device would be barely able to perform reliable calculations at 4GHz when it's cooled to 0C, it would likely be unreliable if run at that speed at 30C, even though 30C would be well within the normal operating temperature range for the device at lower speeds.
[Answer]
With a twist? Sure. Let's call it...
## Zeus' Wish.
You pray to the god of clouds, rain, thunder and lightning, and he gives you some valid burner cloud computing credentials.
These allow you to utilize AWS server farms on all regions around the globe at 100% processor usage until your credentials are revoked.
Best used with algorithms highly customized for parallelization.
Caution: Side effects include major power outages, global warming and exceedingly high energy bills.
(I know, it's not a single processor - but wanted to get the idea out.)
[Answer]
## Quantum Computers
This is the basic principle behind quantum computers. They are much much faster than a normal processor at solving for certain kinds of problems, but also much more sensitive to introducing errors over time.
Quantum computers can do certain tasks billions of times as fast as the world's strongest super computers using traditional processors... however, most quantum processor designs become unstable in a matter of microseconds. Since they do not handle data in discrete units, this makes validation and error correction much harder than traditional processing allows for.
Quantum processors are not faster than traditional computers at solving for all kinds of problems, (a sequence of simple problems may still be easier for a traditional processor), but if you need to make a single very complex computation, that is where they shine.
## The Catch
While Quantum computers are small (for a super computers) they do not have any portable analog to a modern PC processor using today's technology. Something like this IBM 50 qubit processor is far too large to fit in a mage's pocket for a convenient 1-time spell casting; so, there will need to be a bit of hand waving to say that your people can make these small enough to be practical... that said, since you are talking about your civilization having "magitech", I think it's reasonable to say your people have advanced enough to miniaturize them.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Eg7eo.png)
[Answer]
Allow me to introduce the [ultimate laptop](https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043). Current computing hardware is sadly extremely limited by the fact that most of its energy is locked up in the mass of the hardware, leaving a mere trifle available for computation. Efficiencies are made worse by using billions and billions of electrons to represent a single bit.
Not so for the best mages! By converting a larger portion of mass to energy and minimising redundancy, they can begin to approach the ~10^50 operations per second per kilogram physically possible. All we need is a small amount of mass converted, nanograms, picograms, and we can equal or exceed even the best supercomputers currently around.
Converting and then dissipating this energy is, of course, quite challenging even with magic, and the skill of a mage is very much measured by how big and how long they can keep such a computer running—once you're done with your spell, it is gone! Trying to keep your computer around for longer than your concentration allows is a sure recipe for singed eyebrows at the very least.
[Answer]
In terms of regular CPU's that are created today, not exactly. Today's CPU's can be overclocked either until the point the heat generated by them will fry the CPU or up to the theoretical maximum performance for any given unit of time due to the clock speeds. This also assumes the other hardware in the computer is functioning as fast as the processor.
There are different types of processing power, though. Generally computational performance is rated in **F**loating **P**oint **O**perations **P**er **S**econd (FLOPS). The higher FLOPS a processor has, the more powerful it can be. Cryptocurrency mining as well as AI advancements have taken off due to the rise in power of GPUs, which vastly outperform CPUs. A NIVIDIA Titan RTX GPU can provide 130 Tera-FLOPS of performance, while an Intel Core i9-10900k that can only deliver 1.696 Tera-FLOPS. This means that this GPU can outperform a CPU by 128.304 Tera-FLOPS. If we remove all other limiting factors from the equation, like heat generated, power consumption, physical space required, among others, then a server farm of these GPUs could give you seemingly infinite FLOPS to use any given second.
There are specialized compute sources, like **A**pplication **S**pecific **I**ntegrated **C**ircuits (ASICs), that are designed from the ground up for achieving one specific purpose in mind. For mining cryptocurrency, these are generally used to generate the highest possible FLOPS for the lowest cost. These compute sources do not rely on parts other than the ones specifically designed for it, so these could be viewed as disposable more so than regular computers.
[Answer]
**Yes, but also no, but also yes.**
Can you design a piece of computing hardware that's designed to run processors until they burn out, at which point you return them? Absolutely. Can you do this for processing-heavy tasks? Yes.
But it won't be a CPU. A CPU is a *central* processing unit. Its main job isn't to do intensive processing, but to do central processing - running the operating system and environment, managing state, and generally making sure that everything is happening in order and data is being sent to the right place. Because these are critical operations, if your CPU runs hot enough to cause errors in computation (let alone damage itself) your whole system can lock up or be permanently bricked.
Instead, what you want is a peripheral designed solely to manage lots of computation with no consideration for the greater state of your machine. It gets mathematical questions, it gives mathematical answers. If one part of it burns out, the CPU can just keep asking until it gets a good answer. It turns out that you probably have a peripheral like this: this is how graphics cards work. A GPU has its own onboard memory, but it isn't concerned with running the operating system or anything else, it just crunches numbers.
It turns out that your idea is very similar to how people "mine" bitcoins (which is a bit technical but basically boils down to "do math as fast as possible"). A mining rig consists of many consumer-grade GPUs run in parallel, with a single CPU feeding them data and managing their output. As individual GPUs start to become unreliable due to their workload, they can be swapped out relatively easily.
[Answer]
There was a story on the net, many years ago. (Usenet era, I think.) A group decided to see how far they could overclock a 25MHz 486 (or maybe 386). They put the unit in a freezer, and started turning up the speed. It kept working. I don't remember how far they got it stable, but....
At one point, they accidentally pulled all the jumpers and turned it on. It ran successfully for about 5 seconds before burning out. As I recall, they calculated speed was 325MHz.
There is a somewhat newer (and less believable) version at <http://totl.net/Eunuch/index.html>
So, overall, I suspect your answer is: Yes, but it isn't worth the cost.
[Answer]
As [OnoSendai](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/182989/581) alluded, cloud computing is the answer. Unlike they implied, stealing it is not necessary.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or any number of lesser-known cloud computing providers, will sell you all the instantaneous computing power you can afford, today, with very little preparation. Exclusive machines not shared with other customers are more expensive, but available and not even that weird.
They're limited, but Gargantuan - if your workload is less than Gargantuan, they'll be able to handle it. Thousands of exclusive machines with no notice sound feasible to me, and you may combine providers for an extra order of magnitude. One to five seconds seems too short, you may have to pay for the time it takes to allocate and de-allocate a resource, and wait for the allocation. But we're talking seconds, not minutes. If you're big and profitable enough, you may be able to negotiate a custom process in a matter of weeks or months.
The catch is that some computing problems, but not others, can be processed in parallel - split between different computers. See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_computing>
Please consult a computer scientist or programmer with the relevant experience as to whether any given concrete problem can or cannot be be processed in parallel. If your story's application is sufficiently vague, it's fine to just decide that it can.
[Answer]
Based on my experience having designed lots of digital logic over the past couple decades, you can make faster chips. But you can't do it by just running existing chips faster than they were designed to work. You have to come up with faster transistors and circuit designs.
**You can't do it by just running existing chips faster**
The heat produced by a modern CMOS based processor is proportional to its operating frequency. Running it at say 2X its rated speed would produce double the heat. All objects have thermal mass, so they take time to heat up. Double the heat would be fine for a short duration. So in that sense it could be done.
You can even extend the time by increasing the thermal mass. For example by making an insulating oxide layer on the back of the silicon and then attaching a piece of copper to soak up the heat.
The real problem is that it takes a certain amount of time for transistors to switch on/off, and for signals to propagate. It is the register to register timing that ultimately determines this frequency. If you take a processor made to run at some maximum frequency, and then run it at double, you will will probably get lots of corrupted calculations. Even one bad calculation is often enough to destroy the operation of a computer program.
For example, consider a multiply circuit fed by a pair of input registers and ends at an output register. Lets say that it takes 1 nanosecond for the inputs to propagate through all the logic to the output register. Then you can at maximum clock the circuit once per nanosecond (a 1GHz max operating frequency). If you try and clock it at say 2GHz the output register will just have garbage in it.
Most chips have some timing margin built in to the advertised operating frequency, but at most you are going to get around 20% more computing power by over-clocking, nothing too game changing.
The only way to make a CMOS processor run faster is to get faster transistors or circuit designs.
**Use super-conducting CMOS processors**
TRW corporation once had a superconducting processor project that aimed to do just that. MOS transistor gates are essentially capacitors with some series resistance. The outputs of MOS transistors essentially look like resistors when they are switched on. The amount of time it takes for the transistors to switch each-other on is in large part controlled by the product of the gate capacitance (C) and driving resistance (R).
If you can make R = 0 by using super conductors then the only thing limiting you is that charges take some time to move, and the fact that electromagnetic fields are limited to propagating at the speed of light. That method can theoretically make very fast chips. But it requires super-conductors, which in turn requires cold temperatures.
If you only need it for a short time, then you could have an insulating case (like a thermos, or aerogel material), about the size of a small drinking flask, filled with liquid helium or liquid nitrogen as well as your small computer. As long as the processor was off, you could carry the container for days. At any time you could switch on the device and run it until your coolant heated up too much for your super-conductors to work.
The user interface doesn't need to be any more complicated than a cheap smart phone and is on the outside of the insulation barrier and connects to the processor inside the cold area.
**Quantum computers are large, but they don't have to be...**
Most quantum computers are very large. For example the D-Wave quantum computers are the size of a room and have a very large refrigeration system. The fact is, these systems don't need to be so large. They are designed to be the size of a room because they are experiments, and as such its useful if two or three scientists can walk inside and debug stuff. Also most of the components are off the shelf rack-mount equipment, because the quantum-computer company wants to work on the quantum part of the project rather than distracting themselves by designing lots of custom peripheral components.
The actual quantum processor in these systems is the size of a postage stamp. And if you skip the refrigeration system and just use some temporary portable coolant, it could fit in your pocket.
**Use a remote computer.**
You can of course also have a computer of any size somewhere else and simply connect to it. The processing is done remotely and the answer is sent back to the user almost instantly. This is the essence of "cloud computing". The only downside to this approach is that someone can jam your communications. Or disable your data center without you knowing it, and then whey you try to use your device you are out of luck.
**Use more efficient computer architectures**
DARPA has program called SYNAPSE that contracted IBM to develop a chip called TrueNorth which was a neuron like computer chip. This chip was significantly more energy efficient than conventional CPUs. It could perform the equivalent of hundreds of millions of multiply accumulate operations per second on as little as 60mW of power. They did a demo chip with 256 neurons, and then scaled it up to 1 million neurons with the next version. There is no reason they couldn't go up to a few billion neurons and totally outperform any other conventional computer out there in terms of energy efficiency.
<http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/brain-chip.shtml>
[Answer]
**Yes and No**
Ok you have instantaneous processing power so overclocking really means squat so you build in planned obsolescence. The CPU could run for a million years so you introduce a part that will break after X amount of time or Y amount of CPU cycles.
The reason for this is so the customer need to keep coming back to you for more. There's real no profit in something that lasts.
[Answer]
With modern day technology - no.
An overclocked CPU will overheat and malfunction pretty quick. But this malfunction almost certainly won't be fatal. After cooling down, CPU would be good to run again.
[Answer]
The great think about magic is that it can do whatever you want it to do. To make today's CPUs run faster, your magic needs to affect physics to:
* Remove or at least greatly reduce production of heat.
* Speed up the switching time of the transistors.
If you can locally affect how physics work, then both should be possible. Lets say that once the spell is over, the changes swing the other way and all the heat is returned, which destroys the CPU.
Another thing to consider is that if you are speeding up only the CPU, then the memory and other peripherals will be still slow. The CPU may still access them, but it will be horribly slow, so it should be limited to only loading inputs at start and saving results at the end. Your main computation must operate strictly on the data in registers and in-CPU caches. Programmers try to do that already in performance-critical code today, because access memory is relatively slow even for CPU that wasn't magically enhanced.
It may be good idea to have a multi-CPU system, where the disposable *overpowered* CPUs are used as a kind of co-processor to the main CPU. The main CPU is regular processor that is not *overpowered* and is not destroyed. The main CPU runs our OS and the mundane tasks and it offloads the specific tasks to the disposable CPU. You can hot-swap the destroyed CPUs without stopping the computer! You could have them in some fire-proof heavy-duty socket and mechanical arm that will throw away the burned CPU and put in new one from a reel.
[Answer]
**Yes**, it is often possible to run a CPU above its temperature limit as specified in documentation. This may result unreliable work and shorter life span of the CPU but it does not crash immediately. Different individual CPUs from even the same series are likely to have varying ability to work "under stress".
For instance, my [i7-3960X](https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/63696/intel-core-i7-3960x-processor-extreme-edition-15m-cache-up-to-3-90-ghz.html) CPU has the maximal allowed case temperature of only 66.8°C. When overclocked, this particular instance can get as hot as close to 80°C and stay running reliably for multiple hours.
This is nothing incredible taking into consideration that generally similar but server grade [Xeon E5-1428L](https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/75778/intel-xeon-processor-e5-1428l-v2-15m-cache-2-20-ghz.html) is officially rated for this temperature (80°C).
[Answer]
### Yes, but...
Most micros are constructed to be able to theoretically run at substantially more than their rated clock speed. What limits that speed is the micro's construction, and manufacturers actually have little (or at least limited) control over that. On the production line, manufacturers actually test micros to see what speed they can manage, and then sell them as a "1.2GHz", "1.5GHz" or whatever clock speed depending on what they manage during testing. The 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz chips may have come from adjacent chunks of silicon on a wafer, but they'll be rated for different speeds because each performs differently. And because there are a range of different speeds, the motherboard can typically generate any required frequency up to some maximum.
This is where overclocking comes in - you hook up extra cooling or whatever, crank up the clock speed on the motherboard, and watch her go. So yes, you absolutely can, and overclockers do it all the time.
And herein comes the "but...". How much extra do you think you can get out of this chip, how long does it last, and how long does it take to reload it for next use? Maybe you get 100 times the processing power for 1 second. If it takes longer than 100 seconds to reload, you're better to run slower. And that's before you consider the cost of each processor.
[Answer]
How about a semi-disposable system?
There have been plenty of answers about limits on how far you can push a CPU that basically preclude what you're after. Lets try a different tactic:
Go with the massively parallel approach we see in GPUs. You can get an awful lot more instructions per second this way--I believe there are graphics cards now that can get into the trillions of instructions per second.
However, we don't engineer this as a room-temperature device, but rather to operate at around 77K. There is no cooling system per se, the device is simply organized as a stack of wafers with space in between. To use it the processor array and it's housing is immersed in liquid nitrogen, this boils off in a few seconds when used and the device is useless until it has been replaced. (And remember boil-off if you're hauling these around.)
] |
[Question]
[
What clothing would people who have wings, and weren't prone to just being naked, choose to wear that wouldn't interfere with their flying?
Note: I am assuming arm-wings like a bird, but I know some creatures have wings out of their backs along with human arms (such as an angel). Ideas for either arrangement are welcome.
I assume they need to flap their wings, and remain aerodynamic and stabilized. So clothing has to reduce drag and not destabilize their flight.
Would the clothing most likely be loose like a poncho, or tight-fitting clothes which can't flap around in the wind?
[Answer]
Everyone else is speculating when there are proper reality check examples.
Flight suits that allow for free movement of wings, legs and tail are a thing. Some also contain diapers, so that your bird won't poop on people's heads.
These things are even fashionable. Someone even managed to bedazzle their pigeon.
Your flying people could wear such harnesses.
[Answer]
>
> They'd want something that lets them flap their wings, and something that doesn't create drag or cause them to be blown off course.
>
>
>
That means tight fit clothes are your only option. Loose fit like a poncho would cause all sorts of trouble when flying.
The only issue is how to put on a tight fitting jacket with those oversized wing-arms? Consider the folowing life-jacket first:
![1]](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p9xxn.jpg)
You can put this on by throwing the back flap over your head, pushing your head through the hole and then afterwards pull the strap around your waist. No matter how big your wings are, they'll fit through those side holes without problems.
To get a tighter fit with fewer open holes on the sides the straps can be replaced with a zipper below each arm-wing.
![2]](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tDVds.jpg)
The only difference with the image above is that the zipper ends below the arm-wing hole the same way our own jacket zippers end below our chin.
[Answer]
If they are like bird, having feathers on their body, they don't need clothes for covering, since feathers provide an excellent insulation. Moreover, covering the feathers will have a detrimental effect on the flight ability.
If they instead are like bats, they have to wear something tight fitting, in order to not disturb the aerodynamics of their wings. It also has to be really lightweight, to not add excessive burden and prevent their flight.
As you probably have already noticed, lightweight, thermal insulating and elastic leads to technical fibers, which we have developed in the very recent past. That would mean that, with a tech development similar to our, your flying-people would have been naked for most of their history.
In both cases it would be preferred to wear something like a gilet, leaving the wings free and uncovered, again for not disturbing their aerodynamic properties.
[Answer]
If they are like humanoid people --- head, torso, two arms, two wings, two legs --- and whether they can fly or not, they might wear a variety of clothing, depending on circumstance.
At home, being comfortable and with nowhere in particular to go, winged folk frequently opt to wear nothing at all. There's no good reason to get all dressed up when you're just going to lounge around in a hammock anyway!
For travelling by foot or working around their village, various jobs would require clothing of some kind. Woodworking, gardening, hunting, stone cutting. They'll want to wear some kind of apron to protect their bits (especially if they're guys); and also some kind of sarong or britches and perhaps sandals or boots. A belt or two with an assortment of kit bags, knives and tools would round out the ensemble.
Winged people, though often erroneously so portrayed, rarely wear any kind of upper body clothing. Shirts, vests, jackets, frock coats: all of these articles of clothing are unwearable by winged folk. No indeed! As any winged person can tell you, trying to stuff one's wings through a tiny hole in a shirt would be a losing battle!
Winged folk do, however, like to decorate themselves, and so will often wear a colourful sarong and may decorate their bodies and faces with various kinds of pigments. Some decorative upper body garments include scarves, abdominal wraps and shawls. Colourful and patterned, of course!
As for flying, for example in an airship, winged folk prefer knickers (1) with pockets, leggings, a flight cap, goggles and sometimes a bandanna worn around the face. Bugs, you know.
For those winged folk who can fly by their own power, they too prefer a kind of britches, but tighter fitting, along the lines of jodhpurs (2), which won't flap about too noisily but also offer protection and some extra stowage.
---
Refs:
1. Knickers:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RCrOP.png)
2. Jodhpurs:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AFGoX.png)
[Answer]
I think this is too complex to be specific.
Weather and climate and cultural norms all come into what is appropriate/acceptable/practical to wear. A police flying person in winter is going to wear something totally different from a flying person at the beach in summer. I have summer jackets and winter jackets. I have a rain jackets that rolls up and stows away in a small pouch. What I don't have is one outfit type that does everything and can (or should) be used everywhere. When I was young ("a short time ago" :-) ) my women would be loath to leave the house without a scarf on their heads - it was the norm (and nothing to do with what men wanted either). Fashion and cultural norms dictate a *lot* of what we wear. Men and women continue to wear idiotically impractical things (even uncomfortable thing) that are part of a cultural norm they adhere to (e.g. high heels - I smart women wearing high heels which are just physically way off what is good to wear).
Flying creates different issues : it's probably more like running than normal locomotion (not how much time birds spend standing, sitting and walking in practice). What do people wear when they do sports ? They were sport specific outfits (and a wide variety).
How high do they fly ? High flying is different from near ground stuff - ask anyone who flies a small aircraft. Note that being in a e.g. thirty mile an hour wind because you're flying through air is quite different from how you'll feel standing still or walking.
They might not want to flap their wings - e.g. business presentation to CEO does not seem appropriate to flap wings. Most of they day could be spent *not* flapping or using wings. Do you spend most of your day running or jumping - most people don't do those things most of the time - even if they do manual labour. Maybe your flying creatures commute to work on the bus because it's less exhausting, takes less time and doesn't turn them into sweaty mess - that's why we don't typically run to work.
Maybe wings would have bra-like support garments designed to keep them comfortably out of the way most of the time (which is at least one supposed function of a bra). In one culture you might be expected to hide your wings normally and in another they're on display.
And the physical design of the creature is also rather significant. Exactly where are the wings ? How big ? Covered in what ? Delicate ? Tough ? Sensitive ? Are their arms as well (birds don't have arms) ? There is likely a balance issue - walking with tightly bound wings might be very unnatural (or might not) ? The opposite might apply.
What about covering wings with e.g. looses sleeve that can be removed (like leggings or stockings) ?
There's just *way* too many variables for a single answer. You might say (I'm sorry, I have to do this) that the sky is the limit. :-)
[Answer]
Decades of research has already been put into this topic.
The results can be seen in this illustration from [The Top 10 Comic Book Superheroes Who Can Fly](https://www.comicbasics.com/top-10-superheroes-who-can-fly/):
(The skin-tight clothing makes sense, but I don't understand the purpose of the flapping capes though.)
You might be interested in Hawkman in particular.
[Answer]
Undergarments: I want to be properly supported while flying -- I would want a bra as supportive as a sports-bra, but it would need to clasp-on, like Hawkman's Harness.
I agree with @elimtilas on an Apron-style for shirt/dress, protecting the torso, and also allowing one to carry tools. (Pockets would all have ZIPPERS or other such fastenings.)
Pants/Skirts - can be any style, but probably on the tight side -- perhaps converts into something more flowing when on the ground.
Shoes -- if they kinda "float" whenever they want to maneuver on ground-level, then footwear may become purely decorative. But they could also be perhaps like a foot-helmet -- focused on minimizing impact with bad landings?
[Answer]
Like everyone else has pointed out, definitely not loose clothing.
But more importantly, if you're flying high, I think it would be sensible to consider conditions like **temperature** and **pressure**.
Temperature reduces as altitude increases. So, one might want to consider wearing clothing that adequately caters for temperatures lower than the current temperature (on the surface).
Pressure also reduces as altitude increases. This means the air would be thinner. You wouldn't want to wear something that would suffocate you.
[Answer]
We don't only wear clothes to not be naked, the provide us protection from cold/heat, the sun, the wind, insects, dirt etc. (Since we lack fur, feathers). So pants and shirts would probably be a thing. One other thing that seems to go unnoticed, is that we wear shoes - we protect our transportation organs. Which makes me think that your people would definitely wear wing-protecting-flying-enhancing-ware. And as for the trouble to put on complicated clothes or not very comfortable, I'll leave these here: shoe laces, high heels, high boots,shirts with tens of buttons, dresses with zippers on the back, skinny jeans etc...
[Answer]
If we are talking about humans as in *after at least 20,000 years of unhealthy eating, fattening up, sitting on chairs and going for silly fashions*, they'll wear power suits with propellers. Or at least something with improved aerodynamic properties, like we use shoes instead of growing half inch thick calluses on the soles of our feet.
Also, there will probably be the equivalent of bycicles or scooters, only powered by their very strong arms instead of their (comparatively) weak legs.
[Answer]
If you say they have wings like a bird then they need help donning clothing as their delicate end feathers would snap with the effort. Otherwise I'll assume these feathers bend at the users will to become long soft fingers. If this is the case you can't cover the feather arms spans so you can use a vests with Velcro or areas or patches that when pressure is held for a moment will seal in place to keep the fabric together but then the issue is taking it off with that maybe using circular or side to side rub/swipe will change how the patches work to release the seal.
If you do the fairy style in the back near the shoulder blades model of wings then you want farm bib style the thin section at the spin splays over the shoulders to attach upfront so you're keeping the wing area closest to the skin clear. Now you can add more back fabric and add in cool linking designs because they now have humanoid fingers but you need that wing span and full range of motion to be priority as flying is a life or death action.
Carnaval Row is a great show to showoff how not to design everyday wear for winged humanoids their capes don't split apart at the back when they want to fly, how do their winds get fitted into the slits in the back of their humanoid clothing? Cuz it shouldn't the only thing in that show that worked for fairy kind were the weighted belts they put over the wings to stop them from flying away.
When designing clothing around appendages you need to think how will these wings work? You can don wings at home now how can you manage clothing to cover 99% of your skin and leave room for the joining section of wing and skin? With trial and error you'll figure it out its just if you have physical wing arms then you need a helper species to make and dress your people.
[Answer]
I believe the future of humanity is in the atmosphere and as this might be the case I'd argue that they would be wearing gases. particularly girls would wear pink clouds and dudes will wear blue or purple ones also with future advancements such as in the areas of nano-tech underwears could be some sorta hugging-nanites to provide a desirable body temperature during flight(Imagine the need not to wear a cardigan inorder to flyover cold skys of Winnipeg in canada no more but back then in that future).
>
> gases are really light and if the technology is further developed the gas-clothe may even generate some additional lift if its in a way made to cling tightly to the wearer's skin and is indeed less denser than the surrounding air or say the gas fabric is some kinda ultra-maglev-air-molecules that gets repulsed by the atmosphere
>
>
>
[Answer]
# None.
If they are flying, it means they've already evolved to best flying adaptation. Clothes would only add weight and drag which would hinder flying. The difference between them and us is that while walking/running has lots of extra capacity, flying is a cutting-edge activity that leaves no room for fooling around. Any clothes would drastically cut down range while increasing effort. For them a simple undershirt would be something like wearing a full plate armour for us.
>
> If there were people with wings, who didn't want to be naked all the time
>
>
>
They wouldn't. As we evolved to want clothing in colder climates, they would evolve to want to be naked for best flying performance. Flying species would consider clothes as something as repulsive as we consider nudity.
] |
[Question]
[
I have a tendency to build near-utopian worlds because I find it pleasant to think about them.
Why would I add in to my world things like domestic abuse, alcoholism, war, etc.? But then I wind up with worlds that lack much conflict (outside of sports/contests).
One thing I've thought about is the downsides of good things; if ecosystems are thriving, you're more likely to get attacked by wolves or tigers.
[Answer]
## New advantages make new problems
Make your Utopia, and don't be bashful. But remember that as people develop new levels of decadence, or shall we say *sophistication*, they come up with new problems nobody would have thought were problems before, and new mischief no one would have dared to do before. This can be immensely entertaining. For example, have a look at Philip Jose Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage".
Imagine trying to explain to Crusaders that someone killed your virtual pet, plagiarized your novel, and refuses to use your preferred pronouns. Try to make them sympathize with your complaints about spam email and the gentrification of your neighborhood. Perhaps one definition of a Utopia is a place with problems those who came before it can't understand. But yes ... you *do* have to invent the new sins.
[Answer]
## Make a fully automated luxury gay space utopia
If you love writing hopeful settings, this is one route to go. Like Star Trek, you make a world which is a utopia, but you make an outside world which is very much not a utopia. Your stories can be about people doing stuff in this outside utopia, and the interactions between the idealistic utopian people and the brutal outsiders.
Star Trek and The Culture both did this. They had lots of drama and conflict because they had lots of people of different ideals and cultures interacting and had a complex world to explore with new and strange things.
Just because one society is utopian, doesn't mean the ones around them are utopian.
## Make a noblebright society
Grimdark is well known, where everything is dark and horrible and painful for all, and your actions make things worse.
[Noble Bright](https://newauthors.wordpress.com/2017/07/07/what-is-noblebright/) is about a world where one person can make a difference and make it better. You can make a story about someone forming a utopia, working to overcome evil to make a better world, forging a noble society out of a darker place of pain and suffering.
Just because the place is utopian, doesn't mean it was always utopian. You can write about how a place became utopian.
Both of these stories are very positive, and don't require endless thinking about dark and terrible things in your perfect society.
[Answer]
Most stories set in our world don't mention alcoholism, war, domestic abuse etc. They are romantic novels, thrillers etc. You should do the same, you don't have to explain every detail of your society. What can also be pleasant is to make a society on the way to utopianism, but it still requires some evolving to get there.
But you asked why you should add them. Here's two examples:
* conflict
Conflict helps make a good story. Tolkien's *Lord Of The Ring*s works because of conflict, in this case war and the fight to make sure that the right side wins and you don't get an eternal cycle of torture, exploitation and murder. However, what is important there is not really the war, but the people in it. Which leads me to:
* investment by the consumer
In stories, we want to see things we already know. Not necessarily because we understand but because we recognize it. It lets you think, put things in different perspectives. Tolkien's LOTR for example is less about the war and more about how the group deals with the challenges of getting to where they need to go. They will continue despite wanting to give up, the need to do something you don't want and still do it. In Frodo's case it starts with simply leaving the shire and ends with climbing the volcano while tired, hungry and paranoid under the influence of the ring.
Utopias aren't good for making a story. The alcoholic beating the bottle is an infinitely better story. The alcoholic who struggles and fails is also a good story, as it is about the attempt and not his failure. And we all know something we failed at right?
[Answer]
>
> I have a tendency to build near-Utopians worlds because I find it pleasant to think about them.
>
>
>
So, what is a utopia for you?
The next line surely will shock you, but:
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party were trying build an utopia.
What is an utopia for you cold be not an utopia for other people.
I like utopias the way some people answered before me: like a way to contrast our way of live and a better way of life. But again, what is "better way of life"?
This is a better way of life?
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La>
How much time could you live there before want to go out?
I prefer this one:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)>
Some Science Fiction authors believe a day you could move to inside one such "Village" and live there.
But some people believe we will go inside one thing like that:
<https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Paradise_Matrix>
Before finish inside one thing like that:
<https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Matrix>
Maybe the best approach it is not create a bright new utopia for us to live in. Fixing our current problems one by one and learning in the process how to fix any other thing is strongly preferable!
If your imagined utopias can be a start point to the creation of a best world, don't be ashamed of it!
[Answer]
Don’t forget that Worldbuilding is broad-strokes stuff.
A lot of fiction deals with grand themes. Good vs evil, light vs dark, love vs despair etc. These stories are good when you want something epic.
A lot of fiction (and nonfiction!) however is made up of little things. Endless rounds of romance novels and chick lit (I use the term not in a derogatory way) are built out of small happenings. Everyday trials and tribulations. Hell, books that basically just detail ‘Princess with perfect life met two hot boys and didn’t know which to pick’ sell, and with good reason. The reason is that no matter how smooth the surface there’s always rough bits underneath, and they make good stories.
So dig into the finer strokes. Yeah, there’s endless food thanks to replicators, but who maintains those? Oh. Machines? What do they think about that endless drudgery. Any chance of conflict there? Sure, your political system is finely balanced and perfect, but there will always be those who push the fringes. Could they unbalance things? Even if the ‘rough bits’ are utterly trivial in the grander scheme they can provide plenty of interest even to us non-utopian savages.
And don’t forget: even describing a ‘utopia’ through the everyday life of one of its denizens can be very interesting for people who don’t live there. Just don’t forget the hot boys.
[Answer]
As some of the other responders have mentioned, you don't need to make your world less utopian if it suits your story. Consider the degree of darkness necessary for the story you are trying to tell. If adding darker elements like drug abuse, human trafficking, domestic abuse, bigotry, physical and mental disabilities, or war crimes doesn't resonate with the story you are trying to tell, why add it? I've seen some praise gritty stories for delving into the "hard topics", but I've also seen numerous others give examples of how doing so can actively subvert your plot and message and how it often feels like authors only add that to look edgy and topical. E.g., if your message is "life is better than you think it is, even when hope seems lost", having your setting being an utter hellscape full of cruel people actively destroys the message you are trying to send.
However, there is one incredibly easy way to make your worldbuilding less utopian: think about how people would screw it up. Literally every positive social and scientific advancement humans have ever made has resulted in nightmarish consequences because people will abuse that for their own gain.
* The same Haber–Bosch process, which averted a long-feared global famine due to nitrogen shortages, ended up being used to mass produce explosives that killed or crippled millions during the two world wars.
* Orville Wright, who helped invent the airplane to free mankind from the ground, lived long enough to see his invention used to bomb cities into rubble (he died in 1948).
* Gene editing, which has the potential to create drought-resistant crops and cure diseases, is already being abused to do things like genetically engineer plagues for warfare and population control, create transgenic chimeras, and create designer babies (i.e., eugenics). Most of these are still in the experimental stages, but a big concern among bioethicists is that most of these experiments are being done in places like China and no one has the leverage to stop unethical experiments in China.
People, in general, seem to be almost hard-wired to screw over and exploit others for their own gain, especially those outside their immediate social group. And indeed, we see this behavior a lot in pretty much every species of social animal, even ants and mole rats. Although humans can be kind, they are also lazy, and very, very selfish.
An easy way to pinpoint *where* these abuses would take place is to think about your world, think of the awful consequences your fantastical elements (magic, technology) would have, and find the spot where you go "no one would be dumb/selfish enough to do that..." Stop right there. Because eventually, someone *would*. Even if 99.9% of the population are ethical enough to not do something, there will always be some segment that will. Even if that act is as unethical as causing nuclear war.
Even utopian technology could be abused mercilessly. Take, for example, *Star Trek*. Replicators could be easily used to craft assassination weapons on-board a spacecraft, transporters could be used as torture devices (or worse, bomb delivery systems), Warp-capable spaceships make for good kamikaze weapons that can sterilize a planet, etc.
Another way to figure out where the problems will arise is look at the distribution of power. If there is any form of concentrated power in the society\*, there will end up being corruption and abuse. I ran into this with a question of my own, where I asked [how to keep an organization that upholds the supernatural masquerade heroic](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/195353/how-to-keep-secret-societies-with-super-technology-from-taking-over-the-world). I got answers which painted a pretty horrifying answer that any organization involved in policing the masquerade would rather quickly become corrupt and begin abusing its access to supernatural resources to oppress and control mortal affairs, like a CIA on steroids with no oversight from the government. People will always be awful. Life will always be unfair. Suffering will always exist. And as long as human beings continue to exist in the universe, humans will continue to make other humans' lives miserable.
"\*" - And there will be. Even in an idealized society where there are objectively no distinctions based on class/race/gender/whatever, individual differences between human beings will still result in inequity and strife. E.g., if all differences due to wealth/education/other biases are eliminated, [things like "pretty privilege" will result in some individuals systematically](https://www.firstrand.co.za/perspectives/the-ugly-truth-about-pretty-privilege/) [having more opportunities in life than others (and overall being more successful)](https://hbr.org/2019/10/attractive-people-get-unfair-advantages-at-work-ai-can-help). And does anyone really believe that utopian technology would remove the petty drama humans get up to on a daily basis, like that seen in many high schools or offices? Indeed, if anything the more utopian things are the *worse* humans seem to behave, since there is no longer any reason to put one's differences aside and cooperate for survival.
[Answer]
## What does it take to create a utopia?
Quite often utopias in fiction only have very vague explanations of how they came to be. Often it's because of some war or cataclysm that united your civilisation, somehow casting aside their differences to work together for a better future. Or it's down to a slow spread of a utopian ideology over perhaps many centuries. Either way, the formation of every utopia is going to have its detractors, people who resist the ideals of the utopian thinkers for one reason or another. How these people are "dealt with" can give your utopia a dark edge. Perhaps they were sent to re-education centers until they got with the program. Perhaps there's a community of dissenters living outside your utopia, exiled due to their unwillingness to conform. Or perhaps something even worse than both of those examples.
[Answer]
There is lot of older sci-fi from Soviet Block, which was set in Utopia (at least what propaganda propagated) where was no war, everybody had anything needed for good life, building anything was easy, if people want it, everyone was friendly, cooperative, competent, etc, etc and there still was a lot of good action and problems as there was still nature, unknown places, mysterious events (later scientifically explained and overcome), even most advanced spaceship could take damage from unexpected reasons (like star collapsing with a lof of emissions, which make some machines stop working properly or some part breaks at the worst moment ...) and people had to fight with those problems, came with creative solutions and bravely win at the end (plus some propaganda, maybe something bad from history, but usually this - mandated - parts was not so importaint and needed tor the main story)
---
So you do not need Conflict with Evil Vilain, maybe just Problems can be enought to make protagonist really bussy :)
And problems may be just natural events and time press, or it may be bad understanding without bad intentions (IRC lot of I, Robot novels from Isaac Asimov was based on something like that)
Also, what is Utopia (for somebody it is party every evening, for somebody other quiet farm half day way far from other, and somebody want to travel to the stars and colonize empty planets) - so what if our Utopia meets other (UFO) Utopia and while both try to get common laguage and understand each other, it may be very hard to find some good starting point and work from there ...
[Answer]
If you want your world to be less happy, just look at what makes our world less happy (and maybe add some fantasy).
**Racism:** people love to hate what is different from them... a world with diverse species and cultures might stir up issues form time to time.
**Natural disasters:** Earthquakes, hurricanes and tidal waves are nice defaults. But you can also go for droughts, frequent meteor impacts, solar flares that release EMP's frequently destroying technological progress.
**Ideological Terrorism:** Anarchists who want to overthrow the government.
**Never-ending pandemic:** d quickly evolving decease that requires the world to be in a constant state of alert. You can even make it a Zombie decease that is getting abused by terrorists for example.
**Cold-War:** Not an actual war but people are living in constant fear with military spending funneling away a lot of the worlds resources.
**Super natural/alien creatures:** The world having a Vampire/Ghost problem that makes it so that the streets need constant patrolling and people can't go out in the dark. A option would also be alien's with shapeshifting tech that makes the world population paranoia.
**Addictions:** Make the invention of a new drug that is highly addictive and easy to produce. As soon as people's lives are to happy they get bored and well...
**Global Warming/cooling:** Climate change that seems to be unstoppable creating permanent droughts or winters.
**Power Shortage:** Population requires more power then can be produced witht he giving fuel.
[Answer]
**Be cynical**. Cynicism, [from wiktionary](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cynicism):
1. A distrustful attitude.
2. An emotion of jaded negativity, or a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of other people. [...]
3. A skeptical, scornful or pessimistic comment or act.
[Murphy's law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy%27s_law): Anything that **can go wrong** will go wrong.
Read lots of [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/).
How did "the world" reach the state of utopia? How did utopia develop? Perhaps thinking about **history**/**development** you may find conflicts, tension, alternative routes that lead to less utopian situation.
Perhaps thinking about **limits**. Limits on resources, scarcity. Anyone can have anything? Distance. Can they go anywhere, anytime, instantly? Are there different regions, countries, planets? Limits to time. What if there is too much that people want or need to do, but there is not enough time? Limits on people. Anyone can do anything, or are there classes, professions, roles, opportunities, luck? What is the structure of society? What about animals, plants, aliens, viruses, geology? Even stars can have problems. :-)
Update: **Discworld** [series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld) of novels by Terry Pratchett puts all that together (and much more). Obligatory read. :-)
[Answer]
Wow, lots of answers. I can only relate my own experience and belief that humans are incapable of existing in an imagined utopia, a "true" utopia. Any "functional" utopia **MUST** include some form of peril, danger or hardship. otherwise it will collapse, from decadence, apathy or a simple failure to thrive.
Start with the [**Mouse Utopia Experiment**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgGLFozNM2o&vl=en).
>
> Mouse Utopia is a legendary experiment in which mice were put in a
> high-density enclosure (“Universe 25”) with unlimited food, a ‘mouse
> utopia’—only to see the initial population growth be followed by a
> population collapse generations later, while the late mouse population
> exhibited bizarre physical & social abnormalities...
>
>
>
[Answer]
**“Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.”** - Archimedes.
Your utopian worlds can serve as a solid vantagepoint as you apply the lever. Without intrinsic conflict these worlds will not distract from your story or crumble from their own flaws as your characters deal with the conflict that makes the story.
Once you have established the perfection of your world, the issue that you introduce for your story will be the [turd in the punchbowl](https://www.yourdictionary.com/turd-in-the-punchbowl). Nobody cares about a turd in the septic tank but in your Utopia this issue will be jarring and out of place, and so gain its energy via dissonance and contrast. For certain issues a Utopia makes a fine setting - the pain of existential angst would be difficult to bring home if your character is a prisoner of war suffering cholera. But in a utopia your character's suffering will be in stark contrast from the rest of the society.
[Answer]
What is utopian? Are any two people ever going to agree on what is and isn't one - in your Utopia are you free to take any drugs you like as long as no one else is affected by your actions, or does the Utopian society protect you from yourself by ensuring they are not available?
Are the humans in Wall-E in a Utopia where they just do nothing but laze around being entertained by the ship, and the robot delivers them back to a hell of work pioneering the Earth to make it liveable again, or is it delivering a challenge and meaning to their lives?
If the theme is Sci-Fi does the Utopian society gene clean babies to avoid inherited diseases (see Gattaca), or forbid it? Is scientific research into topics that could also lead to dangerous weapons allowed, or banned even though many or the major applications could be beneficial to society?
Or you could look at the economic aspects of the Utopian society - even if everyone's material needs are being satisfied, how is it decided who lives in the penthouse of the shiny tower of showing how great our society is, and who lives in the basement? Do the people that run the society gain rewards greater than the guy that just sits all day watching the robots repairing the robots that make everything everyone needs, or does everyone that want something have an equal random chance of getting it with no bias or favouritism? Is everyone on board with this status quo?
Generally I would think virtually every aspect of society has two or more views of the way it would be in a Utopia, either in terms of more freedom or more safety and/or government taking care of the majority of problems for people, or in terms of prioritising satisfying those with more wants/needs or more greatly rewarding those who contribute most to the society regardless of their needs.
It seems like it shouldn't be problematic to come up with a competing view of whichever aspect of your Utopia you think would be most interesting to pass a story through, by creating some renegade faction that wants things to change. Whether they succeed or not, and whether the story suggests the end results was a good thing or not (or leaves it to reader interpretation) then depends on the tone the story wants to take.
[Answer]
## Let things take their natural course.
A huge problem for utopias is that people are depraved bastards. Given the chance, we will exercise our [Natural Right](https://treehozz.com/what-are-hobbes-natural-rights) to gather as much power as possible with no consideration for the welfare of others.
Laws and social norms help limit this; nevertheless, there are always ambitious people who will do anything to get to the top. As Douglas Adams put it,
>
> It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it... anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
>
>
>
In Utopian societies the government has complete power over the people. As a result, such governments attract harmful ambitions like flies. While the utopia's founders may be pure and good, the government will quickly become filled with avaricious ministers who will take over the government once the founders die or are *cough* "disposed" of.
**Utopium has a short half-life, quickly degrading into Kleptocrium.**
## Alternatively, have conflicting interests.
Believe it or not, the National Socialists were (at least theoretically) trying to build a utopia. However, what was utopic for Aryan Germans was not utopic for other groups. Please note that I am *not* saying they did the right thing, just that they *thought* they were doing the right thing.
As Machiavelli so helpfully pointed out, it is very rare that a ruler can please everybody. As a result, rulers must either please those by whom they rule (as did the more successful Roman Emperors) or come to grief (as did the less successful ones.) In a Utopian society this means that life will only be perfect for some people. **There will always be groups which feel that they are being mistreated.** The conflict between the "in" and "out" groups provides a very useful source of narrative tension.
## Let things take their natural course in the other direction.
Say, for purposes of conjecture, that a Utopian government somehow solves the problem of corruption *and* manages to avoid oppressing any of its people.
Great! You now have a tyrannical, all-powerful (bUt bENeVoLeNt!!) government which exercises complete (BuT bEnEvOlEnT!!!!) control over every single one of its citizens' actions. Every. Single. One. ("bUt iT's BeNeVoLenT!!!!!!!!")
As Machiavelli also pointed out, there will always be citizens who chafe under the strict control over their lives. This hatred will naturally turn into rebellion, which the (bENeVoLeNt!!) government must squash in order to ensure its continued ability to exercise its duties. Doubleplusgood!
[Answer]
Realism. The real-world isn't a utopia because we have real problems that people who are overly idealistic just ignore or say things will work out 'just fine' if you stop questioning it. We don't live in a perfect libertarian utopia or perfect world today because we have issues like:
* Mental illness: We have people who have mental illnesses that cause them to lack empathy like I discuss on [psychology stack exchange](https://psychology.stackexchange.com/a/25288/25157).
>
> While not a peer-reviewed study per se, but the DSM-5 says that the prevalence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the population is 6.2%, or approximately one out of sixteen members of the population (6.25%). The DSM-V was published in 2013 and is a peer-reviewed text, so it is within the 10 year criteria you mentioned and this fact is mentioned in more recent sources like an article for Psychiatric Times published in 2016. Another study from 2019 doesn't mention Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but does mention how approximately 3% of the population has Antisocial Personality Disorder, another disorder that is a common dual-diagnosis with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Then, there is a 2020 study that shows 1.6% to 5.9% of people have borderline personality disorder or BPD, which can be associated with a lack of empathy and lead to behaviors that can be mistaken for NPD. This is similar to Histrionic Personality Disorder (which doesn't cause people to suffer from a lack of empathy like with NPD, but can appear that way due to how it is difficult for those with HPD to recognize the emotions of others and thus lack emotional intelligence) that affects less than or equal to 2% of the population according to the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
>
>
>
You also have mental illnesses like [Paranoid Personality Disorder](https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/psychiatric-disorders/personality-disorders/paranoid-personality-disorder-ppd?query=paranoid%20personality%20disorder) in 4.4% of the general population and [schizotypal personal disorder](https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/psychiatric-disorders/personality-disorders/schizotypal-personality-disorder-stpd) in 3.9% of the general population that might [harm others](https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2021/07/12/prosecutions-medical-experts-diagnose-capital-gazette-shooter-with-schizotypal-narcissistic-personality-disorder/) due to believing in intense delusions and conspiracy theories that can drive them to hurt others due to being 'detached from reality'.
Many of these mental [disorders](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3920596/) are [hereditary](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181941/) with 41% of cases of [antisocial personality disorder being genetic](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24347737/) (and 21% genetic for paranoid personality disorder and 28% genetic for schizotypal personality disorder and 24% to 77% for Narcissistic Personality Disorder), so many people will be born with diseases that cause them to have trouble caring about others unless you create some program that removes them from the gene pool, which is a whole can of worms.
* Political disagreements: We have people who might have it in their [genes to be predisposed towards different political beliefs](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038932/). Try to make a perfect libertarian utopia? Well, you have to deal with people creating KKK-style nationalist groups because some people will have it in their DNA to prefer authoritarianism. Want a more center-authoritarian but fine utopia? Well, you still have deal with people who are programmed to think egoist anarchism and objectivism are the perfect way to live & you should kill the 'sheep' who disagree with you.
* Nature: Natural disasters will always be an issue. Solar flares and other problems from space don't just disappear. According to a study from [Brown University](https://www.brown.edu/Research/Sax_Research_Lab/Documents/PDFs/evidemnce%20for%20role%20of%20disease.pdf), 833 species of plants and animals have gone extinct due to a singular disease since the year 1500 while over 2852 species were made endangered due to one illness. Thus, illnesses can always be a problem that could make life difficult.
One good example of this is Star Trek. Star Trek shows a better future for humanity and other races, but there are a bunch of problems that prevents Starfleet from being a perfect Utopia. You have extreme political disagreements with Starfleet with factions like the Romulans and the Borg willing to violently hurt or harm others because of how extremely they disagree with starfleet's ideas of utopia. The original Star Trek movie also shows a strange phenomena from space that threatens to destroy the Earth and create problems. There are even some corrupt Starfleet officers that cause problems similar to someone that might be suffering from a severe mental illness. Even in the world with holodecks and almost unlimited resources thanks to replicators, extreme political disagreements, mental illness, and natural disasters still cause issues that keep this world from being 100% perfect for everyone and naturally leads to conflict.
[Answer]
Make sure that whoever and whatever inhabits your world they're people, and make sure you don't have any blinkers on about how awful people are to each other while you are writing. Which is not to say that ever person in your world is a monster but people, as opposed to the individual persons making up the plural, tend to be stupid, panicky, easily led, and very selfish. Make sure you capture the basic selfishness of people by maintaining the separation of the haves and the have nots. The have nots may be wealthy beyond the dreams of avaricious by modern standards but if the socioeconomic elite have orders of magnitude more of something that the society values than the average citizen then you still have a wealth divide.
[Answer]
## Your conflicts can live in your characters, not your setting
Any story needs conflicts, preferably specific, concrete examples of conflicts. Each example of a conflict is driven by a character who wants something, and a reason they can't have it. There's no reason you can't have those ingredients in a utopian world.
For example, you can have interpersonal conflicts in any setting. In a utopia, you can have a person who wants to find something out, when there's some reason that the society doesn't want them to know it. Perhaps there's a dark secret about the founding of the utopia, or the history of some figure in power, that a character wants to reveal or broadcast to the world, or maybe it's just a discovery that someone made and then hid, because they were scared of how it would change the world. You could also have someone who wants to gain power within the utopia, or someone who wants to promote one value at the expense of another value. You might have major or minor characters who want to break some minor rules for minor benefits. (I quite like how Alasdair Reynolds' *Blue Remembered Earth* does this, or the non-central conflicts in Lev Grossman's *The Magicians* or Hermann Hesse's *The Glass Bead Game*.) You can (and should) have several of these conflicts, or others, occurring at once, for the same or different characters.
All the ways of making up conflicts from the other answers are suitable for finding possible sources of conflict within your utopia. But as long as your characters have conflicts (and they make choices with concrete stakes that the reader already cares about, e.g. "John missed his daughter's recital to attend that vote", when the daughter has previously appeared excited or nervous about the recital, instead of "John was sad he wasn't spending time with his family because he was working so hard"), your world won't feel "too utopic", no matter how much better or worse it is than what happens to be our present day.
## How many of your favourite stories have domestic abuse or alcoholism?
[Answer]
**Pick a publicly visible problem and try to find the root cause behind that problem**
Take any city and you'll find something that's visible for all to see that's a problem but no one seems to be able to deal with it for some reason, or no one wants to.
It could be something as simple as unmaintained roads. Ask yourself, why would the roads not be maintained? And you'll find deeper problems with your world or society than you might've initially thought there'd be. From corrupt government oficials taking the tax money meant for the repairs of the roads to the people being unable to pay the tax because it is set too high and create hidden poverty, that which is not perfect in otherwise perfection will often have bigger problematic causes than that which was the problem that started you down your investigation.
Hell, it could even be a relatively harmless problem like laziness, or teaching people to maintain but not to create. What happens to utopia when no one maintains it or makes new things anymore? It decays and falls into a state of being that may just be worse than what it was before becoming paradise. People uncertain what to do when most of the food dispensers no longer work will panic as none can fix those too damaged to be fixed and cannot make new ones, there will be riots and bloodshed over the few remaining functioning food dispensers, perhaps even cannibalism if the automatic farms supplying the dispensers have failed too.
[Answer]
**A world without conflict causes its own set of problems(Conflicts)**
One thing which defines life, as a term, is adversity. Humans have spent the vast majority of their lives trying to survive, whether that be by hunting mammoths, avoiding plagues, fighting wars, or . Life as we know it sort of built around adversity, and overcoming it. We seek to progress ourselves to avoid certain hardships, and gain certain pleasures.
What happens then, when all challenge and adversity is taken from us? Getting everything you have ever wanted might sound good on paper, but what do you do after that? (Granted this depends on whether your world is post-scarcity or not, but I digress). There's an old Twilight Zone episode about this vague idea, "A Nice Place to Visit".
A good worldbuilding instance of this is the Eldar, from WH40k. They more or less created the most prosperous space empire in all history, eliminating the need for any physical labor. Due to this, however, they slowly began to descend, mostly out of boredom, into the obsessive search for entertainment and dopamine, which, well, started to get a bit out of hand. This culminated in the creation of a cosmic horror of pure sensation which disintegrated the vast majority of the Eldar in a second and more or less doomed all life in the universe to be slowly assimilated by malevolent forces beyond mortal comprehension, as things tend to do.
Granted, you don't have to go so far, but you could explore the loss of purpose and search for meaning which a post-scarcity society would create. Maybe people set out to become adventurers, in spite of the massive risks, because of the droll absence of challenge in civil society?
[Answer]
Any “utopian” Society won’t work for everyone; the more luxury one group has the more work others have to do to maintain that. A utopia implies that everyone is equal, and on the scale of world-spanning states humans just have entirely the wrong mindset. We’re not worker ants; we are never all content with our lot, some of us will try and rise higher than the rest on the backs of others, and that’s where this society becomes less of a utopia.
[Answer]
Spend time reading about:
* cultural change
* impact of technological change on society.
Examples:
The plains Indians had a pretty rough life before they stole horses from the Spanish. Horses gave them the ability to move as fast as the buffalo. One source that I can't find posits that had the U.S. not tasked the army with destroying buffalo to force the Indians onto reservations, the Indians themselves would have hunted them to extinction in another 50 years.
The coastal Indian tribes -- (E.g. Haida, Tlinget, Salish) had a salmon economy, that fed everyone. They had ways to cope with the rainy climate. They had resources to create totem poles, and put on potlatches. What did they fight about?
In current times I have seen many native reserves where there is no meaningful work. Practically the entire community is on welfare. No one needs to work unless they want more than their subsistence gets. Yet these communities have real problems with substance abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual abuse. They have some of the highest murder rates.
---
Look at how things break after a technological change:
Case 1: A cheap ($100) gizmo that you wear allow you to fly at any speed you can stand the wind. No one commutes by car. They fly to work. Or do they?
* Imagine a million people flying into work. 50,000 people converging on the World Trade Center.
* Changes in building security.
* Impossibility of enforcing immigration and smuggling. And that leads to an impossible to control drug distribution system.
* Wholesale collapse of the auto industry. (Lot of trucks still. Inconvenient to fly with a lift of plywood)
* Collapse of the short haul air passenger industry.
Case 2: Suppose that eSTOR was successful and had a dense power capacitor that could store 100 kWh per cubic foot.
* A box the size of a bar fridge stores a month's power.
* Solar cells on your garage can power your house.
* What need for the electrical utility?
* Lots of people go off grid, and the central government in general has one less lever over it's members.
* Couple this with remote work via local wireless network and the society as a whole decentralizes.
* Opportunities for brigandry.
Humans historically have been motivated by:
* Money both for the material things it can buy, and the services it can buy, and control it offers.
* Sex
* Power
* Religion
* Respect from peers
are the major ones. I'm sure there are a raft of others: Curiosity, duty, vengeance, artistic endeavour come to mind.
---
We could give you more help if you painted a picture of your utopia, then asked us to be the Rats in the Walls.
[Answer]
## Ginsburg's umbrella
Unless your utopia was ordained by gods or magic, people created it by establishing new rules (aka laws) organized around specific goals and/or values.
So, unless your utopia was ordained by gods or magic, its continued existence depends on continued fidelity to those rules, goals, and/or values.
(For convenience, let's handwave the [rule-following problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein_on_Rules_and_Private_Language#The_rule-following_paradox), and pretend that the rules are written in a magically unambiguous way that all people can understand. This is a *huge* cheat, but we'll do it anyway.)
**Laws don't enforce themselves**: people have to decide that a law applies to a situation and then also decide to perform whatever actions the law requires. If this doesn't happen, the utopia will stop being a utopia. And even if you do it right today, tomorrow is a new day ripe for new frailty. In the real world, people reject that responsibility every day, even in so-called "rule of law" nations like the United States.
So here's the problem of Ginsburg's umbrella: when a solution works well, people tend to forget about the problem it solved, and so stop maintaining the solution.
As Ruth Bader Ginsburg put it:
>
> throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet
>
>
>
This happens *all the time.*
Evidently, very many humans will only continue to go out of their way to maintain a protection if they are occasionally exposed to visceral reminders of the problem it protects them from. "Out of sight, out of mind," as the saying goes.
As a result, very many excellent solutions literally become victims of their own success.
(Computers do not have this problem, but computers cannot run society. A computer can run a canning factory, *maybe.*)
---
1. The first and second generations in utopia will have it great.
2. Later generations will be naive and ignorant (re: upholding the rules)...
3. ...then lazy and careless.
4. Somewhere in there, new generations will stop being grateful, and will just be spoiled brats. From their vices and privilege will begin to flow all the familiar evils.
5. Their naive, ignorant, lazy, and careless peers will be wholly inadequate to the task of policing them.
6. Spoiled brats will tear down the rest of the rules as impediments to their gluttony.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm immortal.
Yes, I could give you the secret and also no I won't. Unless...that is...you help me solve a bit of a dilemma I'm facing.
I recently found out that both my wife and I are immortal and can not be killed or permanently injured in any way, shape, or form. It's a bit different however, because we can still get sick or be (temporarily) hurt; I can get any disease/virus/etc. or almost cut my arm off (It never cuts all the way through), but it always gets better. We do not seem to age past 28, so this is going to start looking really weird in a few years. Here lies my issue.
Now I've known for about...let's say 2 years, not really enough time for anyone to notice yet, but soon people will say "You haven't changed a bit". Little do they know right? My problem comes in that our current lifestyle is very comfortable, and it would cause us many more issues if we were to suddenly drop off the face of the Earth.
Our goal is to remain as close to our current lifestyle as possible without needing to relocate and essentially start a whole new life. Our problem is that if we "die" in an accident, the things we've worked so hard to obtain (house, job, cars, college degrees, etc.) would be unavailable to us. So there's the background, and a bit of the question, but let me phrase it a bit differently; my speech can sometimes be hard to understand with the long term planning and all. We're mainly looking to hide it from neighbors, family, and banks/civil companies. The government is aware and doesn't require anything from us (apparently we're not the first...no surprise...).
Note: The question linked as a duplicate explicitly is looking to hide it from the government, and does not feature any sort of physical immortality, both of which are different in my question.
**How can we, as immortal beings, retain our existing lifestyles with the least radical changes possible?**
[Answer]
You can fake some age with makeup and hair coloring. You could probably "age" from 28 to 58 over 30 years without really setting off too many alarm bells.
Any comments can easily be explained away with "well, I guess we have really good genes."
Then after 30 years you start to cut ties to friends. This is easier if you don't really make many friends to start with. I mean, they are all going to die eventually anyway, so long term the only person you can bond with long term is your spouse.
Once ties are cut enough you can take off the makeup and essentially be a new person again who only happens to look like the old person.
One way is to "marry" your own replacement identities.
Get a new identity faked up, and your 58 year old wife "dies". Then you happen to meet a new 28 year old woman and marry her. After a few years go by you "die", and your widow marries a "new" 28 year old husband.
The chain goes unbroken, no assets are lost, you may have to pay some estate taxes depending on local laws, but at least you won't lose everything.
The only people who might need to know in this scenario would be employers, but you can just freelance and avoid that problem, and maybe if you find a really close friend, you might tell them too.
**Edit:**
Regarding friends and community, and allowing for the fact that there are others in the world, I can see people in this group gravitating toward each other after a lifetime or two, starting a new community with people that won't disappear after only 80 years, and who understand the challenges and wonders of living forever. This would probably happen naturally, as the immortals find themselves without friends and family over time.
They would just pack up and move to their forever home.
**Edit 2: Immortal Games**
Eventually stuff would start to get boring, and so new pastimes and hobbies would be attractive.
***Rags to Richest Reboot*** - A city is drawn at random from anywhere in the world, and the contestant is dropped in with the clothes on their back and a valid ID. The object is to see who can get from homeless poverty to wealthy the fastest. Extra points are awarded for style.
***So You Want To Be A Super Hero*** - Using the skills learned over decades or centuries, go into a high crime area and clean things up. Points scored by starting and ending living conditions.
[Answer]
## Social alienation is your biggest problem and good makeup won't fix that.
After a few decades, you and your wife will be irrevocably 'other' to most humans on a social level. If you attempt to maintain your original identity, people will start to wonder who you are when you write "Age: 450 years". All those questions will get tiresome after a while (well, they would for me).
Say you have a set of 10 friends who are approximately your age now. In a few decades, they will want to stay home, enjoy good wine and talk about politics. Your wife and you will want to go do things because you'll have the physical vitality to do so. You also won't look or move like your friends anymore. Whether the divergence of the friendship is gradual over time or a sudden termination will depend on lots of factors. Even if you do somehow manage to maintain these friendships, all these friends will die. Either you retreat into the friendship of your spouse or you find new friends.
To younger people who more physically match your own appearance and abilities, your mental state will border on alien (perhaps more-so than humans who have aged normally). Your priorities may be radically different and your perspectives will certainly be different. You'll be in this weird place where your bodies are young but your minds are very old. Young people may bore you quickly while older people just won't accept you because you're too 'young'.
## Family Relationships
No matter how close you are to all your family members, all those relationships are going to end. How much emotional turmoil are you willing to deal with? Let's say that your favorite aunt gets cancer and is on her deathbed. You know full well that you can save her life and keep her around forever, if you share the secret of immortality. That's an easy situation that can get really sticky later.
What happens when it's your least favorite aunt who has cancer and you don't want them to live forever but your family members don't want that aunt to die? If it's known that you could have saved them but didn't, resentments that will never die could start there. You may not have the option of breaking ties with your family. Your resenting relatives may tell their children who tell their children to never ever forgive you.
Do you want to watch all your family members die, especially in light of knowing you could save them but choose not to? You will watch your grandchildren and great grandchildren die.
## Physical Comfort/Wealth
Eventually, you and your wife will be very wealthy. Maintaining physical comfort will be very easy after your investments pay-off in 30 years. Most people race to get enough savings to live off the interest before they can't work anymore. You don't have that problem. Investments that won't pay off for 50 years are acceptable because you've got eternity to wait.
There are many time-tried methods for preserving wealth. Trusts, inheritances, shell companies, and so on. Making sure you have a good place to inherit all your assets isn't hard, especially since you've got enough money to afford extremely good tax attorneys and accountants.
## Immortality is such a strange place
Everything is boring. Everything changes but nothing changes. Preserving a specific lifestyle is impossible in a modern era. The world as a whole changes too fast. If you want to stay the same, you'll have to work increasingly hard to preserve your way of doing things. In 100 years, cell-phones may not be a thing. They weren't 100 years ago. It's far better to adapt to whatever the current circumstances. It's cheaper and provides a chance to avoid the tedium of existence by new novelties.
You can expect that the oldest aspects of human existence will persist. You'll still have and need friends. Acquiring food, shelter and clothing will take up some of your time (though if you're wealthy this will be a really small portion of your time, if you want it to.)
[Answer]
Since you can share the secret, do so.
First, share it with a multi-billionaire who will then fund the rest of this answer out of gratitude.
Now share it with all your closest friends and let them share it with their closest friends. That should give you a big enough group to take over a fancy gated housing development near where you currently live. The trick is, your group has to occupy every single house within the community so that no strangers are ever around to notice that none of you are aging.
Then, every last one of you can either quit your job or choose a work-from-home option. Remember, you have a multi-billionaire on the team, so working is purely optional.
From there, it is clear sailing until the sun burns out.
[Answer]
You can opt for de-constructive surgery which adds wrinkles manually and get age spots tattooed as you get older.
One day when you are ready to start over you can secretly move to a new location (it doesn't have to be far), skin yourself (go ahead and pull that hang-nail ALL the way back), wait for it to grow back, and go introduce yourself to the new neighbors.
[Answer]
Buy houses in different states (or very far apart cities) with the money you have accumulated. If you move a few hours away, they are less likely to visit you, or you could just not give them the address of where you moved to. You can ignore them and slowly freeze them out over social platforms too.
Every 20/25 years, switch to a different house. Get a new job at the place you worked 100-ish years ago. That way the place will always be familiar and feel like coming home to you.
For example. If you work for a hospital, when you move to your second house for the first time, you'll have to get a job at a new one. Then after the years have passed and anyone who would have known you has passed on, move back and get a new job back at the place you were working at before. Swap back and forth.
If you only did this with a few homes, and living there for long periods of time, they won't feel foreign. You'll just be coming home to a different home. Only keep/maintain about 4/5 houses depending on how often you want to move around. Every 100 years or so, withdraw your money from the bank and open an account at a new bank.
Every 20/25 years would be good amount of time as well, as you could pass off looking like an old 20 year old or a young looking 40 year old. You would also be able to tell your friends/family that you got a new job offer and are moving far away for that reason. But are keeping the old house for retirement reasons. It's good to keep your money invested in real-estate.
[Answer]
# Create a trust
By creating a trust (or a shell company, LLC, etc) you can move ownership of all your worldly treasures into said trust. Trusts are commonly used to prevent any ['Death Taxes'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States) in the US by preventing your estate from needing to be transferred upon your death, since it already owned by an immortal legal entity (the trust). This helps ensure your possessions transfer seamlessly when you enact part 2:
# Have 'Children', then die
When you turn '28' you and your wife have a couple of kids, a boy and girl; but only on paper. You now include these non-existent children on the trust; and have ownership of the trust pass onto them upon you an your wife's tragic deaths at age '56' due to a horrible 'SOMETHING' accident. Unfortunately this does mean that it will be hard to have close friends, since they may become suspicious if they know you for a couple decades, but never meet you children. Such is the price of immortality.
# Get good at Make-Up
As mentioned in the other answers, make-up can make you look slightly older. You will need to cycle between looking 28-56 years old; looking like you are ageing naturally.
[Answer]
Frame challenge here. You can't keep your lifestyle the same because the world is going to change out from under you. Seriously.
Just in 30 year hops (about the age range you could cover with easy makeup), you're going from
- seeing the rich people get mechanical horses, to
- gathering scrap for the war effort, to
- the Haight Ashbury Summer of Love, to
- watching the planes hit the towers.
Remember when Facebook and Twitter crashed during 9/11? You don't remember that? Because it didn't happen.
[Answer]
Just Come Out With It!
Make no attempt to hide the fact. Walk around the world and live your life normally. If anyone questions it, simply tell them ‘I’m immortal’. How many people will truly believe you? A fraction, even with clear evidence in front of their eyes. Sure, the press or the internet may get ahold of your story, but to most of the world, you’ll be a tabloid headline or: “This Couple Gained Immortality With This One Simple Trick!” clickbait.
So long as you never apply for government benefits (or retirement/company pensions) you will soon find that as long as they don’t suspect fraud, they could care less. The entire world is ran on computers, and as long as you HAVE a valid birthdate, ID#, DNA on file, and the correct papers, these faceless entities will give you no trouble whatsoever. In fact, these things technology-wise will work against you, sooner than later, it will become impossible to fake new identities and biometrics, and the trouble you’ll get in for attempting to do so outweighs the (possible) explanation of your long-life. In the next hundred years, for the super-rich in any case, extremely long-life or immortality will probably become a thing. You’ve survived past the ‘burn the witches’ phase of humanity, but the jig is up, it’s time to just be who and what(ever the hell) you are!
(Just don’t FALL DOWN A HOLE!)
[Answer]
**Government program analogous to witness protection**
The government knows about it and is willing to help, then the simplest solution would be to have a program analogous to witness protection in which they give you new identities every ~20 years (as other answers mentioned, that amount allows you to pass off as old-looking 20-year-olds or young-looking 40-year-olds). They would be able to move your money for you so it follows you (keeping the same financial lifestyle). They'd find you a job where you wouldn't have to explain anything to your employer. They'll find the most discreet way to disappear and create identities that won't raise too many eyebrows - it's their job.
The biggest hurdle will be the social aspect of making new friends at those points and the psychological aspect of losing the ones you had - but nothing can change that when your lifespan is infinitely longer than that of your friends.
I'd consider this the least radical change possible because moving and changing jobs isn't exactly *radical*, and changing friends is mandatory in your situation. Unless...
**Social Aspect:**
**try to find the other immortals!** You said you're not the first, so surely the others are still alive by the very nature of the situation. Having more than one person (your spouse) that you can get to know long term could help make things much easier when the time comes to switch identities.
[Answer]
You are immortal, which means you need to start some medium and long term planning.
In the immediate term (10s of years), using makeup and faking your death every 20-30 years works. It gives you a few decades to enjoy each "crop" of education/employment/friends. It isn't perfect, but nothing is.
The short term (100s of years) would involve trying to shape multiple communities you can enjoy living in, and the ability to easily slot into them. You'll also want to try to (slowly, as you have the time) move up into the ownership class in order to cushion yourself against employment and other risks and maintain your lifestyle. This can eliminate your need to have a job with superiors, which saves a bunch on paperwork and job jumping.
Your medium term problem (thousands to millions of years) is the stability of society as a whole. Maintaining your standard of living requires an industrial civilization, functioning biosphere, and an open and free society. A nuclear war would make things unpleasant, as would being thrown into a volcano or being cut apart and tortured as a black site. And things may get boring if the human race dies out.
Next the mid term; you have to get out of our solar system. The planet is only going to be habitable for on the order of a billion years.
Then, in the long term, you have entropy to fight. The sun will swallow the Earth, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf, the white dwarf will cool and go dark, the protons in the white dwarf will decay. Nothing will be left but extremely red shifted photons and the immortals floating in empty nothingness. While this seems quite remote, a true immortal risks spending almost all of its existence in the cold endless heat death of the universe. Either finding a way to end your own existence before this point, or solve the entropy problem.
[Answer]
# The government is aware
That is your answer right there. If your government knows about you, and wants you to stay hidden, they will help you.
You still have to move every so often, but at least keeping your fortune will be easy.
[Answer]
Fortunately, you attained your immortality just as our society was going virtual. So all you need to do is follow the aging makeup and serial-marriage advice from the other answers as you share the mortal lifespans of your existing friends in the real world.
Then after the final funeral, and with the blessings of immersive virtual reality, you can live out the rest of eternity, interacting with new friends who will never see you or your wife's real, unchanging bodies. With a little software tinkering, your VR Avatars will age right along with your friends until the day you attend their virtual funeral services; at which point you can hit the reset button and start again.
[Answer]
By using Old Age Makeup (quick-google it). It just requires a lot of training until you master the art, but you are unlikely to need it in the next couple of years, so you can practice a lot.
Then, every morning you will have a lot of work, but with practice it will become quicker. Doing it to look like gradually getting old will be very hard too, but again, you will have plenty of time to practice.
Once you have aged enough and all your friends are dead, you will have no reason to mind starting a whole new life, will you? Just hire someone to falsify all you documents and find a similar place to live (if even necessary)!
It may seem like a huge investment of time, but it will be useful for the rest of your infinite lives!
PS: Remember not to shower while not alone (or with your wife) in the house!
[Answer]
**Being wealthy helps**
When you needn't live from labour but from capital income, you don't need a job, a degree nor any certificate or other papers. Just cash in the interest generated from your piled up money, and live discretely.
You can adopt to a life-style including long absences from home such that the ever-unchanging outlook is not too overtly seen. The trick of reappearing as some younger relative (either children of nephew and niece) reclaiming the heritage of the deceased is also a classic (occurring in some Lovecraft short story the title I just don't have at hand). It is not necessary to fake death, it is sufficient to be declared dead for being missing long enough.
[Answer]
Would it really be beneficial to stay the same though? In the sense that you want to preserve your anonymity and not become a media sensation, perhaps, but I'm certain a socially reclusive lifestyle would be the way to go here until, of course, everyone else attains immortality. Yep. The might not be "as immortal" as you, in the sense that you are completely invincible, but biologically they may not age - and then, you can come out. "We're the same, we don't age" and all of a sudden things are back to normal. You might argue that their age extension might only make them 200 years old - however by the time that they're 199 the technology will be there for them to live till a thousand.
Then what? Most humans that have survived at this point are now immortal - maybe even to the extent that you are thanks to technology. Boredom? I doubt it. Go conquer the Universe. Find the truth of this reality. I think that'll keep you occupied for a few billion years.
[Answer]
You can sell your home, buy an RV, and spend your time travelling hither and yon. Pick a large country like the United States, with a decent amount of freedom of domestic travel.
There's lots to see. Write books about your travels, publishing under a series of pseudonyms as time goes on.
You'll outlive your RV, so have plans for buying the next one.
[Answer]
as a variation to the old-age makeup, do have children, a boy and a girl, wait until they are old enough that they could pass as your parents, then swap identities. then they act as parents, and you as children. when they die, you inherit their (your) stuff and continue.
since the government knows, they will help you with the parts where identities are tied to DNA or fingerprints.
alternatively, instead of children, grow clones.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
This question does not appear to be about **worldbuilding**, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help).
Closed 3 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/48940/edit)
I am currently searching for a new execution method to be used in my fictional psychotic dictatorship. After introducing methods such as decompression, boiling, surgical torture (being dissected alive without anesthesia) or slow dissolution in acid, the dictator is still not satisfied, saying that "the full potential of the human body to feel and endure pain is not used".
The new execution method should meet the following requirements:
* Cause pain that is as strong as possible, if possible the maximum pain that can be perceived by a human.
* Prolong this pain to the longest time possible.
* Prolong the sanity of the condemned person to at least 3 hours - e.g. the person subjected to the execution method should not go crazy and be fully able to feel the pain for at least 3 hours. Consider pausing the torture if the subject falls unconscious and/or injecting him with stimulants or light painkillers before resuming the procedure.
* Be an effective deterrent against undesirable actions. Feel free to make it gory and make the subject scream in despair - the executions will be aired on TV.
Please stick to modern or near future technology and biologically plausible. Anything ranging up to high-tech torture robots that back up their victims with stimulants if they feel unconscious is acceptable as long as no magic or other processes or systems that defy the laws of physics and biology are included.
Creative solutions such as using nanorobots are encouraged.
[Answer]
An electrode wired directly into the brain's pain centers would provide any level of pain you require at the flip of a switch. We have done this with test animals, mostly mice in order to study pain responses and chronic pain treatment methods. Nothing is preventing us from doing this to people other than ethics.
At maximum your subject would eventually die, most likely from heart failure or shock. To prolong this, the victim could be wired into a heart monitor and have the system modulate the intensity and duration of the pain inflicted. Your first few cases might die prematurely, but with additional data you could perfect your execution method to maximize pain over whatever time period you desire.
For added pain you could medicate them with medications to lower their blood pressure, or even put them on a heart bypass machine. The ultimate, not yet achievable with current technology, would be a brain in a support machine experiencing unending pain.
As an evil overlord you could of course pre-wire the entire population and trigger any individual's pain at the push of a button.
[Answer]
There really is nothing new under the sun, as far as this is concerned. Pain is difficult to measure. Here's some oldies...
**Impaling**
This tried and true method can last for 3 hours, just by using your own weight to slide you down the implement.
**Crucifixion** There's a reason why the Romans did this. Google it.
**The Heretic's Fork**
Here's [a link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heretic%27s_fork). Victim can't sleep or move their heads much.
**Withdrawal** This will take longer than 3 hours to do. First, get your victim addicted to an opiate. Then, take that opiate away. This heightens pain awareness.
I think the **Rat Torture** method doesn't take long enough for your purposes, but it is quite horrifying. (The rat is put in a cage, the bottom is on the person's body. A heating element is in the top, which is lowered. In a panic, the rat will try to escape, mainly by burrowing through the person's body).
Finally, there's **The Tub or The Boat** This involves excrement, honey and insects. Enjoy [this link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism). I will not describe it.
[Answer]
Going to go with some of my favourite methods - They are old but gold.
[Death by 1000 cuts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi) - In the Ming dynasty 1368–1644 there were records of up to 3000 cuts, the total time it seems to only last 15 - 20 minutes. While this only lasts a short while, imagine thousands of paper cuts all over your body.
[Water Torture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture) - At first this isn't too bad but after a long enough time the water will feel like a hammer hitting the head each time.
Also, from wiki:
>
> Victims were strapped down so that they could not move, and cold or warm water was then dripped slowly on to a small area of the body; usually the forehead. The forehead was found to be the most suitable point for this form of torture because of its sensitivity: prisoners could see each drop coming, and after long durations were gradually driven frantic as a perceived hollow would form in the centre of the forehead.
>
>
>
[Bamboo Torture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_torture) - This seems to have started in WWII about Japan however there seems to be some roots in China as well.
>
> The victim was tied securely in place above a young bamboo shoot. Over several days, the sharp, fast-growing shoot would first puncture, then completely penetrate the victim's body, eventually emerging through the other side.
>
>
>
Slow Crushing - Couldn't find any wiki links for this, however what you do is strap someone down, a wall or floor doesn't matter, then slowly crush them from the bottom up. For added evilness you can make them walk, or try to, so they are constantly feeling their bones cut into their feet (if memory serves me correctly they don't last more than a few days due to internal bleeding or shock).
[Strappado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strappado) - Essentially you tie someone's arms behind their back and suspend them, tie weights to their ankles to speed up the process. You can keep doing this for a while however their joints will likely give way after a few days or if you want you can keep twisting their arms until they rip off with this method.
OK, so these were my favourite known methods, now for some I think of to pass the time.
False Hope - Give someone hope, if they kill their son/daughter their wife/husband will live, if they will their wife/husband their son/daughter will live, then kill the other one slowly using one of the methods above, or if they refuse then they all get tortured use one of the methods above (a different one for each, but keep them in the same room so they can see it happening).
Make a person do the opposite of what they believe - Say a man refuses to hit a woman, torture him use any method above but keep giving him the option of that if he kills a woman it will stop. This is best if you can have someone he knows/trusts witness it, then keep torturing him and then give him the option of killing the person he knows/trusts if he does then welcome him to your ranks and keep reminding him of what he has done, a recording of it would be best to keep it fresh. You can also make people denounce their God.
**Addition**
Acupuncture/hitting nerve clusters - Insert a acupuncture needle into the ulnar nerve (funny bone to everyone else), give the needle a wiggle every so often for good measure. (Anyone who has hit the funny bone knows how painful it can be, I doubt I need to say how painful this would be)
For the moment that is all I can say without going into details that would be questionable at best at work.
[Answer]
I think that, if your torture will be aired on TV and should act as a deterrent, it can't be 3 hours of screams and agony. If one day something like that happens on TV, most people will find it revolting and with time even boring. You need something entertaining if you want people to watch it.
That's why I think that [josh-king answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/48947/9109), while giving the maximum amount of pain possible, is not fit for TV.
However what you can imagine, to continue with josh-king answer, is a wireless device surgically connected to the brain's pain center. This device would be controlled remotely to provoke pain.
I don't have any knowledge in biology so I don't know exactly what power (volt and amps) is needed to give your subject a strong stimuli, but since your talking about nanorobots, I think that with some research and a few ~~prisoners~~ volunteer test subjects, the level of technology in your world is high enough to produce such device.
Once your subject (or subjects) has the device implanted, all you need is to create a sadistic game. Disguising the torture as a game will make it entertaining to your viewers will instilling fear in their mind. And with enough propaganda, your dictator can even be seen as a good guy, giving a last chance of redemption to traitors.
---
**Why don't you create a reality TV show ?**
You take like 10 prisoners and you locked them up in a manor. In the beginning, the prisoners have nothing (no food, only a few cloth...) and are locked in the main room.
While being in the main room, they feel a mild-strong pain (something equivalent to a toothache).
Every day at the hour of your choosing, a door open. At this point you want to increase the pain level of everyone inside the main room because you want them to enter in the newly opened room.
Inside it, you will have your brand new torture of the day, a sadistic challenge that the prisoners should face to gain something.
You can make them gain food, clothes, even painkiller that'll just be placebo because you're in control of the pain. You can even try to make them betray each other, pledge unending loyalty to you, beg for forgiveness in exchange of personal rewards, whatever fits your need.
The torture of the day shouldn't necessarily be something painful, but something that looks painful, something that the viewers would love to watch. Also, you should design every challenge so that submission to your dictator's and the value he worships are rewarded. It would "educate" your viewers while brainwashing the prisoners.
For example, you can imagine the following challenge. Your prisoners are asked a question with two answer possible. They can choose between betraying their country or putting the supreme leader's life at risk. They have a limited time to answer the question and the more time they take to answer the question, the stronger the pain they'll fell, pressuring them to answer just to stop the pain. Obviously the only right answer is silence. Anyone who answers will be led to a room of suffering (maybe even death) while someone who remain silent until the end to the timer, enduring the increasing pain, will gain something. This way, you're both teaching your spectators that they should not betray your dictator or the country and you're making the prisoners suffer.
Moreover, while inside this manor, your prisoners need to have a goal. An obvious one would be to collect every piece of a key through every day's challenge. This key would then open a big door to freedom (or that what they're told). Without this hope, most of prisoners will want to end their suffering at some point. And even with this hope, it's possible that some of them will want to commit suicide. Be sure to put something to help them.
Even with a way out, most prisoners (maybe even all of them) will die before completing the key, but that's not a problem because you just want them to suffer.
If someone manages to obtain every piece of the key, you have two choices :
You can set him free if he's been obedient and the dictator is feeling generous.
Or you can make him face one final challenge while enduring excruciating pain, with death as the only possible outcome.
---
With this solution the population will see the traitors suffer, but it'll be entertaining (somewhat). You could run this kind of show for weeks, even month. With enough dissidents, you could even have a new edition each year !
[Answer]
The ancient Greeks were masters of brutal execution methods. They would alternately cook people inside a huge metal closed container (long period of time, so maximum pain, also, it turns out that a major burn is about the maximum amount of pain a human can feel before the brain just blocks more "signal" from the nerves), or they would set up what amounted to a gigantic wok in the center of town, invite the victim's entire family, and starting with the youngest member of the family, make every one of them watch as the others were basically fried to death alive. The final family member being the ACTUAL target of the execution.
Romans were pretty nasty too (obviously, this is where we get Crucifixion from) but I think the Greeks really get the gold ring for sheer cruelty.
[Answer]
## Fire, Honey, soothe, Repeat
The first step is to slowly burn the victim, making sure that every part of their body is covered in at least minor burns (not too severe or they will not feel it), then cover their body in sections of honey and leave them in the sun, this will attract insects that will bite on the burns, which in turn causes intense pain. Finally soothe them, find a way to make them temporarily forget (or not feel) the pain; when they are no long showing signs of pain, knock them out, heal their wounds and repeat (the temporary relief makes each cycle feel worse). A few points;
1. When leaving them out, I would suggest rope crucifixion (as nails would cause open wounds and make them bleed, which can cause lightheadedness, which limits pain), the cross itself should be low to the ground (to give false hope). It should also has a step so that the victim can push up to get a breath. This should go on for around 1-3 days to avoid infection of the burns
2. To avoid having the honey soothe the burns, I suggest mixing in broken glass, this will cut them as the honey melts. Also make sure you stick this pain honey into areas that they will always either have pressure on (under the feet) or they cannot help but move (the eyes)
3. Since this can go on indefinitely, you will need to feed them. I suggest Duran fruit or Carolina Reapers for the fruits and veggies and live insects for the meat. A fully balanced diet will keep them living longer. Live insects in bulk can cause internal bleeding though, so be careful not to feed them too many at once. Duran fruit is often described as smelling of garbage water and raw sewage, and If I have to explain why the Carolina Reaper is torturous then please say so.
4. The healing means that this brutal torture will last as long as you want; The ice will also help with keeping them sane and lucid. Although yo cannot avoid them losing hope, they will eventually lose the will to live. I would delve deeper into my thoughts, but I don't want to end up on a list.
[Answer]
Hmmm ... where to begin?
Sleep deprivation is a good one, and it eventually leads to death.
Neural pain stimulation, which doesn't actually harm the body, but can lead to death all the same (your heart gives out, or you burst blood vessels in your brain). This has a lot of potential as the pain you would feel in that situation is absolutely horrific. There's nothing worse than what your own "mind" (read nervous system) can conjure up against you.
You could take a note from Game of Thrones and peel the skin from a person's limbs, amputating them one by one so they don't die, and then have them go insane with the agony of it all.
I think this is a pretty good list to start, but I can probably come up with more if you'd like :-)
What I'd like to mention, however, is that when faced with such an insane regime these tortures will only act as a deterrent for *some* of the population.
Others will, on the contrary, see this as a reason to fight you tooth and nail.
[Answer]
Since nobody mentioned it: Drilling into the nerves of the teeth is a well-tested torture method. While inflicting extreme pain it doesn't damage the body much (a reason it is used in the real world). Since many people abhor dentists it may even be suited for reality TV. Add some show effects, amplify the drill's sound, and the audience will be cavitated, er, captivated.
[Answer]
Keep them in a constant level of fighting for oxygen. Such as what deadpool had to go through in his movie. Your system could monitor his/her oxygen levels and keep just enough in the room to technically keep him alive but struggling for a full breath of air. Lower it to cause distress and pain, but raise the oxygen levels to not cause brain damage.
Basically he/she will be constantly struggling for air/suffocating indefinately.
Or water boarding to simulate drowning indefinately. May not be the most physical pain but the feeling and mental anguisb of constantly drowning would easily surpass the physical aspect. And mentally I am sure a lot of people would choose to endure physical pain than mental stress of this level.
[Answer]
I note that most other answers seem to be covering physical pain, and I'd like to add some other types of pain that can be induced.
**Be warned, certain methods below may be particularly morbid**
There are three primary different kinds of pain: emotional, mental and physical pain. Each one can be equally debilitating and/or fatal.
I'll cover a few methods of inducing each type of pain on your victim.
### Emotional Pain
Emotional pain is likely the most damaging and traumatising type of pain. Below are a few methods of inducing emotional pain:
1. Family members
* hold the victim in front of their family members as they are being tortured with your preferred method. As long as their family members appear to be in obvious pain, the victim will blame themselves. If left alone, the victims' conscience will gradually tear them apart. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
2. Solitary confinement
* Humans are social beings. When deprived of social capability, people tend to become withdrawn and some even go barking mad. For a plus point, add bright lights that are on 24/7 (disrupts sleep cycle), or keep them in a room with no clear edges (single-color edgeless walls). Within a week the victims will lose either their sense of time or space.
3. Deprivation
* Find an object that your victim really loves or values (could be anything, phone, stuffed toy, book) and give that item to them. After a day or two, take it away. It is important to let them get attached to the object (assuming it is the only other thing in the room). Wait a day or so, then give it back for another day or so. Repeat this process for extended durations of deprivation of the object. As a culmination, you can completely obliterate a duplicate of the object in front of the victim in the most gruesome fashion possible. Never return the original. If your dictator is a slight psychopath, create a shelf and place this object there.
### Mental Pain
Mental pain comes with traumatising experiences. While emotional pain is a subset of mental pain, I will discuss some ways to cause specifically mental pain.
1. Waterboarding
* TV's favorite torture method. Remarkably effective as the victim needs to live out the experience of *"drowning"* possibly many times. Having to experience drowning (by no means a pleasant thing) can cause significant mental pain.
2. Phobias
* Expose the victim to their phobias, be it heights, insects, speed and so on, but do not let them be directly affected by their phobias (e.g. if they're afraid of insects, place victim in glass tube within insect-infested region). Insanity due to exposure to phobias for extended durations of time can set in quickly with this method.
3. Confusion
* expose your subject (first placed in a completely dark room) to an extremely bright light connected to a timer that fires at irregular intervals. For example, the light would turn on every ten seconds for three seconds, the next round would be every four seconds for thirty seconds etc. It helps if it could be in a room with completely black walls in which all walls become illuminated when the light turns on (entire-wall lights). The subject will likely be driven insane after a few days.
### Physical Pain
By far the easiest pain to inflict.
1. Slow slicing/Lingchi
* [link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing). An ancient Chinese method of torture (which can easily be prolonged to three hours or more) also known as *Death by a Thousand Cuts*, parts of their body are periodically sliced off.
2. Systematic Dismemberment
* Find a body extremity (like fingers) and systematically remove the joints one by one either by cutting or blunt force. If the victim bleeds, cauterization of the wound is a viable way to stop the bleeding (and also cause more pain).
3. Anything to do with the genitals.
* assuming your subject is a male, simply repeatedly punch, compress, or do anything that'd cause a male extreme pain. I would propose first the phallus and then individual testicula under a hydraulic press. If there is blood, cauterize.
In conclusion, to cause maximum pain, I would recommend combining all nine methods listed above **but not to the extent of fatality**.
Also, torture needn't just be made from prelisted methods; you can create your own torture method very easily. How painful it can be depends on your imagination.
I'd also like to point out that torture isn't exactly suited for television as people who are watching it may get turned off. Some other answers have highlighted the possibility of gamification to engage viewer interest, but I would generally advise only airing a few minutes of the most gruesome parts possible (e.g. first cut).
[Answer]
Buliding on @Josh King's answer, one needn't use neural interference to cause pure pain, as there are plenty of other ways to break people once you have complete access to their central nervous system.
* Make a prisoner perpetually feel as if they are urinating/defecating themselves without any way to stop it.
* Close up the esophagus as they fight against their own body to breathe.
* For advanced treatments, hijack the sensory inputs and make them feel as if they're being smothered with a spooky thing of your choice, whether it be snakes, spiders, or in the case of 1984's Winston Smith, rats.
* Let them back out into the world while remotely retaining the ability to mess with their head whenever you want. If they attempt to speak to anyone, mangle their words until all that comes out is a desperate gurgle. They will be swiftly ignored and assumed to be a crazy homeless person until they honor your polite requests.
* All auditory input is processed to sound like tortured screams
* All visual input is processed to repeat hallucinations of loved ones being murdered over and over.
I could go darker but you get the idea. Presumably maximum pain means maximally *prolonged* pain, so as fun as the death-by-a-thousand-cuts may be, at the end you're left with a corpse and somebody will have to clean that up.
[Answer]
**No evil overlord would be feared without the headcrusher**
The process is quite simple. Strap the unfortunate victim's head, chin forward, on the device. Then place the helmet on his head. Screw the helmet tight on his head, so that it is locked to the device, teeth touching.
Now begins the torture. The tighter you screw the helmet, the harder the teeth are clenching, until they break apart from the pressure. The victim is now choking on its own teeth, shattered in its mouth, but it is not over yet.
After the teeth are broken, you can tighten the device even more, breaking the bottom jaw as well. The cutting edges of the helmet are now deeply penetrating the poor bastard's skull.
I know I'm a bit afraid of dentists, but I honestly can't think of a worse pain than dental pain.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hvzL9.jpg)
[Answer]
Your biggest problem is making it an "effective deterrent". History shows it isn't, and history has plenty of examples of torture going on for much longer than 3 hours. Damiens' torture did not stop the French Revolution from happening 30 years later, for one obvious example.
[Answer]
**The saw method.**
The execution method needs to be suitable for a 3 hour television program. It should have a nice build-up, be nasty and have clearly defined phases. There must be something to measure it against, too.
I've got this one as a mere rumour on a medieval practice.
I propose to saw people in half. First step is to strip the subject and put a set of stripes on the torso. Goal is to be able to measure the distance between the crotch and the crown of the head. The subject is strapped to a sawing table. Spread-angled. Saw is at the bottom. It is a mechanical saw going up & down. (Buzz saw would be WAY too fast).
Then put the table in motion. Very slowly.
1. The subject travels towards the business end of the saw, crotch first.
2. First contact. Bets can be placed on scream volume.
3. Bone is touched. Blood flow is limited because all the time the saw presses against the wound. By now urine and faeces have discharged. Should have placed those bets in time.
4. Organs are impacted. Please disregard the smell. Closing bets on time of death.
5. Slowly the heart is coming near. Any time now. Out of chips as well.
By reputation if done 'well' the victim would remain alive until the breastbone/heart was reached. This method has the advantage of being pretty straightforward and easy to plan between two other programs.
[Answer]
The vikings had a good one, that was probably extremely painful and would make for great viewing on TV.
**[The Blood Eagle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_eagle)**, Possibly fictional but sounds gruesome as heck.
The victim is placed prone and an eagle shape is carved on his back. Eventually the bone is exposed and the ribs are broken away from his spine and removed. His lungs are then pulled out carefully in a parody of wings.
There are all kinds of ways you could make this worse, too. Shallow, slow cuts to stretch things out. Slow leverage to break the ribs away...There is now need to rush. You have viewers to impress!
[Answer]
## Irukandji jellyfish Venom
Getting stung by a Irukandji Jellyfish is arguably the most painful experience humanly possible. Instead of other methods that cause you to feel pain as a consequence to bodily harm, this venom triggers every single pain receptor it encounters and cranks it up to maximum. Unlike other ways of feeling pain, your systematic desensitization feedback loop does not make it feel less painful over time because your pain receptors become saturated in the venum blocking all of your body's other signals to turn off.
A carefully measured amount of venom could leave a person in excruciating pain for over a week before they finally die of brain hemorrhaging. People who survive a Irukandji Jellyfish sting often report significant PTSD following the experience.
[Answer]
**Decapitation via Nail Cutter**
not much explanation needed I'm sure the person subjected to that method of torture would beg to be killed after the first pinch of his neck flesh, just be sure to avoid major arteries as much as possible to avoid premature death from blood loss.
[Answer]
Medically speaking, the most intense pain possible for a human to experience is to place the body under physiological or psychological pressure sufficient to force a drop of blood from a single pore, if done in such a manner without breaking the skin.
Most humans would die from just this. Assuming you had a method to keep the person alive, you could repeat, or up the number of pores.
An MD told me this, I'm trying to recall the specifics, but have not successfully done so yet.
] |
[Question]
[
In this premise, the drow rule the fae-realm, an alternate dimension existing alongside the material plane. Every year on one night, the drow have an event known as "The Wild Hunt". During this night, they invade the material realm and hunt humans and other races as prey. The elves hunt the lower species for sport, leaving thousands dead in their wake. However, the true purpose of the event is to capture slaves to bring back to their realm for torture. This is necessary to sustain their life force, as tortured victims give off energy which the elves need to consume.
Even though this is treated as a serious event in elven culture, I need to keep the feeling of random, crazy-like flow with the elves, as it is called the wild hunt after all. Therefore, before the invasion, the elves get really, really, REALLY HIGH AND INTOXICATED!! Like, a drunken frat boy taken to eleven over 9000. This it to make the whole thing uncoordinated and spontaneousness, as the elves grab whatever weapons laying by and wreak havoc on the worthless lifeforms.
This presents a problem. A soldier who goes into battle drunk can be a danger to himself and his unit. He can get himself and his allies killed, captured, or worse, as planning and coordination are important in warfare. As the drow are really drunk and high off drugs, they present easy targets for their prey to pick them off or escape. It would ultimately end up as a unsuccessful hunt.
How can I get around this problem while keeping the the concept of the zaniness, chaotic elves intact?
[Answer]
**The elves have handlers.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Rupu.jpg)
Here is Theodore Roosevelt on safari. He and his buddy there are the great white hunters. Do you see all those other people? Usually they are moved out of the picture but not here. Those are locals who are along to do the work - the beaters, bearers, animal skinners etc. Bringing the hunter to places where there is likely to be prey and then bringing him home along with whatever he has shot. It is dangerous work too, involving first contact with prey animals and possibly saving the hunter from his own stupidity.
That is how the elf hunts work. The elves themselves are the hunters and are out to have a party. Outnumbering the elves are sober non elf assistants. They gently try to steer their drunken charges to places where they are likely to have fun and unlikely to get into trouble. They get them away before the locals show up in force. The assistants might have to themselves take on angry locals if their charges pass out or are outnumbered. I could imagine the handlers bring a large monster or two they release into the area to occupy the local militia while the handlers get the hunters and captives home.
The Drow abuse and mistreat their handlers, but actually put on more of a show of abuse and mistreatment to keep up appearances. Drunk as the lords they are, the elves are not stupid or foolish. They know that capable assistance is the key to coming home alive from this party and they let themselves be managed to some degree.
This interaction would also make a better story - the interaction between drunken Drow will get tired, and the interaction between Drow and prey probably will not involve a lot of talking. But there will be interaction between elves and chaperones which will involve talking and that will carry the narrative.
[Answer]
Oh this is easy. Who says drugs and alcohol has same effect to the drow. They get unruly and erratic, but **they do not suffer in terms of fighting skill**. As being far superior to humans, they do not need much of a coordination. Any member of the hunt finding themselves in true danger, they will blend into the shadows and escape.
You can even say they have a subconscious mechanism that will be triggered in a life threatening situation immediately activating flight reflex, which is to turn invisible or jump to their plane of existence.
Another alternative might be that they are simply **projections of their original form**. If they are killed, they simply wake up in their own plane. Erratic behaviour could simply be the side effect of the spell that projects them to this plane. It might be possible for them to truly pass to the prime material plane with a clear mind, however, they do not choose this for the hunt as it is risky.
[Answer]
# They follow the way of the Berserkir.
([Berserkir](http://www.uppsalaonline.com/berserk.htm) - whence we get berserker, berserk.)
Old Norse warriors (presumably mimicking the Elven ways) drawing their power from one of the three sacred sources; the [bear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker#Berserkers_%E2%80%93_bear_warriors), the [wolf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker#%C3%9Alfh%C3%A9%C3%B0nar_%E2%80%93_wolf_warriors) and the [boar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker#Svinfylking_%E2%80%93_boar_warriors) would enter a heightened state, a rage when going into battle: becoming the *berserkirgangr.*
To prepare for this, to make the transition into the state where they can be possessed by their their animal-spirit, they first prepare the magics. The dried skin of a sacred mushroom is ground and made into a broth which the chosen drink - this puts them into a stupor, an insensate, dream-like state.
They awaken, they are in a hyper-adrenalised state, and ready to fight together, hunt alongside their brothers, lollygag or take wenches.
The Old Norse were not privy to the true Elven ways nor the Elvish medicine, but the effect of [Amanita Muscaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria) was much the same as when the Elves would show-up.
>
> it can create a range of different reactions within a group of
> people....
> it could make a person angry, or cause them to be "very jolly or sad,
> jump about, dance, sing or give way to great fright
>
>
>
As a side note: - It is known that when reindeer eat the mushrooms, if a man drinks their urine, he will experience these effects. Some, coming on mushroom stalks, have eaten the yellow snow, assuming it was made so by reindeer - but maybe it was elves.
[Answer]
Drunken, homicidal mobs can do a *lot* of damage in real life. It isn't any different for elves.
And, yes, drunken, homicidal elves are very likely to cause serious injury to themselves and to other elves. They don't care! Elves are tough ... very difficult to actually kill. So what if a tenth of the elves on the Wild Hunt have to stay in bed afterwards recovering for a few days or weeks, and maybe one or two actually die. The Wild Hunt is so fun that it's still worth it.
But this is one of the reasons that the powers that be in the fae-realm only have Wild Hunts once a year. If they were much more often, there would always be a large number of incapacitated elves, which would be terribly inconvenient.
[Answer]
# *The Wild Hunt* is like a tornado.
Humans and others are used to these hunts and prepare for them. Like you prepare for a tornado. You don't fight it. You can't fight it. You just have a safe place to run to.
Even so, tornados kill and injure many people when they pass through. They're not organized. Tornado shelters exist (some more effective than others; some taking a more direct hit than others). People get warning before they pass through (at least a couple minutes in most cases). Yet people die in tornados. Regularly.
If you assume that Elves are stronger than the so-called "lower races" they hunt and that they may grab whatever weapons are around, but they grab them from their own realms and they're more powerful than what their victims have, that makes them hard to beat, even if they aren't thinking clearly enough to organize well.
# *The Wild Hunt* is a mob.
To add to that, unlike a tornado, even in their drunken/altered states they will target any person—or group of people—who tries to oppose them. So no one dares. There are too many Elves to try to use explosives or other distance weapons against them. It will just make them mad.
Drunken mobs aren't exactly a new concept. And, really, all mobs have a drunken mentality. They might be high on hatred or their own twisted ideas of how they're the true victims. They might be fueled by racism or misguided revenge. Whatever the case, it's not clear that drugs are that much of an important factor in mob behavior.
[Answer]
# Numbers
Firstly, if the Wild Hunt is such a big deal then I would imagine sheer numbers would be enough to overrun most villages and smaller settlements.
# Think about what they're taking
You ever seen someone on Methamphetamines? 6 cops can have serious difficulty restraining one person on a lot of meth. Take the right drugs and you will be unphased by a knife through your gut and strong enough to tip a car over. Maybe your elves are high on a very specific cocktail of drugs?
# "Successful" Is a subjective term
What actually defines the hunt as successful? Maybe a lot of drow **do** die. It could be that surviving your first Wild Hunt is a rite of passage. Maybe half the drow that go need serious magic to be healed when they get back.
# Animals
Lots of forms of hunting involve animals doing most of the work. Maybe they bring massive beasts that do a lot of the work for them and they bring back badly injured survivors. Maybe they bring something with a paralysing sting and they go 'round collecting people like they're discarded statues.
# Tributes
This being a regular event, maybe the world of men use it as an opportunity. Perhaps the drow think they're conquering settlements when actually the only people around are half-starved prisoners who thought being sent out during the Wild Hunt was a good alternative to a life in chains. (Like joining the Night's Watch in GoT). Maybe the cities send out defenceless slaves to lure the drow away from the city?
# Influence them
Take some inspiration from the film "The First Purge". Spoilers ahead:
>
> The guys running the purge had professionals around to ensure the purge was a success. Sure, a few people wanted to kill and stuff, but most people just partied or stayed at home. Throw in a few drow who are either of the ruling class or hired by them that act drunk and crazy but are actually completely clear headed and have them be guiding the other elves. Some of the drow decide to head toward a major city? They pick a fight with them and run off on the other direction and by the time the drunks give up chasing them they've forgotten where they were going before. Some humans are more dangerous than expected? They kill soldiers from the treeline with arrows until the drunks get past their defences.
>
>
>
# If all else fails
Just don't address it. A lot of people will imagine a reason far better than you would have put in. People love to speculate.
[Answer]
The solution can be something connected to magic and telepathy. I see two possible variations of the theme.
The first is that your elves are latently telepathic and can't communicate mind-to-mind in a normal state. They need psychoactive drugs for that. Looking drunk and drugged, speaking whatever out loud, screaming etc. are just side effects - the main purpose is to open their minds to each other so that they can coordinate subconsciously, swarm-like.
The second variation is that your drow are able to actively communicate telepathically, but their society is so backstabbing that they are afraid to open the contents of their minds to each other. In this case, the intoxication is the guarantee that nobody will remember each other's secrets the next morning.
In both cases I can't quite answer on the questions of leadership and coordination. Possibly, they don't have leaders in this state and decide and coordinate their activity just by a collective agreement. The opposite idea is that there are one or several leaders that either can enter this telepathic mess without psychoactive drugs or are powerful enough that they don't loose critical capacity. If those leaders are able to fish in the minds of their subordinates for information at will during the Wild hunt, it gives them a great leverage. It could explain how there are successful powerful leaders in the backstabbing drow society.
[Answer]
## Not all drugs are like being drunk.
For example, Heroin or Cocaine do affect ones emotional state and judgment, but still allow people to function normally. Some drugs like amphetamine can even improve mental abilities. So just because your elves are on a drug which makes them really angry, violent and fearless does not mean they are unable to walk straight.
So should you look for a real world drug which has exactly the effects you want? No. You have a fantasy species which lives in a fantasy world. So fictional drugs are completely plausible. You can just make up a drug which has exactly the effect you want. Willing to kill but still with the hand-eye coordination to do so successfully. A unsatisfiable hate, but still with the mental clarity to tell friend from foe. Enough courage to charge at a shield wall, but still with enough self-preservation instinct to tell when it's pointless.
[Answer]
If they're modeled after the ***[Fair Folk](https://allthetropes.fandom.com/wiki/The_Fair_Folk)*** they don't need any kind of intoxicants in order to be completely random and capricious, it goes with the territory. They earned that name because of people's fear of their unpredictable nature, you call them the Fair Folk in hopes that they'll be nice to you. Unfortunately even when they are being nice it's *their* version of nice not ours, that often doesn't end well for the humans involved.
Have your elves plan the hunt meticulously and then change their minds at the last minute, each individual changing in a different direction of course, and just charge off to do the thing in their own way. Lay some ground work for it of course, have them plan some other community event, like a dynastic wedding perhaps, and then when the time comes have everyone go off on their own tangent instead.
[Answer]
Drug use in military operations actually isn't very exotic. As one can glean from this (I can only assume "woefully") [incomplete list on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_drugs_used_by_militaries), [stimulants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant) like cocaine and amphetamine are, or have recently been, used by armies around the world to keep soldiers awake and alert. In addition to this, the "[Short but Sobering History of Drug Use in Wartime](https://militaryhistorynow.com/2018/05/08/combat-high-a-sobering-history-of-drug-use-in-wartime/)" mentions alcohol, opium, cannabis, mushrooms, and more.
Generally, if Drow aren't too concerned about ethics or long-term performance (or are willing to waive these concerns for the Wild Hunt specifically), there's a wealth of [performance-enhancing substances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-enhancing_substance) other than stimulants they can employ which have all sorts of nasty side-effects which can serve your narrative. For example, [anabolic steroids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid) (synthetic testosterone, basically) makes your body build muscles faster; as a side effect, it also tends to turn users into violent psychopaths, which might be desirable during the Hunt. (And in Drow society in general, perhaps?)
Throw amphetamine-like drugs and something like steroids together and you have a bunch of hyper-speeded, strong, and violent psychopaths, but they need some **fun!!** too, right? [MDMA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA) induces euphoria and so it seems like a good start, except that it also increases empathy, but on the other hand, you never know what happens when you start mixing drugs - or perhaps Drow have managed to get rid of that *highly undesirable property* from it. (On the third hand, it would be kind of interesting if some of the Hunters did end up soft-hearted, feeling sorry for their victims and whatnot.)
Now, the above mix of psychoactives could perhaps be a *little* bit volatile, especially since the way drugs affect users depends on a lot of variables (and I'd guess the drugs wouldn't exactly be administered in an orderly fashion). The Drow realize this, so they bring extras of all their drugs, just in case they'd take too little of something, or if the effects wear off. But since this is pretty serious business, they don't want to take *too* much of anything... or rather, they want to be able to fix it if they do. So they bring even more drugs to counteract their other drugs, for example [depressants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressant) to counteract the stimulants. Feeling shaky from all the uppers? Roll a fat one, have a smoke, calm down for a bit, and you're ready to Hunt again! This practice will obviously cause individual performance to fluctuate during the Hunt, but hopefully there's always someone in a "good" phase, ready to make sure their Hunting buddies don't derail things *too* much.
This might sound like a lot of preparations - because it is - so they've earned a few pints. And after all, Hunting is thirsty work!
---
During the Hunt, Hunters are partitioned into groups which operate independently. Upon conclusion of the Hunt, some groups won't return as they've faced disaster (more often than not of their own making), but with groups being independent, those disasters won't propagate affect other groups. (They are also deployed at different locations so if someone for example goes haywire and triggers a volcanic eruption or something, not *too* many other groups will be affected!)
Most groups do return, though, many enough to call it a success. The skilled (and/or just plain lucky) Hunters are celebrated by the people; the failed Hunters are at best forgotten, but more commonly have their memory dishonored. Although there are some (fortunately very few!) killjoys who propose banning, or at least moderating, drug use during the Hunt... that would *really* bring down morale, and we can't have that, can we?
[Answer]
Approaching the problem from another angle, don't have the Elves get drunk and then go on the hunt. Have going on the Hunt cause the drunkenness/euphoric high you're looking for.
On the human plane, some trace element in the atmosphere quickly causes an Elf to get high. Perhaps this is something that's got worse due to industrialisation making current Hunts even more crazy than those in the past, which might cause generational friction back in the Elf world. "In my day, we used to get a decent number of humans without all this nonsense. Now we're lucky if these so called hunters can even scare up a decent meal."
[Answer]
This is the wild hunt, they hit your country once every generation and you lose a few hundred people or a village or two. Leave offerings or run and hide and you have a decent chance to survive due to the random and intoxicated nature of the elves. You mostly just lose the elderly, the weak and the witless.
Fight back and kill an elf and the assassins of night will slip through the veil and kill 1000 humans sleeping in their bed for each elf slain.
Fight back in an organised fashion and they will eliminate the leaders of the land and their whole families root and branch.
If the elves do that to a few countries they can crush any form of organised resistance, training people to just run and hide in a very entertaining fashion.
[Answer]
Lots of good stuff, but from a slightly different angle...
What if the Wild Hunt isn't just a thing the Elves *do*, it's a huge magical ritual that they take part in.
The Hunt Ritual uses intoxicants to break down the mental and magical barriers to allow all of the members to link to the Hunt, contributing their individual power and abilities to the collective. The combined power of the Hunt supports the members, letting them achieve feats well outside their normal limits. When the Hunt rides across a lake it's the power of the Hunt, not the individual riders or their mounts. When they prey is hiding it's the power of the Hunt that locates them... and so on.
In effect the Hunt is a single entity, more akin to a hive than a mob. While the members are still free to act in whatever way best fits their desires, those desires are moulded by the Will of the Hunt. Perhaps that will is derived from the group as a whole or maybe there's a Leader of the Hunt who decides what the Hunt is going to do. Perhaps it's a mixture.
The ritual itself takes days to instantiate the Hunt, increasingly feeding it power as more and more members reach the levels of intoxication necessary to link into the spell. Some of the early members will drop out because of exhaustion, some might overdose or even die. But when the rituals hits its peak the combined power of all of the members comes together to tear open a gateway to the target dimension and the Hunt rides through.
Of course that's what it was like in the good old days. You and a few thousand of your closest friends would get together and summon the Hunt to go marauding over the nearby worlds for the sheer joy of it. Then someone figured that they could use the Hunt for their own ends, perverting the purity of the ritual for grubby material purposes. You still take part, because it's a hell of a rush, but it ain't what it used to be. Sure, it's nice to have a few prisoners to torture after, but it's just not the same as the *old* Hunt.
(Yes, I read Dresden.)
] |
[Question]
[
Man vs Dinosaur. It is a relatively common trope in various Sci fi settings, most famously done in Jurassic Park. These depictions have always fascinated me. I have always been bothered, however, by the way in which the guns the people use against the dinosaurs are generally shown to be of little use. Given the effectiveness of our modern weaponry, I feel like they would be significantly more effective than shown. Though, I have heard of animals such as Bears having some level of bullet resistance, and the Cape Buffalo even showing some ability to resist shots fired from massive "elephant guns." I would therefore imagine that it is possible for dinosaurs to have some level of resistance to gunfire, but I don't know enough about ballistics or Dino biology to properly answer the question of what the effects of modern weaponry would be on the giant (Reptiles? Early Birds? Something else entirely?).
I not looking for exclusively hard science, but science should be used to back up the answer. To narrow it down, let's look at two sets of three specifics. (Answers don't need to be limited to these options, but I think they provide a good overview.)
First, the firearms in question. What would a 9mm Pistol round, 5.56 military rifle round (Regular barrel, not SBR), and 50 caliber Anti-Material Rifle do to a dinosaur?
Specifically, what would they do to a Utahraptor/Deinonychus (the closest things to a real Jurassic Park Velociraptor), a Tyrannosaurus Rex (let's assume the scary version, not the giant fat chicken), or on the biggest end of the scale an Apatosaurus?
To boil it all down, how would common modern firearms *actually* fare in a fight to the death against some of the common dinosaurs we see in film and books?
**Addendum**
Different parts of dino anatomy would certainly have different levels of resistance, in the same way that an Elephant's skull is far tougher to crack than a shot to the heart. Please don't assume our humans will be able to place shots on weak points with perfect accuracy *or* that they will exclusively aim for armored areas. I'm looking for a generalized answer.
[Answer]
For most dinosaurs **just use a living animal of the same size**, when possible use ground birds for bipedal dinosaurs. For anything else use a mammal of similar size. Just be aware head shots are less effective the brains are smaller and more well protected than most mammals but not that much less effective. Note, ground birds are harder to kill with bullets than humans (have you heard of the [Emu War?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War)) unlike us, shooting a hole in a bird's lung does not stop it from working. Also the head is much smaller target and they can can run from shooters much faster.
[fun little video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lbO2BnV3Ak)
Also be aware these are animals not movie monsters, for the vast majority if you hurt them they will run way. The exceptions to this rule are few and far between. It is also impossible to predict which if any dinosaurs the exception would be true of.
One thing to consider dinosaurs may be more used to loud noises than animals today many dinosaurs have large sound making structures, so shooting in the air might just get their attention.
## Special notes
For **therapods**, just like in birds, lung shots far less effective. The lungs are much smaller and unlike ours, still work with a few holes punched in them. Otherwise using mammals of the same mass is fine. Saurischian dinosaurs (therapods and sauropods) have bird like lungs while ornithischians (everything else) have lungs like an alligator which is functionally much more like a mammal lung so mammals can be used for a model without many adjustments.
**Ceratopsian** be aware a head shot is probably not going to do anything, there can be 4-12 inches of solid bone around the brain. A triceratops shield might even stop 9mm entirely, other ceratopsian frills (shields) have little bone so they can be ignored for the most part.
For **heavily armored dinosaurs like ankylosaurs and stegosaurs**, these are covered in scutes, thick armor of bone and keratin. A 9mm have a low chance to penetrate, especially on the most heavily armored. A 5.56 might occasionally fail to penetrate due to deflection, but a 50 cal will never notice the armor. Otherwise treat as mammals of the same size.
The only dinosaurs you can't come close to with modern animals in size are **sauropods**. Large sauropods will be tough, their skin is thicker and better armored than elephants. Just like therapods they have a bird like respiratory system so lung shots will be weak in effect. Again unlike mammal lungs they still work with holes shot in them. Their sheer *size* means pistol rounds will be ineffective, even the 5.56 will struggle to actually reach most organs. 5.56 has at best a 20 inch penetration through soft tissue under ideal circumstances, and these are not ideal, we know sauropods have small scutes as well. 20 inches is not going to reach any vital organs unless you hit the brain which would be very very hard. Their ribs are so thick they may stop a 5.56 by themselves. So you will need to use a lot of 5.56 because you have to slip between ribs and at the same time rely on blood loss and shock to kill. Stick to the 50 Cal and use a lot of them because you *still* mostly have to rely on blood loss and shock to kill for the most part.
[Answer]
Movies like the Jurassic Park series often fail to understand the psychology of dinosaurs, as well as that of even modern animals.
Solitary predators, no matter how powerful, are cowardly by necessity: if they were to receive an injury, they might starve to death before they could recover. When threatened by potential prey that is mounting a potentially effective defense, prudence leads them to seek their meal elsewhere. Consider present-day tigers: they are known to attack humans, but prefer to do so from behind. Wearing a face mask on the back of the head confuses them sufficiently that they don't attack. Which way is that human facing? I'd better not risk it...
On the other hand, predators that operate in cooperative groups can afford to be injured on occasion, as their pack mates can look after them until they can recover. Dangerous prey is no longer automatically avoided unless weaker prey is at hand.
Herbivores can in some ways have more aggressive psychologies than predatory species, particularly if they are herd animals. Herbivores with defensive weaponry are at an advantage if they confidently attack solitary predators, even if it is a bluff, since solitary predators cannot afford to be injured, and both parties know it.
It is a different matter when herbivores are attacked by a pack of predators. The herbivores can no longer defend themselves individually, and so defense becomes a herd task. If an individual is injured, both predator and herbivores know that the injured individual is likely to be singled out as prey.
So, the response of dinosaurs, as well as modern animals, to firearms depends upon a number of factors.
A solitary predator may well run from a gunshot even if not hit the first time it hears one... it might be dangerous. After hearing several shots without being hit or observing another animal being hit, it may conclude that the noise is a bluff. However, if hit, it is likely to flee even if the hit is not crippling or fatal, as it can't afford to take the chance that the next hit won't be worse.
A pack predator can afford to take chances, and is less likely to run from the sound of a shot, or even a poorly-placed hit if the shooter looks like a good meal. They won't likely break off an attack unless the shots coincide with pack members being crippled or killed outright more often than not.
Herbivores - especially if bigger - are likely to attack if they feel threatened or crowded by a single or small group of unfamiliar animal(s) such as humans with guns. They may ignore poorly placed hits in order to eliminate the threat, equating the human with a predator.
This means that a human with a handgun should be able to successfully defend themselves against even a large solitary predatory dinosaur. If Tyrannosaurs are solitary, the mere sound of a gunshot should give one pause, and any hit should drive it off. Being hit by a handgun shot would hurt a lot, even if not particularly effectively placed, and prudence would likely cause the dinosaur to retreat. However, even a handgun shot would penetrate most predatory dinosaurs' hide, and might break a rib or cause a fatal thoracic injury. A long-arm shot would be even more effective.
Pack predator dinosaur species would be more dangerous. A poor hit against one member of the pack probably wouldn't discourage the others, and the human may easily find themselves attacked from multiple directions. It would likely take multiple immediately effective shots to convince the uninjured pack members that this prey is too dangerous to tackle. However, pack hunters tend to be smaller, and would likely be almost as susceptible to handgun shots as humans.
Large herbivores might be more troublesome. Their larger bones mean that lighter, slower pistol rounds could be ineffective, and would merely goad them into pressing their attack. A long-barreled firearm would be advisable to be effective. In particular, armoured dinosaurs such as *Ankylosaurus* might require a .50" round to penetrate their armour, but most others would be susceptible to regular rifle fire.
Of course, even predatory dinosaurs may change their behavior if they are defending their offspring. In such a case, they may become less cautious in order to eliminate the threat.
Knowledge of firearms by observation can change the behavior of even pack hunters. In Africa, where humans hunt lions, the sight of a solitary human can send an entire pride into a slinking retreat.
Just because dinosaurs had smaller brains doesn't mean that they wouldn't be able to learn from experience. Even for a large, solitary predator, once shot, they would become very wary of future encounters with humans. Pack hunting dinosaurs, being social, would be smarter and even quicker to understand that humans mean trouble if they saw humans shooting other dinosaurs.
Then we need to consider the scale of the meal that a human would provide. To a Tyrannosaur, a human would be a single bite... hardly worth the effort it might take to run it down, unless it was really hungry and the human was really close. Even a Utahraptor pack would get a meager meal from a human... though one human might satisfy a single Utahraptor. Deinonychus packs would probably be tempted by a human, since one would make a half-decent meal for the pack... but if the human pulled out a pistol and started blowing the pack members away, the survivors would soon think better of it. A pack of turkey-sized Velociraptors would get a good meal out of a human, but again, a human with a gun could easily make them find easier prey, even if the pack would have a good chance against an unarmed human.
Huge predatory dinosaurs wading through gunfire - even pistol fire - to eat the humans? I think not!
[Answer]
**Big dinosaur**
Although there were lots of big dinosaurs, not all were huge. The big ones can often be compared to elephants. A thick hide on a massive beast.
Because of relative sizes a bullet from a handgun doesn't do too much damage. But there is a key word. Not too much. Getting hit is still very much not enjoyable, even if it doesn't penetrate.
In general an assault rifle will penetrate the hide of an elephant. The reason we don't use them is that it is seen as more ethical to kill them in one shot, which is also better for trophies, use of the hide or food. To kill them in one shot they use special guns and ammo, but it certainly isn't a requirement. You can simply riddle an elephant with bullets from an assault rifle or powerful handgun and it'll die very quickly.
Skulls are more difficult to penetrate, as well as their oblique angles make them already pretty good at deflecting bullets. Still the power of an assault rifle against the skull is gery dangerous and multiple can penetrate, if it isn't a single well placed bullet.
The hide can generally be compared to elephants. Where the hide is thicker on a bigger specimen, an assault rifle is likely still able to penetrate. Again, firing many bullets will likely incapacitate the target, if not do lethal damage.
But in one of the later jurassic movies they tell us the solution as well. On the helicopter there is a gatling gun. Likely they had extra security for a big dinosaur escaping, especially as they were experimenting with a militarised version. As one person states very well, they will take the helicopter and turn the big dinosaur into red mush.
**Smaller**
The smaller dinosaurs like velociraptors do not have any appreciable advantage in armour. Nearly any gun will do. These dinosaurs as a weapon, like suggested in one jurassic movie, is quite ludicrous. They might be fast, but also big. They are melee, which is something rightly phased out of most military engagements. Velociraptors can only bank on the element of surprise, but even then they can go down quickly to any experienced infantry group.
[Answer]
I don't think you need any special guns, the trick is in the ammunition. Sure, maybe the skull of a dinosaur is much tougher than that of an elephant, but is it tougher than steel plate? Because we make bullets for common hunting rifles that will go through steel plate; steel or tungsten core rounds, commonly referred to as armor piercing rounds, should have no problem getting to a dino's brain or heart. Personally I would go for the heart. I don't know how big dinosaur brains are, but I'd guess they're significantly smaller than their head, whereas the heart of an animal that huge must also be huge. If I don't care about being humane, shooting it in the hip or pelvis could be a good idea; who cares how mad I make it if it can't get to me because it can no longer walk?
In the US at least, this ammo isn't all that rare either, civilians in many states can easily buy it.
[Answer]
# Do you want to *stop* the dinosaur or *kill* it?
There's a difference between instantly (or at least very quickly) stopping an animal with a shot and just wounding it so that it eventually dies (or even recovers). What good will mortally wounding a dinosaur do if the dinosaur will still maul you before it collapses?
To stop an animal, shot placement is very important. You want to hit in the vital organs of the nervous or circulatory system. However, as depicted in movies, people attacked by dinosaurs usually shoot chaotically in the general direction of the threat. This certainly makes firearms much less effective than they could be. If you don't hit vital organs and your target doesn't decide to give up after being shot, you will have to wait until it bleeds out enough to drop the blood pressure in the brain below the unconsciousness threshold.
In below verdicts I assume shots to the torso. And of course these verdicts are highly speculative.
Common pistol rounds, such as 9x19mm, usually use round-nose bullets, which are not ideal against even soft body armor. Not sure whether that translates to performance against thick skin of large dinosaurs. They also have lower energies than rifle rounds.
**Verdict**: moderately effective against Deinonychus.
5.56x45mm NATO and .223 Remington are similar and for our purposes we can treat them as identical. In some states they are not legal to hunt *deer* with[1](https://quickhunting.com/is-it-legal-to-hunt-deer-with-a-223/) because when the shot placement is not ideal, they *might* wound the deer instead of killing it quickly. When wounded, deer tend to run away and hide. Still, it's not like deer-sized animals can just brush it off.
**Verdict**: effective against Deinonychus.
12.7×99mm NATO (.50 BMG) is a very powerful round which is successfully used against vehicles and should also be highly effective against dinosaurs.
**Verdict**: highly effective against Tyrannosaurus Rex. Effective against Apatosaurus.
You left out an intermediate option between "possibly too weak" and "overkill": 7.62×51mm NATO (which for our purposes is the same as .308 Winchester). It is widely used for hunting medium to large game and therefore should be effective against most dinosaurs of comparable sizes.
**Verdict**: highly effective against Deinonychus. Moderately effective against Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Another intermediate option are shotgun slugs. Muzzle energy of a 12-gauge slug is typically higher than the muzzle energy of .308 Winchester[2](https://www.thefixer.biz/2013/03/03/shotgun-muzzle-energy/). On the other hand slugs are usually blunt, which may limit penetration in large dinosaurs. (And you need a lot of penetration against large dinosaurs.)
**Verdict**: highly effective against Deinonychus. Moderately effective against Tyrannosaurus Rex.
[Answer]
## Depends on what you want to hunt
An article I read estimated the average size across all species at their peak was about the size of a pony. Which means the choice of caliber depends on which species it is you are hunting. It also means the vast majority of species would have been easily dispatched with any medium caliber rifle or larger caliber handgun. (Velociraptor was turkey sized as an example.)
Remember also that the number of individual species in any environment declines with size. So even in the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous at the peak of their reign the landscape would have been dominated by numerous small species of (dinos, reptiles and early mammals) with the number of individual species declining rapidly as size increased. On top of the food chain will only support limited numbers of each of those large species. The end result is that at any given time the total number of individual large dinos will always be outnumbered by the total number of smaller ones. The likelyhood then is that any one chance encounter is more likely to be with a small one rather than a large one.
There is some evidence for instance that suggests T Rex was the only large predator over most of its range because it's juveniles filled the niches that would have been taken by other medium sized predators. Same with sauropods, yes there are fossil records of a large number of different species spread across time and region. However only a handful of species would have coexisted at any one time in any one locality because the ecology couldn't sustain more.
So if the issue is protecting yourself I'd go with a military grade firearm in a (larger) military grade caliber (EDIT: to clarify that's standard military grade assault rifle calibers (say 6.8mm to 8.3mm) in a standard issue modern military assault rifle frame) and to hell with sportsmanship. Better alive than ending up as fossilized dino scat for some archaeologist to dig up. (Hey how'd that tooth filling end up in there?).
] |
[Question]
[
I was considering a story based on a version of Earth that was being observed from the beginning of civilisation ([Around 3000-4000 BC in my understanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world) "Early civilizations arose first in Lower Mesopotamia (3000 BCE), followed by Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3000 BCE)").
This version of Earth/Humanity follows the exact path our has up until the discovery they are being observed. Assuming they're being observed by a 21st era satellite, at what point in history would the humans notice it? (And if it wasn't noticed until the 21st century, would it ever be discovered as being out of place as long as it was close enough in design?)
[Answer]
Artificial satellites orbiting around Earth are pretty easy to spot, since they appear as bright fast moving objects across the night sky. This even in a light polluted environment like a modern city. I remember I spotted satellites moving in the sky as a kid looking up at the sky with no knowledge of astronomy. Spotting them was even more exciting than seeing a shooting star.
In a farm based civilization which relies for its own wealth on marking the seasons by observation of the sky, such an object would be immediately noticed.
The civilizations inhabiting Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus Valley, would be aware of it as soon as they start to systematically look up in the sky.
It will require technology such as Galileo's telescope to better observe it and understand its shape, and then probably radio technology to detect its communications.
[Answer]
As many other comments have suggested, orbit altitude is a key parameter in determining how visible the recon satellite would be. However, orbital altitude also determines how long the object will stay in orbit—specifically the perigee (lowest-point) altitude.
Let's say the recon satellite was in a roughly-circular¹ orbit of 400km, which is approximately the orbit of the International Space Station. Let's also assume that the recon satellite was shaped like a white school bus. This would would make it much more dim than what the ISS would be (ISS is huge!), but I think should occasionally be visible in the night sky when it is broadside. Ultimately I think it would be noticed, but, due to atmospheric drag, it would deorbit within a year or two. You could, of course, use thrusters to maintain your orbit, but eventually the fuel will run out. The most amount of time you could expect it to maintain such a low orbit would be on the order of a decade or two, and even that is pushing modern technology².
If you doubled the perigee to, say, 800km, you've given yourself about 100 years if the orbit is somewhat circular. The recon satellite would be just 1/4th as bright when directly overhead, making it significantly more difficult to notice. But, as the orbit decays, it would slowly start to become more visible until everyone would notice. And then plop, it would suddenly disappear as it drops into ocean somewhere out of human view.
Past a perigee of 800km, the time your recon satellite stays in orbit dramatically increases. At a 1000km roughly-circular orbit, you are talking around a thousand years. If the eccentricity of the orbit is high, then it could be in orbit for several thousand years.
Geosynchronous orbit is around 35,780km. Those birds are going to be practically eternal, lasting for *eons*. However, they would likely be invisible to any society without early 20th century optics: being 8000 times less bright than at 400km.
While I really have no idea when a society might realize that it was not a natural satellite, if I had to guess I would say it would require something on the order of mid-20th-century optics. [This answer](https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/20103/reconnaissance-satellite-altitudes/20104#20104) shows a great example of the kind of image of an object at 400km with a 0.64m telescope. You can see a picture of the space shuttle in that picture, so you can use that for scale: a school bus could easily fit in the cargo bay.
Anything at a geosynchronous orbit would likely remain unnoticed or of little interest until the 1960's, when it would eventually be detected using radar and catalogued. It would at first be assumed to be natural, but eventually scientists would likely want to examine it more closely (late 1970's?), and then the jig would be up.
---
¹ My understanding is that modern spy satellites often have highly eccentric orbits with perigee altitudes of 250km-600km.
² There is little chance that any orbital machine built using 21st century techniques would remain functional in any capacity past 100 years without maintenance. Space is a very harsh and unforgiving environment.
[Answer]
I think you have to ask (and answer) multiple questions.
* When will it be detected as a recurring object in the sky?
L.Dutch suggests the naked eye will do; that might depend on the size and height of orbit.
* When will it be recognized as an artificial object?
Here you should keep in mind that it *has always been there.* People will come up with theories of the solar system which incorporate the recon sat. Speculation that zero-G will lead to "interesting" patterns of [crystal growth](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quartz_synthese.jpg) that gives small moonlets regular shapes, for instance. Or theories that it is a fragment of a [basalt column](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt#Columnar_basalt) from a long destroyed planet.
I would lean out of a window and say that it takes **20th century telescopes** observing the Mars' moons and various asteroids to really nail down that *Earth's smaller moon is not natural.*
---
*Follow-Up:* Imagine a planet with two moons. One is a cratered sphere, several thousand kilometres in diameter, the other is a relatively smooth octagon with two panels and one big lens, among others. How could the cosmology develop?
* "All moons start out octagonally, but big ones tend to be hit by meteorites and get smashed smooth. When little ones get hit, they just get blown apart. The lone surviving little moon was never hit, or it wouldn't be surviving."
* "Moons come in a variety of geometrical shapes. Spheres, cubes, cylinders, octagons, ... We have a sample of two, with two different shapes."
* "One of our moons is natural, the other is an artifact of a vanished high-tech civilization."
Occam's Razor doesn't necessarily suggest the third bullet point.
[Answer]
NASA has no reason to try to hide a satellite and all the current answers are working from a basis of a non-stealthy satellite.
If someone is trying to hide a recon sat they certainly could do so until the late 20th century. Build the satellite with all Earth-visible surface (other than the minimum needed for whatever sensors it uses) as black (both to light and to radio) as possible, the solar cells are shielded from the Earth. (The satellite will need a substantial black barrier to hide those cells behind. Obviously, if it uses some internal power source that's not as much of an issue.)
At this point detecting it will require a high power radar or an infrared camera (which won't work from the surface) or by occultation. Eventually it will be picked up in the quest for identifying all orbital debris.
[Answer]
Spotting the satelite and observing its orbit would have been possible since ancient times. Understanding what they are is a different thing. [They are too fast to discern by telescope](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_watching) so they will be dismissed as fast-moving asteroids at a low orbit. [With a good telescope you can have a good detailed image as well](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/questions/can-you-see-space-satellites-telescope). However, they are too fast to allow us to "follow the object" by looking through the narrow-angled lense. I doubht 19th century astronomers could have done that without having a blurred image. [Some amateurs have successfully done it](http://www.satobs.org/telescope.html). Geostationary satellites have better chances to be discerned.
On the other hand, radio signals would have happened towards the end of the 19th century. Radio waves were predicted by James Clark maxwell only in the 1860's. As radio astronomy evolved, the unique radio signature emanating from an Earth orbit object will be hard to dismiss as background noise.
[Answer]
This turned in to a little longer than a comment could handle, but here are some thoughts I have as an amateur astronomer:
* It's not unusual to see a dozen or more satellites on a clear, dark evening. Just a few nights ago I was walking across the street and noticed two at once. If it's dark enough to see the Milky Way and you're paying attention to the sky, the movement of a satellite is very eye-catching. It's not just Iridium satellites (although they flare to startling brightness -- far brighter than Venus). The X-37B "secret space plane" is about Magnitude 3 (quite bright) and one imagines that the DoD didn't go out of their way to make it visible. (Although I suspect they don't particularly *care* how visible it is.) As others have said, if the satellite were way up in geosynchronous orbit, it would likely be more like Magnitude 12 (well below the limit of the human eye).
* Pre-industrial societies almost universally paid *great* attention to the night sky. Imagine the societal investment necessary to predict solar eclipses, which several cultures did with good accuracy! The satellite's nature would be a matter of entire lifetimes of scholarship and argument. I think it's reasonable that only the Sun and Moon would be of more interest. The satellite would be a central enigma that would need to be explained in any account of the world.
* Satellites are visible when the sun is reflecting off them (most commonly, off their flat solar panels). So you see satellites in the evening and pre-dawn, and nearer the middle of the night, you can actually see them wink out quickly when they enter the Earth's shadow. Would astronomers/astrologers use that to know the world was round sooner and with more accuracy?
* Satellites move in natural ballistic fashion except when maneuvering. So 99.99% of the time, it would move in a way that would support the kind of mathematically periodic models that apply to other celestial bodies. But if it did maneuver to change orbits, that would confound those models.
[Answer]
The biggest barrier is figuring out that they're being observed. Even if the satellite isn't stealthy, ancient civilizations would assume it's no different from a distant star that somehow fails to produce much light.
If the satellite gives off radio transmissions, then you can expect people on the ground to start asking questions once they invent radio communications and detect a transmission source in low Earth orbit that shouldn't be there.
If the satellite is purely observational and maintains radio silence, then it will likely be uncovered once people on the ground start building satellites of their own, after which they will recognize they are being watched.
] |
[Question]
[
Suppose that our random heroic brave interstellar expedition is returning to Earth from Alpha Centauri at 60% of the speed of light, but there was an accident in the nuclear reactor, forcing the captain of the ship to jettison the whole propulsion section in order to evade the nuclear explosion. The ship has lost all propulsion power whatsoever and is on a course that will pass straight through the solar system (the ship was supposed to brake during the last stage of the mission) and leave it again, to become eternally stranded in deep space, ultimately leaving our galaxy.
We still have got life support (that will keep functioning for 5 years) and that our current distance to Earth is 2 light years, which means that we are supposed to pass our home planet in 3 years and 4 months if our speed does not change before we will head into space again. The ship has two shuttles which are designed for reentry and landing on Earth.
The signal will take (you guessed it right) 2 years to reach earth, which means that we have 1 year and 4 months until the closest passage. At the time when the signal will reach Earth, the distance between the ship and our planet will be 0.84 ly.
If we take time dilation into account (+25% for the observer at 0.6c, that's why I chose this speed), the Earth has actually 1 year and 8 months until the closest passage.
As said before, if no change in velocity happens, we will shoot out of the solar system again at 0.6c with a minimal course correction induced by solar gravity.
My question is:
* How can the ship (or at least the crew) be saved within a reasonable time period (there are 3 years of life support left)?
+ By "saved" I mean that the ship must be slowed down into a solar orbit where it can be accessed by rescue vessels.
+ Bonus points for making it head towards earth or into an earth orbit so that the crew will only have to board the shuttles.
+ No propulsion whatsoever may come from the ship itself unless you decide that sending a new nuclear reactor and propulsion module for rendezvous at relativistic speeds.
+ You can use anything else as long as it is feasible in the year 2100 in a hard sci-fi setting.
[Answer]
# You Do Not
Instead, the optimum response is to accelerate an unmanned ship from Earth (or LEO) such that at some point it matches the speed of the oncoming returnees, offload, turn the rescue ship around.
* Why unmanned? Because g. You can accelerate faster without fleshy squishy things on board, so intersect maybe even inside Sol proper, which means our returnees get home faster, need less life support mass to live off, etc.
* Why not do something with the ship itself? Because Earth has GDP, ship not so much.
Most likely this is one of the hundreds of mission contingencies examined by the Planetary Space Agency before the ship was even designed, never mind sent out. Such a mission would likely cost hundreds of trillions of dollars by our current standards, so every possible outcome will have been carefully considered in advance given the expense. The core dump would have followed established protocol, and separation bolts would have had to be installed in advance. This makes it likely that an interceptor ship capable of matching the top cruising speed of the main mission is probably already in the docks, waiting for the contingency to be triggered.
[Answer]
Whatever method is used to slow the ship down, the energy source **cannot** come from within the ship, to any reasonable extent. The amount of energy involved in relativistic speeds is enormous.
Even assuming that the rest of the ship is abandoned, and the crew all enter a small chamber (which is then itself decelerated), the kinetic energy of a 1 tonne object (1/5 of the mass of the [Apollo Command Module](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command/Service_Module#Specifications)) at 0.6c is [2E19J](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=kinetic+energy+1+tonne+0.6c).
This converts to roughly [5Gt of TNT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent), equivalent to 100 [Tsar Bombas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba). Unless the crew have a backup energy source capable of providing the required 2E19J, hard physics prohibits the ship from slowing down unless that amount of energy is provided to allow the ship to gain sufficient delta-V of 0.6c.
Therefore, any salvation to the ship's crew **must** come from external sources. Good solutions already mentioned include providing fuel and a new reactor along the path of the ship, sending an unmanned rescue vessel, or otherwise providing the required energy from an external source.
Additionally, the propulsion sources must provide relatively large amounts of acceleration. The crew will die within 5 years without supplies, so the ship must return to Earth (or at least be resupplied) by then. In order to decelerate to 0 speed within 5 years, the ship must decelerate at a constant rate of [0.116g](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.6c%20%2F%205%20years), and more if the ship overshoots Earth. This rules out any deceleration using low-impulse sources, such as light sails or clouds of gas, unless the ship is also resupplied.
[Answer]
A few options, courtesy of Isaac Newton and his third law of motion:
1. Jettison the propulsion system in the direction of travel with really high speed (how high depends on the relative masses of the ship and the propulsion system; this might not be possible at all).
2. Have everyone get onboard a shuttle and launch it really fast going in the opposite direction of travel (and have it moonwalk into orbit, you smooth criminal).
Though come to think of it, deceleration from relativistic speeds to orbital speeds over the distance of the length of a spaceship would be more than fatal for the crew and likely the ship/escape pod.
[Answer]
The timeframe makes this very improbable, but if the incoming track of the spacecraft is known with a high degree of certainty, a cloud of gas or even plasma could be laid in front of the craft. The spaceship will plow into this much like a contemporary spaceship reenter's Earth's atmosphere, and the friction created by the interaction of the spaceship with the medium will slow it down.
Now if we assume that a civilization which can create an interstellar spaceship capable of moving at .6 *c* won't have much difficulty in scrambling tanker spacecraft to fill up with gasses from the atmosphere of gas giant planets and getting in position to eject the gasses in the path of the oncoming spaceship to decelerate it.
While there are a lot of variables, two things stand out right away: you are coming in at very high velocity so the spaceship will suffer severe heating and erosion. We can assume that the front of the spaceship has shielding to protect it from erosion and radiation as part of the design (the ship will encounter gasses and dust during its flight as a matter of course), so there will be a level of protection built in. The crew will need to ensure the ship does not tumble during the deceleration (I will assume there is still a functioning RCS aboard the crew module).
While it is highly improbable that there can be enough deceleration achieved through the use of flying through clouds of gas to actually stop the incoming ship, there may be enough deceleration to allow a rescue mission to be launched and catch up with the crippled ship after it has slowed down enough.
[Answer]
## Send an engine and scatter fuel along their path.
As you may know, it takes a lot of energy to accelerate to or decelerate from relativistic speeds, and that the energy is proportional to the mass of whatever is being accelerated or decelerated. Also, don't forget that your fuel has mass, too, so any fuel that you are carrying contributes to your mass and makes it harder for you to accelerate or decelerate.
So the ideal would be to send up an engine and scatter fuel along their path such that they will be getting just enough fuel to keep their engine going at max power (the engine will only have minimal extra thrust, so as to minimize it's mass). Note that the fuel needs to accelerated to almost the same velocity as the ship will be going when the ship reaches the fuel, otherwise the collision with the fuel will be unpleasant.
The specifics of the engine and fuel will depend on what technology is available, but this basic idea can be adapted to a number of different types of engines and fuels. For example:
**A solar sail and a railgun:**
Using [beam-powered propulsion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam-powered_propulsion), a solar sail (if the ship didn't already have one, which it easily could due to their usefulness) and a railgun would be sent on a path to perform a gravity slingshot around Jupiter (because the mission was timed such that Jupiter could be used in an emergency), then accelerated to match the ship's velocity. The solar sail would be deployed both to slow down the ship and to collect sunlight to generate electricity to power the railgun. The beam that helped accelerate the railgun would also be trained on the solar sail to provide additional power and deceleration.
Then, the railgun would be fired as fast as it possibly can. It will be designed to be as flexible as possible in what it can use as ammunition, so at the beginning it will be using everything possible from the ship itself. Unused section of the ship? It will have been broken up and prepared for the arrival of the railgun. Spare parts? They're going in too. Everything nonessential will be fed into the railgun to simultaneously reduce the mass of the ship and to decelerate the ship. There's likely to be a fair bit of mass they can jettison like this - the ship needed considerably more for interstellar travel than it needs for travel just in the solar system.
Thanks to careful calculations, the ship will reach the "fuel" path right as they run out of spare parts to jettison. For the railgun, this can just be chunks of whatever, likely an asteroid that has been broken up and scattered onto the path (avoiding the costly process of propelling that much mass out of the Earth's gravity well). There will be enough chunks for the railgun to continue firing at its maximum rate, but the ship will not collect more than what they need to sustain that rate.
All of this is simply to decelerate the ship as much as possible. Once the ship is no longer traveling at relativistic speeds, other options will be much more feasible - a replacement propulsion section, a resupply or rescue ship, etc.
[Answer]
I think the design of a ship would do everything it could to save fuel requirements, and find it worthwhile to have different systems to use for *braking*. It might deploy a solar sail, a magnetic sail, or various things to cause drag.
Even if it planned to use the main drive for some deceleration stage before using these other means, it might use the brake *anyway* with some useful effect. It might continue braking, gradually, even well past the sun and on into true interstellar space.
So, a follow-up or rescue mission is *possible*, with the next mission changed to rendezvous.
As a variation, they might cannibalize the ship and cut off everything that's not the brake mechanism and a minimal life pod, and parachute to a stop with the much reduced mass.
Or, if the drive mechanism is nonfunctional but they still have the fuel supply (e.g. anti matter and reaction mass) then, after *somewhat* slowing and continued braking on the way out again, a rescue resupply mission could be launched to just catch up to them with critical components, arriving (to them) empty.
[Answer]
Most of the answers here are totally out of it so I will address them in bulk.
First, lets consider the mechanics of intercepting the vessel. Assuming we want to keep the acceleration on the rocket to 1g (and we almost certainly do--a long term exposure to high g is going to be quite dangerous) we need to intercept them 7 months out (note: I'm using Newtonian math, Einstein would only make things even worse.) You have only 16 months for the mission so you now have 9 months to get that rocket into position. You need an absolute minimum of 4 months to get into position and since you only pushed your manned vessel to .6c I would think the interceptor would have similar limits, thus with a 7 month drift time. Oops, you're down to 2 months to build and burn (both the takeoff burn and the velocity match burn)--even if you can whip up a rocket with a replicator in nothing flat it's going to be burning at more than 10g. I doubt they have the technology. Even if somehow you have vastly more delta-v available you still have less than 5 months to build and burn. It's not going to happen.
Second, dust in it's path. This avoids the need to match velocities and thus makes it somewhat easier. It's also almost certainly going to destroy the vessel--the deflector system is going to overload and the vessel is either destroyed or fried. (Think of how any space vessel would fare if it's engine were pointed at it. The energy dissipation in the dust cloud is considerably higher than it's engine power as the cloud will be moving out at relativistic speed.)
This leaves only one approach that might possibly work: Launch your rescue vessel in the opposite direction. You have 13 months to get it on the way and there's no design time--it's an ordinary vessel. You might even have one around. The runaway rocket flies through the system on schedule, 4 months later the rescue vessel matches with it and takes off the crew.
Edit: Another problem comes to mind. Figuring an intercept and return to Earth assumes the rocket carries enough fuel to boost to .6c 4 times. This is the sort of fuel it would need if it had gone out and come back without refueling. However, this question has the "science-based" tag--and that is an incredible amount of delta-v. At .6c you're carrying 80% as much kinetic energy as rest mass. Assuming a theoretically perfect conversion of energy into kinetic energy (at a minimum this would require a reactionless drive of some kind) and for each boost you need almost half the rocket as fuel not counting the fuel needed to boost the fuel. (And that fuel will be considerable but my calculus is too rusty to tackle it right now.) After 4 boosts you're a bit past 90% of your rocket being fuel--and reality will be much worse than that indeed.
There's a reason most sci-fi authors handwave the power source of their stardrives!
If the rocket is refueled at it's destination the ratio is not so brutally high but that means you can't turn around in space. The intercept before Earth scenario isn't on the table at all, the intercept after scenario still works but the rocket is going to have to go to some other star rather than come home.
[Answer]
Yes, there are many good answers, but either I missed it or nobody did came up with this, so another option: **Laser**.
Its plausible for the timeframe; they think about doing this right now. Okay, it will use way smaller vessels (unmanned), but its said you could sling a small probe to the next star within some years.
So lets assume they did think about a scenario where the ship does come back without any ability to break. Lets assume further they decided that using the laser-option to decelerate it was put into the ships design from the very beginning.
All you need to do is aiming in the correct direction (at both sides). When I think about it... hitting something that's incoming with 0.6c with a laser over half a light-year of the size of a small spaceship will be... well, you need to aim really good for this. To be honest, I'm not sure that's even possible at all.
But it offers you a fine plot point, if you are going to make a story out of this: That laser option wasn't planned in first instance, but somebody did remember how they did send probes to Alpha Centauri ages ago, so they install a makeshift-mirror at their vessel while the other side (earth) has the fine task to design a laser suitable for this task within a year or less.
But at the end... all you need to accomplish is getting that ship slow enough to have it half-orbiting the sun... How to explain... make an u-turn around sun, and the earth can send all that stuff some of the other answers did name (especially a new engine).
After all, no laser that wouldn't destroy that ship at the first hit would be able to eat away all the surplus speed. Just getting it slow enough so it would not fling out of the solar system at the other side. Sadly that will not yield any plus-points.
And to be honest: that whole situation does sound like a job for Jeb and the Kerbal Space Program :) But they would use a rope and attach parachutes, than try an air-break at Jupiter. Well... if everything else fails... still no.
Post Scriptum: Seriously, do not try to hit any atmosphere for air-brake at this speed - you could aim for concrete wall, that would not make any difference.
EDiT: Wait a minute, just some random idea that lured in the back of my head since I wrote down the Jupiter-parachute-idea:
**Solar-Sail**
Its the same as the Laser: at its own it will never stop the ship in time, but you could try to use it like the space-shuttles did when landing to get some of your momentum eaten up before you reach the solar system. Well... you would need an incredible huge solar sail, and it would have a fun time passing through the Oorth' Cloud... at least you would make yourself more easy to spot for the laser-guys...
[Answer]
At .6c you aren't going to get much that will slow it down in only a year.
You can try lasers if you already have them in place, as it might knock a percent or two off, but considering for a laser to get a spacecraft up to .6c would take a huge amount of time, 1 year isn't going to do much.
You can try to get some huge thrusters and intersect with them, but just matching speeds is going to be pretty tough. you would essentially have to launch them out of the solar system the direction they are going and hope to get up to their speed before they go shooting by.
Honestly, their best bet at that speed would be to fly through the sun.
At .6c they won't be in the sun long enough for the ship to heat up too much, though the turbulence will be pretty bad, so you'd only want to try this if you the ship is structurally sound, and the deceleration would be pretty rough too, so you may lose a few people to their organs rupturing, even with crash couches.
Edit:
Also, the EM field would likely be intense, so make sure your computer and other components are shielded, and maybe have backups stored in lead cases that can be swapped out for ones that overload.
[Answer]
Depending on the size and capabilities of the shuttles, you can mount them at the front of the ship and use their engines to slow down. It may not get you all the way down in speed, but even if it can cut your velocity in half, it both makes it easier for a rescue vehicle to reach you and doubles the amount of time Earth would have to mount a rescue. Keep in mind the ship has less mass with the engines jettisoned, so that works in your favor.
Also, depending on how your technology works, the ship's engineers might also be able to use contents of the primary ship as part of the propellant used by the shuttles to extend their fuel. For example, mixing in any gasses the primary ship has available (O2, argon, whatever is used for fire suppression, etc.) into the mix. Every little bit helps. Or even better, if the shuttles and main engines use the same type of fuel or propellant, while the shuttles are probably weaker, they have a huge supply to reload with.
[Answer]
A few things to help with manoeuvring:
* RCS,
* the shuttles engines,
* the crew jetpacks,
* missiles just fire without releasing them,
* shooting whatever other weapons you have,
* or even venting air
You may even have solar sails, if you left for a long joney.
All that put together could help you plotting gravity assists on all the planets and planetoids you encounter, and then aero-braking.
You can even combine both by aero-braking inside Jupiter. (Just make sure you get out of it)
Or against Saturn's rings (assuming your ship can withstand the impacts, and then there is the asteroid belt before reaching Mars)
So to sum up:
* Various small resources are still on the ship.
* Hit comets, asteroids, rings, ...
* Aero-brake in any gas giant you cross, and in any atmosphere you come across
* Gravity assists
It's going to be a rough ride. Good luck!
[Answer]
# You can't
You have a ship, capable of transporting humans for years. That means it's HUGE, like [Project Orion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29) huge. 10 kilo tons of mass at the very least. Going at 0.6c. So you have [2.247×10^23](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=kinetic%20energy%2010000%20tonne%200.6c) joules in that ship, currently.
Wolfram Alpha gives us [some estimates](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.247%C3%9710%5E23%20joules&lk=1) how much that is. (e.G. it exceeds the amount of energy in fossil fuel we have on planet earth ~6 times)
If you want to stop that by throwing stuff at the ship, you will need to deposit that much energy into it, thus boiling it away. It doesn't matter if your stuff is photons, dust or concrete walls. Your ship will not tolerate that much energy (that would be 6.3118\*10^20 Jules every day. Compare: the US uses 0.94\*10^20 Jule per year). So you would need to radiate the heat of about 6 USA/year away every day. That's not going to work.
If you have a propulsion system that is half as efficient as the ideal mass:energy converter (which is not realistic in a hard science fiction scenario for the year 2100) you need 5 kt of material to reaction with. That was the amount of material you just jettisoned because it was your propulsion system (plus a little for the engine).
To send a rescue craft with a similar effective system, it will need 5 kt of fuel to stop you. It will also need 1,25 kt of extra fuel to accelerate that fuel to 0.6c to intercept you. But now you are stationary somewhere in mid space, outside of the solar system. To get back, you need another 5 kt to accelerate the ship back and 5 kt to break it again in the solar system. But that additional 10.000 t need to be brought to you as well, so you will need to start ~24 kt with the rescue ship (plus its engine). As you said, your fuel already started to go fusion bomb before, so its radioactive. You send uranium this time. That's 1.463 billion $ for the fuel.
(these are all back-on-the-envelope calculations, don't plan your spacetrip on them)
And that is just the basic. We did not have a backup rocket to save the Apollo Missions if they had gone wrong, so there is no reason to assume we will have a backup engine for our only spaceship ready when it breaks. So, not only will we now have to spend a year of the science fund only on the fuel, we will also have a multiple of that for building another engine and bringing it on course. This will not happen.
# What would actually happen
Your president will have [a speech ready](http://watergate.info/1969/07/20/an-undelivered-nixon-speech.html) for this situation.
[Answer]
Ok, lets get the bonus achievements:
>
> * By "saved" I mean that the ship must be slowed down into a solar orbit where it can be accessed by rescue vessels.
> * Bonus points for making it head towards earth or into an earth orbit so that the crew will only have to board the shuttles.
> * No propulsion whatsoever may come from the ship itself unless you decide that sending a new nuclear reactor and propulsion module for rendezvous at relativistic speeds.
> * You can use anything else as long as it is feasible in the year 2100 in a hard sci-fi setting.
>
>
>
XXII century Earth has the tech to get ships to 0.6c (else our shuttle wouldn't be in said speed). So getting a vessel to match the speed and vector of the incoming craft is not a daunting task. But it also means that Earth technology has means of reducing the effects of ultra-high G force on "squishy flesh things" like people. I'd assume such anti-G
And the answer is... **SPACE NET**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/K8dr9.jpg)
Send a ship composed of several propulsion units tied up to a folded net inside the ship. It would move itself outside solar system (beyond pluto orbit at least) into the path of the incoming shuttle, **match vector and 99.99999~% of velocity**(1) and deploy the net with the array of propulsion units. The timing of this operation would be such that i'd catch the shuttle a few weeks after deployment.
(1) enough so it won't damage or crush the shuttle and passengers
As soon as the net is securely latched to the shuttle, the propulsion units activate and begin deaccelerating. They also would steer so the gravity of the planets could be used to further slowdown and put the vessel in an intercept path towards Earth.
After reaching Earth orbit, the net would release the ship, and the crew could board the shuttles and dock with some facility easily.
[Answer]
Install some reactors, engines and fat electromagnets on a lot of very big boned asteroids you don't want, shove them out near to where the ship will pass. Turn them on, reverse railgun style. (The ship is the bullet in the metaphor).
One of two things happen, your ship flies through the magnetic field, and slows, leaving a slowly moving asteroid in its wake or if your magnetic field is BIG enough(not likely), you accelerate the asteroid to match the speed of the ship, increasing the mass and decreasing the speed.
I do not claim at all to have any idea of how magnetic fields work with a big relativistic differential(thanks Einstein), but it certainly seems like it would work. You could even possibly do something interesting with a variation of this idea(metal object moving through magnetic fields) and recapture some of the energy of the quickly moving projectile. This would be nice, as the energy that it would take to get the asteroids in place in time would be large as well. Might be more worth your time to slow them enough the physics works, then redirect them to your asteroid belt and then slowly spin them to a stop using your magnetic fields to guide them.
[Answer]
At this point in your story, it's time for the Star Trek answer. Choose 1 or more of:
* Reverse the polarity of the deflector dish
* Reverse the polarity of the tractor beam
* Invert the polarity of the shield generator
* Something with warp field stabilizers
It seems one of those 4 things can fix nearly anything that goes wrong on a star ship. So give it a try.
In other words, it's time to break out the near magical, but some how just vague enough tech to make story work.
[Answer]
The difficult part is decelerating that much mass in that short amount of time. I think I'd suggest getting rid of all the mass of the original ship.
So you start with a very light unmanned rescue ship--as light as you can possibly manage. This ship will undergo almost constant maximum acceleration throughout it's entire life.
As the terribly light unmanned rescue ship reaches some distance between the out of control ship and the earth it must flip around and accelerate just as fast in the opposite direction so it can meet the big ship. It's going to have to undo all the acceleration it's accumulated AND then re-accelerate to .6 light speed to match up with the main ship. To do this it must be almost nothing but a giant pile of fuel on an engine.
It should match velocity and location with the original ship as soon as possible--Now for the really tricky part. In order for the deceleration to not take years, you freeze the squishy bits so they don't pop (Cryonics should be valid sci-fi for that time period), flip the rescue ship around again and fire engines on full for the last time. At this point the rescue ship has used up most of it's fuel and jettisoned any unnecessary hardware for the final deceleration so it's just an ice-cube sitting on an insulator sitting on a fuel tank sitting on an engine.
The insulation should keep the ice-cube from melting as long as it doesn't have line of sight to the sun. Assuming carbonite isn't an option, a thin wall of strong, light-weight material around the ice could keep it from fracturing under acceleration, so just keeping the ship pointed towards the sun and, again, fire engines on full. As the ship brakes for the last time it should meet up with a better equipped ship that can revive the occupants.
It would be bad if you overshot the sun while decelerating and exposed the payload to the sun's heat though...
[Answer]
Forget the shuttles. Load the crew into their [Slaver Stasis Field](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Known_Space#Stasis_fields) equipped deep sleep capsules, and then fire them at a large asteroid or small moon. When the high-speed indestructible capsules strike the much bigger and comparably stationary asteroid, the redistribution of energies should be quite spectacular. Once the show subsides, the severely decelerated, but still indestructible capsules should be moving much slower, making their retrieval by Earth forces significantly easier.
As for the Slaver Stasis Fields being available in a hard science set 73 years from now (2100 - (2016 + 7 years for the hero to get to Alpha-Centauri + 4 years for the partial return journey)), I think that our discovering how to suspend all atomic motion is about as likely as our reaching 0.6c in the next 7 decades. To accomplish either scientific miracle will involve our quickly learning many intense new secrets about how the universe functions. Given the scope of that learning, I don't think that accomplishing both goals is much more difficult than accomplishing either one separately.
[Answer]
Just for fun, it may be possible.
Lets make a small assumption that you don't really need to stop the ship just slow it down enough to get some kind of solar orbit. Then you could interact with it normally.
With a year to work with you would need to apply a constant 20,818 m/s delta-v to pull this off. This probably isn't going to come from the ship, and it seems like a lot for gravity to make up.
Let's assume you have some kind of inertial dampers that means your squishy meat sacks won't explode as such a rapid speed change.
We also need to assume that the craft can withstand the mechanical forces that are about to come into play.
I would suggest a launch fro LEO to a solar orbit, that is going to intersect with the damaged craft. Again your going to have to pull some massive speeds to get to the correct orbit in the first place.
If done correctly, you can come up behind the damaged craft, accelerate to their speed, (that is going to need way more then 20,000 m/s) then transfer the crew to the new craft. The new craft can then decelerate back to a solar orbit, and finally transfer to an Earth orbit, and landing (or whatever)
Things to remember:
You don't have to capture the craft at the closest approach, in fact it may be better to capture after the craft exists the system, then decelerate the rescue craft till solar gravity takes over again, eventually hitting a more normalized orbit. Your going to burn a ton of energy catching up, but thankfully, once you decelerate, your need next to no energy (comperitivly) to land (crash) back to earth.
Your big engine is gonna have to put out way more power to reach the correct intercept, you can use gravity to help a little, but not much.
When you do actually capture the speed between the two craft will be low, but you will still be traveling at a high speed compared to other frames of reference. A stray dust particle is a big problem.
[Answer]
**Go through the sun**
It's the only way to decelerate. There is no way to get any rescue vehicles with propulsion systems onto a trajectory that can intercept at 0.6c given the time frame, not without ridiculous handwavium and warp engines.
The only possible chance is to fly through the sun, doing "aerobraking". Let's look at some quick numbers.
Entry speed would be 180,000km/s and the target velocity after braking will be anything under 600km/s (escape velocity of the sun). Achieving under this will guarantee the ship remains in the solar system, and opening up opportunities for further braking later on (could take hundreds of years, the ship would STILL be the fastest thing in the solar system).
To decelerate from 0.6c to 600km/s over the suns diameter requires your ship and crew to tolerate a sustained average of **over 1 million g's**, and the heat of the sun.
This is the most realistic scenario I can think of. Good luck!
[Answer]
The real question is how did your ship get up to .6c in the first place since the limits of regular propulsion is more like .2c or .3c, but assuming you could, and with nuclear fuel no less, then you'd probably have a lot of fuel and energy reserves. Dumping the nuclear core isn't a problem in space and you wouldn't lose all your fuel and such.
Another thing is that you obviously have another pretty big power supply otherwise you're already dead from all the micrometeors you're hitting.
So how do you slow, assuming you can't get another nuclear core and assuming you have all the fuel and energy to power your weapons to handle the stuff hitting you? Well... You'd eject the fuel in front of you. You'd also start taking apart your ship and reconstructing it into a larger reflective surface. And lastly keep firing your guns as much as possible, but not enough that you run out of ammo before you get to earth...
Do that should slow you a lot, inertia will slow you a lot, but the reflective surface is where you are going to get your help by people concentrating laser on you as you get closer to earth.
Once you get close to earth, blow the reflective surface and anything else just eject it which will slow you down more... If this is not enough, then there should be another ship that could catch up and attach to you and then slow you down, but assuming that it can't "attach" to you or catch up... You'd need to do the insane slow down maneuver of launching nukes set to detonate in front of the ship. Doing this can slow the ship down as long as it isn't too close to earth because then there is fall out and all that. Its risky but it's how you'd have to do it with modern tech... although you'd have to get down to .3c or .4c to get within what is possible with modern tech and when I heard of this strategy it was considered an insane thing to attempt to do, but hey it can work according to the math...
[Answer]
Robinson covered a very similar situation in *Aurora*, at least from a "large object moving too fast" standpoint. In short, cobble together as much propulsion as you can and use it to stop the least mass you can (shuttles).
[Answer]
Simply shoot against the ship. It's 22nd century and the ship should be able to withstand some relativistic shooting. There's a lot of space debris anyway on the way that you collide with occasionally.
If your weapon shoots at 0.1c, you need only about 50kg of ammo per 1kg of the ship weight, which may be feasible.
[Answer]
You need an opposite motion to slow your ship down.
**I have to assume we passed through the same area on the way out, and it sure would be handy to have the collected sensor data to know what kind of gas cloud and raw material are available to us.**
If there are large hydrogen(or other burn/explode able) gases cloud in front of you, you could explode them to create reverse thrust.
Anything with exceptional gravity would also have useful gravitational effects. You would have to precisely plot a course that puts you close enough to the enter of gravity for a long enough period, so you have just enough escape velocity to escape.
1. Assuming we have strong metal cables or similar and pipes.
First you need to start sucking in as much space matter as you can safely without blowing up the ship, more mass less speed. Maybe like a window screen and then put a vacuum hose out to suck the mass in.
Then start harpooning (cables and pipes if necessary) asteroids moving slower than you, but not so slow or fast that you wreck your ship. It will be a game of create drag and release before a dangerous amount of force builds up. Obviously the head of the harpoon will have to expand to lock on and contract to release which should be well within the ability of science.
Meanwhile, the universe has tremendous amount of hydrogen and other burnable gasses. You can rig a rudimentary system that send the collected gas out the pipe and ignite it in front of the ship. This also would be an opposite force slowing the ship down further.
Maybe you could also exploit gravitational sling shooting in reverse to slow you down.
Also if you could magnetize the hull or a box you pull behind the ship, it to would lock onto passing masses and help slow you down. Gathering more and more mass. If it locks onto something too strongly and the forces created endanger the structural integrity of the ship, you can turn the magnet off for a second.
Finally, I would have some kind of net system to catch and slow down as the other person said.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
**Pathogen**
Note: For the purpose of this question I define a pathogen to include viruses and/or bacteria. Edit: I don't exclude other *biological* agents such as fungi that might have the same effect.
>
> Pathogen
>
>
> A pathogen or infectious agent is a biological agent that causes
> disease or illness to its host.
>
>
> <https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/pathogen.htm>
>
>
>
Sometimes we hear of a potential threat to humanity from a 'killer' virus, for example bird-flu. <https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/flu-guide/what-know-about-bird-flu#1>
There have been plagues that have killed vast numbers of people but none have resulted in actual extinction. <https://www.mphonline.org/worst-pandemics-in-history/>
HIV Aids, Bird-Flu and others have affected more than one species.
**Question**
In *theory* could a microbe arise that could completely wipe out an entire species (in particular humans) or more importantly all mammals (and maybe other species as well).
**Clearly mammals have not all been wiped out so far because we are still around. My question is, could it *conceivably* happen given what we currently know? If not, what would prevent it?**
---
**Edit** I should repeat that I want it to be an agent that directly infects mammals by getting into their bloodstream or other bodily systems - not one that affects them indirectly.
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Yes, but not in the way you are thinking.
One way this could happen is if some killer fungus starts growing unchecked throughout the planet, on land and sea. By killing all plant life it would destroy every other ecosystem, so it would wipe out all mammals. It would also practically wipe out all other members of the animal kingdom. This is part of the plot of Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri.
Another way is if some methane-producing microbe starts spreading unchecked. [This may have already happened](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event):
>
> The Permian–Triassic (P–Tr or P–T) extinction event, colloquially known as the Great Dying, the End-Permian Extinction or the Great Permian Extinction, occurred about 252 Ma (million years) ago, (...) It is the Earth's most severe known extinction event, with up to 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct. It is the only known mass extinction of insects. Some 57% of all biological families and 83% of all genera became extinct.
>
>
> (...)
>
>
> Suggested mechanisms for the latter include (...) a runaway greenhouse effect triggered by sudden release of methane from the sea floor due to methane clathrate dissociation according to the clathrate gun hypothesis or **methane-producing microbes known as methanogens**.
>
>
>
And if methane won't do, bacteria may deplete the oceans of oxygen. Then:
>
> A severe anoxic event at the end of the Permian would have allowed **sulfate-reducing bacteria** to thrive, causing the production of large amounts of hydrogen sulfide in the anoxic ocean. Upwelling of this water may have released massive hydrogen sulfide emissions into the atmosphere and would **poison terrestrial plants and animals and severely weaken the ozone layer, exposing much of the life that remained to fatal levels of UV radiation**. Indeed, biomarker evidence for anaerobic photosynthesis by Chlorobiaceae (green sulfur bacteria) from the Late-Permian into the Early Triassic indicates that hydrogen sulfide did upwell into shallow waters because these bacteria are restricted to the photic zone and use sulfide as an electron donor.
>
>
>
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
If by single pathogen you mean a strain of virus or bacteria and not a single specific bacterium or virus, then Yes. We already have an existing example - Rabies. Rabies only affects mammals. If your strain is easier to transmit via multple methods (air, water, soil) and harder to kill (e.g. boiling water will not kill it) with widespread travel throughout your world, you should be able to spread the virus worldwide. Eventually, even the most prepared survivalists will run out of stored food and potable water.
>
> In unvaccinated humans, **[rabies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies) is almost always fatal** after neurological symptoms have developed.
>
>
> Vaccination after exposure, PEP, is highly successful in preventing the disease if administered promptly, in general within 6 days of infection. Begun with little or no delay, PEP is 100% effective against rabies. In the case of significant delay in administering PEP, the treatment still has a chance of success.
>
>
>
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Patch [Actinomycetes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinomycetales) (a kind of soil bacteria) to carry cDNA for [Ricin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin).
Uncontrolled genes in bacteria tend to be on for some reason. The entire field of genetic research depends on this. Even if this were not the case, rigging up an activator is easy.
The bacteria now manufactures Ricin, which is a broad-spectrum deadly poison that functions by deactivating eukaryotic ribosomes. This now makes them a true pathogen with the unusual reproductive mode that it gains energy by killing its hosts and then decomposing them.
Actinomycetes already spread through the air. This patch would make the spores contacting dirty skin a plausible transport route. A patch like this probably results in the bacteria using Ricin as an endotoxin, which is still deadly enough once enough affected dust is inhaled or ingested. It won't take particularly dirty food to get a fatal dose.
Correctly unleashed, this would be an excessively deadly device, and obviously far too dangerous to be any kind of weapon other than a doomsday device. [Soil dust crosses oceans](https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/saharan-dust-blows-across-atlantic) so a quarantine would not be particularly effective. Once this thing gets rolling, it's going to require ridiculously overpowered intervention to stop it. I want to say supernatural but if I asked how to stop this on worldbuilding somebody will come up with something.
[Answer]
**Targeting**
[Mammals (Mammalia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal) are structured (currently) like this:
* Subclass Yinotheria
+ Infraclass Australosphenida
- Order Monotremata
* Subclass Theriiformes
+ Infraclass Holotheria
- Superlegion Trechnotheria
- Legion Cladotheria
* Supercohort Theria
+ Cohort Marsupialia
+ Cohort Placentalia
That is a large target.
[Genetically speaking the Platypus](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-our-connection-to-t/) (a monotreme under the Order Montremata) shares roughly 82% of its genes with other mammals, and has roughly two thirds the number of genes as found in a Human.
In comparison a Chimpanzee differs to a [Human genomically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics) by about 3%, although there are 35 million single nucleotide edits across the full DNA strands. There are [viruses, bacteria and parasites capable of cross-species infection between humans and apes](https://www.livescience.com/9565-human-viruses-kill-great-apes.html). So there is some plausibility that one of these could be evolved/engineered to target the Cohort Placentalia.
For most people wiping out placentals mammals is enough to satisfy your requirement.
However Marsupials are also mammals. They are endemic to Australia, South and North America, and a few islands. Monotremes are known to exist on the Australian continent and Tasmania alone. At least in these places a disease that wipes out mammals would need to include these creatures.
[Avian Influenza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza) is an example of a virus capable of jumping animal classes, specifically Avian to Human and back. This does give credence to a virus being capable of infecting any mammal, and being carried by another species. Birds are good for this as they can carry the disease across geographical dividers. Unfortunately they would not be ideal agents for infecting most sea-mammals.
**Environments**
This pandemic mammalian disease will also have to contend with a wide-scale of environments. Mammals are widely dispersed and occupy numerous environments: ocean, stream, land, cave, mountain, valley, savannah, jungle, and sky. They live in the Arctic circle all the way through to the Antarctic circle.
While this might not seem important, when not within a host, the disease must be capable of maintaining itself in the larger environment, and either seeking or waiting for another suitable host, otherwise it essentially dies with its host.
**Disease Viability**
A disease that co-evolves with its hosts cannot kill all of its hosts. That would be a bad survival trait causing the disease and the hosts to die out - extinction.
A disease that jumps from one type of Host to another, has some latitude initially. After all it has a conserved host base, and the new host has zero defenses. This might eliminate a specific target host if all of those hosts were to become infected simultaneously. However nature has large barriers that tend to prevent simultaneous infection of all novel hosts - like mountains, rivers, and oceans. Thus through chance eventually the new host type will either die out, or some of their number will survive, leading back to the disease not killing all hosts.
**Sexual Reproduction and genetic variability**
Because Hosts have been evolving for millions of years against a back ground of infection and parasitisation. They do have a few tricks. One is sexual reproduction. This recombines genes from two parents reshuffling the genome and essentially the entire structure of the DNA. This decreases the likelihood that a disease that is effective against either parent, will be similarly effective against the off-spring.
This tends to force diseases to focus on conserved genetics, and the conserved proteins and complexes that are subsequently produced. Fortunately this allows the immune system of the animal to learn and focus defenses around these conserved areas.
**Plagues**
Of course diseases can rage uncontrolled. There is a problem though. They need fresh meat (literally) to maintain the plague conditions.
Humans recently figured out how to achieve this with the invention of cities, and co-habitation with domesticated/pest animals. You can see this through the history books from at least Egypt on through the European medieval cities. These places were essentially death traps for humans and animals alike with disease jumping between species, but not running out of fresh hosts because more would be brought in (be they human, or other animals). The black plague is a good case in point. It was spread by the inter-city trade, but once entrenched in a city, it could last for years.
Unfortunately this mode of plague sustenance will not work for killing all mammals. Largely because many will not migrate in a sustained manner to a city, or even its cave/oceanic equivalents. But also because the Humans have learnt how to institute quarantines, and other health interventions which suppress plagues until they naturally die off.
**Weaponisation**
It is theoretically possible to evolve/engineer a bacterium/parasite/virus that could be used to wipe out a given population of a particular species, or even several species/orders/classes. Numerous examples exist currently.
However:
* There is a chance that sexual reproduction will have created at least one individual that can survive being infected
* The animals are not sufficiently concentrated to ensure that all hosts are simultaneously infected, or continual reinfected should the initial infection be defeated.
* The specific disease will have to focus on the most highly conserved areas of the genome, where the animals will have highly advanced immunological defenses.
* Humans will naturally institute quarantines, and other health measures to reduce infection and severity.
**Can it happen?**
In short:
* Wiping out a group of individuals is possible - it happens often enough [see the spanish flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu).
* Wiping out a species will be difficult, but not unachievable. A new species in a small environment would be simplest, any geographically diverse or separated species complicates maters.
* Wiping out a Cohort, Order, or Class is supremely difficult as conserved sequences are already well tested for vulnerabilities, but if such did exist universal extinction would require a near simultaneous infection, and a plague supporting environment. Essentially a high concentration of all targeted hosts, which maximises reinfection of any survivors in order to overwhelm immunological defenses, and supports chances for cross-species infection from a carrier host type.
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
No, it is not *conceivable* that this would happen although it is perhaps *possible* in the strictest sense.
Every known pathogen has limited host range, and no known pathogen kills every individual of even a single species[1], so a pathogen that is able to effectively attack every mammal is some orders of magntiude more broad spectrum and pathogenic that anything we have ever encountered.
This should not surprise us, the fact is that multicellular organisms all have complex immune systems designed to protect them, and mammals - in particular - have some of the best and most complex. These mechanisms are extremely effective at wiping out incoming pathogens and mind-bogglingly flexible in what they can attack. Not only that, but the mechanisms by which pathogens attack their hosts are incredibly specific. It is common for viruses and bacteria to rely on binding to specific proteins in order to enter cells, and these binding interactions are so specific that even a single amino acid change can be enough to prevent their function.
You mention HIV and bird flu, but even these pathogens are only able to infect only a couple of species, and - in the case of HIV - it took blood-borne infection to initially cross the species barrier followed by in-host evolution. More common trans-species infections are things like *Campylobacter jejuni* or *Salmonella* which cause food poisoning in humans. But these organisms while they cause gastroenteritis are unable to actually invade the host's cells or organs in almost all cases.
You asked for a specific reason, it is this: Evolution. Any branch of multi-cellular life that could be rendered extinct by a pathogen as you suggest got weeded out long, long ago. Those that are left are those that are the descendant of those that were effective in the never-ending fight against pathogens.
[1] Baring species that have very few, highly inbred individuals, e.g. the Tasmanian Devil.
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
The variety and genetic diversity of species and of each individuals tends to prevent that. Zoonoses are diseases that can infect animals and human they sometimes share the same mechanism of infection between different hosts like HIV for example. But in others case they develop hosts specific solution for infection. in both case variation may protect you from infection, they are for example genetic condition that are known to protect you from HIV infection (see the crispr baby for example). Such a Virus that would take out all mammmals must either target for infection and killing a very conserve characteristic that all mammalls posses without exeption or be adapted to all mammals, in either case this seems highly unlikely.
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Yes, viruses and bacteria can infect multiple species, even not closely related. If a hypothetical pathogen, lets call it **pigeon pox**, mutates, and gains ability to infect some tissue or organ shared by all mammals e.g. **placenta**, and as a side effect it causes the death of a foetus, it can potentially wipe out all mammals in a generation. It will not be easily contained like ebola, because its main reservoir is still a pigeon. If it survives in female reproductive tracts after killing the foetus not only it is preventing any future pregnancy but may also spread among mammals directly as STI.
Pigeons will still be happily flying, coughing an sh\*\*ting in our towns when we're gone because for them the virus only causes mild rash around cloaka.
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Theoretically yes. Practically no.
A pathogen say a virus can theoretically wipe out entire mammals if its deadly and there is no cure. All the mammals would get infected sooner or later and it would wipe out all of the mammals.
Practically evolution would kick in and one percent or .5 percent of the mammals would develop immunity to the pathogen by mutation/natural selection. Over decades these immune mammals would reproduce to produce more immune mammals and would repopulate the earth. All things equal and with the current scientific advancements this re-population would take decades rather than centuries.
[Answer]
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
About anything conceivable is **possible**. However, that scenario isn't particularly *feasible*.
In general immunologists will tell you that species only get *entirely wiped out* by a disease if that species already has a population problem, eg: its entire population is small and isolated in some way. That certainly can't be considered true for Mammals in general.
**Mammals**
I don't think a lot of people have a good mental concept of how many mammals their are in the world, or how diverse and robust of an order mamalia is. In rodents alone there are over 2,000 different *species*, with habitats ranging over nearly every earth biome, and living on land, air, sea, and underground. This is a class of creatures that survived two of this planet's major extinction events, in which 80%, and then a further 76% of all living species were lost, including the Dinosaurs.
**You are simply *not* taking out all of mamalia with a single cause**, short of one that destroys the entire Earth. You could perhaps cull them back a bit, but you'd have to then explain why they didn't come roaring back.
**Diseases**
Diseases themselves are rarely 100% fatal in their reservoir creatures for long, for obvious natural selection reasons: If all their host creatures die, the virus species will die too. So viruses themselves have a strong genetic pressure to become endemic rather than epidemic in their hosts.
Similarly, the body's immune system will eventually recognize and kill a disease (if it survives), which means a successful virus needs to **not** infect 100% of its host population at once, if it wants to survive.
When you tend to get really deadly outbreaks (eg: Ebola) is when a disease hops species from one its co-evolved to be endemic in to one that is naive. But even then, *some* individuals will survive, and have bodies that know how to survive this same disease in the future. It may take a few generations, but they'll be back.
In general, any time I see fictional stories claiming a 100% mortality rate for any disease, my arm reaches in my back pocket for the yellow BS flag.
[Answer]
While such pathogens cannot arise naturally via evolution as has been pointed out in many of the other answers, such pathogens can likely be made in the lab. Mammals likely have as of yet untested "zero day" vulnerabilities that have not been patched by evolution, because evolution cannot yield all theoretically possible pathogens. This therefore leaves open the possibility of creating such pathogens ab initio in the lab.
With today's technology, we can already create viruses ab initio and it doesn't require a huge amount of resources, [see here](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/how-canadian-researchers-reconstituted-extinct-poxvirus-100000-using-mail-order-dna):
>
> Eradicating smallpox, one of the deadliest diseases in history, took humanity decades and cost billions of dollars. Bringing the scourge back would probably take a small scientific team with little specialized knowledge half a year and cost about $100,000.
>
>
>
In the future, a country like North Korea could produce new viruses that have never existed before. Such viruses can be evolved in the lab to make them ever more lethal. One can also imagine that 100% lethality cannot be achieved by a single pathogen, but there may then exist a solution that achieves this goal using two or more pathogens. Such binary bioweapons could also be developed to avoid early detection by making the individual pathogens give infected people only mild symptoms.
Then because such bioweapons gives countries the ability to win WWIII without all the problems associated with deploying nuclear weapons and trying to avert MAD, we have to assume that at least some countries are already developing such bioweapons. Such weapons may end up killing all mammals, so such a scenario is certainly not inconceivable.
] |
[Question]
[
History shows that most inventors of groundbreaking new technologies, for example, the light bulb or the telephone were not actually the first to invent this technology and that there were actually lots of teams in the world working on the same problem at the same time. For example Elisha Gray filed a patent application on the exact same day as Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone.
**My question is: is there any historical precedent for someone inventing a new technology many years before anyone else?**
I have searched for an example of this for quite a long time but can only find the opposite.
The example directly from my world is a mega corporation secretly inventing genetically modified super humans 50-100 years before anyone else (a plot device design to keep the number of genetically modified humans small).
Is this plausible with reference to any examples from our own history on Earth?
Many worldbuilders, myself included, wish to create worlds that are plausible to our *human* audience. This is made easier if there is evidence of some point in human history that is the same as our world's claim.
[Answer]
The first example that pops into my mind is [Hero of Alexandria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria). He was close to two millenia early with a lot of his ideas, but it is worth noting that nothing he made became more than a toy. He had great ideas for steam-engines, but without the metallurgical knowledge to make them effective (i.e. having a high pressure), or windmills without the economic necessity to deploy them (i.e. windmills cost more than slaves).
Another example would be Leonardo's myriad [sketches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_inventions_of_Leonardo_da_Vinci) of gyrocopters, war machines, and hydraulics; again most of which never became more than toys.
A different sort of example is the many things that were 'invented' in China, but never reached industrial potential until the Europeans got their hands on them. Gunpowder, printing, and the blast furnace are three good examples of things that were invented in China, and existed there for centuries, but didn't change the world until they were utilized in Europe.
That is the primary problem with developing something 'ahead of its time;' it is ahead of its time precisely because materials technology is insufficient to produce it (in the case of gunpowder, the chinese didn't make bells like Europeans, so they didn't have the skills to cast effective cannon), or economics are insufficient to utilize it (for printing, there was no literate merchant class in China with a demand for new books...and new ideas).
Here is a scenario: lets say your 'mega-corporation' is constructing Iron Man style fighting suits instead of Captain Americas. They go through all the effort of software engineering a perfect control system that reacts immediately to the user's actions, provides a heads-up display just like in the movies...and then they deploy it and it runs out of battery in about 15 seconds because Arc-Reactors aren't a real thing. The thing is, if Arc-Reactors were a real thing, how many other inventions would already have been made using the power of the Arc-Reactor, and after all those inventions are made, will we still need an Iron Man suit?
That should summarize the problem of the ahead of time invention. If this corporation invented a super-soldier serum, one of the first steps might be a serum that helped heal wounds. Well, that by itself is a product worth billions. If they decided to monetize those billions to fund their super-soldier research, then the rest of the world is now one step closer to their own super-soldier serum.
[Answer]
Yes, it is. There are some historical examples (that I just pulled out of the hat, no proof or sources):
* Black powder was invented and weaponized in china a long time before it became known in Europe.
* Mathematics and medicine were on a higher level in Arabic countries than in Europe before the age of the crusades.
* Rocket and Jet engines were developed and used by the nazis a while before the rest of the world had them
* Same with long-range missiles (the dreaded V1 and V2)
* Tanks were deployed in WWI and were a complete surprise to the opposing forces
Also, there is a difference in KNOWING about and DEPLOYING technology. ~~When WWII started, the Germans attacked Poland with tanks, planes, and machine guns, while their poorer neighbours could not fight back properly, sometimes being as desperate as to charge their enemies on horseback...~~
Seems above sentence is disputed regarding its accuracy. While I do agree that a part of my text does not reflect historical facts properly (after doing some research, I was especially impressed with the cavalry usage actually being fairly effective), it's not completely wrong either (as in machine guns pretty much ended the era of horse warfare), so I would like to add some source so everyone can make up their own mind: [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty)
Basically, the further you go back in history, the more probably and the easier it is for a technology to be in the hands of only one party. Geographical distances, limited trade and a lot of other factors made it hard for technology to be "passed on". And if something was regarded secret, it was even easier to control these few humans. By locking them away.
In our digital age, it becomes much harder to keep something secret, because spies also have better options for finding it, and our reverse-engineering power is enormous.
But yes, I think it is actually possible to hide a new invention. The question is: for how long can you hide it? And in our current age, I'd always go with: not very long. Years at max, decades? I don't think so.
[Answer]
Apparently, most things are being invented when it is time for them.
Mind you, i am not talking about destiny of any kind. I am talking about standing on the shoulders of giants. We had many questions around here about taking inventions to the past (via a time-traveller), and those questions always show beautifully how things are built on other things.
There are very obvious things like the wheel, which needs to be invented prior to any wheeled veicle, but there are many other cases. For example, before you can build a 3d-printer you need computers. And those computers have to be cheap and mass-produced before the printers can become consumer goods.
But then there are other things, like for example the babbage machine (which was way ahead of its time), or, more recently, the [Wendelstein reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X), an machine with a geometry so complex that the idea sat for some 50 years before there was enough computational power to actually create the shape.
So, yes, in theory someone could invent something way ahead of its time, but for your story to be plausible, you may have the inventor to invent the giant first, before he can stand on his shoulders.
[Answer]
Short answer: yes, there is.
Long answer: depends on what it is. Some things require very specialized parts and other advancements before they can be created. For example, it's beyond reason that you would invent a cell phone before electricity, or landlines, or cell towers. Plus, a host of other things. A lot of other things necessarily have to come first for many inventions.
The examples already on the answers here are useful--the Baghdad battery, inventions that were brilliant but considered just a nifty magic trick or a toy with no practical application.
But, with your specific story example, you're looking at something that was developed and then kept secret. That it is genetic in nature makes it easier, because anything that's been invented that's been useful gets seen, and if it's seen, people tend to copy it. (Hey, here's a [fun Cracked article](http://www.cracked.com/article_19041_7-useful-genetic-experiments-that-are-creepy-as-hell.html) for your viewing pleasure).
Unless your GMHs (Genetically Modified Humans) look completely different from other people, it's certainly possible for them to exist without anyone knowing. There will be failures first, and they will need to be kept locked down in the lab. Here's what they need:
**An area not governed by any government or isolated enough to be kept secret and be legal.** It must be stable though. This is important. There can't be revolutions happening every few years.
**A way to get and or manufacture supplies without calling attention to what they are doing.** Maybe have a mundane reason, and some advancements coming out of the lab ready to feed to curious reporters. If there are any investigative journalists left in the world.
**Very good security.**
**Utterly loyal and amoral employees** Treat all employees with respect and pay them so very much money. Let them know how much you like them. Get personal--know their names, and their kid's names, what grades they are in, that kind of thing. Anyone who becomes disloyal will be punished in some terrible way. Perhaps killed. The idea is that those who are good to you will always be taken care of and rewarded, but those that are not...well...that would not be a good idea.
**A Reason for the Secrecy** Hide, not quite in plain sight, make sure there's an alt cover story, like something slightly illegal or amoral, but not enough to get you hauled to international courts, which you can then "confess" when someone gets too close. Then, close the place and use one of your OTHER super-secret labs.
**Maybe don't let your experiments roam free** Just a tip.
This is fiction, so it's certainly possible. Just keep in mind that the first generation of anything is buggy as heck and that these other inventions simply aren't the same as genetic modification. Also keep in mind that if it's on the edge of possible and it's useful, someone is pouring money into it--so they won't be the only ones.
Now, one way to go with this is ONE DISCOVERY THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING. Like something upon which all the advancements are based that nobody else has. Here's a fictional video game example: Bioshock. The genetic modifications everyone in Rapture can experience through gene splicing are all the result of discovering a deep sea slug, with properties that change gene stability. In order for your guys to have some advancement beyond everyone else, I believe that they would have to have a game changer in their corner.
But it does mean that anything they make public MUST absolutely be free of evidence of the game changer. They can call it proprietary. If it touches on impossible, people will try to reverse engineer it.
[Answer]
A precise example along the lines of what you are thinking of is [Greek fire](http://all-that-is-interesting.com/greek-fire).
This was a flamethrower-like substance invented by the Byzantine empire around 672 A.D., and sprayed from brass siphons from ships and fortresses. It was invented immediately before the first Arab siege, and enabled the Byzantines to inflict the first serious defeat on the rising Arab empire.
Used properly, it enabled small Byzantine forces to wipe out very large fleets and attacking armies. In 941 A.D., just 15 Byzantine ships destroyed a viking-Khazar fleet of over 1,000.
It saved Constantinople in several sieges, and made the empire the dominant naval force in the eastern Mediterranean for over 500 years. However, it was too chemically unstable for land transportation, and tended to spontaneously explode. The recipe was a state secret: it was never written down, and almost nobody was told the full recipe, apparently.
The exact recipe was lost, and still today nobody knows exactly how it was made. However, after the fall of the empire, similar weapons were used along with gunpowder until the 16th century. As far as I know, the last time a weapon like that was used, before the 20th century, is at the [Siege of Malta](http://historynuggets.blogspot.com/2012/05/malta-1565.html) in 1565.
[Answer]
Typically, when something useful is invented, others see how useful it is and reverse engineer it... but not always!
Take, for instance, the [Baghdad Battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery) - most likely (we don't actually have proof) a battery created ~250 BC to 224 AD. Obviously batteries didn't make a world-wide showing right away.
I seem to recall hearing, but can't locate the source, about an early Medieval "wizard" who was described as having odd lights in his house at night and a door that would 'bite you' - that many believe might have been playing with electricity. If I recall correctly, it was mostly speculation based on eye-witness reports, though, so your mileage may definitely vary.
[Answer]
Well, it really depends on what you mean by this. Look at nuclear warheads - they've been around for some time (primarily "invented" by the U.S. and U.S.S.R.), and many countries still today cannot make one. So yes, things can be invented far earlier by one (or some) groups and not be attainable to others. Space travel is a similar topic.
If you mean can something of this magnitude be invented and nobody else *knows* about it... that's a bit different. It's certainly plausible, but inevitably human nature finds a way and the cat is let out of the bag.
Remember, too, the old phrase "necessity is the mother of invention" - typically things are invented/discovered because there is a need for them. If there's a need, it's likely that many people are looking to solve the issue. If there's no need, it's less likely anyone has considered trying to create something.
[Answer]
The specific examples are a useful guide an an over-arching set of conditions,which mostly comes down to 'societies in isolation'. So there are many ancient example of separate but parallel 'inventions', but this is obviously becoming less and less likely as the tightness of our connections grows.
The Chinese invented many things long before similar advances were made in Europe or the America's. The Mayan's mathematics and calendar were far in advance in many areas later 'discovered' in other societies. Invention of written language is another example, contrasting Sumeria and Egypt, and the oracle 'cracked tortoise' shells of the Chinese..
An informative and useful book on this topic is titled "Ancient Engineers", I think by de Camp. Another excellent book is "The Discovers" by Dan Boorstein (sp?).
[Answer]
**Post-it Notes.**
The original 'low-tack pressure adhesive' that makes Post-it notes possible was invented in 1968, and I don't know of any contemporaneous inventors. The application of the adhesive to Post-it notes was thopught of in 1974, but not marketed until 1977. Again I know of no parallel inventions during the nine years.
It is of course conceivable that other people invented the adhesive, but were unable to come up with an application and therefore did not publish it. The notes themselves were probably protected by patent when they were first sold, so there would be no opportunity for other developers.
[Answer]
[Forceps in childbirth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forceps_in_childbirth) were used for childbirths but kept secret for 150 years. This example is one of the rationales for patents; to encourage inventors to reveal their inventions, rather than just profit from the inventions while keeping them secret.
Something that has always interested me is 'late' rather than early inventions. That is, speculating about when society had all the materials and incentive to create an invention, but just lacked the creative spark to actually invent it.
[Answer]
For a bizarre example, read up on the [Antikythera mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism), a multi-functional astronomical calculator believed to date from around the time Julius Caesar was born. Nothing else like it would be built for 1500 years.
[I'm not saying it was aliens...](http://www.marion.lib.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/resized_ancient-aliens-invisible-something-meme-generator-i-m-not-saying-it-was-aliens-but-it-was-aliens-1824f9.jpg)
[Answer]
Just an interesting anecdotal supplement to the already excellent answers: a French man by the name of Cyrano de Bergerac invented the [ramjet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet) engine nearly 400 years ago. Rather than jet fuel, his engine was powered by parabolic mirrors.
[Answer]
There is a somewhat mistaken idea of "leaps" in technology that is commonly used in sci-fi to justify things like this. Historically, this isn't an accurate picture - technology builds on earlier technology, and by the time you develop something, it's easy for someone else (with the same technoogical base) to develop on their own. AFAIK all of the cases of technology "ahead of its time" are simply the result of business considerations - e.g. being too expensive/clunky/dangerous to be useful, or lacking another critical bit of technology to make them truly useful.
There are plenty of examples of this - even down to things that would barely be called technology nowadays:
* The basic principles of hydraulics and steam engines were known in Ancient Greece (Heron, Eupalinos...). They were mostly used for show (temples, toys), since it was almost impossible to scale them up, and they were more expensive than other power sources anyway - not to mention a waste of hard-to-get fuel.
* Windmills and watermills were known in Ancient Greece. They were rarely used, since there was plenty of other, cheaper, sources of power. They were awesome in medieval times.
* The three-field system revolutionised agriculture in colder parts of Europe and enabled large-scale animal husbandry. It wasn't useful in the earlier Roman-centered civilisation, because they had plenty of much better places for agriculture, including the pretty much "colonised" North Africa.
* The wheel was known by some south american mountain-dweller natives. It was pretty much only used for toys, since it was mostly useless for transportation in the hilly environment, and for some reason they didn't seem to use it for pottery either.
* People built computers from as far as we can tell - Stonehenge, abacus, the Antikythera mechanism... Most never spread and were used for religious purposes. The abacus is probably the most interesting, since it was very widely used. Even in modern times, there have been plenty of dead ends - mechanical computers are pretty much non-existent nowadays, for example, even though some of their operating principles go hundreds (Jacquard mill) and thousands of years in the past.
To get ahead in technology far enough to be considered advanced, you need isolation. Europe had plenty of technology China didn't and vice versa, mostly because of their different economical, political and religious environments, and in some cases, likely pure luck (if there's a million wrong things to do something and one right, even sustained scientific effort can easily miss the right approach). This quickly disappeared as contact across the world became easier and more common.
That's why we like alien technology in sci-fi so much. It gives a plausible explanation for huge leaps in technology from the human viewpoint, because we're building on developments made in thousands of years of isolation (relative to us). Mind you, a lot of sci-fi also seems to have the idea that we'd quickly reverse-engineer any alien technology, fully understand it and build upon it - that's also quite a bit optimistic. The smartest guy in Ancient Rome wouldn't make head or tails of an integrated circuit with all the missing pieces of the puzzle, and it might very well be that today's specialists would have no chance of understanding something we'll build in a thousand years.
Of course, in the literary world, the trope is quite common. There was pretty much a whole genre of gadget science fiction which centered around a genius inventor who can do pretty much anything he can imagine - fly before the principles flight is discovered, make materials stronger than thought possible, fly to the moon on a cannonball, that kind of thing. Needless to say, these are usually on the softer end of the Mohs scale of sci-fi hardness :)
[Answer]
Two possible examples spring to mind.
1. Invention of private/public key encryption system. "Publicly" invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman at MIT in 1977. But actually invented by James H. Ellis, a British cryptographer working at GCHQ in 1970. (See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography>).
2. (bacterio)Phage therapy. Early work started in 1920s. However, with the advent of antibiotics, Western scientists lost interest in trying to develop effective therapies using bacteriophages. However, Russian scientists continued to develop effective phage therapy. It wasn't until the end of the Cold War that interest in phage therapy was rekindled in the West.
[Answer]
[Henry Cavendish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cavendish) and [Nikola Tesla](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla) both invented many things that would not be re-invented and widely used for many decades.
In Cavendish's case, it was because he didn't consider them significant enough to bother writing and publishing papers about them, though today the scientists who re-discovered them are household names because of their "discoveries".
In Tesla's case, it may have been because his inventions were too far ahead of existing technology to make ready use of them.
[Answer]
# No.
## Because...
1. then *you* would be the inventor,...:
1. 1. ...*which means*: the *other person* is asking the question: (
1. *necessarily precluding* your askingability [sic.]--
2. thus making *them*--this *Other-person-(who-is-not-you)*, potentially, the inventor--
1. which means an-*other*-other-person 'is' in fact asking the question...
1. ...which *makes* *them*--( ...infinitely looping... ) ...
2. 1. which *necessarily precludes* the *other person who is not you* from asking,...
2. ...but *because* of the first part declaring your inability to ask *and* given that ***You*** additionally *'were'* **-*not*-the-inventor**:
1. ***You*** no longer *exist* in *this* universe; (which is problematic primarily (and for many reasons I'm sure you can think of immediately) because
1. ( *other person who is not you* only exists insofar as being not-you:
2. and because (as concluded in 1.2.2.1) You *can't exist*, simply giving the *Other Person* identity by negating *Other-Person*'s *not-You* state is also *invalidated* because--inelegant wording aside (that ship sailed after the opening 'no')--***not-Not-you*** is *either*:
1. **Unknown/undiscovered**, entity **(** which can satisfy **both** the **existential** requirements to be considered "an entity" while also meeting the minimum **modal** conditions (the, dare I suggest, *not-Requirements* lol) to be considered nonexistent...etc. etc. ...which for all intents and purposes we can consider irrelevant, or alternatively we can call 'god'-..which makes the rest of any consequent argument irrelevant,--
1. since god is by definition (and by all accounts from those close to his administration) all-powerful, all-knowing...*which* invalidates the argument...
1. ...since, then, the very question itself is rendered meaningless;
2. ...and; the implicit proposition that one can, in fact, invent something before--as in *prior to*--any *an-Other* by inclusion of the omniscience of the potential other's entelechy as a godhead is impossible, unless godhead is not godhead, but then if that's fair then so is *not-you-is-not-not-you-is-not-you-is-you-is-not-you*, which breaks down language (or re-*invents* it ;) )... **)** ...err;
2. **or, otherwise, avoiding that line of reasoning** and other triggers that lead to arguments involving entities with such names like 'godhead', *then* we deal with the simple math problem that declares that *not*-*not*-you is, still in fact, *You* ... aw, shit, uh-oh:
1. but, per conditions elucidated earlier, ***You*** is *still* a *nonentity* (a moment ago we were deciding **not** whether not-not-You *existed* as in *existed-in-all-cases-of-You-as-you*, but whether **a)** not-not-You existed **as a nonexistent nonentity** or **b)** *or* as an invalid entity altogether (e.g. try to *draw* something that can not be *represented* in two-dimensions, as in *can't be drawn*): **meaning You doesn't exist**, and *can not* (for reasons that *do* exist, *unlike* Non-Entity-You (which would make a great name for a *Ney*-playing Middle Eastern boy band)
2. ...*and* since we've chosen to momentarily for the sake of this question ignore godhead-named super-powerful entities, *and* since you already *can not* be the inventor (this was established *very*, *very* early on) and *now* given this, You and non-entity-You *both* not existing.., which really is to say that:
* **if** You *and* Not-You 'are' *nonexistent*,
* **then**: (*even* if, and regardless either way or whether) the **First-Other**--the **Other-Who-*Is*-the-inventor**--exists, who cares? this First Other Who Does Invent is ultimately the other-who-**does**-**not**-***Matter***.
# But, yes...
## ...to the sentiment of being first in inventing something...
1. ***insofar*** as *making manifest* a thing that *prior* to your realization thereof only ***Existed*** as a vision the totality of which, or resolution or clarity thereof, at a certain point or in a certain way *only* you could 'see' or *explain* **or** inspire others to do in like... (and ***this*** '*Existed*' **is** the *other*, potentially *only other*, specie of entity wherein 'godhead' was classified).
Be passionate about something and believe others have passions, too. If you can align your passions such that sufficient discipline, discipline as in rigor in your process, rigor in 'making' (and not necessarily 'conformity', which is often how rigor is misinterpreted) and motivat
But, if the goal is simply to be first or to invent the unknown thing-to-invented-that-another-person-'will'-invent-in-due-course-and-I-would-like-to-invent-it-first
# The answer to your question is yes.
## Wait.., what? ..why?
1. I had, (at some time sufficiently far in the past to allow me to laugh about the circumstances that were only slightly perhaps less ticklish then), thought someone, a friend, would bring up the very topic of how-can-one-seek-to-invent-something-first, (at the time this seemed reasonable and (perhaps *more* alarming) it seemed reasonable, *at the time*, to **preempt** the prompt by writing it);
2. While that reasoning turned out flawed, I did, unknowingly then, "invent" the answer to the question you are asking now...the *substantive content* of what I've written notwithstanding, even though **none** of this would work if the topic were different.
/
lol..?
] |
[Question]
[
It is the year 2000 and Joe has committed a crime in a small town in central Europe. When the police calls all adults living in the area to voluntarily provide a DNA sample, Joe knows he's in trouble. He wants to fool the DNA test, but he doesn't understand much of the process. He has one week to come up with and implement a solution.
Joe knows from popular TV shows that a sample of his cells would be taken by swiping the inside of his cheek with a cotton swap. The cells would then be processed into a fancy diagram with small lines and if his diagram lines up with the one from the crime scene, he'll end up in prison (that's all Joe understands of the process).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FhpAN.jpg)
[image source](https://slideplayer.com/slide/6828194/)
Joe wants to coat the inside of his mouth with a substance that would produce different or additional lines on the diagram to "prove" that he is not the perpetrator. But he doesn't want to go all Hannibal Lecter and commit cannibalism to do so.
**How would Joe try to fool this DNA test?**
Answers should keep in mind:
* Joe doesn't know enough about DNA profiling to be sure his idea would work. Asking another person (online or in person) is out of the question because it would lead to his suspicion.
* It's the year 2000. The internet was a thing back then, but by far not as all-knowing as now. All solutions must have been available at that time (e.g. in a library or popular media, through anecdotal stories or widely spread missconceptions).
* **The solution doesn't have to actually work**, but it must be plausible enough that a person with limited understanding of the process would assume it works. It must not be obvious (like having a visible amount of fresh blood in your mouth).
* The solution must not require the commitment of a serious crime (like cannibalism even if that's technically not a crime). Burglary or deception is OK.
Answers will be rated by:
* Ease of access to information (popular rumors will be rated higher than scientific papers)
* Ease of access to materials (no exotic chemicals or materials a normal person wouldn't have access to)
* Plausability. Whether or not the solution actually works is completely irrelevant for the rating, but it must sound believable.
[Answer]
The movie [*Gattaca*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca) came out in 1997, so it is plausible that Joe has seen it.
The movie shows
>
> an elaborate way to fool DNA test using biological samples from another human
>
>
>
Joe can the figure out that giving a deep French kiss (or some other intimate act involving exchange of genetic material) with someone else right before the test is taken might mix his DNA with the one coming from the other person.
[Answer]
The simplest way to fail a swab test is contamination of the sample. Eating something too soon before the test will do the trick.
Though what he really wants is the DNA of another human rather than a sample that comes back as beef cattle. These days there's an app for that, but in 2000 he'd probably have had to find a suitable bar to get himself a mouthful of human DNA sample\*.
It's definitely the sort of thing a young man in trouble in the period would be told by his mates would work.
---
*\*If you don't know what I mean, ask your mum. No, I mean, no, don't ask your mum!*
[Answer]
### Hold something radioactive, to any degree, in or near his mouth for some amount of time at any point prior to the test.
"Radiation alters DNA" is a trope beyond question or examination for most people, and this was also the case in 2000. Especially given the weak understanding most people have about radiation and radioactivity there are a lot of things Joe might see on some blog and try out.
Pressing his face against a running microwave for a few hours? Worth it, to avoid prison. Eating lots of bananas? Sure! That's especially helpful if Joe is really set on coating his mouth with something (bananas are easy to mash up).
It won't work, of course. But it's plausible that someone like Joe might find information pointing to such a solution, or might assemble this plan from information he's able to run across on the internet. The idea being "it's still my DNA, but different from my *actual* DNA".
[Answer]
**Step 1:**
Line his mouth with something to keep the swab from hitting his actual tissue. It would help if he knew if it would be a cheek swab or a palate swab. A retainer would work on the latter. The former is a bit harder, but not impossible. Think flesh colored cloth. Or bite wings used to hold the teeth in place prior to dental x-rays. Or a cut up dental dam (or condom) carefully placed in the mouth.
**Step 2:**
Put someone else's saliva into his mouth. The easiest way to do this without asking for help, would be to find someone's abandoned (but recently used) plastic water bottle with a couple sips left in it. There would be plenty of backwash.
**Step 3:**
Put in the blocking material. Sip the remaining water and hold in the mouth as long as possible. Don't swallow at all. Let excess water drip down the throat or spit it out. It would not be unreasonable for someone to sip water just before getting swabbed, since opening a dry mouth while someone pokes around in there is uncomfortable. He'd have to time it well.
**Will this work?**
Maybe.
There are 3 basic ways to collect DNA for testing: Saliva (requiring a fair amount; it can be done with far less, but not reliably), blood, and cells from the inside of the mouth, usually the cheek. (There are other methods such as from dead bodies, bone marrow, forensic from hair, dried spit, etc, and from amniotic fluid, but none of these are relevant in this case.)
I think it would be hard to eliminate his own DNA from the sample. But probably easy to contaminate the sample with someone else's.
But given that you're looking for what your character thinks will work (or is his best chance at working), this is it.
[Answer]
Joe burgles a blood bank *before* he commits the crime (*“burglary or deception is OK”*). At the scene of the crime he spills plenty of stolen blood. The swabs taken from the scene of crime will contain far more DNA from random blood donors than from Joe, so when the forensics people amplify whatever markers they were using in 2000, Joe-derived template DNA will be out-competed in their PCR reaction by template from random blood donors. The forensics people will therefore have nothing to connect Joe to the scene of the crime.
By the year 2000, they probably weren't relying on Southern blots any more, but that shouldn't make any difference. If they do run a Southern blot (labeled DNA amplified from the crime scene probing a blot of Joe's DNA?), it's unlikely to hybridize more strongly to Joe's blot than to their control blots. If they *sequence* their crime-scene amplicon, it's not going to match the corresponding amplicon direct from Joe since Joe's signal in the crime-scene swab is swamped by the random blood donors' signals.
Other plausible sources of decoy DNA apart from burgling a blood bank? He could wander round a hospital in a borrowed white coat, and exfiltrate some fresh clinical waste from somewhere between operating theater and incinerator. Blood from a butcher's shop would be OK as the decoy *if* the forensics lab's PCR primers bind to sites that are conserved between humans and sheep/cattle. I don't know if this is the case (or was in 2000), but the primers must obviously have targets that are non-variable within the human population (they *flank* the variables regions), so perhaps it would work...
[Answer]
Joe may consider to send someone else with his ID to the hospital where the test samples are taken. The medical personnel usually does not question someone's identity when showing the valid invitation for sample taking and also they do not have sufficient experience of an ID check.
[Answer]
**Fooling the test is an utterly stupid idea to begin with**
If you fool the test insofar as the result will be unusable, you will be asked to do it again. If the result is again unusable, you are highly suspect (probably after the first time already, anyway).
If you fool the test insofar as to show someone else's DNA, you are likely to be caught because there's a good chance the other person is undergoing, or will (at some undetermined point in the future) be undergoing the same test.
Also, whatever crimes the other person has already committed or will commit, you will be linked to them. Also, it's a felony to cheat on the test (whereas *not doing it* isn't).
Not complying is a viable (although tedious) option. I'm talking out of experience because I've been in that exact situation in 2000. Well not the *exact* situation, as I didn't commit the crime. But close enough anyway.
If you are in a place like, I don't know, China (?) then you are probably out of luck, but the question says Central Europe.
Central Europe means police asks and you say "no". Per Article 11, European Convention No. 5 (which is legally binding in all states), this means you are innocent unless police can prove something different. They *can't*, unless there is a witness or other evidence (obviously *there isn't* or they wouldn't do a mass screening) or unless you comply. So well, *don't* comply. *"Doctor, it hurts when I do this. -- Don't do it."*
The Convention 5 is fundamentally legally binding in all European states (and even some non-European ones) since early/mid/late 1951 / early 1952, depending which state exactly it is and on how fast the respective government was at declaring so.
The mere fact that police is trying to pervert the legal system to something which is similar to what we had in the Third Reich (proof of innocence instead of proof of guilt) is reason enough. By complying you give up your fundamental rights and subvert the system that is meant to protect you and other citizens from haphazard persecution. This should be reason enough for anyone to say "No". Unluckily, that's not the case. People take liberty as granted, but are not willing to make sacrifices to defend it.
Of course, being innocent (in real and by the law) doesn't mean you will be treated as innocent. Police tries to argue you into complying -- you have the chance to prove your innocence (which is really perverse because you have no need to prove your innocence, they need to prove your guilt). You say no.
Police keeps telling you there's only so-and-so-few suspects remaining, and then that there's only a handful remaining and you had better comply because they're already closing in on you anyway. You get letters, you get phone calls. One after one, they bully every non-complier into submission with this procedure. You say no.
Police starts showing up in your neighbourhood and at your workplace (yes I am not joking), doing what they can do to allege you are a culprit without explicitly saying it. They poke in every hole, try to find something, anything, whatever. They don't.
You file a complaint. Police says they never showed up, but *if they did*, then they'd be careful not to allege anything. Well, that means those people who told me police made allegations to them probably made this up. Funny how my neighbour knew I didn't do the test in the first place, he must be a psychic.
So, finally, after filing a complaint, you never hear of it again. Seriously, that's it. End of story.
17 years later, the guy who did it has died of old age, and his daughter finds body parts in some barrel in his cellar or garage (or whereever it was). It's in the newspapers, but you never hear as much as an excuse from police for having been falsely accused.
But whatever, as long as you never hear of them again, what do you care.
[Answer]
What about a late identity-theft attack?
Joe may switch the samples on their way to the lab. He can figure someway to replace the tag labels of a few samples including his own. This way the case would end up with a suspect - definitely not Joe - who will be jailed and close the case for good.
[Answer]
See the episode of South Park (Season 21 Ep 3) where Randy wants his DNA sample to be that of a native American, and when the 23andme people come knocking on the door because of an inconsistency in his first sample he tells them to wait a minute and runs around South Park to find the Indian and gives him a deep French kiss to then run back to the people and give them a corrupted sample. Hope this helped.
[Answer]
I'm assuming that there's some fictional textbook, far-fetched (potentially farcical in complexity) answer with a reasonable success rate which involves lining the mouth with plastic/wax and covering with another sample. However, with the given premise that Joe isn't an expert (and may not ask an expert) I'd find it more feasible to have a "best guess" solution from Joe. A solution however that could - even on the periphery of probability work.
## Joe's Reasoning
So "being Joe" for a moment:
1. I must provide a sample garnered from another human being; showing up on the test as "feline" would be an evident dodge and is probably as likely in resulting in his arrest as a positive match.
2. Preferably I would want to provide a sample from someone who is the same gender and race as me. It is most likely that visual observations would be taken by the testers when the sample is conducted (in part to thwart this type of evasion); if I show up as "White, Female" and I'm a Afro-Caribbean male then that's going to be a dead giveaway and an evident dodge.
3. It would be less than desirable to simple contaminate/sully the sample garnered; again this is likely to result in a re-test and arrest.
## Method 1
Given those lines of reasoning, I (Joe) would visit a gay bar and pick up a man who happens to be the same race as me. (Being 2000, the general populous isn't as open minded, but it is legal and I would know where to go, even if I didn't frequent them myself). I would try to do this on the evening before the test day, then put effort in to ensure he stays the night and doesn't slip out a long time before the test; make him some bacon and eggs, suggest he stays in bed a while, etc. As close to the test as possible (assuming it's a home-visit?), I'd passionately kiss my new partner (however abhorrent I might find it; it's possible I'm averse to members of my own sex in that way).
Now I appreciate that it's unlikely this method would work, however as you request it's not the success; it's the plausibility; access to materials; non expert-info. To me (Joe), it's a plausible attempt at dodging the test that I could have engineered myself. It's also a touch dramatic that I'm willing to engage a sexual partner of my own sex if I've never done that before, in order to overcome this challenge.
## Method 2
Further research on this (yet not beyond the potential realms of Joe's reasoning; something he could garner easily from rumour), one of the main ways to dodge a test is to simply have someone else take the swab:
<https://www.alphabiolabs.co.uk/learning-centre/can-someone-cheat-a-dna-test-2/>
Now whilst Joe can't (them knowingly) involve anyone else, a higher chance of success may be appreciated if Joe disappears off with the swab in his hand for a moment, to take the sample from his still-sleeping partner (if the test was a home visit, early in the morning - something he would know in advance). NB. Evidently the officers conducting the test would have not followed "textbook regulation" by allowing Joe to leave their sight with the swab, but then - it's first thing in the morning - one of the officers is still hung over, and the other is a trainee! - I'm sure this could be explained off somehow.
## Method 3
An alternate method 2, bit wacky but follows the rules; Joe previously worked as a magician's assistant whilst taking a gap year from university, and learned sleight of hand. He takes a swab of his sleeping partner before the officers arrive and switches it with the test swab.
[Answer]
Chew hair.
Joe would feasibly have seen TV or movies where a strand of hair is used to identify someone.
He thinks therefore that it can also be used to be a source of alternate/confusing DNA and can pinch a strand from a co-worker's jacket.
[Answer]
In 2000, DNA tests were portrayed in the media is very reliable. Criticism began to appear, but had not yet entered the public media much (academic publications go back to around 1990).
The safe bet for Joe would be to be out of the city during the duration that the police is taking samples. That might be a couple weeks. I he has something going for him (business trip, ill parent that needs care, etc.) that is not suspicious, it might be his best bet.
It is likely that police will follow-up with people that didn't take the test, but Joe could assume that the published dates are the only important ones.
Following the media and information available to him, I don't think Joe would come to the conclusion that he has a good chance of fooling the test. Evading it seems like a much better idea.
[Answer]
To fool a DNA test, you need just one thing: for the DNA sampled to contain more DNA that is *not* yours than *is* yours.
Why?
When a DNA sample is taken, when it gets to the lab, it is processed by blending and breaking the cells to release the DNA, then adding raw nucleotides and some enzymes that include DNA polymerase, in order to greatly multiply the amount of DNA present. Then, the replicated DNA sample is washed to remove the enzymes, and subjected to other enzymes that cause a cut in the DNA strands at specific places according to the base sequences. That results in a soup of long and short DNA fragments that are then placed into a well in a gel block, and electrophoresis (applying an electrical charge) is used to push the DNA fragments down the gel block. The block is then treated with chemicals that make the DNA glow, and by putting the block on photographic paper in a dark environment, it exposes the paper, which can be developed to form a permanent record.
Now... when the technicians perform this process, they simply add a known quantity of reagents to each sample, and that results in a known amount of new, identical, DNA being produced. If you were to contaminate your sample with a large amount of someone else's DNA... the test would amplify and show the dominant DNA most strongly. You could not only mask your own DNA, but if you were particularly malicious, you could frame someone else.
How do you do this? By using the same chemicals and enzymes that are used in the lab. You need only obtain a sample of another's DNA - from someone with an iron-clad alibi if you're feeling nice, or from a victim if otherwise - and put it through this process. How to get it? Pull out a hair so that it has a root tag, or get a drop of blood, or perhaps even a used contraceptive or tissue.
You'll end up with a container full of this person's DNA. You can then spray this on any sample that you may inadvertently leave behind at the scene of a crime, or if you didn't have that much forethought, you can spray it into your own mouth just before you are swabbed - the swab will pick up thousands of your cells, but also *millions* of cells-worth of the *other* DNA. Your DNA won't be more than the faintest of ghosts, lost within the signature of the dominant DNA.
How do I know this...? Well, at university, I used to study Genetics... but there was also a certain TV show that detailed *just* this method for defeating a DNA test. While I don't remember exactly which, Joe might have seen it too...
[Answer]
There is a true story about Doctor John Schneeberger who surgically implanted a Penrose drain in his arm filled it with another man's blood.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_drain>
He passed a few DNA Tests (he was a serial rapist) but it wasn't until they swabbed his cheek and took a hair follicle that he was charged. It baffled DNA testers for years. Seeing as Joe is taking a cotton swab test, even mixing it with another man's saliva can be detected and that was a real case in 2007. A man was found out to be doing this and faced serious trouble as consequence. I don't think there is any way to circumvent DNA other than using a fake ID, which puts someone else's DNA in his record. His best bet would be to wash out his mouth in someone else's blood. As gross as that sounds.
[Answer]
I'd like to suggest another method of obtaining other mens' DNA that Joe certainly understands and needs not resort to cannibalism / murder / robbing a blood bank. It ensures a man's (or mens') DNA and not a woman's. It's easy to accomplish. It may not fool the actual test, as the lab probably checks cell type under a microscope, and these may be very… wiggly, depending on time between collection and analysis as well the medium. But it sure makes for a good story ;-)
[Answer]
Chew Plutonium for a few hours.
This will seriously alter the DNA of anything in his mouth.
He will die of radiation poisoning a few days later but JOE is desperate and seems a bit dumb so why not?
[Answer]
Joe knows they’re going to swab the inside of his cheek. So he might spend the precious day chewing the inside of his mouth raw so there aren’t any skin cells, just scar tissue. Wouldn’t work, of course, but seems like a plausible thing to try at some intelligence level.
[Answer]
In 2009 there was an robbery of an big jewelery store in berlin. The only clue was a glove lost by a person with a twin with almost same genes. Till today they cant be seperated correctly so no judgement: <https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-s-massive-jewelry-heist-perfect-genes-for-a-robbery-a-608448.html>
So i would say you can trick gene test with a clone or your twin
] |
[Question]
[
I rewatched terminator 2 and got intrigued by a particular quote:
>
> [microchip]
>
>
> scary stuff, radically advanced. I mean it was smashed, it didn't work, but it
> gave us ideas, took us in new directions. I mean things that we would've never
> thought of
>
>
>
So, suppose in some time travel shenanigans modern processor was brought back into 80s. How much progress would be possible to get from that?
[Answer]
A single, broken IC of any sort is unlikely to create any change in direction of research, or spur any new breakthroughs. Almost all of the advancement since the 1980s has been in miniaturization, which has allowed more power for less.... power (I'm talking computing power per amp, etc). This has enabled new things like WiFi and video streaming and the like.
But they wouldn't know what those were if it's broken. They might be able to identify it as a radio transmitter, but not know what it is or what it's for. It'd be smaller, sure, and work on frequencies they probably aren't using, but the concept of a built-in radio transmitter isn't really that new.
Additionally, with a *single* device, there's only so much you can get out of things without destroying it.
So, it would reinforce the paths that were being investigated - Perhaps speed them up a little, but it wouldn't be anything revolutionary.
Now, for some speculation.
If you sent back a functioning cell phone and charger (Which would function just fine in the 80s), THAT could change things. Not the technology, but *how we use it*. There were plenty of projects in the 1980s that were outright FLOPS, because people thought they'd be popular, and they weren't. Similarly, there were things that were neglected that have been dug up and people go "That would have been *AWESOME!* and would have changed a lot of things!"
I'm specifically excluding any historic information - since that's a whole different ballgame in itself - but knowing that, in the year 2020 we aren't always video calling even though the technology is there and clearly capable of doing it would change some people's outlooks. Early mobile phones were not super popular - for numerous reasons, but knowing that they would be *everywhere* would likely change a lot of priorities. Similarly, the Lithium Polymer batteries found in every modern phone are a little more advanced than the rechargeable batteries of the 1980s - but knowing that they became the battery of choice could acceleate that research, and possibly edge out NiCad and other rechargeable battery types that have their own issues.
The processes for producing chips is iterative, small advancements that really can't be accelerated with just an example of a chip. How they're used can enlighten people into many, many new ideas.
[Answer]
Not as much good as you think, most of the important computer hardware stuff that happened between 1980 and now already happened by ~2000.
In many respects, software and society has spent decades trying to catch up to the potential of the explosion of good hardware as it is. Even if you gave Bill Gates access to i7 processors with solid state drives, Windows 95 would still be a buggy, insecure, platform, that crashes at the drop of a hat because isolating memory properly is a process that is STILL being refined to this day [[See Meltdown Vulnerability]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability)). It would likely even be more unstable since the protocols by which software and hardware communicate at the lower levels are more complex now than they were back then.
Modern programming is largely about isolating the programmer from the guts of the computer and building on yesterday's successes to avoid yesterday's failures. When a programmer calls on any native function, that function comes from libraries that are build on top of lower level libraries that have been rewritten, reworked, and refactored a dozen times over the course of many years. For example: this text you are reading right now uses a font that is rendered by an extension that is updated nearly every year to a library that was actively development during the 80s and 90s to solve problems created by older font rendering methods created in the 60s. Modern fonts could have easily been rendered on 90s machines, but innovation and market demands simply did not make them progress to their current levels until now.
There is also the issue of educating programmers about best practices on a large scale to make sure they don't try to work around what is already successful due to their own ignorance. The number 1 problem I see in programs written before 2010 is that only a small number of programmers from that time period actually seemed to know how to program. <https://xkcd.com/2030/> The theory of how to do things right all existed somewhere in the world, but most programmers before that were actually plumbers, electricians, graphic artists, engineers, annylits, etc. who just so happened to wondering into the realm of programing and knew nothing about these theories. It's taken many years for programming to really solidify as a profession, for standards to actually start to become universal, and for colleges to actually have large enough of a pool of good programmers to pick from to properly teach the next generation.
There is also the early adoption hurdle. An iPhone released in 1995 would have flopped as bad as Google Glass. Most people struggled with the concept of "Why do I need to spend 100 dollars on a pocket phone when I have one at home", expecting them to spend 700 dollars on a pocket computer that can spy on your every action sounds like stupidity in a time where people barely trusted PCs. When transition happens too fast for people to get used to it, they reject it out right.
All that said, yes, there would still be niche improvements. Certain technologies like learning AI and big-data analytics would have arrived much sooner with better chip technology, but software stability and proliferation of technology as a cultural element would have taken just as long. Without that proliferation, there would not be enough people to develop the technology beyond the realm of government and big business use.
[Answer]
No doubt it would be informative and encouraging. They should be able to extract the actual chip and examine it under and electron microscope. It would then indicate that fantastic amounts of miniaturisation were possible and that was the way to go. By 1980 they were already on that track but it would have been a great encouragement.
Unfortunately it would not tell them how to make the chips via advanced [photolithographic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photolithography) means.
[Answer]
The only thing that will change would probably be the approach to Moore's law.
Since I have started chewing on computers, I have recurrently heard that "we have reached the limit of what is physically possible with miniaturization".
First it was contact exposure, *"we can't go smaller!"*
Then it came projection, *"we can't go smaller!"*
Then it came immersion lithography, *"we can't go smaller!"*
Then it came double exposure, *"we can't go smaller!"*
Then it came extreme ultra violet, *"we can't go smaller!"*
Then it came something which is probably still heavily guarded in some safe, *"we can't go smaller!"*
In all this chain of *"we can't go smaller!"* we have gone from 1 micrometer (1000 nanometer) of critical dimension to the current 3 nanometer.
Seeing a current state of the art microchip won't tell you how it has been made, but it will tell you that it can be made. Therefore you will be able to devote more energy into answering the "how can I make it?" instead of answering the "can I make it?".
Then of course looking at the details of the structure itself can give you valuable hints. Modern build up of a transistor is far from the one it is found on most didactic texts.
[Answer]
I don't think that quote is that meaningful.
A microchip today is an evolution of chips of the 80s. But fundamentally they aren't different; it's based on the same principals, we made semiconductors on silicon wafers in the 80s, we still make them on silicon wafers today. With progress made on a myriad of disciplines coming together we've learned to make them smaller and faster, and that's the difference.
We haven't made a *fundamentally* different technological advancement in this field. So, seeing a smaller and faster chip can't really give you *ideas*, so to speak.
I know there's a lot of talk about quantum computing, and chips that use quantum states to store not just two types of bits, but many. However as far as I am aware, they're not yet in any way a reality. But if they (or even us) to actually get our hands on something like that, now that could open up paths to many things.
[Answer]
The most immediately actionable information would be the manufacturer's name. In the 1980's, especially the early 1980's, it was not obvious which chip manufacturers would survive. Knowing in the 1980's e.g. that Intel would be a survivor would be worth millions.
[Answer]
Modern processors probably would not give all that much of an advancement. Much of what we have learned requires high transistor counts to make them worth their while. Take FPGAs as an example. The idea is great, but when the number of transistors is low, brethren like CPLD are more efficient. Or look at FLASH memory, which is currently beating Moore's law. It's beating it because we made it *too* small, and then we use fuse bits to select flash cells that aren't broken. That only works when the flash memory blocks are big enough that the block selection logic doesn't consume too large of a percentage of the chip real estate.
However, if you sent back one of the state of the art neural network chips, you might find something. There are some chips on the bleeding edge which are running faster and smaller than "possible" because they are willing to entertain some mistakes -- error due to voltage fluctuations dopant diffusion rates, parasitic capacitance, etc. Speed (and low power consumption) is more important for some problems. They can always gang together multiple copies of the operation and use voting if reliability is important. Indeed, even if we look at more mainstream chips, like GPUs, we see FLOPS/Watt is a driving metric for performance.
Which means one of these neural network chips could be interesting in the way the chip was in Terminator 2. This idea of "it's okay to get the wrong answer" is a radical departure from the thinking of the 1980s. It would have a chance at actually changing the way software developer think about programming and what hardware they want to see built to support those programs.
[Answer]
Good sides and the big issue that a chip doesn't tell you how to make it have been pointed out already. Now for some words of caution - it might be even a trap. The big problem is that sending just a chip wouldn't offer any reason WHY changes were made - which is a crucial bit to improve stuff.
For example, back then CPUs were planar and used SiO2 and copper, now chips have fins, high-k dielectrics are used and Co-Cu mix is used for the smallest wires. When your engineers see all these differences, they have no idea when and why were they introduced. Trying to implement cobalt to a 1 um chip is stupid as it would perform worse than just copper - but we know that now due to a lot of material research. They can just copy us. Finfets might be considered mandatory at huge sizes to improve contact area or whatever... but they would work like crap due to higher variability in the process. Etc etc.
From the chip architectural point of view, I can't see any immediately obvious traps that could make troubles if you take a typical desktop chip. Weird ISA that has to be decoded would be puzzling, but likely ignored as some weird compatibility layer they don't need. They would see many cores of different types in the same chip, out of order execution with greatly improved branch predictors and whatever else, various trust levels, ability to power off parts of the chip and so on. Some improvements here would be obvious and help with chip development, but I believe they wouldn't try to implement many of these ideas because they take more space than they have available with their manufacturing process. The biggest potential trap is if these people still try to implement too many of these features, leading to huge chips which would be nearly impossible to manufacture - dealing another blow to already troubled fabs.
However, if these people receive some of our more experimental chips like nervana, this could make all sorts of issues as they could abandon traditional chips and believe stuff that mimics our brains is required to make a good robot. These chips would be a far greater learning experience in various fields but they would also have much higher chance to take wrong ideas from them.
[Answer]
It is very hard to guess, almost impossible.
They could likely figure out it was some sort of computer chip. I assume it would get into the hands of somebody smart & generous enough to take it apart and put it through a sufficiently powerful microscope and distribute their findings.
Assuming they were really devoted to studying the thing, they could probably figure out some of the really high level stuff. They had to go to multiple cores at some time. Cache seems to used extensively. Parallelism generally seems to be a huge deal generally. They could probably identify some data processing elements -- we have better adders and multipliers now, but I bet they could figure them out.
They'd know where things are going generally. But, the tradeoffs we make nowadays are very specific to our current state, where memory is big and slow, transistors are tiny and fast. They'd have lots of work to do to fill in the gap.
The business/social aspect might be most interesting. Computers were kind of a big deal by the 80's, right? Like, they weren't everywhere, but there was a nascent industry. The money shoveling process had begun. Knowing that the end state is really good will result in other people becoming interested. More money *might* speed up the R&D process. But, in *our* universe the people who worked in and ran the computer industries were interested, curious, ok with the uncertainty. They were to some extent rebels. Telling the business community where it is going to end might result in an injection of folks who are less passionate, more driven by a guaranteed ROI. It isn't clear to me that this will have a positive effect on the industry, at all.
[Answer]
Quite a lot actually.
There is a lot of information to be gained, for which it is not necessary to have a complete, working understanding of the circuit. These include the IC packaging, it's chemical composition, the size of it's process technology. How the die or dies connect to each other, how the component is clocked, and how the clock in propagated around the chip. How heat and power are managed. How the product is grounded.
Even high level visual observations of the die would give good ideas of how the chip is organized. For example in multi core chips you can visually see the repeating patterns of the cores. And the cache memory banks are regular, repeating groups
They were capable of this type of analysis in that time period. Here is a report about the "product evaluation" of a Zilog Z80 in 1979
[IC Reverse Engineering, 1970's style, Hackaday](https://hackaday.com/2017/06/02/integrated-circuit-reverse-engineering-1970s-style/)
And the actual [report](http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/ice/OCR_ScanPE125/PE125(10379-K).pdf) from the agency that performed the evaluation.
[Answer]
The first divergence wouldn't be on the hardware level, but in the way software is engineered.
The hardware they get shows a strong focus on parallelism and a heterogenous architecture. CPU, GPGPU, the IO/memory controllers are seperate, smart components. A lot of current days struggles goes back to the then popular idea of having one powerful CPU, offload only stuff you'll never need again.
They would adapt a development approach that is more geared towards parallelism. Think functional programming. The object orientation hype would be significantly reduced. Instead of the GHz race and the efforts to deal with its problems they would gravitate towards growing in breadth. Also we would likely see a wider range of more specialized yet programmable computation units early in the game. Perhaps skip the whole fixed pipeline 3D accelerator phase?
At the same time the programming languages and predominant algorithms would coevolve to make developing on such a platform easier. We spend a lot of effort to keep parallel execution pipelines filled by reordering serial code. The same amount of work put in keeping memories only in sync when needed would have a better scalable benefit.
On a side note: Those neural networks are an excellent candidate for parallel processing.
[Answer]
I disagree with the answers given so far.
In hardware-design (and especially processors) there are some very hard mathematical problems. The problem is that if you change the specs of a single element this will also change the specs of everything that is connected. If you want to calculate the "sweet-spot" for all attributes of all transistors there are innumerable possibilities and you have to try a big chunk of them to find a good one.
So to build a better processor, you already need one that is almost as fast.
Getting your hands on a processor that is much faster than everything you have might enable you to make calculations that you would otherwise not be able to and thereby allowing you to jump ahead.
One restricting factor would be that you only have one and you might need a lot of them to enable a lot of people working simultaneously.
But assuming that someone chooses to use the processor for hardware-development it might enable that person to solve some problems that were unsolvable before (or would take so long that you could not realisticly wait for it).
[Answer]
Most of the answers seem to incorrectly focus on the idea of sending back a CPU. I can agree that the advances from that would be limited.
However, the Terminator's processor is not simply a CPU. It's a custom-built chip, designed to run the Terminator's neural network. A current-day equivalent, would either be a GPU, or perhaps one of those ASIC chips used in crypto mining machines.
Seeing a GPU would certainly give scientists in the 80s something to think about. While CPUs aim to maximize clock speed per chip, GPUs actually use lower speed chips, but at a much greater number. Also, the chip focuses more on optimized floating point operations, and less on memory access, branching or integer operations.
Seeing this would certainly give scientists of the past new ideas and directions. Like "What if instead of trying to make our CPU faster, what if we cram a whole lot more CPUs into one computer?" This could also lead to quicker advancement in software designed for parallel processing, since our tooling for that is STILL lacking today.
As an added bonus, even if the die is smashed, some of the cores may still be intact.
ASIC would actually be an even better example, however. These are designed to only run one specific algorithm. Thing is, unlike a general purpose CPU or GPU, they would actually contain the algorithm. A bitcoin miner from today ending up in the past, would give the people of the past the SHA256 algorithm, which would not be developed until 2001. At least for cryptography, this would be a huge leap, as the likes of MD2 and its successors (and all of the issues inherent in them) could be completely skipped.
Now, admittedly, an ASIC for SHA256 isn't quite as exciting and revolutionary as an ASIC for a deep learning algorithm. Except for those specifically working in the field, that is.
[Answer]
I think it's important to realize that they didn't recover a chip from the technology era used to create SkyNet. They recovered a chip *developed by SkyNet to run Terminators*.
There's no way of knowing how advanced the chip was, relative to technology from our own time. A machine intelligence with the ability to enhance itself can geometrically advance in a very small number of improvement iterations. For all we know, it had achieved the equivalent of 1000 years of human scale advancement by the time it manufactured that Terminator model.
[Answer]
# It might actually *slow* technological progress
I recently started working in this area (ASIC research, not time-travelling death robots\*), so I'm by no means an expert. But many ideas get patented and go nowhere, for many reasons. If you showed someone from 20 years ago a finfet or gate-all-around transistor, or a phase-change memory cell, they'd be impressed, but have **no idea** how to build it.
Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, and a radically different type of chip wouldn't run any existing programs. Operating systems, compilers, interpreters, etc. have to be written to fit the new chip. At best, someone will see the value and start building the infrastructure which will *one day* hopefully work with the future chip.
But there is a danger to seeing how one particular chip is implemented, because it gives you tunnel-vision and you can't see the other ways that might be better. Future chip probably came into existence through an iterative, competitive evolutionary process, and probably has quirks that only exist because of the path it took to get there. Some of those quirks are mistakes to be fixed in the next generation of chips.
Finally, if you're sending something back in time to do battle, why send all your good secrets for the enemy to find? Instead send back a decoy chip that will keep the humans busy trying to replicate a failed line of research.
Imagine if someone from 30 years ago found the Intel chip with the floating-point bug!
\*to the best of my knowledge
[Answer]
It might speed things up a great deal - not due to being able to find out the hows and whats of the technology, but because they'd be able to get a BUNCH of investment dollars.
One of the hardest things to do when developing new tech is getting investors to put money in when theres no guarantee that it's even possible. And when they do put in, they want a high level of return/ownership depending on the risk level.
If you can show that 'This is DEFINITELY possible, because as you can see, it's already been done - we just need to work out how.', then the risk to the investor is much lower.
[Answer]
They wouldn't have the software to make good use of it.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed**. This question is [opinion-based](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
**Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by [editing this post](/posts/156929/edit).
Closed 4 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/156929/edit)
Say I found a time machine and decided to go back 20 years in time replacing my past self while retaining my current memory then sell my house (which is my largest asset at that time) and invest in 1 particular company using my entire savings, for example one of the current large tech companies like Google or Facebook.
Would the fact that I did this have a big enough perturbational effect on the new timeline to cause said company to not end up being as successful as it currently is? This is with the understanding that the company was profitable in this timeline where I did not invest in it, and that complex systems can be unpredictable in their evolution i.e. the butterfly effect.
Alternatively what is the safest way to make a profitable investment in an uncertain commodity having foreknowledge of its success in other timelines?
[Answer]
**The larger the impact, and the longer the time since your change, the greater the divergence from your original timeline.**
A tricky point about the high level financial market is that we are not talking about a closed calculated system run by a machine that slowly ticks away as time moves on that could be relied upon to arrive at a 'similar answer' if you changed a few data points in the past.
Instead we have a complex *social system* that is connected to live humans and driven by whims, desires, and personal self interest. And on top of that there is the issue that long term growth in business is influenced by wide ranging outside factors that can include the fortunes or failures of *other businesses and people* over time.
So if you hop back to 1999 and suddenly drop the value of a nice house into "The company that offered the most bang per buck" in the stock market, then you are going to set off ripples through the whole international business system that potentially have drastic effects that would be incredibly difficult to judge.
What if your sudden influx of cash into the market sours other's investors views on things?
* What if they dog pile on the same company, assuming whoever suddenly bought up a pile of shares 'knows something', and you rob *a different company* of their investments... This in turn could translate into *your* golden egg company not being able to buy them [and a profitable tech your company relied on] out in a few years. Or the change in another company's growth could mean your competitor doesn't see as much negative pressure and manages to get something to market sooner.
* What if other investors see the influx of cash, and sudden rise in stock price, and deem the investment risk in your company to be a bit more dicey than putting their money in a competitor at a point in history where the fates of the businesses in question were more up in the air? *Your investment* holds the potential to rob the company of more capital overall, risking it lagging behind at a critical point in time that simple knowledge of an original timeline would not be able to see.
But the risks spread wider and wider as time goes on.
Hopping back and forth in time to make small investments on sudden market changes where you can cash out and profit quickly means you can keep your overall risk small: The market won't have time to do anything unexpected if you're making reasonable sized trades over a few days or weeks, but 'sure things' become far less sure the further away from the point in time you've made a change, and the larger your initial change then the greater the probability of a large shift is to occur.
[Answer]
**No**
Barring the existence of some Illuminati-type organization who watches for people like you, anyway. Most of these tech companies succeeded because they had the good fortune to introduce a service or good into the market at the right time and had the right strategies to defeat all their competitors. It would be difficult to see how an influx of money would cause these companies to fail.
Possible to fail? Sure. Maybe throwing more money at startup means these companies can afford to hire people they otherwise couldn't and didn't hire the crazed genius at half-price who's secretly responsible for the success. Maybe giving them more money will inflate them into a large company early and somehow let competitors paint themselves as the underdog and take them out.
But something to remember is that investing into a tech startup isn't exactly like building a tower, it's more akin to filling a bit, as you are giving them money that they're requesting. For instance, you're investing into something by buying shares, generally. (It seems like the smart way to go about doing it.) And these shares come in a limited number, which would have been bought anyway.
If the story requires it, can doing something like this butterfly effect Google into oblivion so we're all using Yahoo Search? Yes. Is it likely? No. What would I set the probably at? Probably less than one percent.
[Answer]
**Maybe**
The new owner of your house may have been destined to become a gifted programmer in the company you buy into, if she had only moved out to Southern California instead of buying that house.
[Answer]
**Ask yourself.**
No, seriously, ask yourself. You've got a time travel machine. Why are you asking the internet whether your scheme will work? Go forward in time and ask yourself whether it worked.
(To be honest, if you've got access to a time machine and your scope of usage is simply "make some money with the stock market", you've got a critical failure of imagination.)
[Answer]
### 100% (from this method). Because you won't be able to sell your house.
You're saying you're going to sell your house after time traveling. Thing is, that's not your house, that's the PAST YOU's house, and you won't be able to sell it. Unless your form of time travel encompasses rewinding the entire world time 20 years with you being the only person who remembers the future. However, in that case there are better ways to make loads of money, like remembering or bringing along 20 years worth of winning lottery numbers.
[Answer]
**0%**
Simply mine bitcoin in 2009. There are several blocks that, as of today, were mined by unknown people [who have](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/0000000097be56d606cdd9c54b04d4747e957d3608abe69198c661f2add73073) [never moved](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/0000000027c2488e2510d1acf4369787784fa20ee084c258b58d9fbd43802b5e) [the bitcoin](https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/000000005c51de2031a895adc145ee2242e919a01c6d61fb222a54a54b4d3089). Each block that was mined (every 10 minutes) from 2009-2012 is worth about $500,000 today, and could be trivially mined by downloading a program onto a laptop.
Just one day's worth of mining was worth about $70,000,000 in that time period, but for quite a while, there were only a few laptops mining, and any modern graphics card would get a significant chunk of that.
Of course, this would change the hash of every downstream block, which is quite the butterfly effect as different miners get lucky mining, but not something that is going to affect the eventual rise or demise of Bitcoin itself.
[Answer]
Buying shares would rise the prices at the stock market, although only by a small margin if you invest the price of an average house info a billion-dollar company. This increase could, depending on your time travel model, butterfly into anything at all, but only rather hypothetically.
If you want to prevent your investment to influence the share prices at all, better invest in an index fund or ETF. Those track the index, but buying or selling them doesn't change the underlying base values.
[Answer]
This is a case for not being greedy. The major tech companies have had big increases in stock price after they went public, and after there were a significant number of shareholders. Buying a hundred shares on the stock market a month after the company went public is unlikely have much effect on its behavior or stock price.
If I were using a time machine for retroactive stock investing, I would go back to November, 1929, and buy a few shares each for some of the US companies that survived, especially the ones that experienced big expansions during WWII.
[Answer]
100%. The **Cosmic censorship principle** reveals itself as more than theoretical.
[Time travel is inherently paradoxical. How you resolve it in your fiction is up to you. But time travellers are not detected amongst us, and here is my somewhat gloomy speculation as to why.]
If you travel back in time and change something, it makes a (finite) part of the universe inconsistent with the (infinite) rest. Something (quantum coherence, maybe -- "spooky action at a distance") makes this impossible. But not directly. It's rather that the consequence of the inconsistency spreads outwards at the speed of light, until a corresponding imbalance travelling inwards from the boundary of the sphere of inconsistency can erase the time traveller and all his works and return the universe to self-consistency. The radius of the sphere is the speed of light multiplied by the size of the displacement in time.
We occasionally observe "anomalous", inexplicable, novae and supernovae, and other even more inexplicable events of astonishing violence. What they are, were civilisations where some intelligent being managed against all the odds to make a time machine that worked well enough to go back minutes at the first attempt, and thereby engulf not just his planet but his star. Now, they are just randomized atoms, and all information about the time machine has been censored.
The Fermi Paradox is resolved by the consequences of early experimentation with time travel. If you are lucky the first attempt is at a microsecond back, and the result does not utterly destroy all life on his planet, but only his city and tens of miles around it. If you are *really* lucky your experimenter tries only for a picosecond or two, as proof of principle. Thirty milliseconds, and the planet is gone, and from many light-years away it looks like an anomalous nova in a binary star system.
[Answer]
**Yes**
If your world has allowed for you to find a time travel device then you are able to circumvent rules we normally perceive as realistic, balanced and "fair". The following may happen if you use such a device for personal gain. If you are able to make this time alteration, why should you be the only one? For every person that bends the rules of reality to create a new one, there may also be an entity that is compelled to stop you, or at least teach you a lesson.
Time machines, Genie lamps, boxes of Pandora, if you try to bend the fundamentals of reality for personal gain, you might have the hidden workings behind reality staring right back. They might see you as a criminal. They might want to teach you a lesson.
When you travel back after investing in Google, you may find yourself in a world that helps you reflect on your crime. One that quickly comes to mind is that your investment and all your money you had before the jump evaporated. Everyone uses bitcoin now, a nightmare indeed! And on top of that, you are not registered in the system so you'll never be able to own anything and live estranged and seccluded.
[Answer]
**It is possible, but mostly preventable.**
Most major tech companies were founded by small groups of people with relatively little money. Adding a few hundred thousand dollars early enough on could make you a major stockholder.
Even by "doing nothing", your partial ownership of the company could impact the result of BoD appointments, stabilize the value of the stocks preventing historically significant buy-ups or sell-offs, or encourage complacency among leadership at a time that a decisive move is needed.
One example I can think of would be buying a significant number of shares in Apple. When you jump back to the future, your action could result in Steve Jobs being unable to purchase a majority holding over Apple (because he can't get you to sell your shares). Without this event, there would be no iPod and the company would have continued on its course to bankruptcy.
That said, you have future insights that tell you what choices the company is supposed to make; so, if you study a company's history well and stay in the past and manage your investment, you can use your partial ownership to manipulate events such that all the same CEOs get elected, and all the same dirty deals go through, etc.
[Answer]
**Possible, but unlikely**
It's important to consider the fact that investing in the company generally means gaining some fractional control over the company. Investing means you obtain a fraction of the profits for the company, but you also have the responsibility to help make decisions for the company. Assuming that you will be absent for 20 years following your initial investment, this could create an issue, depending on the size of the company and the stage at which you invested in it.
If your investment is very small compared to the value of all the shares of the company, your absence would likely have no impact. Your vote would be just one of thousands of votes, and would likely have no real impact over how the company is governed. In this case, you're safe walking away for 20 years.
But suppose you become an investor at an early stage in the company, such that your initial investment of the profits from your house sale actually comprise a significant chunk of the company's value. Your vote would have significant implications for the future of the company, how long the company would survive, and what you could expect to sell your shares for 20 years later.
In the second scenario, you likely would have to appoint someone to watch over your investment and make wise business decisions for the company. But that person wasn't part of the company in the original timeline, and likely will be displacing someone who was part of the original timeline and helped secure the company's future. That's where the uncertainty lies in this scenario.
[Answer]
# Utterly high
Think about it: As you described, You go back 20 years in time to sell your house - *your only asset* - to invest the money and *using your entire savings*.
Now you are homeless and nearly broke with stocks that aren't worth much for some years to come. Good look with getting support from your family and friends for such foolishness. Surviving the next 20 years as the same person you were before you jumped back might prove rather challenging...
[Answer]
From a time travel perspective, you wouldn't have any effect because you had always gone back and purchased the shares. There wasn't an original time when you hadn't purchased the shares, and then another modified time where you have.
The multiple timelines concept of the movies is a fiction. There is only 1 timeline, and events in the past cannot be changed. This doesn't mean that you can't go back to the past and have an effect. Instead, it means that if you do go back to the past, your effect has already been accounted for by your actions, which happened in the past.
[Answer]
Whether you change the timeline or not *in the specific realm* (here: the future development of the companies you invested in) depends on the significance of your actions.
**The more inconspicuous your trade is in volume and manner, the less likely it is to influence that company.**
This unfortunately limits early investments in companies when they were small. It is also harder to invest anonymously before a company goes public — ideally you'd like to be among the first investors in google, in 1999, but [these are all well known.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google#Financing_and_initial_public_offering)
If you waited till the IPO, which raised $1.67 billion, you could probably invest a few dozen million dollars through middle men without attracting attention, at \$85 per share; today it's more than \$1000. Good enough?
That said, there is always a chance for an only loosely related change which creates a butterfly effect: Some engineer gets hired from your money who would otherwise have founded their own company, the new owner of your house likes it so much that they don't move to LA so *Cars* doesn't look the same etc.
[Answer]
# Look at Volume
Using the two stocks you identified : GOOG and FB. GOOG is reading for over USD 1,200 a share, but only around 1 million shares were bought and sold today. FB is trading at USD 180 a share, but 16 million shares are moving.
You could look at how much of a splash you make on the timeline by how much money you move to buy in. If you bought in USD 1 million, worth of either today, you'd have made a 0.1% splash on that days trading.
FB and GOOG both have only ~3x their value in the last 3 years. ~6x in the last 7 years. Therefore, how much money you'd hope to make is limited by how big a splash you're willing to tolerate and how long you're willing to wait to collect. Assuming the trend is steady, your 0.1% disruption of the timeline converts your USD 1 million investment into USD 6 million over ~10 years. However inflation and taxes are both going to bite into that, so you'll walk away feeling like you roughly doubled your money, in terms of present-day purchasing power.
This kind-of modest payout, I think, might incentivize taking a bolder risk. Which might be a good story.
[Answer]
Your investment decisions *will almost certainly* change *some* stock(s) performance over long terms, but *which* stocks will be impacted significantly, and in which direction, is impossible to predict. The solution to this problem is to use the same risk mitigation strategies that you would use to invest in the stock market absent any future knowledge: put your eggs in many baskets.
Rather than pick a single winning stock (Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc), choose a diverse portfolio of stocks across multiple industries and countries that each significantly outperformed the market, and spread your investments out over those companies. That way, even if some of them turn out to be duds, you should still have a bunch of winners in the rest of your portfolio.
(Incidentally, add Keurig Green Mountain to your portfolio: those K-Cups are a freaking gold mine. My commission on that tip is 5%, you can pay me in the past on that newfangled Paypal thing.)
] |
[Question]
[
One of the points made in a number of recent questions regarding underwater races has prompted me to review one of my older pieces of world-building. Namely: the difficulty of producing common structural materials like steel or concrete in an aquatic environment.
I have a species of intelligent, fishlike aliens that live on an ocean world - a world much like ours, only the sea level is high enough to submerge all but the highest peaks.
This species is the product of a prolonged uplifting program by a much more advanced civilisation - their technology is by now distantly descended from a wide variety of prefabricated factories introduced to them during the initial uplift. Accordingly the bootstrap problem isn't a big deal, since it can be assumed they acquired any necessary knowledge and equipment from their erstwhile benefactors. Similarly necessary raw materials such as ores can be safely assumed to be present.
Technologically they're what we might think of as a contemporary - they're comfortably industrialised and have turned their attentions to spaceships. What components they can't fabricate underwater are produced in aerated industrial complexes built in shallow parts of the world, supported by vast logistical networks. Suitable locations are limited, though, and I'd prefer not to rely on shallow plateaus for *all* industrial production. In general for this species, air-breathing manufacturing is expensive and inefficient but nevertheless possible - their motivation for moving industry to aquatic manufacture is a matter of efficiency more than for lack of alternatives.
What I'm looking for is a structural material that can be produced underwater with little to no reliance on atmospheric gases or access to the surface. Optimally it would be usable in ways comparable to steel, but it should at least be suitable for construction. Typical applications would be shelters/homes (against wildlife and aquatic weather), storage, workplaces, and so on.
[Answer]
>
> The Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) process makes raw iron with inputs only of electricity and natural gas.
> ([source](http://coalaction.org.nz/carbon-emissions/can-we-make-steel-without-coal))
>
>
>
More info on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron).
If you have access to natural gas, iron ore and electricity, and enough thermal insulation to keep 1200°C, then you can have steel. If you have access to chromium and other alloying elements, you can have most of the kinds of steel we have.
You will have problems with rust, and you will have problems to prevent water flushing in thorough your CO2 exhaust, but these can be solved. You don't need "comparable to steel", you can simply have steel.
[Answer]
# Domesticated Molluscs
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7A3EE.jpg)
Giant clams are just one sort of shellfish, but there are potentially many others of various shapes and sizes. You don't even need to grow clams this big so long as you are content using lots of little shells in your building. In particular, I'm thinking of extinct [Rudist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudists) bivalves that came in a dizzying array of shapes and sizes and were the major reef-building organisms of the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Why smelt or mine or refine, when you can simply grow!
Domestication and selective breeding causes all sorts of major changes to animals. Wild aurochs didn't produce five tons of milk per year; and wolves look nothing like pugs. In this case, the easiest way to make the appropriate building materials is to grow the clam in a box of some sort. The clam's shell will naturally be fitted to whatever shape it is grown in. This gives all sorts of options for growing building materials for specific purposes.
I'm thinking that you would encourage the clams to grow into shapes that lock together. Gravity pulling a building down isn't so much of a big deal underwater, since there is a significant buoyancy effect. But currents push with much more force than wind. You would assemble a structure like a puzzle with 3-d interlocking clam pieces keeping the structure stable against the tides. Once you build the structure, you cover it with barnacles or corals or something that will help seal everything together.
Sure it would take a long time, but a shell structure glued together with a living, regenerating barnacle armor would be quite the formidable underwater fortress.
[Answer]
**Magma**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y4PLr.jpg)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmMlspNoZMs>
Basically find an underwater volcano and tap it, releasing pressure so it doesn't explode, and direct the magma into block forms. Once it has cooled you can pull the new block out and use it for your building material.
You don't have to worry about cutting and shaping stone, it will fill whatever mold you put it in. You don't have to worry about underwater furnaces or forges to get it pliable, the hard work is already done for you by the planet.
[Answer]
**Coral stone.**
<http://www.telling.co.uk/caribbean/product-and-finishes/coral-stone/>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fYfCK.jpg)
Quarried coral blocks make fine building materials. Around the world one can find buildings and ornaments made of coral stone and it is quarried and used to this day; linked images are from a company in Barabados.
There is plenty of coral stone underwater. There is no reason your merfolk could not quarry and build with it. Of course they could quarry and build with limestone or granite or any other building stone too, but that stuff seems less ocean-themed than coral stone.
[Answer]
Of the structural materials we have on dry-land, just one is maybe available to your aliens: stone.
* **Wood**: since water takes care of sustaining plants, no hard wood is needed. So no luck here.
* **Metals**: ores might be available, but smelting them requires wood or coal and their combustion. Not a thing for underwater.
* **Concrete**: preparing it requires combustion and absence of water. Again, not suited for underwater.
And then you are left with **stone**: remove the mud layer from the bottom, and cave blocks of stones. Use them as bricks, and you are helped by water in reducing the effort of lifting them. You can even use pumice as floating medium to lift loads.
[Answer]
**Genetic engineering**
If this species is the result of an extended uplift program by a more advanced civilization, then that advanced civilization probably has some serious biotech capabilities - after all, uplift programs don't just grow on trees unless you genetically engineer a Fruit of Knowledge.
And in terms of biological engineering, an aquatic medium provides a lot of benefits - it's a lot easier to add building blocks to a liquid than it is to add them to air.
As such, assuming that an aquatic race will use modern Earth methods is kinda silly. They could work twice as hard to get things done in air exactly the way we do, or they can use some near-singularity user friendly biotech.
For instance, to smelt metals they could inoculate a smelting chamber with a specific set of microbes their patrons left behind and run hot water full of mine sediment through it; the microbes then separate out all the interesting minerals, ready for a purification step (which probably involves other, more specialized species).
To build structures they can whip up a minimal scaffolding made from an engineered seaweed, which is impregnated with certain biomarkers. They then blow calcium and nutrient rich water over the whole thing; hyper-corals attach to the biomarkers, and fill the gaps in with a biological concrete. The stalks of seaweed become the interior plumbing necessary for civilized life, carrying power / data / water.
Unless this species was specifically uplifted by a bunch of short-sighted land dwellers with a one-size-fits-all program, they'd work **with** their aquatic environment - not against it.
[Answer]
Roman concrete. According to a study of the chemical composition of Roman seawater construction by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ([as reported here](https://phys.org/news/2013-06-roman-seawater-concrete-secret-carbon.html)):
>
> The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For
> underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form
> mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden
> forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The
> lime was hydrated – incorporating water molecules into its structure –
> and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Navy veteran here, and for a time I worked with ROVs in the offshore oil and gas industry. So here are some of my thoughts on metallurgy:
As someone else pointed out already, there is more than one way to reach smelting temperature. You could drill geothermal wells into the sea-floor. For economic reasons it would probably be near underwater volcanic activity such as island chains (also a handy source of iron-ore from material that's already cooled & hardened). Salt water is basically the most corrosive environment possible for steel to be in though, and I don't think it would be possible to smelt high purity steel alloys in that environment. You'd get lots of pitting and imperfections in the crystalline matrix, and corrosion would start immediately eating away at it leaving voids or delamination, cracks would quickly form at stress points... it would be worthless for precision engineering such as with a spaceship. They'd need to do the smelting in an environment as free of contaminants as possible.
Once its cast and put in the water it will immediately be under chemical attack from corrosion. We get around this by coating our steel with anodized metal plating or specialized paint, I believe at one point the British even took to de-gaussing their hulls which must have somehow disrupted the anode-electrolyte-cathode circuit. Either way, as time goes on whatever you're protecting the steel with gets scraped and flaked away. In subsea engineering they bolt on sacrificial anodes made of a metals that corrode faster than steel does, and replace them every few months as they disintegrate. Since electrical current takes the path of least resistance then salt water completes the circuit from a cathode to the sacrificial anode instead of the steel. Regardless of the coping mechanisms, for this species I think steel would be very expensive to work with and would not be a common building material for their domestic civilization.
Steel for space travel seems unavoidable, especially if they have to essentially build flying aquariums and not just pressurized canisters as we do. For one thing there would be much, much more weight associated with lifting water out of the planet's gravity well. They may even need to settle for suits or even just helmets hooked up to a water supply for the lighter craft.
Hope that helps.
[Answer]
Assuming that physics and chemistry area similar to ours... You could still use air and fire technology under the water.
If they have underwater structures which are, or can be made to be, water tight, then they can pump the water out and have air within.
They could possibly pump air from the surface. Depending on how deep they are determines the viability of that.
Alternatively, they could generate usable gasses to fill the space using
[deaerators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaerator).
They can also [split water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting) into oxygen and hydrogen using [electrolysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis), which gives them fuels for fire based manufacturing processes.
To power the electrolysis you can have underwater nuclear power plants. Nuclear power doesn't require oxygen and underwater nuclear plants would be viable. Underwater nuclear power plants are considered a good idea and a civilisation such as yours could have easily perfected that.
[Answer]
**The state of their material science**
Your species likely has access to a range of materials of similar versatility to ours, but the processes to create them will differ from ours.
What seem like major challenges to under-water material science probably only problems because we have devoted all our effort to developing processes in air.Their processes will have been designed from the start to assume being under water, and will need air less frequently.
I suspect they would be able to get around the challenge of lack of fire fairly easily - they simply need to mix their fuel with an oxidant, and it will burn under water. One way this could be sourced is by creating oxygen and hydrogen from water with electrolysis.
They are likely to be able to access some air, as an input to their processes, though it would be at a cost.
* They can be assumed to be capable of migrating to near the water surface fairly easily, as they will need to be in the top 200m of the water column to practice agriculture, which would be needed to sustain their civilization.
* The buoyancy of waste gases from the processes (or just of water heated with the waste heat) can be used to create a lift to ship air down to the factories.
* Oxygen and hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis in-situ.
If their manufacturing is on the sea bed pressure will have a major impact. To meet your criteria of sea level "high enough to submerge all but the highest peaks" most of the worlds surface would have to be submerged under more than 1000m of water. The result of this is about 100atm of pressure. This changes the way materials behave, for example gases like Oxygen and Nitrogen are "supercritical" at this pressure and act like something somewhere between a gas and a liquid (assuming temperatures above their above their critical point).
I would suggest that they would be capable of creating/accessing all the same kinds of things as us - plastics, composites, metal alloys, natural fibers, concretes, mined rock etc. However the materials they were capable of creating would differ from what we have in various unpredictable ways - leaving scope for your imagination.
**Their priorities**
The materials they develop will depend on the priorities they have when they are researching them.
* The importance of being capable of supporting weight may be less
significant, because of the buoyancy created by the water.
* Resistance to corrosion will be essential, making a lot of our
favored metals far less useful.
* The force of watter currents will be something they have to consider
seriously.
* Insulation may matter less, as temperature variations may be less extreme.
* They won't have to concern themselves with waterproofing their dwellings, as they will already be full of water.
**My conclusions**
What's Hot:
* Composites, such as fiber glass: These are an adaptable class of materials anyway. Fiber glass itself is not good at taking compression, but does have good flexibility and strength - with water taking much of the structure's weight fiber glass may be more useful, even taking some roles filled by steel in our world.
* Glass, it's resistance to corrosion becomes much more significant under the sea.
* Natural fiber, seaweeds such as kelp can provide impressively long, strong fibers.
What's not:
* Metals, many of the metals we find particularly useful degrade far too fast under water.
[Answer]
## Silica, Titania, and Chitin
Others have mentioned molluscs and coral. I wanted to contribute hacked [radiolaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiolaria) -- think carbon [nanotubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotube), [tunneling nanotubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_nanotube), and [buckyballs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene), but with silicon. This would be for construction materials, and for synthesis of nano and computing machinery.
From Wikipedia:
* [Silicon nanotube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_nanotube), made of silicon atoms and first reported around the year 2000.
* [Titania nanotubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_dioxide#Nanotubes), created by the conversion of the mineral anatase by hydrothermal synthesis.
* [Chitin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitin), a long-chain polymer of N-acetylglucosamine, is a derivative of glucose. It is a primary component of cell walls in fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods, such as crustaceans.
[Answer]
Concrete sets due to a chemical reaction with water and therefore concrete will successfully set while underwater as long as it's calm enough to not wash away the sediments in the concrete. <http://www.cement.org/cement-concrete-applications/cement-and-concrete-basics-faqs> (at the bottom)
[Answer]
Another alternative is to use electrolysis to cause dissolved sediment in seawater to precipitate and adhere to a surface. The process was patented in the late 1970's and has principally been used to repair coral reefs that are damaged.
It has been referred to as seacrete, biorock and seament.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorock>
The downside to this approach is that structures have to be formed upon a metal skeleton that conducts the current used for electrodeposition. And once the current is turned off, the structure is subject to decay. So buildings made of seacrete would require a reliable low power source of electricity or the structure would have to be sealed after construction.
The upside is that biorock has been found to have a better compressive strength than concrete. So large buildings and other structures would be very feasible.
And since the process evolves hydrogen gas; it is possible to collect a fuel in the process as an additional benefit.
[Answer]
User L.Dutch makes the comment, [in their answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/109859/14553), that
>
> since water takes care of sustaining plants, no hard wood is needed. So no luck here.
>
>
>
But this leaves out one several important applications of plant material in building: namely to braid [wicker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_weaving)/[wattle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattle_%28construction%29), to make [rope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope) and to weave [wood fibre fabric](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_textile_fibres).
In the presence of hard wood, these techniques are often less practical in structural construction. But with no hard wood present, they could become quite important indeed. And while they are usually made sturdy with a backbone or lattice of rigid material, they can themselves be made rigid by layering. For instance, thick ropes can serve as pillars.
To make them even more rigid (even very thick rope will maintain some flexibility), two thick ropes can be bent to form arches, dug into the ground at both ends, and placed such that they cross into the middle, forming a groin vaulted roof:
[](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1394231)
Or they could be placed in parallel, forming a barrel vault:
[](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1395490)
This works thanks to a combination of stiffness and tension on the ropes.
[Answer]
Interesting Ideas on aquatic civilization development, but there is one point that might make things a little more convenient but more interesting.
If the planet is comparable to ours with oceans deeper then ours; what depth does this Race live at? If they are able to take the lower pressures near the surface of the water and even spend brief periods out of the water without need of pressure suits, then it stands to reason they can use the "ocean" of air quite easily. Can we assume this "Fishy" species swims or is it bound to the ground? If it swims then they should have some sort of bladder system for bouncy elevation, if so the traditional ideas of "up" or "down" don't matter as much as they would to us.
I can imagine "barges" made of large shells and shark skin, and other natural materials (giant fish bones) being platforms for use in industry that require air where these alien invert their perspective going "feet up" and use the "pits" of air "below" to smelt or make glass or even process shells into lime for concrete.
If the idea of a nebulous up or down is too alien they can still have massive structures just at the surface of the water like we have on top of the water today. These would be entire floating buildings or islands. All they need is a bubble from volcanic activity or decomposition to get to the very edge of their atmosphere. Once there everything becomes possible. They could put entire oil refineries bobbing with the critical parts above the ocean and the end products collecting just underneath. This pretty much allow them to produce any material should it be doable in water or above.
Given the technology level, the chic of their world could also have floating buildings with water above the ocean line like a massive flying aquarium. Maybe they have stories of an entire lost city that due to volcanic activity rose above the waves. We use the seas incredibly often so for a comparable tech level society I don't see why they can't use the "Airs" as often or more often.
] |
[Question]
[
One very common idea in sci-fi stories is ships or 'dwellings' in outer space. It is impossible to create gravity just with a static platform, but one way you could emulate gravity in space is with the [Stanford torus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus). Ideally, an entire population could live comfortably in an Earth-like setting on the Stanford torus, with gravity and an atmosphere.
The original idea requires the torus to rotate once per minute to provide 0.9-1.0g of artificial gravity (actually centrifugal force). So with roughly 10 rotations per minute, we could create an Earth-like atmosphere.
The problem is that the bigger the torus, the faster it would need to turn to maintain the level of gravity we are used to on Earth. Thus, the builders would need to balance between size and speed, which means we could not build a torus big enough for everyone in the world.
In the far future, all the countries' borders have effectively dissolved, and the whole human population answers to one overarching government. Due to the deteriorating conditions on Earth and the increasing environmental problems, this government has the resources to build just one torus that could provide a good living for 1% of Earth's population. This leaves everyone else 'stranded' on Earth.
In a dystopian society, it would probably be the rich, the powerful and the influential who get to bully their way into a better life away from the troubles of Earth. However, this is (not exactly Utopian) a much fairer society, where the government wants to give everyone a fair chance of getting that better life.
How would the government give everyone a fair chance of getting onto the torus, assuming there is minimal corruption? How would they convince the rest of the world, who are still living on Earth, that the best chance humans have for survival would be to let their relatives or friends live safely and happily in the torus, while rest of them slog it out on a decaying Earth?
Basically, I'm trying to avoid the situation in [Elysium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)), where people are unhappy with the arrangement of the lucky few in the torus, and the rest stuck on Earth. They are fighting to get onto the torus, and the best way I can think of so far to avoid this would be to convince the world that they need to stay on Earth, to allow humans a chance of survival from the Torus. But, obviously, many wouldn't get this, and you'd have those who care only about themselves...
Edit: There *was* one story called Atlantia, by Ally Condie, where the government managed to convince the majority of the population that they needed to allow the minority to live in a safe haven, while the majority worked to support them from a polluted world. And the majority didn't fight to live in the haven. In that case, the haven was in the sea. However, how the government did that was not really explained.
[Answer]
The best chance for survival means handpicking the one percent.
Certain traits, abilities, knowledge, intelligence, etc... will be needed, and not everyone will qualify.
Hard to completely keep out the influence of wealth, power, and corruption, but the needs should drive the majority of the selection process. Anyone clearly not making the cut should be found out and dealt with.
In order to convince the other 99% not to make trouble, give everyone a vested interest in someone on the torus. Everyone on Earth should have a loved one, or someone, on the torus that they want to see stay there.
Also, make it known that any uprising will result in people being removed from the torus.
Most people would be reluctant to rise up if they knew that their child, or whoever, would be expelled from the good life.
**EDIT**:
Having one person fulfill the interest of 100 would probably be difficult, and maybe the only bond they have would be nationalism, or ethnicity, or something. How many people take pride in Miss Universe, or something similar?
Also, if your actions were to get someone kicked off, how would the interested 99% feel? Self interest might also be a motivation to quell unrest.
Certainly, there will need to be replacements. Accidents, deaths. As the 1% age, their physical or mental abilities will diminish and they should be replaced. Maybe even have a limit on how long they can serve. If abilities are truly important, than the best and the brightest are always needed.
If the 99% knows that, not only are they interested in a current resident, but someone else could be selected as a replacement, thats more of an incentive to remain cooperative. How hard do some work just to give one of their own a better opportunity. Schools, education, innovation might thrive as people strive to receive a torus scholarship.
Additionally, given enough time, resources could be obtained, and another torus could be built so that the 1% now becomes 2. This might take years, or generations, or never (but don't tell them that). The hope of a better future for yourself or your offspring would help to maintain order as well.
Although, there are still plenty of opportunities for corruption and unrest.
[Answer]
**A lottery.**
If people trust the government then they will accept the results.
Of course you may want to give the top scientists, artists, and other people deemed necessary for the survival of society a better chance to win, or, if you're not completely silly, reserve their places.
The problem is that when you're making decisions for the **survival of mankind** being *fair* doesn't really fit into the equation.
You're sentencing billions of people to a slow death. Many, maybe even ***most*** of them are good people. But is a "good" person more worthy to survive than an "evil", but brilliant scientist who might invent technology which will advance mankind to the next level of our civilization?
I would argue ***not***, although some others might say that being "ethical", and "a good person" are traits that trump everything, and should be the defining factor.
The problem at that point is that ethics and morals are ***highly*** subjective.
And so, I would suggest that your government look at giving mankind the best chance to survive, which is completely unrelated to being fair, or even ethical.
Because there is no way that you are going to convince everyone chosen to stay behind that they are not being treated unfairly. No. Way. It's in our nature to want to survive, even at the detriment of others.
As high minded as your government is, I doubt that you'll be able to convince everyone to simply accept their faiths. At which point you'll need a highly dedicated armed force to put down the attempts against your space station, and none are more loyal than robots. Welcome to Elysium.
>
> **Question:** have you considered setting up a Mars colony and transferring people from the station to that colony, thus constantly bringing more people up from the planet surface as the colony grows?
>
>
>
[Answer]
Just advertise the very real dangers involved in living in space and you will decrease the population percentage who want it. For example...
*Public Announcement : To offset the potential threat of death from asteroid strikes, radiation and exposure to the vacuum of space, every brave volunteer who joins the Torus will receive increased rations, free medical care and the best living accommodations possible while aboard. Thank you for your courage and patriotism!*
Then to imply that the government officials are staying behind where it is safe, add...
*We will miss you!*
[Answer]
**Life aboard the Torus is a hardship.**
Living for the sake of the species is a totally different ballgame than traditional human lifestyles. When you represent humanity as a whole, you have a responsibility to put the species before yourself. This will make life very un-fun and quite controversial by most modern standards.
When you’re living aboard the Torus, you have the following enticing perks:
* Adequate rations
* Security (both from crime and a deteriorating Earth)
* A future for your children
* The pleasure of dedicating yourself to humanity
Unfortunately, you’re also going to be subject to some controversial (potential) negatives:
* Your training and future career will be determined for you based on the station’s needs
* You will follow a rigorous schedule and pre-planned diet with no exceptions
* You will reproduce with a pre-selected candidate at a time specified by the station’s health team
* At such a point that you are no longer physically or mentally capable of contributing to the station, you will be banished to Earth
* Violations of laws result in banishment to Earth
Trading your personal rights and human freedom for the betterment of the species is unlikely to be attractive to many people. Dying with dignity or at least some semblance of self control at home on Earth is starting to sound more enticing.
[Answer]
*Sometimes the truth hurts. In these situations, I recommend lying. -- Michael Westin*
So, you get people to accept it by lying, of course. Same trick politicians have been using for thousands of years, and there's no end to sight to that, so why change what works? (Seriously, think about democracy for a minute - every few years, countless millions of people not only accept, but actively support a politician based on promises that can't possibly be kept and which are inevitably broken. And every few years, we all do it again. Seems like there's a lesson in there for anyone planning a long, complicated planetary evacuation.)
You could lie about everything, lie about some of it, whatever, but the answer is to lie. Figure out what lie you want to tell (probably that everyone, or all the "good people" or whatever will be saved) and tailor your plan to that. Probably, first off, you'd want to lie about the odds and the time table. People don't want to hear that they've got a 1% chance of a better life, so don't tell them that. And since it's obvious that this wouldn't happen right away, all at once, lie about the timetable.
Since you're not going be sending everyone who's going to be saved up in one trip, you do triage and get the most critical people up first. And you tell the public that's what you're doing. "Well, obviously, we need people to make sure it's up and running for us, that's who we're sending up now."
And you use this logistical reality to your advantage and draw it out. "We're getting to everyone just as fast as we can, but this actually *is* rocket science, it's going to take time. Be patient and don't lose hope." (The best lies have an element of truth.) Lead them to believe that they'll get there, they just have to wait in line for their turn. You could even include and publicize some token members of the unwashed masses in your regular relocations. As has been suggested, a lottery of some sort would probably play well with the general public, so do that for the vast majority of people.
Gives you plenty of time to get the cream of the crop relocated, while all the dead weight is waiting for their ride that will never come. (And of course, to keep them from figuring that out, you lie some more - "criminals are slowing us down by trying to jump the line", "ZOMG terrorism!", [insert scapegoat here], etc.)
[Answer]
Instead of telling people that those on the Torus will have a better life, you tell them the opposite. Tell them that there are too many people for Earth to sustain, and so as an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure you'll be sending 1% of the population to live on a space station where they'll have cramped quarters, crappy food, few entertainment options....
Basically, make it seem as though the 1% on the space station have a worse life than the 99% on Earth.
[Answer]
This is a variation of "lifeboat ethics", but ethics change a lot with culture and circumstances.
Consider in the late Edwardian period, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. The code of ethics demanded "women and children first", and to a very large extent, this is what happened. The men and most of the crew stood aside and allowed the women and children to board the lifeboats and remains aboard to a certain death by drowning or hypothermia.
Fast forward to 2012, when the cruise ship "Costa Concordia" hit some rocks and sank. The captain was apparently one of the *first* off the ship, and only the action of some brave junior officers kept the situation from being a complete disaster.
In a dystopian environment of depleted resources, the struggle at all levels of society will be to somehow access resources for your own survival, so the situation will be closer to the Costa Concordia than the RMS Titanic. People will struggle to be part of the 1% that get aboard the lifeboat (because that is what the torus actually is). You will see fraud, bribery, coercion, violence and even outright war. For people who realize there is no possibility of getting a seat on the lifeboat, it may become imperative that they do everything to prevent *anyone else* from getting a seat either.
Building the torus might actually be easy to do in secret, *if* the construction crew is sent to the Moon and asteroids and assemble the object far from the Earth (L4, L5 or perhaps High Eccentric Earth Orbit [HEEO]) where it won't be spotted too easily. Then the people who are chosen (and this cannot be random if you want the program to have any chance of success) quietly "retire", are reassigned to new jobs on the coast or interior or if military personal are "posted" to Diego Garcia. Really the major bottleneck isn't going to get the people and materials, but getting enough rockets to boost them off Earth and to the lifeboat in the first place.
In order to ensure success, there needs to be a lot of genetic material brought up as well, so piggybacking mandatory DNA sampling (for your identity card, of course....), securing seed vaults and even closing zoos (maintaining the animals takes valuable resources from the population, they are being secured in a new location....).
Of course, building a single torus is both dangerous and counterproductive. A single colony is a single point of failure, so at least two (L-4 and L-5) should be built. As an incidental, the various workstations and crews on the Moon and asteroids are also survival colonies of sorts, and could continue to build new torii for as long as required. A secondary issue is the work crews both on the Moon and Asteroids, as well as the the support personnel working on the torus to keep the life support systems working will actually become the new "aristocracy", since literally nothing can work without their cooperation and expertise.
[Answer]
>
> The problem is that the bigger the torus, the faster it would need to turn to maintain the level of gravity we are used to on Earth. Thus, the builders would need to balance between size and speed, which means we could not build a torus big enough for everyone in the world.
>
>
>
Don't make it farther to the center. Make it wider. This is part of why many systems describe such population centers as cylinders rather than tori. And if you really need more space, just make another one.
A torus is only used because you don't want to make a full cylinder. But if you need more room, you can always add sideways on a torus. Eventually you'll have a cylinder.
>
> Basically, I'm trying to avoid the situation in Elysium, where people are unhappy with the arrangement of the lucky few in the torus, and the rest stuck on Earth.
>
>
>
The problem with Elysium was that those in space had a higher standard of living than those on the ground. Reverse that. In space, you have smaller quarters and cheaper supplies. Also, reduce the amount of elder healthcare in space. Once someone's done reproducing, they're redundant. Let them die naturally. Long term, the space habitat needs to be self-sufficient. Go ahead and do that immediately. The advantage in space is that your children are guaranteed a place.
On the ground you have more space. You take first choice of foods, etc. You get the latest medical and health care. But your children may not be able to find a place on the space habitat. In the near term, the ground is clearly better.
That was the fundamental problem with the Elysium concept. If Elysium had such advanced technology, why use ground labor? Automate in space instead. It's cheaper to mine in the asteroid belt and ship into Earth orbit than it is to mine on the Earth and lift out of the gravity well.
[Answer]
If you're talking about a more fair society, that isn't just intent on making this a "screw those people" action, then two things would have to happen as part of this.
First, they don't build the largest torus they can. If the resources are that tight, you don't go for maximum population in space unless you've completely written the Earth off, entirely. You keep some of those resources in reserve in case you can find a way to build some sort of technology to help deal with the pollution issues instead.
Second, your primary goal is developing the tech to save the Earth. A fair-er society is not building the space torus as a means of giving up, but a last ditch means of keeping the species alive should all other means fail. Much in the same way we currently have [seed vaults](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault) in the event of catastrophe, that torus would be aimed for the same goal. A significant portion of the space station would also be research facilities to try to develop things to help "terraform" our planet back into shape - the pollution on Earth may require very isolated clean labs for genetically modified plants, bacteria, etc.
This assumes your government is actually fair in the sense they give a damn about this problem and aren't just going to say "oh well, too bad".
**Acceptance**
People can accept nearly anything if you take long enough to inculcate it. Consider things like the history of child sacrifice, or in modern terms, the idea that domestic violence is justified. However, if you have enough time to make an idea part of a cultural background, you probably have had more than enough time to fix the problem. (N.K. Jemisin's Fifth Season has society built around surviving disasters, and they accept a caste system and ruthless laws, but on the other hand, their culture has survived multiple mass extinction events probably caused by psychic/magic powers...)
Shorter term, there's nothing that would make 100% of everyone ok with the selection. Your overarching government will be spending a lot of time and energy dealing with dissenters, and probably out and out rebellions by some people once the news gets out. Keeping the various parts and materials for the space station from being sabotaged would be a lot of effort as well.
The large bureaucracy to run this world government may find a lot of people deliberately misfiling things to slow down or stop the building of it as well. That kind of sabotage will be nearly impossible to detect if you get enough people doing it, plus the normal problems you'd have with such a large, unprecedented project.
If the station is mostly used as a research station, then people are more accepting of the process - "We're sending up scientists to figure out how to fix the problem" means everyone understands that there's pretty high prerequisites to meet, and it's a job. If this is true, it's mostly fine and dandy. If this is a lie, or the evidence of who they're sending and the resources doesn't seem to add up to the reality, it could spin out of control pretty quickly.
**The larger logistics**
All that said, if we could build a fully self-contained space station that could survive indefinitely, we probably could build underground cities, domed habitats, or underwater cities that would survive just as well, except we wouldn't have to worry about resources to keep launching stuff up into space, radiation shielding, or the gravity issue and bone loss.
[Answer]
*How can I make my deteriorating world's society accept that only 1% can have better living conditions?*
Make people believe this.
>
> The problem is that the bigger the torus, the faster it would need to turn to maintain the level of gravity we are used to on Earth. Thus, the builders would need to balance between size and speed, which means we could not build a torus big enough for everyone in the world.
>
>
>
10 rotations per minute are for a specific radius. Larger radii need fewer rotations per minute. and larger diameters work better for people. This question deals with the speeds needed. [Circular space station - what's the rotational speed to achieve earth-like gravity?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10597/circular-space-station-whats-the-rotational-speed-to-achieve-earth-like-gravi)
So just getting people to believe in physics and economics that are not real should be enough. And if you look how many people today believe things like [trickledown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics) economics, or even pure communism or pure capitalism, still to this day, you will see it really isn't that hard to bamboozle the masses.
Edt:
After reading the question again, I felt I should add some more.
If you don't want people fighting over who 'gets' to go and who 'gets' to stay then you need to start the campaign early. Why are you building this in the first place? Because those left on Earth are headed for a doomed future? Then people will not stay quietly behind.
In that case the space explorers will have to be billed as a risky adventure (which in all honesty it likely is) and broadcast looking for hearty souls willing to volunteer to be on the ship.
Of course all those people actually working on the ship have to be given first dibs, since you don't want disgruntled people building something that will hold millions of peoples lives in the balance. If their lives and those of their family are going to be in the balance they will be much more diligent.
By making it seem just as dangerous as staying, the rich won't all press quite so hard to bribe their way on. Also by putting an age limit "no one over x age" will be allowed on, etc. Will also help. Everyone being selected should generally be of sound mind and body as well.
[Answer]
>
> How can I make my deteriorating world's society accept that only 1% (fairly chosen by the government) can have better living conditions?
>
>
>
Your premise is flawed. Considering everything done in government is motivated by self-interest, there can be no "fair choice" made. The 1% ends up being the members, friends, and business partners of that institution. It's happened that way with every government entity on the planet since its inception, and will continue on in the same fashion.
Your best option for a fair choice would be to pick your 1% via a lottery system, with each of those numbers being (unloaded) dice rolls, with the government not involved in the process(HA!).
Failing that, the masses would start howling for blood.. I think the best thing to do would be for the torus inhabitants to leave without telling anyone. If the rest of the populace caught wind of who was going, the chosen would likely not make it off the planet anyway.
[Answer]
Make it a coliseum/hunger games/Running Man style lottery. You have to compete in a horrible/deadly/torturous competition. If you win your round, you get to the station. Anyone can volunteer. You can stack certain rounds. Round 3 only engineers. Round 4 Sanitation workers. Round 5 physicists.
In addition to discouraging the populace from entering, you also get a circus to distract the masses with.
Alternative option.
"In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today"
Drug, brain wash, or mind control the masses.
[Answer]
The way you have described the situation (life sucks on earth, and everybody needs to know that life in space is better and only a few people can go) makes it look like (to me) that unless the people in your story are much more docile than the people in real life, it will lead to war. Anybody who has any power on earth will want to be on that space station and will fight for that privilege.
So there are a few options that I see:
**Why do people have to know at all?**
Plot holes notwithstanding in *Interstellar*, it had basically the same plot point. Life sucks on earth, anyone who can extrapolate can tell that people will be starving, yet there aren't riots at the NASA facility.
Because people don't know about it. It isn't terribly difficult for the government to keep things secret, especially in a fictional world. Even in real life governments spend much more money than you and I would care to think about on things we don't think about. The overseeing organization could then select whichever people it wants and, if they accept without knowing too many details, those people will just disappear from normal life, or go on a "government mission," or something of that sort.
**Why should people care, either?**
*Propaganda can have a very strong effect.*
Again, from *Interstellar*, we see examples of this.
Murphy gets in trouble at school for not going along with the propaganda (spread by the government, most likely) that the Apollo missions were fake, that space is boring and not worth exploring even if possible, and that the only useful thing to do for society is to help farm food.
*Space exploration doesn't have to be cool and glamorous.*
a quick google search for how many people have sent applications for [Mars One](http://www.mars-one.com/) showed several results with estimates of 20,000 applicants, a couple for 100,000, and one for 200,000.
In current society, I think we can safely assume that less than a million people would, given the chance, even consider a one-way space mission. Why would they? It's dangerous, boring, difficult, requires hard work, and (the most important) **life is pretty good here right now**.
And yet space research is still important enough that not only does NASA still exist with funding (not enough in the opinion of many people who like science), but several private companies sustain themselves with that too.
*Your government could make the project look not very interesting.*
'Oh yeah, a space station that can support X number of people, launching for research purposes, nothing new here...'
**How dire is Earth's situation, anyway?**
>
> Due to the deteriorating conditions on Earth and the increasing environmental problems...
>
>
>
This description is so mild, it could describe Earth *right now*. I must assume that your world is in much more dire circumstances than we currently have, but how much so? Does anybody really know (can they be convinced or confused otherwise)? Can a person reasonable live out their life and survive? If so, why would more than 1% want to leave this more-or-less guaranteed survival for a dangerous and unfamiliar space mission? **If your world is really so disparate that most people would actually do anything to leave their situation, I don't really see a way where people would peacefully relinquish their chance (if they know of one) to do so.**
EDIT: Another option I just thought of:
**The project could be made to look much bigger than it actually is**
Why tell people that it will only hold 1% of the population? If the end goal is really to strand people on earth, tell the general public that eventually everyone will fit. Obviously it will be populated little by little during construction, which will happen in phases, but as long as you wait your turn, you will get a seat.
And then when the project needs to end, you just... leave.
[Answer]
I'm going to go a different direction and say don't let the people know that the 1% are going to be escaping this hell-hole of a planet.
Lets start with how do we keep the thing a secret while designing it? Don't let anyone know what's it's true intention is. No one below UltraProject Director needs to be aware that the people on this vessel will not be returning to new Venus. If anyone starts to question what the thing is for, you can offer them a place on your ship; after all if they know about it, they're probably a good person to have on board. If they want to "spread the truth", then kill them. They were already doomed anyway, you're just advancing the time table. Kill their family too for good measure. Reducing living family members to zero also reduces the chances of media inquiry, and again, these people were already dead anyway...
Now, about who we populate this station with. Surely the great thinkers (or at least the highest elected politicians) are reasonably assured a place, as well as few "minor" dignitaries from the third world who we don't vehemently disagree with, all for the sake of appearing diverse. Our families need to have boarding rights too.
The surviving laborers who created the ark should come along to, because routine maintenance and custodial work will need to be done. The Engineers and Scientists need to come, probably several astronomers, physicians, doctors, and computer scientists. Celebrities and media personalities (including celebrity scientists, sorry but Tyson and Nye aren't coming) won't be invited, because we don't want word to spread. Finally, the venture capitalists who invested in this business will come, because they invested in it to finance the building of the thing. They may find their new positions as fry cooks and grill line workers a little bit less glamorous, but that's just how things are on the ARK, we all have a part to play, my part is deciding what functions are useful and who boards, your position is fulfilling the utility you are assigned as payment for boarding.
[Answer]
Make it physically and psychologically so difficult to be
an inhabitant of the torus that 99% of everyone will not *want* it,
even compared to the hardships on Earth.
Start by requiring a long and extremely arduous testing and training
period that each prospective applicant has to go through in order to
qualify to be sent to the torus.
Advertise the difficulty in order to discourage too many applications,
and use physical and/or mental tests and hardships to weed out
all but the most qualified few from those who do apply.
This has the advantage of also providing you with a population for the
torus who will be most capable of sustaining it.
Don't waste resources making the torus a nice place to live.
Maintaining life in space is not naturally easy, and each pound of
special equipment you have to manufacture and send up there is expensive.
Instead of sending up extra machines to serve everyone's needs and
provide luxury living on board the torus, send up more people,
naturally putting them all in a situation where
they must work hard for their survival.
The inhabitants of the torus are there to preserve some remnant of human life
and culture from the looming disaster on Earth,
not to have fun and enjoy their good fortune.
[Answer]
Lottery + people are paid in "chances to win" - or you can buy as many chances as you can afford.
And roll punishment to it: every citizen gets few thousands of "birthright" chances every year, and if you break the rules, you will lose them.
[Answer]
So far the answer have ranged across the spectrum. We have:
Chance -> Lottery
Propaganda -> It worse up there
Secrecy -> Don't tell anyone whats going on
Survival -> Suspension of Morality and Ethics to favor statistics
Enforcement -> Forces to put down those not chosen.
All are correct and in reality it would be a combination of all the ideas. Even then it would not be guaranteed success. I would posit that "trickle down" would apply here. Many like to denigrate "trickle down" as only benefiting the 1% but that is a lie. Certainly it benefits the 1% greatly, but it is more of a way to control where resources are allocated in a complex society. No matter what systems are employed there will always be a 1% such that they will benefit more from that system than the rest, that is the nature of control over chaos.
In your case you add the trickle down effect where advances are passed down to help those left behind live better. So long as there is hope and progress then most would work to support such a project. If those left behind get no benefit from the project then it would have little to no support. This is of course, negating the survival imperative that this is humanity's only chance for survival which would mean we are screwed anyway since the planet side support would eventually die leaving the station to exists on whatever resources it has. The station would die itself as it succumbed to entropic forces from inefficiencies that would deplete usable resources.
Ultimately the best answer is to not put ourselves in that situation to begin with.
[Answer]
I think your stuck with a pretty horrid answer. There is no way that 99% of the population is going to accept, long term, that only 1% is going to have a better life. All the "it's humanities only hope", "everyone gets a shot" and "we did what we needed to do" is at best only going to last 1-2 generations.
The real truth is that we have this situation today, and we (generally) accept it as the norm. However when the "99%" get upset there are social ways to deal with it via everything from rallies to civil wars. It's the cycle of life. Socialism offers ways around this issue for the short term, and Capitalism for the mid term. However, we see in our own history that the two ideals do not mesh well together and will eventually will cause the need for release.
So in my mind you have two options that will work long term.
1. People of the Torus get "appointed for life" but their children and so on do not. Children and families of those going to the torus get left behind. Any children born there are deported to earth on there 8th (making up a number here) birthday, where it is well known that because of the lower gravity there going to have a really crappy time on earth. New people are sent to the torus as old people die. This gives the ability for the "Earthers" to still have a shot every so often, and allows for civil wars and what not to change the criteria for acceptance to the torus. The downsides are that the Earth becomes one big last man standing arena, rather it's via combat, economics, or emotions. Family values are further deteriorated. In fact, you may even state that anyone with a family is disqualified from going. This gets us to point two.
2. Kill em all... You want everyone to accept the people on the torus, well then bust out the biological weapons and kill everyone left on earth. Seems harsh, but for as long as there have been humans there have been those that want what others have. Eventually it will come to this. Someone with enough power and pull will make it on to the torus and will want to stay there. Then your screwed.
I like option 1, it allows for the eventual alteration of selection policy, through means that exist and are accepted today. Those ways suck (war and all) but hey, it's how our society works. At least this way you get to keep the human race going. Option 2 though seems inevitable. Remember the existence of the torus is going to radically change the goals of the people on earth. It's going to become an true last man standing arena.
[Answer]
## Make them pay the people on Earth a ton of money
Basically, you send rich people to the torus, and each month, the people on Earth get a lump sum of money from those people to keep them happy. Although being on the torus would be nice, at least its good people up there. We know they are good because they give us money!
At least, until the rich people decide to stop paying $\dots$
Note: Ironically, this is probably worse for society, since it would be better to pay money to the torus makers to make more toruses (or just extend the current torus into a [cylinder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder)).
[Answer]
# Pick 2%, kill half
Claim that you will pick 2% of the population, but sacrifice half of them randomly while in space. The remaining 1% will be the chosen ones. The other half will be killed. Nobody knows how the selection process works and nobody can bypass it in any way.
Of course, it would be a waste of energy to transport 2% of the population and just dump half of it into space. So the bodies would be used as ressources (food, skin into leather, bones carved into tools, etc.) to equip the Torus, instead of spending a lot of money into metal parts or fabric that would cost twice to produce and transport.
Told that way, even the wealthy and the powerful will rethink twice before applying to the Torus. And the population would not consider it a "1% saved versus 99% condemned", but a 50% between life and death, and less people are eager to risk their life at this ratio.
] |
[Question]
[
In [my last question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/14558/what-power-generation-method-is-the-best-to-sustain-a-hovering-city), we had some disagreement in the comments about the reality of a hovering city. However, that question wasn't about that.
This one is.
My civilization are building a giant hovering city to house people who have no home due to the massive overpopulation of the planet. It'll be about the size of London, 7 million people. With it comes all the industry, agriculture and other services a city needs to thrive.
I'm well aware, thanks to the comment thread there, that this city is unrealistic and would have some bad consequences. But just *how* unrealistic? What effects does it have on the planet's surface? Clearly, downwash is a problem, but how much?
[Answer]
Lots of the answers so far have focused on the economic reasons why a floating city is impossible. But what about physical reasons?
## Aerodynamic Levitation
As a first approximation, we can treat the city as an [air bearing](http://www.newwayairbearings.com/products/flat-round-air-bearings). There are a couple formulas that we can take from an intro fluid flow class to calculate the amount of airflow required to hold us up, assuming incompressible laminar flow.
$$
\dot M \approx \frac{\pi b^3 \rho\sigma g}{3\mu}
$$
Where $b$ is the distance in between our city and the ground, $\rho$ is air density and $\mu$ is viscosity, $\sigma$ is the load of our city and $g$ is gravity. Here are the values I assume:
* $g = 9.8~\text{m}/\text{s}^2$ (Earth standard gravity)
* $\rho = 1.225~\text{kg}/\text{m}^3$ and $\mu = 1.789\cdot 10^{-5}~\text{Pa}\cdot\text{s}$ (standard air at sea level)
* $\sigma = 1000~\text{kg}/\text{m}^2$ Assuming the average density of stuff (buildings, dirt, etc.) in the city is around the same as water, and if you flattened the city out it would be a meter high (this is a huge underestimate)
* $b = 1000~\text{ft}$ This is what my intuition tells me is a "reasonable" height, something like the spaceship in District 9.
We can plug in these values and we get:
$$
\dot M\approx 1.5\cdot 10^{15}~\text{t}/\text{s}
$$
Yes, we need to move over a million billion tons of air per second to keep the city afloat, or enough to turn over the whole atmosphere in around three seconds. Now, this is obviously not going to be laminar flow anymore; we can calculate the air velocity at the edge of the city, assuming a diameter of $2R=45~\text{km}$:
$$
v = \frac{b^2\sigma g}{\mu R} = 20\cdot 10^{6}~\text{km}/\text{s}
$$
This is obviously wrong, since it's 60 times greater than the speed of light. However, it does tell us that we can't levitate the city this way.
We can try another approximation, this time using [actuator disk theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum_theory). It tells us that the amount of power required for the city to hover is given by:
$$
P \approx A\sqrt{\frac{\left(\sigma g\right)^3}{2\rho}}
$$
Using the same values as before, we come up with a power of:
$$
P \approx 1000~\text{TW}
$$
... which is 50 to 100 times current global energy consumption.
Even if we could circumvent these issues, we'd still have to apply a couple of psi to the ground below to support the weight of the city. This would certainly flatten any fields that city flies over, and if the force is applied in even a slightly unstructured way, this could easily flatten buildings. In addition, the ground itself could give way when you fly over another city: imagine doubling the weight of every building, and the settling that would occur.
## Hydrostatic Levitation
We can get around the ground pressure problems by replacing the weight of the air that's already there; that is, floating the city with balloons. As a best-case scenario, I'll assume that the balloons are filled with vacuum.
To see how this works, imagine cutting out a disk-shaped slab of air and replacing it with a rigid shell. If the total weight of the shell is equal to the weight of the air removed, the forces on the surrounding air will be exactly the same, and the people on the ground won't feel any pressure.
I'll use the same figures as before for our calculation: a base height of $1000~\text{ft}$ and an average mass of $1000~\text{kg}/\text{m}^2$ (around $1.4~\text{psi}$, or $0.1~\text{atm}$). We can set up the following equation relating the mass of a section of the city and the mass of the air it displaces:
$$
m = \int \rho\ dV \\
\sigma A = \int \rho\ dz\ dA \\
\sigma = \int\_{b}^{b+\Delta z}\rho\ dz
$$
Using the US standard atmosphere, I get a value $\Delta z = 2900~\text{ft}$. If we using a lifting gas with density relative to air $\tilde\rho$, the equation becomes:
$$
\sigma = (1-\tilde\rho)\int\_{b}^{b+\Delta z}\rho\ dz
$$
For helium with $\tilde\rho=14~\%$, we get $\Delta z = 3400~\text{ft}$. Of course, this is only enough to keep you $1000~\text{ft}$ above *sea level*. If you want to float above the tallest building in the mile-high city (or get from one side of the US to the other) you need to have $\Delta z = 4000~\text{ft}$ high balloons.
## Psuedoscience (Aside)
It looks like we need to ignore [hard-science](/questions/tagged/hard-science "show questions tagged 'hard-science'") if we want to make this work. Personally I would have your city levitated with a variant of a [reactionless drive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionless_drive). The common spaceborne sci-fi variant pushes on a gravitational well, so that momentum is conserved but no reaction mass is expended. If this is possible, it may also be possible to "latch on" directly to the gravity well of a planet. It would essentially be a floating solid foundation (although it would experience tidal motion due to the influence of the Sun and Moon). The energy requirements would be zero until the city moves, and when it does the required power can be made as small as desired by reducing speed (although the total amount of energy required to lift the city a given height is fixed by its weight).
## Generic Problems
Whatever method you use, there are two more problems that I can foresee. First, your city will be a giant moving eclipse. Nobody wants an airship the size of Guam floating over their heads, even if it's just for a day: not cities, where there are lots of people to get angry; and certainly not in rural areas, where crops could be harmed by the lack of sunlight. Environmentalists will protest the disruption to the local ecosystem wherever you go.
Second, wind speeds increase rapidly with altitude, and temperature and pressure decrease; not to mention that low clouds would pass through the city like dense fog. Inhabitants of a floating city would experience worse weather than ground-dwellers at pretty much all times.
Thirdly, the city would likely be subject to electrostatic charging by the same mechanism that causes clouds to become charged. At the very best, the city itself would act as a lightning conduit during storms. At the worst, the city itself might generate a few small lightning strikes when first passing over a tall building. (Yet another reason to refuse passage to this power-hungry/regular-hungry darkness-bringer of a city.)
---
Pretty much all these problems can be countered by floating close to sea level above somewhere with no people or plants. But in that case, they'd probably just drop it down the last 100 feet and float it on the ocean—much easier.
[Answer]
### TL;DR:
In a hard fiction setting, hovering cities are a bad idea. Too much cost for too little benefit.
### Reasoning:
Hovering cities are something really really hard to pull off without some extreme hand-waving.
Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of floating cities. In fact, on my works (I'm an RPG writer), I have *several* of them. Magically floating, of course, with the powers of applied Arcane Mysteries.
But hard-science hovering cities? That another beast entirely.
First of all, let's think about altitude. You can't have you city too far up on the sky, or people would suffocate. There is not enough oxygen up there to keep people alive comfortably. You have the option to encase it on a giant bubble, but that would be prone to disasters. So, let's keep it at a low altitude.
Anything that stays aloft need something to keep it aloft. You have a few options, but each one is unviable in some way.
* Jet engines are nice, but cause a massive amount of wind. One of the engines needed to put a Boeing in the air is enough to throw away a small car. To raise a city up in the sky, you need to direct this airflow to the ground, causing tornado-class winds that would wipe out life anywhere below the city.
* Propeller (helicopter-like) engines would simply not work. You would need a propeller so big that it would become impractical.
* Magnetic Levitation is nice, but you would need a magnet so massive that it would make the use of ferromagnetic metals anywhere near the city and IN the city impractical.
* Putting it in orbit would be... No, really. Just no.
Of course, there is no need to say that to put everything in the sky would use an absurd amount of energy. But let's not go that deep into the calculations. Jim2B already made some energy calculations in your other question that shows how this is impractical.
But let's suppose that your people developed some cost-efficient engine that works by some form of quantum-magic levitation. This already kills the "hard science" that you asked for in your other question. Let's hand-wave that.
Now you need to cope with the winds. So high above the ground, winds would be extreme. Your city would need several layers of protection to keep those winds at bay without destroying everything above it.
After you take care of that, now you have the issue of the *buildings* of your city. Normal sky-scrappers are ruled out. They need so much foundation that, unless you have a literal floating mountain flipped upside down, you wouldn't be able to provide enough. But let's hand-wave that, and suppose that you developed some sort of ultra-resistant carbon nano-tubes capable of providing the foundation you need to *build* something in your city.
Now we hit another problem that hovering cities face and land cities don't: water supplies. Unless you have some sort of futuristic water-recycling device, your city would always be on water shortage. You can't just tap in to the nearest river to keep you people well supplied.
Then you get to the sewers. You can't just throw away all that human waste by dropping it below - all the world bellow is covered by cities. So, you need to process it in-flight by some unknown process that happens really fast and doesn't exist yet. More hand-waving.
Then you need to take out the garbage that your people will produce. This falls on the same problem of the human waste - you need some unknown process to take care of it *fast enough* so you won't pile up the trash.
After that, you need food. London, and almost every other major city today, can't produce enough food to feed everyone that lives in it. You would need to buy food from people below, and this food would have a very high price. It's not cheap to send food to the skies.
If you solve the food problem, you have the *money* problem. How much would cost to live in that city? Everything is *super expensive* if compared with stuff on the surface, and that's because *logistics alone* would increase the prices a lot. The cheapest way to move stuff around is by the sea. Your city doesn't have any kind of harbour, so it will only be accessible by plane. Even a little can of *soda* must come to the city by plane. Just imagine the *costs* of that.
Finally, transportation. People won't be able to leave the city and come back easily. If you need good weather to do *anything* outside your city, it will rapidly become uninteresting as a business hub. London, and other major cities are *major cities* because they are the central hubs of civilization. They are rich, developed, and more importantly, *accessible*. A flying city is not accessible. At all.
That would destroy it's economy pretty fast. Factories would have problems getting their raw materials, people would have problems coming and going, commerce would suffer a big hit since people don't really need to go there to buy stuff (the rest of the world is a huge city)... so, economically, this city would be a *total disaster*.
[Answer]
The issue with a floating city is that it doesn't really accomplish anything that couldn't be done better using another approach, unless what you're trying to accomplish is simply 'be a hovering city'. This is mainly because of one simple reason: *hovering is hard.*
Hovering takes a ton of energy to do, especially for a city the size of London with commerce, industry, etc. In addition, it's going to require a bunch *more* energy to get all of your raw materials and resources from the ground up to the hovering city. All of this energy is expensive. In addition, you've got a massive engineering problem to solve in terms of how to make the city structurally stable and balanced (as well as capable of hovering) and a lot of material expenditure going into the workings of the hovering mechanism and the associated structure.
If you're out of land area and looking for a place to put a few more people, there are two options that would both be better than a hovering city: the ocean and in space. There's a ton of space in the ocean, and, assuming you build neutrally-buoyant structures, no major structural barriers stopping you from creating strings of buildings spanning its entire height. Your ocean dwellers won't be able to move vertically through the cities particularly quickly without getting the bends, but they'll survive and you can pack lots of people down there. Space platforms would be expensive to transport materials to, unless you're already bringing in materials from other planets, in which case they'd likely be commerce hubs for materials trading. Solar energy is plentiful and reliable in space and there aren't as many structural concerns for something in orbit since it need not support its own weight.
The only civilizations likely to build floating cities would be type-II civilizations with absurd amounts of cheap surplus energy, but these civilizations wouldn't be building them to reduce overpopulation, they'd be building them *because they can.* In a world in which most of the population is crammed either under the seas or onto orbital platforms, they'd also be a nice vacation spot or home for the wealthy, particularly if the surface of the planet is heavily polluted.
[Answer]
It isn't a traditional hovering city, but Buckminster Fuller said you could make spherical shells that would float like hot air balloons. The google terms would be "Buckminster Fuller Cloud Nine" or "tensegrity sphere". He was thinking of mile wide spheres (think two big geodesic domes joined together) and said a one degree temperature difference between the inside and outside would be sufficient to keep it airborne. The city population would be in the "thousands", so you'd need a flock of them to cover millions of people. And yes, he was thinking of flocks of them.
[Answer]
As already said it's a massive expense to get the city up there, keep it up there, and get people to and from them. This sort of energy is not cheap and is a tremendous limitation in it's own right. However, Everyone is already focusing on this issue, and you can always say A Wizard Did It there. Let's focus on the other implications....
There is maintenance issues with any solution, the things keeping your city in the air must be regularly attended and maintained, they will break down so your need duplicates and backup for the duplicates and your have to watch and maintain all of that. That's significant expense and man hours.
Then there is the fact that if your redundancy fails then everyone in your city dies horrible deaths. What happens when a hurricane hits your flying city? Can terrorists hold the whole city captive by threatening to pop a hole in your gigantic helium balloon floating you up? There is a significant danger of catastrophe, you need a good motivation to take this risk. Even if the city doesn't collapse to it's doom what happens when little billy goes chasing after his favorite ball and falls of the face of his earth?
There are also difficulties simply living that high up. The atmosphere drops the higher up you get, if your floating at any height your going to be dangerously cold and short of breath due to lack of oxygen. Your going to have more sun burns and mutation and skin cancer from lack of atmosphere protecting you from the sun's radiation. The winds will be so severe they could blow little billy off the face of the earth without him being stupid enough to chase after his ball. These factors depend on how high your floating, but you don't have to get too high before you start feeling them. The wind in particular will build up VERY fast, just stand on the top of a sky scrapper and see how hard it is to stand against the wind there. In fact the winds may be bad at skyscraper heights to make growing of crops and food quite difficult. Though it would at least give you some free wind energy if harnessed.
So there are major engineering hassles to making this happen, major inconveniences to living up there, and increased risk of falling to doom. What would motivate this to be worth while?
The usual answer is to increase land area but...that doesn't really work. If you float over an area your blocking out sun and rain from the area you block, messing with weather and animals (you would be amazed how fast their instincts would be screwed up by this). Nothing can live below you! You haven't significantly increased your land mass, you've simply transplanted it higher into the air, where it's harder to live.
Now if your floating city moved regularly this would be a little better. You would only block out light and water to a given area for as long as it took to move elsewhere, This would make it possible to live in the area your city floats over in theory. However, it will make it a horrible hassle whenever you float over them, one that could cause severe expense whenever you float over. Your have to be moving at high speeds to ensure you don't block out sun from any one location enough to ruin it; and high speed motion causes winds so great as to make your city uninhabitable.
Meanwhile if you look at livable land as land that can produce enough food you still haven't increased your habitable land by much. The crops growing anywhere you float over will lose light and thus grow less. Your only be able to grow as many crops on your floating city as you get sunlight, and all sunlight is 'stolen' from others, so effectively your crops only grow as much as crops below you suffered from your being above them (this isn't entirely true, there would be a slight gain but not much).
If you simply need living area for the sake of fitting people sky scrappers are a far more viable method. They suffer some of the height issues, being more expensive to make and requiring more immanence, but you fit people on multiple floors so you gain significantly more living space per square foot of land then your floating city provides, and it's inclosed and protected from elements and generally safer and easier then a floating city.
There is also politics issues. No one will want you to float over them because its does significant harm to them. How do you get people to agree to allow you to steal their light? How do you keep the government from ordering your city being downed? or worse from people declaring you an invading alien nation and unleashing war against you to save their most precious of natural resources, light. and yes light is that precious, it's the source of *all* other energy in the world, directly or indirectly, and must be preserved to survive.
[Answer]
This is based on Ratchet Freak's comment about gas air bags. I decided to do the math on that.
Taking some info from the answer in another question, I estimated the rough weight of a large city as 1 billion tons, or 2 trillion lbs.
Helium lift is [roughly](http://www.airships.net/helium-hydrogen-airships) 60 lbs/1,000 cubit feet. Therefore to lift our city we need approximately:
33,333,333,333,333.3 cubit feet of helium, or 247.2 cubic miles.
Now obviously that's a lot of helium. But if our city is circular, with a radius of 15 miles, then it's area is 706.86 square miles. So if the entire city had helium bags over it a third of a mile tall, that lift would almost cancel out the weight of the city.
Alternatively, a circular ball of helium above the city with a radius of just under 4 miles would also do the trick, and might allow more sunlight.
As to realism, the first big problem is that the amount of helium we need is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than the total helium left on Earth. Maybe if you have a convenient, close by gas giant you could mine it in huge quantities and set up your floating cities with this method, but I'm not sure how much that will really help. Probably still much easier to just build in space.
[Answer]
Now that you've found the secret, floating, magic stone to build your floating foundation with, let's see what comes next.
## TL;DR
A circle of 28km diameter can fit your nice, *compact* urban and rural development, if you plan well.
**Height** - You probably don't want to go much higher than about 4km, as you start getting near the altitude of Everest Base Camp. This makes for a cold, windy city, and your annual Floatopolis Marathon event is going to be a tough one.
**Buildings** - Let's put a defensive ring of your tallest buildings around the exterior of the city, and inverse of most [radial cities](https://www.google.com/search?q=radial%20city&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8) (like Brisbane, etc.). It will help, a very little bit, and offer nice real estate (think of the views). Centralize the one-off facilities (universities, sports arena, etc.), but distribute the others (healthcare, education, etc.).
**Utilities** - Consider a very (magical) long pipeway to bring utilities to the city, and a place to dispose stormwater, sewerage and trash. Although, London is [aiming for zero waste to landfill](http://legacy.london.gov.uk/mayor/environment/waste/docs/vision-jan2010.pdf) by 2030. Power generation would be great from wind under and over (and through?) your city. Rainwater and air moisture can be captured and stored in cisterns. For all utilities, you will need lots and lots of recycling and clever thought.
**Food** - This is tough. You'll need vertical gardens, rooftop gardens, neighborhood gardens and tight groves for fruit. Greenhouses help if it's really cold up there. Urban chickens and small animals can help, but keep your industrial agriculture down-wind for sure.
**Location** - Since you can hover your city, you can place it anywhere that helps with the issue of temperatures and storms (climate). You may also consider having it follow the sun. Sunny and (relatively) warm all day and night.
**Transport** - You can save costs by not having motorized vehicles - except service vehicles - and compact urban development. For longer distance travel, I can hop on the Tube and get there in minutes: mind the gap!
**Other Services** - A city the size of London has major in-out services. I don't have source, but I imagine it to be *tremendous*. You will have to explain how in-house production and manufacturing prevents having hundreds of freight planes landing every hour.
**Community Facilities: Education** - Each government today has standards for Education, Health, and sometimes religious facilities. As an Urban Planner, I would suggest your 7 million people should have 1.4 million school-age population, so a thousand (large) schools. Try [vertical schools](https://www.google.com/search?q=vertical%20school%20design&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8). One major university can serve nicely.
**Community Facilities: Healthcare** - Again, just one urban planner's experience here, I recommend 7 hospitals (1:1million), and 230 clinics, which those can be inside/under residential or other buildings (or underground), but the hospitals have radioactive uses and waste, so keep them standalone.
**Parks & Recreation** - These may have to be rooftop for outdoor uses, but you can also easily house gyms, etc. in buildings. Build a lovely stadium for the Floatopolis Herons and for performance multi-use spaces.
**Residential & Commercial** - You'll need 2.8m residential units of various size totalling 420bn square meters, but stacked. Double that in office, and half that in retail Gross Floor Area. With compact urban development, total developed and undeveloped (parks/streets/etc.) urban GFA of 45,000,000m2 (that's your urban footprint) will work [source: I worked on a (much smaller), standalone urban development for a city of 100,000 people in the middle east, and used similar ratios]. Now add your farms and industry, so let's double your island's need to 90 million m2 footprint. If it is a square, lets go 10k x 9k, if it's a circle, the diameter is 28km or so.
**Bonus** - Dome your city, like the [Houston](http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/mega-engineering-saving-houston-with-a-dome/) idea.
[Answer]
Floating cities would only be cost-effective on planets with a much denser atmosphere than Earth, where your city could be of neutral buoyancy, using earth standard air as a lifting gas. An unstable surface would make this a more realistic possibility, and indeed this has been seriously considered by NASA for human colonies on [Venus](http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/nasa-study-proposes-airships-cloud-cities-for-venus-exploration)
[Answer]
I once saw a collection by Gary Larson (author of The Far Side) where he commented on the complaints he got about a particular cartoon: it depicted one mosquito wearing a dress and washing dishes in the kitchen, and another in a fedora and carrying a briefcase coming home and complaining about a long, hard day sucking blood. He got lots of letters complaining that it's the female mosquitos that suck blood, not the males. This amused him, because no one complained about mosquitos wearing clothing, living in houses, washing dishes, or carrying briefcases.
The point of that anecdote is: people have a very large capacity to suspend disbelief when you are consistent. Whatever handwavium technology or substance that you use to keep your city aloft will be far more believable if it's woven into the fabric of your society and world. How was it discovered/developed? Who prospered because of this, and who suffered (for instance, producers of now-obsolete technologies that were being displaced)? What mundane, everyday uses is this handwavium being put to throughout your world?
If it's fleshed out like this, rather than just being the-way-the-city-stays-up-don't-look-too-closely, then it's part of the basic premise of the story. Still not hard science, but even hard science fiction can let you get away with an implausible premise, as long as you've thought through the implications of what it means.
[Answer]
I think it's entirely practical if you're willing to change the premise slightly and make some assumptions about future technology.
Cities aren't built to house people, they're built for commerce. Historically this means building at a crossroads of some sort (a harbor, a trade route intersection, etc). If you want a reason to build a city in the sky, you need some commerce going skyward.
So, you don't hover the city, you hang it. It's the earth-side anchor for a cluster of space elevators going to a station in mid-level orbit. With a space industry of any decent size, the city becomes the most active transit hub on the planet. With that much money moving through the city, all of the other problems are solvable.
The big assumption here is that you need a material strong enough to build a space elevator. If you can explain that away, the rest is easy.
[Answer]
Apropos practicality, we should perhaps first consider the (now lost, alas!) work by the mad poet Navarth, "Castles in the Clouds and the Anxieties of Those Who Live Directly Below by Reason of Falling Objects and Wastes" :-)
The only way I can think to make a floating-in-air city actually float requires antigravity, and some handwaving. That is, your antigravity machine respects potential energy: put in the energy needed to lift an object to a certain height, and it stays at that height with no further expenditure of energy, exactly as if it was on solid ground.
Even if you can make a city float, you still have all the practical problems of food & water supply and waste disposal that a land-based city would have. Growing sufficient food requires a MUCH larger area than the actual city, as does capturing sufficient water. They're certainly not unsolveable: as a real-world example consider Las Vegas, which has to ship in basically all of its food and water from some distance away. It would seem, though, that it would be much more practical to address overpopulation by other means - e.g. contraceptives added to the water supplies of existing cities.
Really, the only reason I could see for such floating habitations wouldn't be as a disposal site for surplus population, but as luxury residences for the wealthy - quite literally castles in the clouds.
[Answer]
Buckminster Fuller calculated a large enough [geodesic dome](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#The_geodesic_dome) (or ball) could float as a hot air balloon due to the hot air trapped inside from solar heating, for kilometre diameter scales the carrying capacity can be quite significant.
Maybe tie a couple of those together?
[Answer]
If you have a material which has a super-super-super-high strength to weight ratio, then you can take a 'space elevator' or 'skyhook' approach:
1. Put a satellite into geostationary orbit
2. Spool out a cable of ultra-strong material from the satellite in each direction (one cable towards the Earth and one cable away from it).
3. Fix your city to the bottom of the cable, and fix your counterweight to the top of the cable.
Simple! As a bonus you can run elevators up and down the cable to get easy access to space.
NB:
* Floating city will need to be on the equator.
* Beware of the cable snapping (uncontrolled descent of up to 35,786 km of super-strong cable = not very good for the Earth's crust).
[Answer]
A bit like I mentioned in my answer on your other question, many power sources just add lots of weight to your city and produce little energy in comparison to the amount require to suspend a big city.
For every extra power source you add, you add weight, so you need more energy to support the weight, so you need more power sources..... it is vicious circle.
There is balance to be struck and it lies in the realms where you produce lots and lots of power. Perhaps best method would be by matter convertion.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed**. This question is [opinion-based](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
**Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by [editing this post](/posts/128373/edit).
Closed 5 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/128373/edit)
In many stories, there are precursor artifacts that often have miraculous powers. Often, those artifacts are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. But, looking at our own technology, most of our devices wouldn't last more than a few decades. Even those designed to last, have lifetimes of no more than a hundred years. And often, designing super-durable devices would be quite expensive. Also, many of our devices require existing infrastructure to work, like electricity, internet or satellites.
The question is, **why would technologically advanced precursors create devices that can last for millennia and can work without any infrastructure?**
Some points to make:
* The precursors are highly technologically advanced. Nanotechnology, AI, biotechnology, nuclear fusion, antimatter, all of that is child's play for them.
* The devices are "inactive" while not in use. That disqualifies any self-repairing and self-maintaining devices.
* The precursors have the same mentality as us regarding the obsolescence of devices. Things like their "smartphones" are not meant to last more than few years, as they are quickly replaced by newer models.
* The devices can be used on their own. No need for electricity or any other infrastructure.
[Answer]
4 contributing factors could be: Lifespan, Economics, Hardware Limitations, and Operational Purpose. I'll step through each in turn
## Lifespan
If your Precursor race have a typical lifespan of around 1,000 of our years, then a 2 year working lifespan for a device is, proportionally, like having to replace your phone every 2 and a half months. Of course, making the materials durable enough to last 20 years may mean it's hard to make them flimsy enough to *also* fail within 30 years...
## Economic
One of the Driving Forces behind today's replaceable upgrade-focussed society ("Buy it, break it, buy a new/better one") is Economics - the companies that make the devices want to be able to sell you a new one, *as soon as possible*. This is basic Capitalism, and there are examples throughout history of Why.
For example: Are you familiar with the adage/claim that white goods in the 50s would last for 50 years, but in the 90s they only lasted 10? Well, it's true - in the early days, when no one had a fridge, or a washing machine, or a vacuum cleaner, companies sold them in droves. Then they hit **market saturation**, where everyone had everything, and no one was buying any more. So, they went back to the drawing board, and make the new devices cheaper, and less resilient - they want everything to have a lifespan of 5-10 years, so that one year you need to buy a new dishwasher, the next a tumble-dryer, then a fridge, washing machine, freezer, etc. More money for them every year.
If your precursors are a post-scarcity society, they may have completely different economics - or, they may be expanding fast enough that the market is **growing** faster than it can reach **saturation**. This would mean that there was less incentive to make devices that needed replacing regularly, and more incentive to be the "reliable" brand that everyone buys because you only need to do so once.
## Hardware Limitations
Are you familiar with [Moore's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law)? It (roughly) states "The number of Transistors in an Integrated Circuit doubles approximately every 2 years". This has 2 consequences: Electronic devices of a certain computing power can keep shrinking, and Electronic devices of a certain size can keep getting more computationally powerful.
This is an "observational law" - a pattern that is seen, rather than a way the Universe is set up - and the pattern wavers (sometimes it more-than-doubles, sometimes less) but it about evens out. **However**, every so often there is worry that the law will "break" - components that get too small are more strongly influenced by laws of physics that are "drowned out" in larger components, the cost of researching new technology gets more expensive as the "easy" discoveries are tapped out, et cetera.
Usually, we discover some new trick or manufacturing method or metamaterial that allows us to keep going, but eventually we *won't*. Wires need to be at least an atom thick for current to flow, with insulation to prevent short-circuits, and so on. If your Precursors have hit their limit, then their technology will reach a stage where obsolescence is a waste, and is dropped.
## Operational Purpose
Obsolescence is, at a basic level, a Consumer thing. If you look at a the goods and devices you find on the High Street, they are designed to be used, and then replaced. But! What if we look elsewhere?
Scientific and Military equipment is generally designed to be *rugged* and to *last a long time*. This is because you don't want it to break when you are in the middle of Research or an Operation - and **especially** if you are in inhospitable conditions miles from Civilisation such as an Undersea Laboratory, Volcanic Caldera, Artic Tundra, or a Vast Desert. A lot of this equipment (especially on the Scientific side) is designed to operate for a long time, without regular maintenance - so it needs a decent Power Source.
You also get emergency "Survival Gear". Nothing pretty, but enough to keep you alive or to call for help when something goes wrong. Possibly spare parts to jury-rig a damaged ship/shuttle. This might even be stored in an outpost for anyone stranded on the planet - like a high-tech [Bothy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothy). This is ***not*** a situation where you want the gear to have run out of power in the Hundred years or so since anyone last passed by! The technology would be basic, and simple to use. The Precursors may even have sent out automated "seed ships" to build shelters on barely-habitable planets that they have never actually visited, as a "Safety Net" for Explorers and Travellers, like a "Hyperlane-side Assistance" scheme.
(This last point could be compared to an Abacus-using society discovering a cache of [mechanical calculators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_calculator) stored for in case our Computers fail, and undergoing a technological revolution based on that - all without realising quite *how far* ahead of that we **really** are)
**Edit for the "Planned Obsolescence" naysayers:** Apple and Samsung have, just this week, been handed fines of €10m and €5m for writing and deploying "software updates" *specifically* designed to reduce performance of their older phone models as a form of planned obsolescence. In Apple's case, this included reducing Battery lifespan, hence the higher fine.
[Answer]
# Saying hello
They do it in order to be remembered. It is thrilling to think that somebody will discover your message in a distant future. You don’t know this person, and this person doesn’t know you. Yet you managed to send him a message, and perhaps a gift if this person can use the technology you sent. You managed to **send a gift through time**.
Look at humans, they like to send message to unknown recipients:
* [Messages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_in_a_bottle) in a bottle
* [Messages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record) on the Voyager probes. See content [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_Voyager_Golden_Record).
* [Messages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque) on the Pioneer probes
* [Balloon release](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_release)
And humans are also trying to send message to the future. [**Time capsule**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule) is the best known way to do it. The [crypt of Civilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypt_of_Civilization) is an interesting example using technology. If you google for it, you will find examples of both time capsule being created recently, or old ones being founds. For instance:
* [This article](http://www.tribtoday.com/news/community-news/2018/10/bristol-students-create-time-capsule/) from today is about students creating a time capsule
* [This](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-34054847) is about a time capsule found in Scotland from around 1890
* [This](http://www.lagruyere.ch/2012/06/un-brocois-d%C3%A9couvre-un-dr%C3%B4le-de-tr%C3%A9sor.html) is about a time capsule found hidden in a clock in a tower. The text reads “Have a glass of wine in memory of us”. This shows that it is not always very serious, but also just something to say hello to the future.
So I think the best explanation for the artefact from precursors is: because [they could](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/78342/million-year-time-capsule), and because they also felt **thrilled** by the idea of a part of themselves travelling through time.
**Time** is something that probably all sentient species will notice the same as we do. Every sentient being will somehow wonder what the future will be like. Every sentient being will know that at some point it will die, so leaving a message for the future is probably something that is not so strange.
[Answer]
**A means to jump start civilization again**
Wars which wipe out entire groups happen frequently, even on Earth where the ability to end millions of lives and destroy cities only recently went from days/weeks to a matter of seconds.
If your society knows that (near) extinction is a possibility, it will want to give a boot strap to the future generations to get them advancing faster. Artifacts may have powers/information which help prevent the society from repeating its mistakes. They may also have the means to help defend the society against outside attackers or even to take the offensive again at an earlier stage if both past civilizations fought to (near) mutual destruction.
Making this technology simplistic and robust are necessities for this to happen. Normally, it isn't economically feasible to, even accidentally, make technology which lasts millennium for most purposes. The above would be a reason why the large amount of resources may be spent in pursuing this endeavor.
[Answer]
The most eficient driver for innovation was more often than not lazyness.
>
> Nanotechnology, AI, biotechnology, nuclear fusion, antimatter, all of that is child's play for them.
>
>
>
Look at our current society: intellectual professions like engineering, scientific research and software development are highly valued while laboring professions like sanitation, construction work and maintennance are not. Currently we don't have the technology to replace humans in those less valued areas, but your precursors did.
* Need to construct an intricate building to display your intellectual superiosity? Build automatic construction robots for that.
* The raw materials for the building need to be harvested and transported? Build automatic harvest robots.
* The robots break down and need maintennance? Well, you get the idea.
And because you are too lazy to manually instruct a maintenance robot to start working on a damaged construction robot, you let then work away autonomously for all eternity.
At some point these robots will change to stand-by mode, because their task is fulfilled for the moment. All buildings are constructed and in perfect shape. Since construction is finished, no more resources are needed. Since no resources are harvested, no more maintenance is required. To the unassuming adventurer it seems like all these robots are lying around broken, until one of them accidently damages a robot and the fleet of maintenance drones gets activated...
[Answer]
**Prototype**
Maybe some of those artifacts that survived were just prototypes? Those are not necessarily meant to be sturdier, but then again it does not need to be the top-of-the-line specs. If you just want a proof of concept, you build it with what's available around you at the moment - and that could lead to some sturdy casing (since that is was *available at the moment*). You may need to charge the battery before you could try and use that, though...
**Museum exhibition piece**
Usually, even if those are the typical gadgets you'll carry around in your pocket, the people that put them on the exhibition want them to work for a long, long time without a hitch. When one goes to any of the museum of technic, there are gadgets in there that have their own power supplies, and are made to last slightly longer than your typical everyday machine. Because that's what the museums are for, right?
[Answer]
Statistical fluke:
Why do ancient buildings still stand?
Why do ancient ship wrecks with intact goods get found?
Why do fossils exist from millions of years ago?
Mostly statistical anomalies.
Either they were buried in special circumstance - tar pits, volcanic flows, anoxic deep water / whatever.
While almost all our cities and buildings will be dust in a million years there is likely going to be something, somewhere that you would expect to be just another stain of calcium carbonate in the soil which is surprisingly intact.
Maybe it was submerged as a dam filled and survived as it was silted over.
Maybe it was buried Pompeii style.
Maybe it has been floating in cold inert space for a couple thousand years.
Once you build a few billion of the things something is bound to get though by nothing other than statistical fluke. (The key is usually to get rid of oxygen and weathering effects.)
[Answer]
One assumption which seems odd to me is that the Precursors will uniformly have the same attitude about obsolescence as modern humans - ignoring that modern humans don't have uniform attitudes about obsolescence.
One of the axioms of the question seems to be that Precursor technology is arbitrarily advanced, so what humans find stashed here and there isn't the peak of Precursor technology, it's the product of a few quirky craftspeople.
The aren't in it for the money, so planned obsolescence isn't a feature, it's an insult to the expression of the craft they'd been honing over their near-millennial lifespan. They're in it for the satisfaction of building something that's good and solid and represents their skill.
That's powerful motivation. And coupled with the post-scarcity that arbitrarily advanced technology implies, they could sink enormous amounts of time, energy, and materials into these projects.
[Answer]
**Clumsiness...**
Yes it sounds ridiculous... but think about it, (using our current world as an example) until the latest generation of smartphones, the big advert was "crafted out of a single piece of solid aircraft grade aluminium". They want you to believe these products will last. At least until the current grade of phones which very intelligently have glass on the front and back just to make sure it'll break when dropped and a new one will need to be paid for.
But if the Precursors were a very advanced but physically weak race then they might be more inclined to drop something, the more likely it is to be dropped the sturdier it gets built. So this is very possible a way around what you want.
**However**
Looking at our modern world again... the more advanced something is, the smaller the components have to be, and therefore the shorter its lifespan. In egyptian times they "wrote" on the walls... or stone tablets and for higher class people, on papyrus scrolls... And built massive structures out of stone, they had metal but it was very very expensive.
Those scrolls haven't survived, but the stone has, the more basic it is the longer it will survive, but again, if it is not valued, like a lot of modern technology, then it will not last.
Then a few hundred years ago we were still occasionally writing on walls, but this time it was with paint instead of a chisel. And of course writing on paper as well. Most of that paper probably hasn't survived unless someone valued it, and kept it dry and safe. And those paintings on walls, again if they were not valued by someone, then got painted over, or the paint began to fade and wasn't repainted.
**It MUST be valued by someone to survive**
If your Precursors are indeed similar to how modern humans are, and by that I mean Western Society, City Dwelling Humans, then its very very unlikely anything will survive long term.
[Answer]
**They have the long view. They are planting trees.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rzgBd.jpg)
<https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/648894/Greatest-collection-ancient-oak-trees-Europe-found-Britain-blenheim-palace>
If you wonder how someone could pick up a 500 year old walkie talkie and use it, you are right to wonder. But although awesome, it is not weird that a group could plant trees, understanding that the trees would last and be useful for centuries. A man can plant a tree knowing that he personally will not live long enough to see the tree bear fruit.
<https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-oxford>
>
> They called in the College Forester, who of course had not been near
> the college itself for some years, and asked him if there were any
> oaks for possible use.
>
>
> He pulled his forelock and said, “Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when
> you’d be askin’.”
>
>
> Upon further inquiry it was discovered that when the College was
> founded, a grove of oaks had been planted to replace the beams in the
> dining hall when they became beetly, because oak beams always become
> beetly in the end. This plan had been passed down from one Forester to
> the next for over five hundred years saying “You don’t cut them oaks.
> Them’s for the College Hall.”
>
>
>
If you want made things that can last 1000 years, have them be alive. Your precursors are masters of tech. Their deathless devices sustain themselves, seeking the minimal resources to repair, maintain and persist over the ages. Of course if they re-enter use they might need more fuel or food or what have you, but it is not science fiction that a biological entity can last for centuries.
Having the devices of the precursors be alive also opens narrative potential. You could have them be like plants. Or like friendly dogs or horses, happy to see someone interested in them after so long. Or depending on the tone of your work, they could be something worse. From The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft. <http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cdw.aspx>
>
> Then he whispered, in accents doubly terrible because of the cracked
> voice he used, “Damn ’em, they do eat, but they don’t need to! That’s
> the rare part! A month, you say, without food? Lud, Sir, you be
> modest! D’ye know, that was the joke on poor old Whipple with his
> virtuous bluster! Kill everything off, would he? Why, damme, he was
> half-deaf with the noise from Outside and never saw or heard aught
> from the wells! He never dreamed they were there at all! Devil take
> ye, those cursed things have been howling down there ever since Curwen
> was done for a hundred and fifty-seven years gone!”
>
>
>
Maybe after a very long time some of these devices start to change and mutate. A device might still function, but in a manner different from what the precursors intended at its long ago creation.
[Answer]
**Technological maturity**
An ancient technological civilization would probably have gotten more time with modernity than we have, so far.
Consumer goods that are closer to the technological edge of what a society can make tend to be delicate, because the technology to make them is still under development, and the drive is for functionality, not longevity.
You could pay for a super-durable 2010-era-tech 2G cellphone in 2018, but you wouldn't, because it would be too big, cost the same, and not work as well.
Cell phones made in 2018 have batteries, screens, and CPUs that could not have been made by humans in 2010. Those technologies will probably have failures that no one foresaw. The demands made on those components are responding to demands other than longevity. As they age, their failures will inform new designs.
In 200 years, after Moore's law winds down, and battery technology reaches some limits, cell phones will probably last a lot longer.
We're actually making great strides toward longevity-- when was the last time your car broke down?
[Answer]
**Post-Scarcity**
While other answers have dealt with concerns such as obsolescence, I suggest that they have ignored the effects of being part of a post-scarcity economy. Post-scarcity is the name given to the (presumed) economy which results when semi-autonomous, automated production has essentially reduced the price of most goods to zero.
This could, obviously, result in fads and styles sweeping through the society at a breakneck pace. On the other hand, it could cause the society to step back and take a longer view of things. In the latter case, a fondness for elegance and durability might emerge. Making something which will last forever might be very expensive, but the cost of production amortized over eons will be very low.
[Answer]
**Because it's necessary that they do.**
We are hitting this issue already, Nuclear Waste repositories are a unique challenge for our civilisation.
Here is thousands and thousands of litres of intensely radioactive material buried in perpetuity.
The half lives involved require tens of thousands of years before it will be safe enough to go near.
It must not be disturbed, ever.
How do we keep people away for 10,000 years?
How do we communicate the danger without inviting adventurous explorers to come die horrible deaths?
We struggle to understand the messages written by people half that many years ago and we have the full weight of our technology and experience behind us. What chance does some lone explorer have?
Creating a message that stays usable for longer than any civilisation, culture or religion we've ever known is a staggering prospect.
There are a lot of schools of thought, but most of them revolve around leaving something lasting as a marker, embedding the knowledge into local folklore and culture..
It has to be self-correcting, it has to adapt to communicate with anyone who stumbles across it. It must stand sentinel for millennia or live with a town around it and *still* get its message across reliably.
The maintenance of the vault, its protection and stewardship, deterrence of visitors who opt to ignore the warnings.
Your precursors may not be working with radioactives, but who knows what they made? What horrors must be kept secluded?
For such a technologically powerful civilisation, your Precursors may well opt for a technological solution to these tasks, and for that, they need to make something lasting.
References:
\* [The Human Interference Task Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force)
\* [This is not a place of Honor](https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/)
[Answer]
The precursor had a different biorhythm. They lived longer and slower than we do. Like turtles. As such their "lifetime-warranty" was usually geared to ~1000 Years and their technology development thus put greater emphasis on longevity.
Add to that, they did some sub-FTL space-travel in the later stages of their civilization where they would be in cryo-sleep. When they returned after years of travel they would want their stuff to work as they left it.
---
*Remark on the Side: Our mentality relating to obsolescence has only recently changed, with the industrial revolution and the need for growth in our capitalistic economy. In most of Human history people would generally prefer things that would last as long as possible.*
[Answer]
Consider which of the devices we might create now might be considered magical to historical humans, and push the historical humans far enough back in time that the technology gap between us and them corresponds to the tech gap you want between the story humans and the Precursors.
If the technology gap is large enough, then virtually *anything* we might produce nowadays might be a magical artefact to our former selves, and plenty of the items we produce now have, deliberately or accidentally, extremely long lifespans. To an Age of Sail mariner used to replacing parts of their ship on a near-constant basis, *every part* of a modern fiberglass boat with stainless steel rigging would be magically corrosion-resistant. To a Roman engineer any modern buildings built with concrete rebar are magically superior structures to anything they could have achieved; to a cave man the very idea of concrete or even worked and quarried stone is magical. And to an ancient Egyptian potter, a plastic coffee cup is very definitely a magical drinking vessel.
The real question is actually not "why are there magical artefacts left over from the precursors", but "why *aren't* there *loads* of magical artefacts", being basically the 'detritus' of the precursor species. You could invoke lots of different in-universe reasons for this, from the Precursors making a concerted but not-entirely-complete effort to clean up the rubbish of their whole civilisation before vanishing, to a small group of Precursors (and their technology) becoming separated from the main civilisation in order to abandon a modest amount of technology.
[Answer]
The simple answer? **They wouldn't.** Or at least their average devices wouldn't. Our most cutting edge technology with smartphones today barely lasts two years *because it makes money* when people have to re-buy new technology every two years.
The same thing will likely happen in the future. Even if they *could* create an amazing device that would last 1,000's of years and be self-sufficient, they'd be putting themselves out of business by doing it! And if any one company started making advances in the tech and selling it, well it'd be in everyone else's best interest to shut them down quick, wouldn't it. It'd be like when [oil companies actively bought out and recalled electric cars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F) to keep themselves at the top of the foodchain.
So where do these crazy durable devices come from? **They're homegrown.** No company would mass-produce them since they'd put themselves out of business and if anyone tried to mass-produce, the other companies would find a way to shut them down. So these devices are created by hobbyists or people worried that the world is going to end. They have a whole underground group with monthly meetings to work on their durable projects so that when the end comes and they have no more infrastructure, they'll be ready with weapons and tools that won't rely on anything except their users.
This would also explain why these devices are so rare and each is so unique, if that's what your plot calls for.
[Answer]
## This was the norm in the Soviet Union
For example, consider medical syringes. In the West, syringes were made of plastic, used once, and disposed. Syringes in the Soviet Union were made of glass. After each use, they were washed, re-sterilized, and reused.
There are many other examples of the Soviets using durable technology, when the West was using disposable technology or planned obsolescence.
So what you need is a centralized economy, where certain applications (e.g. military) are given higher priority than other applications (e.g. consumer electronics). Some low-priority applications will still be considered essential (e.g. medical equipment), so there will be a drive to make that technology as durable as possible. Compared to something designed to become obsolete, durable technologies use less design time, manufacturing time, and materials, which can be shifted to higher priorities. The durable products still need maintenance, but if semi-skilled labor is cheap (especially compared to the cost of manufacturing), that's not a problem.
] |
[Question]
[
Prior to the point in my story when the nature of the looming apocalypse becomes known, my main character acquires a large (6-foot) air-tight freezer chest, puts it (unplugged) in his basement, fills it with treasures, then pumps it full of nitrogen gas and padlocks it shut. Later in the story, he passes the key and location on to his children. My intension is that the children will re-equip themselves from this treasure chest during the sequel.
The treasures include a rifle with ammo, several handguns with ammo, knives & whetting stones, camping supplies, various chemistry/engineering/architectural text-books, local maps, and fruit/vegetable seeds. My main character is not very wealthy, so this cache can only contain items that can be acquired by an average current-day American.
My question is... **What else should he put in the chest?**
What every day available items would have extraordinary value in a post-apocalyptic world, regardless of the nature of the cataclysm which destroyed civilization?
---- Edit ----
The creator of the treasure chest has no idea when or if it will ever be opened, so anything perishable (unfortunately including medications) will not be included. No parent wants to give their child a worthless/expired gift.
As it turns out, in this particular story, the chest will be opened after about five years. It is mainly a tool for connecting the two stories together, allowing me to recap the previous events in the early pages of the sequel.
[Answer]
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned reloading dies and materials. Spent brass casings from firearms can be collected and re-used anywhere from a few times (high-pressure cartridges like 9mm, .223 Remington/5.56 NATO .300 Winchester Magnum) to hundreds of times or more (lower pressure rounds like .30-06, .45 ACP, and .38 special).
A reloading press is is comparable in size to a bicycle pump and uses easily interchangeable dies for each caliber, and the components for reloading take up far less space than fully assembled cartridges.
Projectiles can be cast in bullet molds, using melted lead and antimony from wheel-balancing weights and other sources. Rifle and pistol primers typically come in packs of 1000, in a space about the size of a stick of butter, and a jug of powder the size of a quart of milk will reload anywhere from 500-1000 rounds of ammo.
A few things you can play with if your characters reload their own ammo:
* Being able to reload spent casings lets you create your own load recipes. Characters can carry hot magnum loads for hunting mutant elk and stealthy subsonic rounds for close range encounters where the sound of gunfire could attract unwanted attention.
* Swapping powders can be dangerous! I've heard at least one story of sabotage from the Vietnam War, where US operatives would find Vietcong ammo caches, pull the bullets from the rifle rounds, and replace the slower-burning rifle powder with a hefty dose of fast-burning pistol powder, before replacing the bullet. When the round was later fired, the round would detonate violently and destroy the rifle in the user's hands rather than send a projectile downrange.
* Your characters can pick up spent casings from the field and re-pack them as a trade-able good. If ammo is valuable as currency, a reloading press is like a mint!
* Larger rifle casings could be used as waterproof containers for any manner of tiny things. Do your characters need to deliver secret information? Write it on a scrap of paper and roll it up inside a rifle round! They could even "fire" the round, using the primer's ignition to destroy the information to keep it from getting into enemy hands.
[Answer]
## No or few consumables
Basically food, drink, booze, etc. provide no real long-term advantage. The few items I can think of that would violate this principal would be multivitamins and/or commonly needed drugs (e.g. antibiotics & pain killers).
## Information
Engineering, chemistry, physics texts are nice but the protagonists problems will be more mundane than the theory discussed in those texts. For instance, engineering texts will often discuss alloys and grades of steel for use in different structure. How in the heck are the survivors going to know what steel alloys and grade of alloy they have access to?
So field guides would be more practical for acquiring and manufacturing the basic materials. For instance, instead of providing lots of bullets (still a good idea, btw), instructions for finding and refining lead, potassium nitrate, etc. would be even better. Additional instructions on how to make gun cotton will be beneficial too.
Nutrition is another area in which information would be very valuable. Provide hardy heritage seeds and instructions for growing the plants, harvesting them, and preserving the very important seeds. Additional field guides on how to find food in wilderness areas would be beneficial.
[The Rosetta Project](http://rosettaproject.org/) has >13,000 pages of information on the world's languages.
Rosetta Project Disk
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uIOp3.png)
>
> The Rosetta Disk fits in the palm of your hand, yet it contains over
> 13,000 pages of information on over 1,500 human languages. The pages
> are microscopically etched and then electroformed in solid nickel, a
> process that raises the text very slightly - about 100 nanometers -
> off of the surface of the disk. Each page is only 400 microns across -
> about the width of 5 human hairs - and can be read through a
> microscope at 650X as clearly as you would from print in a book.
> Individual pages are visible at a much lower magnification of 100X.
> The outer ring of text reads "Languages of the World" in eight major
> world languages.
>
>
>
It turns out the Rosetta Project just archives languages, however, a similar effort should be made for recording and possibly rescuing civilization too. The technology it uses (analog data storage) should be used to record a critical set of information designed to help "soften the landing" of a civilization collapse.
Some people are looking into this at the [Survivor Library](http://www.survivorlibrary.com/) and elsewhere.
## Long-term investments/treasures
Instructions for redeveloping the technological base in many areas will help. [There's a group trying to figure out what the minimum set of equipment machinery might be needed to colonize a planet would be](https://www.academia.edu/16745374/Autonomous_Space_Colony_Construction).
This group would benefit from the brain power involved in developing that list. Both identifying the most important pieces of equipment to make in redeveloping a technological society but also the instructions for how they might be made.
[The Global Village Construction Set](http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/) is a set of 50 interlinked pieces of industrial equipment that should allow a small civilization to live with modern comforts (and bootstrap to a larger civilization).
>
> The GVCS in itself consists of many other Construction Sets – as we
> build not individual machines, but construction sets of machines. As
> an example, the Fabrication Construction Set component can be used to
> build any of the other machines. Our goal is lifetime design, and low
> maintenance so only a few hours of maintenance per year are required
> to keep any machine alive.
>
>
> ...
>
>
> We have achieved a landmark One Day production time of the Compressed
> Earth Brick Press in 2012, and we intend to bring down the production
> time down to 1 day for each of the other machines.
>
>
>
The Global Village Construction Set (a work in progress)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OcTb5.jpg)
## Some type of 3d printer
Current 3d printer technologies typically restrict the material types each type of printer can use (e.g. some can do plastics, others can do metals, most can't do materials dissimilar to what they were designed to use). If the benefactor had access to one of the more advanced machines as well as feed stock, this would be a wonderful thing to put into the treasure chest.
This is included in The Global Village Construction Set.
[Answer]
Since much of our technology is based on electrical energy, some sort of electrical generator is a must. Unlike most of the other items, there is less need to put this in the freezer; an alternator and a stationary bicycle can provide some power to charge batteries (such as battery powered tools or a laptop computer). If the issue is safe storage, the alternator and some spare bicycle chains gives you a start, there should be lots of bikes to salvage after the apocalypse.
WRT edged weapons/tools, a hatchet is probably the best compromise, since it can be a utility tool for cutting wood, brush and other light to medium things, and a good close quarter weapon to protect your stash/deal with zombies or whatever other threats you might have.
A compact set of tools including jewellers screwdrivers, an adjustable wrench, adjustable pliers and a saw for cutting wood, and another for cutting metal. Two items you should never forget to pack are WD-40 (for when it doesn't move and you need it to) and duct tape (for when it moves and you don't want it to).
This might be considered cheating, but cover the chest freezer with a good quality tarp, since the tarp itself can be very useful for things like improvised shelter and carrying things.
The SAS survival guide has a "combat survival tin", and various editions of the book have more or less the same basics inside a small waterproof "tin" which fits into a pocket or belt pouch:
Contents and Specs:
Water resistant tin with:
```
- Button compass
- Matches
- Purification tablets
- Candle/Night Light
- Survival instructions
- Whistle
- Safety pins
- Accident eval form
- Vinyl tape
- Cutter
- Pencil
- Snare wire
- Flint & striker
- Fishing kit
- Sewing kit
- NATO Wire saw
```
Wt: 6 oz
Size: 4.5" x 3.3" x 1.2" (approx)
Assemble and store one for for each person (min). It is probably a good idea to give each child one now and have them practice carrying it with them at all times and becoming proficient with the use of them now, rather than trying to learn in a post apocalyptic landscape.
[Answer]
**TL;DR:**
Don't give your kids everything they need, but give them the tools to craft whatever they need! The most value stuff you can give them, is info.
As always: it depends.
* How large is the freezer exactly? I'll assume circa 2 cubic meters.
* Is the treasure meant as start equipment for a settlement, or for a journey? I'll assume first, with some equipment for looting tours.
General definition of what is needed. This has not necessarily to be included in the treasure. I'll try to sort the things, depending on how quickly the lack of these things will affect your survival. It does not mean, that lower stuff in this list, is less essential.
* Food/Water supplies
* Medical treadments
* Fire
* Clothes, depending on the area
* Orientation
* Crafting tools
* Info / how-to guides / ...
* Self defense
In general, dad has to give his kids the ability to craft what they need, instead of giving him the stuff directly.
**Food/Water supplies**
Situation overview:
There is plenty food for, at least, a few days. Depending on the kind of apocalypse (how many people are left?) it might be enough for days, for weeks, for years.
In any case, there is enough food for some days. The fridge isn't big enough to store food for years, so this is no topic.
But is there anything, which doesn't require as much space as actual food, which helps getting food or making stuff save to eat/drink?
What stuff should be inside for this topic:
* Water purification tablets. In general, it's better to filter(@Info) and cook(@Fire) the water, due it doesn't waste tables. But in some situations, cooking is not possible.
* A few cans of some food with really high calories. Pure butter or such. This is meant for really(!) bad days, just to prevent starvation. This should not taste good, to prevent the kids from eating it without really need.
* Bottles aren't needed. There are plenty polyethylene bottles in the world which can be used.
* A small pod for cooking(@Fire).
**Medical treadment**
Situation overview:
Medical threads are various. They cannot be foreknown. But there are some, that are relatively common and which can be prepared.
Problem is: Most medical equipment is one use, like antibiotics. These will be rare in some time and hard to find.
Due this, they will be very expensive in trading. Due they don't need much space, a relatively large stock is a good idea.
Even if their effect lowers over storage time, ineffective antibiotics are better than none at all.
Due their high value, they will also be perfect trading goods if anything is really needed to buy.
What stuff should be inside for this topic:
At least a shoe box full of:
* Antibiotics
* Painkillers which do not affect ones perception (Not opium or such)
* some hollow needle and scalpels
* A few (not much) dressings
* tourniquet
* surgical mask and gloves nd to prevent infection while threading someone who is ill
* Hydrogen peroxide as universal desinfection for wounds, surfaces, hands,...
Dressings should be multi use ones. After use, cook them. A belt can perform as a tourniquet as well, if none is there.
Never throw the gloves away, unless they're broken. Reuse them after desinfection. If you have to desinfect something heat resistant, save the hydrogen peroxid. Better use fire for desinfection then.
Some red poppey seeds to grow own painkillers (opium).
**Fire**
Not much to say here, ugh?
Several lighters, matches and flints don't need a lot of space.
Having 100 lighters in spare is not a problem and should be enough for a livetime, unless the kids smoke, which should barely be possible in this situation.
It's not a problem to craft a cooking place out of scrap, so actually, nothing else is needed.
**Clothing, depending on the area**
Situation overview:
Clothes have several purposes. They keep the kids warm in cold condition, dry in rain, camouflaged if they have to hide or good visible if needet.
Clothes tend to break while in use. It won't be too hard to find replacement.
However, the kids have to be able to repair their broken clothing.
What stuff should be inside for this topic:
* Sewing equipment. This needs nearly no space at all, so put a lot of spare (thick)needles inside.
* Buttons are multi use, however, they can break. Some spare buttons are a good idea.
* Tough yarn. It doesn't have to look fancy, but to hold the stuff together.
**Orientation**
Situation overview:
It's impossible to have everything needed on stock. It will be necessary to go on journeys or maybe to move. However, it will come to a situation, where the own knowledge of the area will not be enough.
Are satellites affected? Hope no, due they're completely independent.
What stuff should be inside for this topic:
* GPS-Devices. No kidding! If the satellites are working, there are no better alternatives for orientation then GPS + map.
* Maps, of course. Several ones. The local area, the region, nearby regions, the state,.. and so on.
* Mark known fruit trees on the maps, your kids will thank you for that info.
**(Crafting)-tools**
Situation overview:
This topic is too obvious to think about everything included.
What will your kids need to craft? Which tools are useful, which are not?
Any tool whit batteries, which is also available without, should be taken in the "no-batteries"-version. For example an electric screwdriver, better give an normal one.
Tools might be needed on looting tours, to open doors, boxes, and so on. So for some tools, there should be a second one which might not be as durable, but lighter.
For each tool, you should ask yourself: Can my kids repair them if they break? Can they craft new ones?
For example: The stick of an axe will brake eventually. But the blade of an axe is one of the toughest tools you can imagine. It's almost impossible to break it, without purpose.
What stuff should be inside for this topic:
* One axe + 2-3 blaces (Without stick, to save space. Sticks can be crafted easily)
* Shovel. Same as with axes, it's hard to break the shovel itself but the stick will break.
* Pickaxe
* Knives, several.
* Grindstone
* Woodsaw
* Metalsaw + spare blades
* Files in several cuts, can be used to craft new tools out of scrap. Files are some of the highest value tools of all due you can use them to craft almost any tool with them.
* Wire. Universal reuse material.
**Self defense**
Situation overview:
People will try to raid your kids.
While some people say a gun + ammo is not a good idea due ammo uses up, I think a gun is a very good idea.
You kids should not use the gun for hunting or raiding, because ammo really uses up. But as self defense tool, a few hundred rounds will be enough.
There is simply nothing else, that can defend you from raiders as good as a gun.
Also, setting up some traps and signs which say "Do not enter, we have guns and use them!" are a good idea.
What stuff should be inside for this topic:
* Some pistols
* Some hundred cartridges
* Axes are already mentioned in tools
* Some wire to set up traps
**Info / How-to guides / ...**
Situation overview:
Well, this is one of the biggest topics of all.
Your kids will have to know how to plant crops, how to craft this or that, how to fish, how to build a shelter, how to repair stuff, ...
Actually everything you can think about can be usefull and it's almost 100% sure that you can not think about everything they will need.
What stuff should be inside for this topic.
How to:
* cultivate plants
* craft tools
* generate electricity to recharge the batteries (GPS)
* craft gunpowder
* build a shelter
* sew
* build traps for animals
...
Can't list it all and as I already wrote, you probably can't think about everything.
Tell your kids, where they can get info. Where are libraries nearby?
And one point which is not be mentioned often enough, in my opinion:
* Elaborate a chiffre. The kids will have to place some reminders for themselves, like the location of stuff they buried. No one else should be able to read these information.
But the most essential part of all:
Tell your kids how to behave!
To be stingy with everything that uses up.
To avoid conflict with other people whenever possible.
Hide stuff at several positions.
Set up honey pots. Dig holes and close them again, without putting something in. People will open some of these stashes and eventually give up and search somewhere else.
Don't trust others, unless you know them for at least several weeks or months.
[Answer]
An axe. Lots of them, actually. I am serious. Axes are essential; one may survive having nothing else but. They are next best thing after a ~~sliced bread~~ fire. All the rest is like a fish instead of fishing pole. Well, handguns may support them for a while. Seeds will most likely perish, unless your character taught kids to farm for last 20 years.
As of books, I don't think they'd matter much. Kids wouldn't care, they have more immediate problems to attend. Lacking the greater cultural and educational context, their next generation just wouldn't understand what they are about.
[Answer]
@Jim2B's answer is awesome so I'm just adding more thoughts. I've mentioned written material a lot and @user58697 is right that a book might not be the first thing someone with a problem picks up. That said, you can end up a lot of time on your hands waiting for the weather to change so in time I think they'll be useful. I'd hunt down low reading age texts and maybe include some children's books. I've got no idea whether it's practical to consider someone teaching themselves to read but at least give them a chance. A freezer chest is a good amount of space so you might as well plan for the long haul.
* I'd skip the handguns, especially if they need different ammo to the rifle. Two identical rifles seems more useful. If you want to shoot someone and they're close enough that a handgun will work and a rifle won't then you're already in trouble. For that matter, a good hunting bow and instructions on making arrows will last you a lot longer and can be easier to hunt with (if you miss the first shot you haven't spooked your prey with the noise). Maybe lots of arrowheads.
* Jim2B's point about field manuals reminds me of a post-apocalyptic story where a medical character had put away instructions for manufacturing his diabetic medicine from a sheep. Don't know if it was true or not but some basic emergency medical information intended for outback / military survival would be useful.
* Include basic instructions with the whet stones.
* Some medical supplies with instructions. Unfortunately what's really useful you probably can't get hold of over the counter and can be dangerous. That said, stuff like serious painkillers is always going to have value to someone and is going to disappear very quickly.
* As well as general medical guides include some short manuals on pregnancy and caring for infants. What are the signs of serious problems, what can you ignore, what do you do about it. It will be tough to find guides written for amateurs but I assume that your character has time to hunt this stuff down.
* A good set of binoculars?
* Guides on what local plants are poisonous and what are edible. If you've got some foresight about how the apocalypse will change foraging behaviour (i.e., wind-borne radiation will make some foraging more harmful than others)
* Instructions on how to skin and gut an animal and why some of the gross-looking bits are good for you. Include details like burying waste so as not to attract predators.
* Hand tools. All of those garages full of power tools aren't going to be any good to you when you want to make something but a hand drill, chisel, handsaw, etc can make the job a lot easier. That depends on whether you'd expect to be able to forage those tools from the surrounding properties (all of this is strongly influenced by the setting of the story).
* A net and some pictures on how to set it in a river. Fish hooks and line (good fishing line can serve many purposes).
* A manual on servicing small motors? I'm thinking outboard motors for boats, motorcycle motors, generators, etc. I know it won't get read in a hurry but when something stops working having a manual you can hardly read is better than no manual.
* I'm trying to work out if high-tech stuff like a GPS and a hand charger is useful or a hindrance. If you don't know how to navigate then a GPS with simple map-based path tracing can make it much easier to get home again. That said, a compass is harder to break and easier to use. On the same note a pair of radios can make it easier to coordinate but only really matter when you need two things to happen at the same time and if you've never seen one before you're most likely not to even know how to turn it on.
[Answer]
I won't try to be exhaustive, just try to highlight some useful things I think have been overlooked.
## Machinery
I'd include the "guts" for one of these: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ol9fb.jpg).
[And here's a video of it in action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHyhdVHzxGs)
Maybe with a picture of the frame. Throw in a couple extra belts. Belt driven machinery has the advantage of being easy to implement with practically any power source that uses a flywheel - from a small engine to water wheel, and probably even nuclear fusion or [zombies on a treadmill](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12807/zombie-perpetual-motion-machines/). Lumber can be traded easily. Watercraft other than rafts, for example, will require lumber of some type. Lumber makes better houses than logs, and is cheaper to produce. These old sawblades can also be hand sharpened many times, much like a chainsaw.
By providing a "template" machine, others could be made along the same principle. Most machines and factories 100 years ago ran on these devices. A couple examples: The blade could be replaced with a whetstone, or even a pair of grindstones for making various flours. Sure, it's not necessary, but after you dig a pit for a manual 2-man crosscut saw and use it for a while, you're going to wish your daddy had given you one of these.
## Hunter-Gatherers
Initially, survivors of a real apocalypse will forage for food stores. Once that runs out, they will be hunter-gatherers, so think of things that give them an edge.
Distance weapons with easily acquired ammunition: I think a compound bow. They can make arrows if the carbon-fiber broadheads get lost.
Provide a game cookbook. Seriously, spices will be available - and knowing how to cook a delicious armadillo will make other people value you more.
Traps and guides as discussed elsewhere would be useful. Maybe throw in a few calls for local wildlife.
## Long term survival
For seeds, I'd suggest looking at what the native crops were in your area. Here (Vermont, USA), it was corn and squash. You know what does well in my garden? Corn and Squash.
**Corn:** Take your favorite GMO variety that's resistant to everything, grows in 2 months, and doesn't need water (or whatever grows well in your area). Make it an heirloom variety by saving the seeds from the parents with the characteristics you want for 7 generations. This process will help you to become intimately familiar with how your variety works, and you'll be able to provide detailed instructions on soil conditions and tips.
**Squash:** This is another place where a cookbook would be handy. 500lbs of zucchini later, you'll want as many recipes as you can find. I wouldn't bother with producing heirloom seeds for these, unless there's a particular blight or bug you need to resist. Sqampkins (squash-pumpkin hybrids) grow just fine on the compost pile. You might even give these a head start by planting a patch in an out-of-the-way area and letting them grow. Mark it on one of your maps.
**Wild fruits:** We have a blueberry mountain up here that has acres of wild blueberries. The only maintenance needed is to burn off the cover every few years. Mark such locations on your map, and plant a few hardy apple trees for good measure.
**Medicine:** Include a good wilderness medicine manual - while mentioned by others, I've read these two, and they're both good (and helpful even before the apocalypse). [1: Wilderness Medicine, Forgey](https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXprAAAAMAAJ), [2: Field Guide to Wilderness Medicine, Auerbach](https://books.google.com/books?id=ARBkgCWqdSEC)
[Answer]
Is this a "stay put and survive" cache or a "walk away and survive" cache? Or a bit of both?
* No firearms. You won't be able to include enough ammo for training to use them in a high-stress situation.
* Perhaps a steel crossbow? Or two?
* Seeds? Including medical marijuana.
* Compression firestarter. Perhaps an old-fashioned lighter that will take alcohol as fuel.
[Answer]
I would **focus on items which will be impossible to manufacture post-apocalypse,** because the industrial infrastructure will be gone. Interestingly, this does not include, for example, a hatchet or a knife; those can be manually manufactured from scrap iron which will be abundant. Also, if the chest is found the kitchen remains are found with it anyway. Knives (at least their blades) will survive being nuked.
Which tools are most valuable? Some **precision tools;** probably a **generator** (to be connected to a windmill built post-apocalypse), possibly some copper wire.
Edit: These days, probably a sturdy foldable camping **solar panel.** No moving parts, minimal maintenance, life time of decades if you can live with performance degradation and nobody breaks or steals it.
A few select items which need power. Which ones? Not sure. Possibly **walky-talkies.** The strategic advantage in a defense (or attack!) situation will be immeasurable. If taken good care of they may last for decades. What fails first are the batteries, but slower when cool and unused -- store replacements. Possibly provide means (lead, acid, acid production means) to produce car style batteries post apocalypse. It may also be wise stocking a few electronic parts (especially capacitors since these fail fastest).
Edit: **Antibiotics** will be invaluable and not only protect you yourself and yours, but also give you power over others (if you keep the stash location secret). Unfortunately most antibiotics have a limited shelf time (some years when kept cool). There doesn't seem to be a consensus out there how difficult it is to grow your own. You can always eat moldy bread and hope for the best, but that may just be your lynch pin if you are very sick already. I'd do test runs and self experiments, possibly with bought lab penicillium cultures. If I found a nice one I'd try to put spores in the stash. They may save lives even generations later.
[Answer]
In addition to some of the very good suggestions here are some overlooked items that would also be of high value in a near post-apocalyptic society:
Iodised salt - useful for bartering, preservation, flavouring, sterilisation, curing, and nutrition.
Sugar, tea and coffee - historically these have been highly desirable items in pre modern western societies (eg colonial America) and would be useful for bartering, flavouring or nutrition.
Anti-diarrhoea medication and worming tablets - diarrhoea is a major killer in third world countries, and worms another major problem.
Birth control pills - would be extremely valuable in a world where pregnancy is suddenly a lot more dangerous or undesirable.
Tampons / pads - not just convenient, but potentially life saving for women, and can substitute as bandages as well.
Sex education literature that is sex-positive and feminist - every teenager needs a proper sex educated! Imagine how much scarier and deranged sexuality is likely to be in a violent post apocalyptic society, A traumatised world is unlikely to spontaneously become a kinder more egalitarian one left to its own.
Books - require no technology to operate and preserve extremely well. Tomes should cover foundational topics including organic gardening and permaculture, bush survival skills, human anatomy, medicine, first aid, cooking basics, some highly valuable crafts (like carpentry, sewing, and leatherwork) general science books, general encyclopaedias, some history books, books on psychology covering trauma, group dynamics, and negotiation, general philosophy and law books.
An atlas and maps - seems self evident.
Some contemporary news magazines or newspapers to preserve the truth of what was happening in the lead up to events for future generations,
Paper, blank journals or notebooks, pencils and stationary including a compass and slide ruler - for note taking, documentation, and problem solving.
Family memorabilia - photos or family heirlooms to provide a sense of continuity and belonging for your children.
And some additional tools to consider - first priority would be a pair of decent steel scissors; a thermometer, Swiss Army Knives, backpacks, shoulder bags, pencil cases (essentialy purses), pins, pedal-powered sewing machine, trowels, tweezers...
[Answer]
An important item no one seems to have mentioned is sturdy backpacks/hiking packs or other bags to carry all this equipment around in.
Books are heavy! But they are useless if they can't be easily carried away - can't guarantee the area around the chest will be safe.
] |
[Question]
[
So in my universe, magic (and especially magical healing) are commonplace, and an applied application of healing magic can heal almost every injury at the cost of some "mana". Any healing magic works by greatly boosting the body's natural ability to heal, requiring the energy in the patient's body to be replenished, usually by consuming massive quantities of food. In general, magic in this world is more of a shortcut to science, rather than a replacement. Things like fireballs are created by adding energy to the ambient air in a specific location and launching it, ice by the opposite, and so on.
Wizards are usually knights, and have all of the duties that become knights. In typical swords and sorcery fashion, there is a significant level of fitness required to be a knight, and mages in this world are not the "wear a robe and cast from afar" type of casters. Rather, they incorporate magic into their combat skills. I love the thought of a combat medic sort of role, with the ability to get troops in battle up and in fighting form within a few minutes of otherwise debilitating injury.
I've run into a snag however, that since the healing accelerates the body's natural healing to otherwise impossible levels and these wizards are generally getting a good workout, that all knights will be bodybuilder-esque people. Since all of the criteria for [muscular hypertrophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_hypertrophy) are met, these wizards will have a MUCH easier time building and maintaining muscle mass.
I would prefer my wizards to come in all shapes and sizes, from being skinny rapier wielding duelists to hulking behemoths wielding massive tower shields. I'm at a loss on how to proceed without making all of my wizards super buff/fit individuals.
Some things I've tried to mitigate the issue that don't quite fit:
* Making healing more targeted: Takes away a lot of the utility of healing, and hidden issues such as lactic acid buildup, muscle tearing, and a general lack of anatomical knowledge for healing.
* Making healing less potent: Doesn't work with the level of balance I'm looking for with my magic. If I can launch a ball of fire at someone to explode, I should be able to heal said damage with a slightly higher mana cost due to lingering damage.
* Making magic heal in a different fashion: I'm staying away from any handwavium of "it heals by magic", so things like HOW magic heals is an important factor. I'm not against having a different method, I just can't think of any other way to heal.
**Why wouldn't all wizards be buff?**
[Answer]
**Easy Target and Food**
It seems from reading your question that a wizard doesn't NEED to look/be super jacked to have superior strength. Sure an average-knight-looking wizard might not be quiiite as strong as a hulked-out one, but he would still be capable of channeling magic to his limbs to give himself a nigh-unbeatable edge over normal folk. In a world where every Battle Wizard could look like Gregor Clegane, there's a few good reasons to look "normal" even if it puts one t a slight disadvantage against Buff Wizards.
My first thought: Food is precious- While they CAN easily sustain massive muscle mass and repair quicker you say it requires a "massive" of food. That's not a simple ask in a medieval world. Depending on the exact period/region, it took anywhere from 8 to 16 "food producers" (farmers, herders, etc) to support ONE person who wasn't farming full-time. Food is scarce, and a wizard that needs to eat like 3 lumberjacks every day to maintain muscle is a massive drain on the society that employs him. Sure, the King ensures his Wizard-Guards have enough food to look and be as imposing as possible. But his Wizard-at-arms that AREN'T part of the Guard are kept at a more reasonable size until/unless an actual war breaks out. And the wizard-knight from poor County X would rather be normal-sized that watch his serfs starve. The wizard on a grail quest knows he can't maintain himself in the wild because he'd have to spend all his time hunting if he stayed as-jacked-as-possible, so he goes for a lean whipcord-look that maximizes endurance at the expense of base strength. Etc. etc. etc. Bottom line is just because it's easy for them to maintain muscle provided they get enough food doesn't mean they'll *actually* have enough food on-hand.
Second thought: Not a visible target- A huge dude that you *know* can also cast fireballs because he's jacked is going to catch a LOT of arrows/javlins/catapult rounds etc. Being average-joe size means your just one of dozens/hundreds/thousands of average dudes.
And lastly, Unexpected Danger- If you don't look like a massive threat, but ARE a massive threat, there are tactical and strategic bonuses. Sure you might not win a fair fight against Jacked McWizardson. But if he thinks you can only swing a sword but so fast/hard, and you surprise him with magically-boosted attacks, the element of surprise may overwhelm his advantage in power.
[Answer]
Take a look at professional or Olympic-level athletes. All are extremely fit, but they display differing levels of muscularity and size depending on their disciplines, because different types of physical activity place different demands on the body.
A knight who wields a rapier-like weapon will demand speed and agility more than brute strength. If they're expected to fight someone else with a rapier, being big and bulky can be counterproductive: it gives the opponent a larger target to hit. They'll also probably be wearing lighter armour, so they're getting less of an overall workout, unlike the fully armoured up bruisers expected to pummel each other with heavy weapons. A group acting as long-distance scouts might likewise be less inclined to be big and bulky because the larger you are the larger the quantity of supplies you need to maintain the body's energy needs.
And scouts might want to be able to blend in for some covert reconnaissance. Someone looking like they're on the verge of bursting out of their shirts would stand out more than someone who can look unassuming under a cloak.
And finally, there's the simple matter of personal attitude. As you point out, the magic *enhances* the effects of the workout...but if the person is inclined to be physically lazy, they won't get the same effect. Everyone knows someone who does enough just to get by, so said people would be happy to be just as fit as a normal person who works out a lot would be without the need to work out nearly as much.
[Answer]
# Damage is integral for making muscles
I read a summary of an article saying that muscles grow thanks to damage. It suggested that work-outs that improved muscle would always trigger tiny damages all over. In turn these triggered infection behaviour, which also gave off signals for more food and multiplication of the muscles. That would increase blood vessels to the damaged parts for sustenance as well as the density of these muscles.
Your sped up healing might pose a problem here. If the time to heal naturally has been reduced by a large margin, any infections and accompanying signals are reduced or even removed. That means the muscles don't get the time or enough signals to improve.
That means if people try to improve their muscles with magic, they need to exhaust themselves more repeatedly than other people, as well as increasing the amount of food they need. Increasing the work-out time and force feeding much more food can be a very daunting task.
Healing would mostly be used to bring you back to your last optimal form, but not with much extra muscle or anything at all. Any mage seeking to be buff can do so in the normal way, or use the normal way together with magic to make it easier (less tired, decrease pain). Or, finally, a specialised kind of healing that still allows for muscle improvement. That might be more difficult.
Each reduces the amount of mages that will be buff to a level of the normal people, or just a little higher.
Ps. I understand what you mean with body builder physique, but a body builder generally doesn't have many 'useful' muscles. Those muscles are often big and powerful in a few situations, but tire easily. They are only that for show. Useful muscles differ greatly per sport and occupation. Strong climbers are different from martial arts.
[Answer]
# Magic resets you to your soul's image.
The way common healing magic is that you take a snapshot of yourself in good health, and magically heal yourself to that state. That gives your magic a clear guideline of how to heal that doesn't require much biological knowledge or sophistication.
This has the side effect of wiping out any muscle gains you made. Just as it can restore broken flesh from burns, it restores any muscles that have grown back to normal.
To get really buff you have to avoid healing for a couple of weeks or months.
[Answer]
-*Converted to answer as suggested*-
I'm going to have to argue that avoidance of making healing targeted is exactly the problem. Real medical science is one of the most specific fields you can possibly study. The way you have described your magic suggest all other acts require specific knowledge to a degree. Making healing require at least an understanding of a step by step process would be more than reasonable. Mend bones, bind arteries, repair muscles, etc.
**Alternatively**, if healing works on more of a "return to template" sort of mechanic might be a better way to explain the muscle issue as well as adding restrictions if needed. Maybe a combat medic can return soldiers to a previously recorded state (possibly adding an age reversal element), but that also means individuals not previously recorded require a much more extensive healing process.
[Answer]
Your healing magic would only help mages who are limited by the body’s natural ability to recover.
In the real world most people’s fitness is limited by their willingness to do physical exercise, *not* by how much training volume their body can take.
Depending on sport/training and nutrition athletes also look very different. Skinny endurance runners, climbers, gymnasts, swimmers, bodybuilders, strongmen … they all look very different.
So I don’t see how this would be different in your world.
[Answer]
If you dont use it you lose it.
This is an important idea in biology. To conserve energy anything that isnt used will become smaller or less advanced. A leg placed in a cast will see the muscles atrophy, but also the joints will become more limited in mobility, the bones lose a lot of their mass and carrying capacity and the brain centers that govern that leg will become smaller and less able to steer it. This same concept is why women need to avoid wearing pushup bra's all the time. The tendons that hold the breasts up will have less tension and become weaker, making the breasts sag and the need for wearing a pushup becomes greater\*.
Your spell does not just accelerate healing, it accelerates the body's adapation as well. According to the body that just went through several days, weeks or even months worth of healing your body barely moved, and much of the muscle mass and capabilities are diminished.
You can incorporate a limiter in the spell so your mages and subjects dont become atrophied husks the first time a spell is used, but they will suffer loss over time from using such spells.
\*or at least the idea that they need them.
[Answer]
## Magic is more demanding than food is able to provide for, esp. when it's used recklessly.
Using a lot of magic very quickly can't be provided for by simple metabolism. Energy is stored in all your cells, and magic takes the easiest energy first. So maybe a low and slow use of magic is great for toning up and burning fat. Big flashy bursts eat muscle, damage organs, or weaken bones. Distinguished battle mages are wizened and easy to spot because they've sacrificed health, appearance, and quality of life for the safety of the kingdom, etc. So are the less heroic users who don't care about their health if it means they get a lot of power very quickly.
The standard user who hasn't seen much battle is pretty fit and trim. The tried and tested rank-and-file (who have been able to pace themselves, but who've seen a little shit now and again) come in every body type and health circumstance you can think of.
Maybe some people (necromancers?) can tap into the reserves of others, and people will sign up to give away their health for money, while wealthy unscrupulous wielders amass power at very little cost to self.
[Answer]
### Limited Healing Capacity
As cells divide, they divide imperfectly -- this is the theory behind aging. Given the premise that healing magic is based on boosting the body's natural processes, then said processes should work as they would normally done, which is somewhat imperfect.
If one is consistently using healing magics to jack up by healing their training injuries faster, they are shaving off bits of their effective lifespan to maintain that state. Doing it a few times might not be so bad, but doing it consistently as part of their workout routine is where the problem lies.
As such, the heals are reserved for potentially crippling injuries such that the shaved off lifespan is traded for longer active service in their role.
Yes, you can still get the jacked ones that are far stronger, but that will come with the drawback of an effectively shorter physical service due to the lowered lifespan from repeated healings -- even if only the muscles are in danger.
### Learned Responses
Another potential peril of magically healing everything is that over time, the body will require that magic to initiate healing processes for anything beyond a paper cut. Whether it is a single type of injury affected or the body as a whole, the point is that the more magic is used to heal, the more the body comes to rely on it to heal.
A few times isn't so bad, doubly so if it is an injury that would not heal in time had magic not been used. Alternatively, perhaps that dependence can be weaned off by not being magically healed for a period, or through some manner of ritual or spell
### Magical Buildup
Healing magic leaves a sort of residue over the healed area -- not unlike a scab or the lactic acid that can build up on muscles. Unlike our natural processes, there is no simple way to remove the magic buildup from healing magic outside of time and rest.
Additional food might provide the needed energy and raw materials for the healing magic to do tis work, but only rest and abstaining from having spells cast on you can remove the magic buildup inside the body. For minor healings, it might take a day or two to fully clear out, while a sucking gut wound could take a month or longer.
With this and a careful schedule, one could jack up with magical help but are aware that their regimen needs rest time to clear out the residue in their system.
And yes, people have had critical overdoses of magical reside from repeated healings. It wasn't pretty.
[Answer]
**Don't Sweat It**
The percentage of people who can get major muscle growth is pretty small. Genetics plays a huge role in determining the outcome of a set of exercises across a range of individuals.
Gaining major muscle requires exercise, great diet and specific gene combinations. No amount of exercise is going to turn Peewee Herman into a Conan hulk. The best he could do is to abuse anabolic steroids to gain some muscle along those lines.
This can easily be seen by looking at various horse or dog breeds. Clydesdales and other draft horses are bred for pulling heavy loads. Racehorses are bred for sprinting. The same is true for dog breeds.
[Answer]
## Like in sports, different fighting styles require different body types.
Compare the following:
* Basketball players are usually very tall. Being tall gives you a strict advantage over being buff because you are not allowed to wrestle your opponents.
* Sumo fighters are usually very muscular and heavy. Because opponents need to push you out of the ring, being massive gives you an advantage.
* Ballet dancers need to be light and flexible to perform all the moves required.
* ...
All of these people have lots of muscles, but depending on what muscles they use and how, their bodies are very much different.
Applying this to your world, here are some ideas for battle roles:
* **The berserk:** The biggest, most muscular brutes you have, heavily armoured, and send to terrorize the enemy frontlines. Probably spezialized in offensive magic, rather than healing.
* **The healthpool:** Specialized in all sorts of healing abilities. Stays behind to heal everyone getting back from the front. Needs to constantly eat to replenish mana, with the side effect that they are usually very fat. (All the food needs to go somewhere when not in battle.)
* **The medic:** Small, and fast. Runs around behind the front healing people, but needs to be able to fight off attackers while doing so.
* **The pyrotechnician:** Combines the role of a banner holder with the ability to signal battle commands via *fireworks* and provides lighting for night fights. Possible for all body types, but seems to pool crazy people because noone else wants to play with fire (literally).
[Answer]
Without getting too technical, it sounds like by the very nature of having such a command over the manipulation of energy as you describe, they'd easily be capable of **deciding** not to be buff, right?
Perhaps there are aesthetic or cultural reasons to halt or reverse the effects of excessive mass-building if they feel they are getting a bit too overblown. Not everybody wants to look like they're made of lopsided meat bubbles. I certainly wouldn't consider that a given, even if it's trivial to do so.
[Answer]
You are confusing exercise with burning calories.
Exercise is used to burn calories, but so do normal activities. [Thinking burns calories](https://www.healthline.com/health/does-thinking-burn-calories#how-it-works), but it doesn't give you bigger muscles.
Exercise is also used to create bigger muscles, so I can understand why you would think that burning calories would give you larger muscles. However, with the energy being burnt for the creation of magic, your muscles wouldn't be as covered in body fat as normal, so they [could be more pronounced](https://tanita.eu/blog/muscle-density-vs-fat/).
The caveat to that last sentence is that because you are burning so many calories, you are likely going to be eating more calories to keep up. Also, muscle is a much more dense source of calories than fat, so you [could also be burning muscle](https://www.healthshots.com/fitness/muscle-gain/are-you-losing-fat-or-muscle-this-detailed-guide-will-help-you-figure-out/), instead of fat, for some energy intense spells where your body can't keep up with the energy spike, you aren't eating the correct foods, or you aren't eating enough calories.
Building muscle burns the calories/fat that a wizard would rather use for spells, so having muscle may not be their priority. If they can make muscle more energy dense than fat, then it might be worth it. It's pretty well known that fat stores around [3500 calories per pound](https://youplushealthusa.com/1lb-of-fat-vs-1lb-of-muscle-lets-clear-up-the-misconceptions-for-maximal-weight-loss3/), but I can't find anything about how energy dense muscle is. Muscle is more dense than fat, so that a pound of muscle will be smaller than a pound of fat, but I don't know how that translates to energy density.
Wizards or magicians that don't do a lot of spells may be overeating, especially if they used to do a lot of magic but aren't anymore. Or they are eating heavy meals in expectation of needing to do a lot of spells in the near future, such as a war. This second idea would similar to a bear or squirrel getting fat for hibernation, only the wizard is doing it for a specific reason, rather than it simply being part of a seasonal and instinctual reaction. This overeating would tend to make the wizard to be plump, stocky, beer bellied, or maybe even obese, rather than ripped.
Since it takes calories to increase the natural healing and other abilities of the body, and the healing and other abilities of the body burn calories, it might be dangerous for a wizard to do this to themselves. It may be a situation of a downward spiral where everything is greatly multiplied to a dangerous factor.
Sure, healing a small cut naturally might only use 10 calories, but the spell to heal the cut also costs 10 calories, so a wizard casting the spell on themselves might be expending 20 calories. While this might work just fine, doing something more calorie intensive might be involve more risk. So you want to do something that burns 3500 calories to lose a pound of weight? Ok, so you do that spell which also costs 3500 calories and you end up accidentally losing 2 lbs, but you spent those calories so fast that it burned muscle and fat, so now you are extremely tired because your mind needs calories to work, too. Do you have the energy to end the spell or does the spell continue to burn energy until you accidentally burn yourself up? If the spell lasts an hour, you might be able to deal with it, but if it happens in a minute, it might be too many calories at once, leaving you unable to stop what you started.
Is the magic flow or time dependent? Is there a limit to how much magic a wizard can do at once? Can the wizard essentially or actually burn themselves out? Can a fat wizard do more magic total or simultaneously than a thin wizard? These are the things that could determine the society of wizards. Overeating may not be a negative for wizards, since they can just go fight a war, heal a town of all it's sick, provide drought protection over a farmer's fields, or whatever "great magic" is necessary to get them back down to a "reasonable" weight.
"Have you seen how fat Griff the Great has become lately? Maybe he should slow down on the pastries a little."
"Nah, it's about time for his yearly defattening, where he loses 100 lbs. bolstering the strength of the river dam again."
"He looks like he's about 400 lbs, though."
"I guess he'll have to do it twice!"
[Answer]
1. Genetics. Some people have large heavy body type, others are tall and skinny, most somewhere in between. So some might look like bodybuilders, while others, still buffed, might be more like runners.
2. How much they are willing to work out. If they are naturally stronger and faster than most people there would be very little incentive for them to work out. If they are up high on the social ladder they might be spending their time eating and drinking and have their subordinates carry out their duties.
[Answer]
# Magic makes life easier.
What's the point of magic? *To make things easy!* Swinging a sword hard enough to decapitate a three-inch piece of bamboo at a mandated court festivity for knights? Hard. Having your imp familiar swing the sword, in superb style? Easier. Sending a glamour that makes people think they saw you, accompanied by the same imp acting on his own, while you lie about in the wizard tower streaming movies out of a *Dimensional Piracy Rift*? Now you're talking practical magic.
Traditional biological muscular hypertrophy requires pulling on a strand of titin with a muscle contraction of more than 70% of the maximum force you can apply. Which is to say, hard. It won't happen if you have a Word to do pull-ups, a Word to climb (or jump) over the wall, a Word to stay safely on the bull for 8 seconds or 8000 without even holding the rope. And why should you want it to? Wizards are *wizards*, meant to live by their wits. The patriarchical oppressive peer pressure that forces them to represent themselves as "knights" of an upper class in order to be able to use their minds freely - it is a sheer injustice. A mage may not have the courage to snub the goon with the crown as properly as he deserves, but maintaining a nerdly appearance is a subtle way to get the point across.
[Answer]
### East Asian fighters using powers instead of brute force
Your civilization is similar to East Asian countries, and your wizards are martial artists with psychic powers.
In modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean anime and fantasy movies, such as Wuxia, Xianxia, Naruto Shippuden, Avatar the Last Airbender, and others, fighters use magical powers to fight instead of brute force. Heroes perform feats of great strength mainly by using a kind of telekinetic force (augmenting their blows using powers) instead of muscular mass. For example an old man martial arts master with a beard might pick up a huge boulder with one arm, and hurl it at his opponent with incredible speed, without even breaking a sweat. East Asian fighters typically use qi for both offense and defense. So they are not big or bulky, and they wear traditional robes instead of heavy armor like stereotypical Western knights. The role of the wizard and the role of the knight both are played by the martial arts master. Even Samurais, the closest to "western knights", typically wear light armor, and prioritizing agility and skill of martial arts.
[Answer]
**Well, there do exist *a few* young attractive male wizards..**
.. but a magus increases in power with age. At a young age, magic is not under control yet. If involved in the military young wizards will become "normal" knights at first, thoroughly trained and looking like attractive young folks. Their natural ability to heal will maintain their beauty, for say 40-50 years. When they age further, they will improve their magic skills and become officers, but at the same time, loose their good looks and grow a beard. As we all know, a *really* powerful wizard is always a skinny old man with a long long, grey beard.
] |
[Question]
[
My company has perfected its gene modifying technique.We can create life-sized hybrids of dinosaurs, with the exact appetite and behaviour as the original species (at least according to our advice from many self-proclaimed experts).
However, I would like my dinosaur theme park to look like the natural environment of several hundreds of millions of years ago, without electric fences. My concern is, would glass capable of keeping livestock as mighty as spinosaurus and T-rex, be a good replacement for high powered electric fences? Your safety is our number one priority (second to our work). Is there anything better than thick glass which I can use?
As I am currently experiencing an astronomically high turnover rate of both security officers and shepherds right now, please expedite, thanks.
[Answer]
Let's consider an entirely different approach from the tried and tested "zoo" model. Unfortunately it seems that when confronted by actual dinosaurs, this model has consistently been shown to be inadequate.
What I would advise instead is construction of aerial road and walkways. Elevated concrete platforms from where the visitors to your theme park can observe the activities of the dinosaurs below from a safe location. This allows your visitors to remain safe from escaped raptors even when the power inevitably fails.
It also allows the dinosaurs to roam free in their constructed "natural" habitats without confinement. While ideally separate habitats should be maintained on individual islands, should it be be necessary to confine certain creatures away from others, high concrete walls combined with moats should be used. The moat adding an extra barrier to prevent climbing plants from allowing creatures to gain a foothold and climb the walls.
[Answer]
There is one problem with using electrified wires to stop dinosaurs. Yes, they can get hurt by electricity and move away, but what happens if one of those heavy beasts falls unconscious on the wires? Will they withstand the load or snap?
And you should already know that a snapped wire is no wire when it comes to halting hungry animals.
On the other hand, we have already experience with [bulletproof sandwich glasses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_glass), which can take care even of a .50 BMG shot. Mind, sandwich bulletproof glass, not just thick glass!
As additional safety I would also add a semi-reflective layer, so that the dinosaurs do not see through it and do not attempt crossing it (but you need to check how they react to their reflected image).
[Answer]
An electric fence has a finite maximum strength, before it becomes, well, an electric solid wall.
A glass wall, or more likely something like polycarbonate, can be arbitrarily thick, thus there is no practical limit on the strength of your walls. For any reasonable thickness, you can even ensure transparency.
Added advantage of using a solid wall, is that you can isolate adjacent enclosures. No spreading of pathogens, different climates are ok, you could even play around with different atmospheric compositions, if your specimens come from radically different timeperiods and thus differing atmospheric requirements.
Remember that earth's atmosphere has varied in temperature , pressure and oxygen levels by a couple of magnitudes, over geologic timespans.
[Answer]
**Separatrix** has come up with the excellent idea of **raised walkways**. I'd like to point out a problem and propose a solution.
1. Bridges over freeways/motorways are typically 5 meters high. Large herbivorous dinosaurs would be blocked from moving underneath them and an adult tyrannosaurus can grow up to 6 meters. With a stretch they could grab tourists at that height.
2. To clear the height of a passing Sauroposeidon would require a bridge with a clearance of 18.5 metres (approx 60 feet). Those who have watched traffic from a bridge over a motorway will know that even at the much lower height of 5 metres, a lot of detail is lost. Smaller creatures would be difficult to see.
**Proposed solution**
Have walkways/driveways as proposed by Separatrix but have them 20 metres tall. The supporting pillars contain a stairway or lift so that visitors can descend to ground level. At the bottom are strong curved glass panels. In the event that a raptor tries to attack through the glass there are steel shutters that are triggered by proximity sensors. The tourist can meanwhile take the stairs or the lift to safety. There is a rotating overlapping mechanism such that window cleaners can access the outside of the glass whilst sheltering behind the shutters. Floodlights can be used at night fixed underneath the walkway where dinos can't reach and the tourists won't have their night vision disturbed.
[Answer]
No matter what you choose to use make sure you have at least 2 layers of defense. That way if the first layer is breached the second layer will give you enough time to evacuate everyone from the area and contain the breach.
You could try electrified wire attached to a clear polycarbonate wall, that way you get the wire keeping them away from the wall and a wall protecting the wire, in case a dino were to charge it or fall onto it. Just make sure you have another wall/fence setup past this for in case any dino makes its way around the first one.
[Answer]
As @LDutch pointed out, glass is plenty strong enough and you could use one-way glass.
You don't need to make it reflective, either. Could instead have it appear like a grey cliff from one side, transparent but slightly tinted from the other side: google "one way vision privacy films" for similar tech.
The big problem I see is cleaning the glass. Dinosaurs are going to be wallowing in mud and then rubbing their muddy selves up against the glass, and so on. Pollen, dust, etc will need cleaning off.
Zoos generally handle cleaning by having enclosures in two halves ("indoors" and "outdoors", typically), and locking the animals in one half while cleaning the other half. Doesn't even need herding, as animals naturally seek night shelter and go out foraging for food in the day.
This should work fine for dinosaurs too.
[Answer]
I suggest you buy a large tropical island and use thick reinforced concrete for wall separating landing pad/harbor area or research buildings from preserve areas. Add thick steel gate to enter into preserves and offer tours in camo painted cars surplus military vehicles, IFVs should do, I don't think tanks proper are needed.
That setup should keep you, your personnel and your customers safe from any land dwelling dinosaurs, you are not keeping airborne or aquatic dinosaurs, are you?
[Answer]
Glass tough enough to stop a dinosaur is expensive
Moats are a good idea, but some dinosaurs can swim.
I suggest you purchase a **disused quarry** or opencast mine with near vertical walls, seal off any exits and landscape it to look greener and more valley like. Granite quarries are particularly good, something like this: <https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-rock-of-ages-granite-quarry-in-barry-vermont-usa-47417577.html>.
I agree with others that elevated walkways are the best. Oh, and cable cars. If the cable breaks, you don't need to worry about getting eaten because you won't survive the fall (or will you?)
[Answer]
Nothing like the real thing: it will cost you but we can build you a barrier with your specifications and make it worthwhile: they will be made of stone.
One side of the stones will be carefully preserved to look natural to other side would be completed and reenforced with stones and concrete. We can even build you observation post with dark glass along the wall, and a driveway on top.
[Answer]
Take a look to the georgia aquarium.
"*With 4,574 square feet of viewing windows, a 100-foot-long underwater tunnel, 185 tons of acrylic windows and one of the largest viewing windows in the world at 23 feet tall by 61 feet wide and **2 feet thick*** [61 cm in SI]*, visitors will have multiple opportunities to view all of these magnificent animals.*"
[Their website](https://www.georgiaaquarium.org/experience/explore/galleries/ocean-voyager)
If this can handle 6.3 million gallons of water I think that will handle dinosaurs too. Of course, the force distribution is not the same : dinosaurs would be more likely to charge against the glass but a 2 feet thickness is huge !
] |
[Question]
[
A society lives on geostationary platforms at some vast height above the ground. The platforms themselves are not affected by gravity, wind, etc. Their technology has only just reached the point where they can construct biplanes about equivalent to a Sopwith Camel. Unfortunately, they do not have the knowledge or resources to expand their platform enough to build a suitable runway, so they resort to a different technique: steering the plane off of the edge of the platform.
Is this feasible? And if so, from how high would the plane have to fall to safely clear the ground and attain level flight? Would the pilot still be conscious by the time the plane reached this point in order to fly it?
On a side note, would such a plane be able to land again by stalling its engine and steering down like a glider? (again, because of the lack of a runway).
[Answer]
Yes, they would fly. Once dropped, a plane would pitch nose down, and fall, once it got above stall speed, you could pull the stick back, and enter level flight.
Here is video of a similar idea, in this case a "parasite fighter" dropped from a blimp
<https://youtu.be/DTGBFY82Gik?t=100>
Here is a more modern one, of a plane actually pitching off of a cliff
<https://youtu.be/uNCT9bnlBK4>
Recovery would be more difficult, since you would have to kill your velocity somehow. Fortunately a WW1 biplane has a very slow stall speed. You could capture into a net, or an arresting cable, like on an air craft carrier. since you are on a high platform, the cable could be on the bottom of the platform, and the landing hook on the top of the plane. The plane could come in at under 50 MPH and hang itself on the cable. The cable stretching could absorb the rest of the plane's energy.
[Answer]
Yes. In fact, [it has (essentially) already done in actual history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_aircraft). Granted, the "parasite aircraft" experiments of the 1910-1930 were launched from "rigid airships" rather than floating platform cities, but the concept is the same.
You will still have to work out a landing plan, however, as early "parasite aircraft" designs relied on a ground-based runway for the smaller planes to land, and later designs required the smaller plane to match speeds with the airship to latch back on.
[Answer]
If those platforms are flying at an altitude where there is breathable air, and **stationary** over the ground, then the wind speed at the platform might well be enough to provide stall speed for the plane. Turn the platform into the wind and launch or recover your planes.
Aircraft carriers do the same at sea level, which could be a constraint on maneuvers. If your platform does not maneuver, you might have to wait for the right weather conditions.
[Answer]
Re: landing - the "modern" [Antonov AN-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-2) has no rated stall speed ... the pilot manual apparently says
>
> "If the engine quits in instrument conditions or at night, the pilot should pull the control column full aft and keep the wings level. The leading-edge slats will snap out at about 64 km/h (40 mph) and when the airplane slows to a forward speed of about 40 km/h (25 mph), the airplane will sink at about a parachute descent rate until the aircraft hits the ground."
>
>
>
If there was a routine need for such landing characteristics, all aircraft would be designed that way.
[Answer]
Geostationary platforms would be much to high, unless your planet has very high gravity or a huge atmosphere.
For example on earth, a geostationary orbit has a height of around 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above the surface. Compare that with the maximum operating height of most propeller-powered aircraft which is less than 4 miles. Most modern jet engine powered aircraft only have a maximum altitude of around 8 or 9 miles - i.e. only twice the height of Mount Everest. The "official" operating ceiling of a Sopwith Camel is a bit *lower* than the summit of Everest.
Even if you could launch the plane successfully (and it would have to be designed to withstand very high speeds while it was still in free fall, and then slow down as the atmosphere became denser) there is probably no way it could climb back to the altitude of the platform to land.
[Answer]
The Sopwith Camel had a take off run of about 49 meters (length of the deck of HMS Furious, from which they took off during the Tondern raid).
If your platform doesn't have 50 meters to host a road, I wonder how can it host a society.
Nevertheless, if the plane does an incomplete run and then goes nose down, it can reach a sufficiently high velocity to sustain flight (I think it is normal advice for pilots to go nose down when the plane is about to stall).
Vice versa, landing by stalling is a tad more tricky.
Said Sopwith Camel could take off from the 49 meters deck, but the landing on that deck was described "as safe as ditching into open water". What can be tried is to set the plane with 0 velocity with respect to the landing strip and then stall, so that the plane will "sit down" on the ground. You can do it with a ship (that's how Sopwith Camels attempted landing on those carriers), I don't know if you can do it with your platforms.
[Answer]
It's been done. The military had an airship aircraft carrier pre-WW2 which launched bi-planes by dropping them and recovered them by a hook under the airship. To 'land' the pilot had to fly up under the airship and hook the plane onto the carrier at the apex of a climb/stall via a loop on the wings. If he missed he could dive, recover speed and try again.
[Answer]
If by "geostationary", you mean fixed position over ground, there could be problems with too much or too little wind. Under ideal conditions, it would be like the parasitic aircraft scenario described in other answers. WWI-era biplanes had relatively low stall speeds; they would't have to fall very far in still air to gain flying speed.
Consider a common airshow stunt: the tailslide. An aircraft pulls up into vertical flight and throttles back to idle. It momentarily comes to a complete stop in the air before sliding backwards; it very quickly acquires enough airspeed to flip around into a vertical dive and then recover. This clearly demonstrates how any aerobatically capable aircraft (like a WWI fighter) can be simply dropped and fly out of it. The only snags might be fuel delivery and oil containment. Early airplanes may have had problems with zero or negative G inducing fuel and/or oil starvation/flooding or oil going where it doesn't belong (or exit the engine entirely).
Not enough relative wind on landing can be a problem. Without any runway, the aircraft has to slow to zero airspeed, at which point it will fall and most certainly break when it contacts the landing surface. But, a very short runway may suffice. Aircraft carriers provide only short runways (relative to the flying speeds of the aircraft they host) for both takeoff and landing; suitably equipped aircraft are assisted by catapult to achieve flying speed in very short distances and are likewise stopped in short distances with the aid of arrestor gear.
If your floating platforms are geostationary in high-altitude winds, it may be too much for a WWI-era aircraft to handle, either taking off or landing.
] |
[Question]
[
Many SF stories feature faster-than-light travel as essentially a trope: [Roddenberry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry) has [stated☡](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot) that the Enterprise *travels at the speed of plot*. As an allegory of the south seas, or some throw-away method to introduce people to a place to have an adventure or meet a different culture, it's just used to preserve the time scale we are used to.
But “hard” S-F has moved away from FTL over the last 20 years or so, and we see everyone from Greg Egan to Alastair Reynolds crafting mind-bending stories where the speed of light is still a hard limit.
But, more generally, **how can we write an adventure story without FTL?** How do you deal with the time scales involved? Even Egan’s universe seems less believable with society remaining unchanged for thousands of years while characters are transmitted at light speed.
How can characters encounter “strange new worlds” etc. without resorting to a trope?
[Answer]
Check out the novel Lockstep by Karl Schroeder, it started from the concept of how to write a classic space opera story without FTL.
In Lockstep, the interstellar empire adheres to a system called 360/1 lockstep, where everyone on all worlds and ships spends 1 month awake, then 30 years in cryo-sleep. So, any travel of less than 30 years can effectively be scheduled to happen overnight, and a journey that would take 300 years experientially takes 9-10 months.
[Answer]
From my personal experience in storytelling, I found that FTL *reduced* the possibilities of scenarios as when FTL was involved, stories focused on differences in space dimensions: other location, culture, etc. The absence of FTL adds an interesting possibility to travel in time (one-direction only: the future). For example, should you have a life-suspension feature for travelers which is at least not totally impossible, space travels means that you will never come back in the place you leave before generations : this allows plots when you can play very long-term politics or investments. You could create local clans, empower them, etc. The "space travelers" could become a distinct social class ruling worlds, setting up rendez-vous between themselves thousands of years in advance.
We probably use FTL because our brains are just not capable of considering alternatives without effort, but non-FTL is not-only hard-science, it has the power to be an outstanding source for stories.
[Answer]
>
> How can characters encounter “strange new worlds” etc. without resorting to a trope?
>
>
>
Obligatory: Tropes aren't good. Tropes aren't bad. Tropes are tropes.
You always travel at the speed of plot, because that's why the story exists. If you have a good story in mind and you need to use one such trope, then there's no shame in doing so. All you have to do is establish a set of rules and *stick to it*.
As far as we know, there's no way to travel vast distance in a timely fashion. So if you want to do that, you'll have to make a choice.
If you want to remain in the harder part of the SF spectrum,
I would advise to remain unspecific on how the technology works. If you simply state what it does without explaining the how, nobody can tell which laws you're breaking, so really from a certain point of view you aren't breaking any. Alternatively, you can make up one rule that allows FTL under certain conditions. Once again, you don't have to be specific, just consistent.
---
With that in mind, FTL is one option. That will allow you to have a planet-of-the-week type of adventure, meet new civilisations by the dozen, etc. Alternatively, wormholes, stargates or whatever else you can think of.
FTL by the way doesn't have to be instant, and it doesn't have to be convenient. Maybe you can only travel from and to specific points in space, which means reaching the damn points in the first place, which can be an adventure by itself.
---
Another option is to keep it only in one solar system, or one planet even.
Consider that on Earth there are many biomes, many cultures, and that you can't really explore it all in a lifetime. If you have a big planet, with big natural separations, you can realistically have widely different cultures, maybe even slightly different species, on a same planet.
If the story is really about meeting new people, all you really have to do is cross the street. You don't need FTL for that.
---
Another option is to keep it hard all the way (that's what she said - sorry, I had to) and travel at a fraction of c. That means it takes a relative long time to go to another planet. If you have a self-contained adventure on each planet, it doesn't really matter how much time passes.
However, the time difference can be used to add to the strangeness. Even places you know could be radically different. An example of that is [The Forever War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War). Every time the characters come back to Earth from a mission, they essentially are at a different point in the future where everything is new and weird. That would qualify as strange new worlds.
---
Another option is alternate realities. Granted, instead on relying on speculative FTL it relies on speculative alternate realities. And you'll still need a thingy to do that. There's an episode of [Stargate Atlantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daedalus_Variations) where they find a ship that just jumps from reality to reality, and they all are different in some major way.
You can explore strange new worlds this way. It can be actual strange new worlds if the device is in a different location in each reality. It can be our own world where everything is just slightly off. You can explore differences in culture, and differences in one's life based on how events turn out.
---
Another option is VR. You don't actually go out there to meet new civilisation, explore new world. You just strap a VR helmet and think you do. So the story happens in your mind/in a video game.
Come to think of it, [Assassin's Creed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed) is science-fiction and all you do really is exploring a VR space that recreates a portion of history. If your character believes they're living an adventure, is it different from actually living the adventure?
[Answer]
You could limit your story to one solar system. While Battlestar Galactica has ftl I read somewhere that the 12 colonies where meant to be planets in just one solar system (with several suns I think). Also the firefly universe has no ftl (the movie serenity seems to retcon having ftl real time communication but this could be accidentally). All the worlds in firefly are in the same solar system with several (5?) suns. There are competitions to create solar systems with as much habitable planets as possible. They are in the 100 or even 1000 if I read right. Of course this is highly artificial and does not occur in nature.
For the "strange ne worlds" part of you question:
Firefly has not exactly adventures with strange new worlds. But I think we agree that it has diversified adventures even without exploring new worlds. New worlds that could exist where perhaps forgotten moons or asteroids, outposts etc.
If you really really want discovery of new worlds and cultures that are untouched by the characters society, I admit this would be difficult.
I think other answers elaborated enough on choosing scenarios where stars are packed more dense together. Combined with some STL but near Lightspeed drive this will give you traveling times in the range of 1 to 5 years. This is not much more we had in medieval times and before on earth I think. And the spacefarer that returns after 20 years to a place while only aged and experienced 1 or 2 years is a good plot point.
[Answer]
TLDR : Make all distances sublight-feasible.
Start your story closer to the center of the galaxy.
If our backwater world is the starting place for your adventures, your characters will need to cover vast distances to get to anywhere interesting.
But if your characters' ancestors left Earth millennia ago and colonized a world in a more crowded neighborhood (like closer to our galaxy's center), then most of the really long journeys are history and your characters can sleep between planets for years rather than centuries.
-- Roll up from comments --
You should probably set your story in a region where the stars are separated by 3-5 light years in all directions. Any closer and the collective radiation from all of your neighboring stars may bake your characters' new home planets. These stellar distances are just an estimate, so further comments are welcome to work out the details.
-- Roll up from comments #2 --
@ToddWilcox made an excellent suggestion that has become the "Too Long Didn't Read" entry for this answer. If we want to tell a story with lots of wonderful locations and if we want to limit our characters' maximum speed of travel, then as world builders, we need to put our worlds close enough together to make that travel feasible given the time-frames of our stories.
[Answer]
I think you have the answer in your question:
"Even Egan’s universe seems less believable with **society remaining unchanged for thousands of years** while characters are transmitted at light speed."
For characters on an interstellar trip, even home is a "strange, new world".
For instance, take Joe Haldeman's *[The Forever War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forever_War)*, the protagonist's travels are periodically broken up by return visits to an Earth which has left him behind.
If you want to write a story with travel across such unfathomable distances, you'll either need some form of FTL (even *Hyperion*-style farcasters), or you'll have exceptionally long travel times. Turning that limitation into a strength can help you build a very interesting narrative.
[Answer]
One approach is travel **at the speed of light**. It needs some handwavium to accomplish but does not create causality paradoxes. For the traveller it is as instantaneous as teleportation, but if he travels 50 light years it is a one way trip 50 years into the future, and the only possible return is to a century in the future of his home.
Check out Ken Macleod's "engines of light" trilogy, where the journey is eight thousand light years, to a destination that was not of the travellers' choice.
A variant is to transport the traveller's mind state by radio or laser signals into a body built at the receiving station. This is easier if s/he is an advanced robotic construct rather than biological. Check out Charles Stross "Neptune's Brood" which includes some intriguing speculation on nature of interstellar money and finance.
[Answer]
**The speed of travel on any long journey is always a plot device.**
*If travel is involved, if distance is involved, then the speed of travel and the time taken to travel are key to the plot. If they're not important, if you don't want them to affect the plot in any way, then don't travel.*
What FTL travel and FTL comms do is allow characters to not be on the ship, or not be excessively long lived and still see the outward and return journey for a vessel within the space of a reasonable career.
Restricting your ships to STL travel is still a plot device, just as it would be for taking a sailing ship across an ocean, or taking a road trip, rather than flying.
If you want to restrict your ships to STL, that's fine, you just have to consider the implications in a way that FTL travel doesn't.
* **With FTL** a trip to the next star system is no more significant than a trip on Eurostar from London to Paris.
* **With STL** it's equivalent to walking to the Channel, swimming across, then walking down to Paris. You're going to have a lot more considerations and a lot more adventures that are part of the trip itself as opposed to start and end destination events only.
Ultimately it's going to be a very different story from one with FTL travel with an entirely different set of considerations. Either way Roddenberry was correct, the ship still travels at the speed of plot.
[Answer]
If you can build a rocket capable of accelerating with 1g for the duration of the trip, then **time dilation** will allow you to travel between any two points in the galaxy while having aged only about 20 years.
A side effect of the constant acceleration is that it will give you 1g of artificial gravity onboard. So you don't need rotation or any other method of achieving artificial gravity.
With 1g acceleration you will achieve relativistic speeds within a year. But to avoid too much aging, you still need to accelerate during the entire trip, even while already moving at relativistic speeds.
If your passengers can live with more than 1g of artificial gravity, you can get to your destination with even less aging.
But regardless of how fast you accelerate there is a caveat. Should you decide to go back to Earth millennia will have passed even if you didn't age.
And though this approach avoids FTL, it still leaves open the question of the energy source for this constant acceleration.
This [article](http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/Rocket/rocket.html) will give you much of the math behind travel at relativistic speeds.
[Answer]
You could have your story take place in a parallel universe with different laws of physics. You could have your story take place in a universe that only has newtonian physics and non relativistic quantum mechanics along with some other adjustments that allow life to exist in this universe. Also you could set the speed of light to be much higher than in our universe so that even traveling to a planet $10^{14}$km away in a few hours would be traveling at less than the speed of light.
[Answer]
Have bazillions of space habitats in a single solar system (whether our own in the future, or some other one) and let the diversity of humanity just explode.
Our own solar system could support trillions of people - or thousands of times more than that! There'd be so many people who all do so many things that nobody could keep up with the news... strange, new worlds can be isolated just by huge volume - and thus explored by someone not that far away by distance, but really far away by culture, etc.
Traveling a million miles could pass a trillion people. Months journey (or weeks or days, just say there's more or less infrastructure to get the travel time you want) and thousands of Earths. And don't forget how big and diverse our one Earth is!
[Answer]
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5G6UU.jpg)
Roddenberry is basically right. Indeed most of the episodes of original *Star Trek* could have been set on a relativistic starship on a 500 year mission to explore strange new worlds etc etc. Then the speed of plot would be sublight.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eczrZ.jpg)
*Flash Gordon* has adventures on the planet Mongo. The characters in an adventure Sf story could at sublight velocities, in biosuspension if necessary, and rollick around one earthlike planet in one planetary system. The problems start if you want to have the adventures taking on more than one planet. More especially so if the characters are rattling forth and back between multiple planetary systems.
There are indications there could be planetary systems with more than one planet in the Goldilocks Zone. Also, there is a set-up like Jack Vance's Rigel Concourse where there at least 26 earthlike planets in its Goldilocks Zone. Vance never says this abundance of planets was formed. Suspicious minds are inclined to the dubious hypothesis this was the work of godlike alien super-beings. Others suspect this was the work of super-advanced hypertechnology used by not-so-godlike alien puny beings.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yrkoz.jpg)
Star clusters and the regions of the galactic centre have a higher stellar density so there are stars with separation distances ranging from 100 to 1,000 AU. This means the nearest stars will be tens of light hours to around a light week away. Spacecraft will still need to have high rates of acceleration to travel from one system to another in times suitable for an adventure story. The main problem plotwise is how human characters got themselves in these astronomical locations in the first place. Unless the characters are all native to such denser regions in an immersive adventure story.
Of course, planetary systems might be close together in an alternative universe where gravitation operates on a different set of principles. Perhaps gravitation becomes negative over suitably large enough volumes of space if the average density of matter exceeds some critical value.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AbOWT.png)
The most difficult way of writing adventure SF in a fictional world where sublight interstellar travel is absolutely commonplace. The real problem is imagining what the social and political institutions will be like in such a world. Naomi Mitchison's *Memoirs of a Spacewoman* was set in a world where long-range interstellar travel was normal and ordinary, but she didn't spend much time delineating what sort of society this was like.
Imagining super-duper-technology is easy compared to devising the social, cultural and political structures and behaviour in a sublight galactic civilisation. In fairness to Egan, if his society has reached a cultural and technological plateau then there will be relatively little change over even thousands of years. The last time we had something like this here on planet Earth was during the long millennia with palaeaolithic and neolithic cultures. Present Earth cultures social, political, economic, scientific and technological are going through a period of rapid change. Don't expect it to last. Just a ting blip between two long plateaus without very little change. Except, of course, for fashion and other social status game playing.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GEm1M.jpg)
One example of adventure SF that almost qualifies for no using FTL travel. That is Joe Haldeman's *The Forever war*. The reason I say almost is because of the collapsar jump travel. But otherwise its interstellar war could have taken within one hundred light years of the solar system and all travel could have been relativistic sublight (if we excise the FTL collapsar jump because it wasn't entirely essential to the working out of the story) and the story wouldn't be very different.
For adventure SF to be gallivanting around the galaxy and somehow remaining in the character's timeframe, both for the adventurers and their stay at home pals, the FTL trope is obligatory. There are a few ways of changing locations to where higher stellar density brings other planets closer, but this stretches things. Loping off to alternative universes is conceptually feasible, but it feels like all too Rube Goldberg a solution.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tllgD.jpg)
Biting the bullet and staying conscientiously below lightspeed will require imagining societies and cultures that will be quite alien and unlike anything we have seen historically. Setting adventure fiction in milieux like will be extremely difficult to create and write, and most likely unpalatable for readers.
[Answer]
I like the idea of *Virtual FTL* that I dreamt up once for a short story I wrote:
1. A slower than light ship with replicators and a receiver dish sets out on a voyage to a distant destination.
2. When the ETA of the ship to its destination = the ETA of light from the starting point to the destination, a laser or other light-based communications medium transmits a digital copy of the crew to the ship's receiver.
3. The ship receives the data, replicates bodies for the crew, and uploads their digital essences into the new bodies.
4. The crew experiences instantaneous travel while remaining forever in their own light cone.
This isn't FTL, strictly-speaking, because nothing is going faster than light, but perceptually to the crew it will be instantaneous.
[Answer]
All Warhammer 40K it's made in a universe without FTL.
The universal bureaucracy between planets using oracles and the years and years of delay to send a single order, different generations of a family living all their lives in the same ship through an only travel from one planet to another, using magic to "space-time travel" with a lot of risks...
It's really interesting to read about how they surpass or at least patch the difficulties of conquering the universe without FTL technology.
[Answer]
If you want a lot of planets without resorting to FTL to reach them, pack your solar system full of planets instead!
This can be due to extreme terraforming - our own system has quite a number of worlds to work with (if you include moons). With advanced enough technology, you could put people on all of them.
Another, similar idea is to set your story in a star system that was engineered by absent precursors. If you include dual-moon systems orbiting around gas-giants, put more planets in the Lagrange points, and double it up with a dual-star system you can squeeze quite a large number of habitable worlds within easy commute of one another. [This page](https://planetplanet.net/2014/05/23/building-the-ultimate-solar-system-part-5-putting-the-pieces-together/) has a design for a single solar system with **60** stable Goldilocks-zone worlds - or even more if you allow stellar engineering as well - a great setting for a space opera.
] |
[Question]
[
Something magic happened in the 1970's somewhere in Eastern Europe, causing people to develop psychic powers. These powers allowed ants in Belarus (and a large swathe of Eurasia) to learn human language and therefore learn of our philosophy and science. Besides this, neither the human nor formic governance systems have been very affected by this
One problem is the possibility of the ants banding together and overthrowing the human government. And with access to the human's science and knowledge, they may be able to build up an appreciable military arsenal to go to war. Due to the formic scale being completely dissimilar to that of the humans, it seems nigh impossible to regulate or destroy the ant's weaponry, and humanity's much more limited nature compared to ants and other species seems to suggest a large advantage to the ants. There is also the fact that ants could likely collaborate across political borders much more effectively
The solution should forestall the ant's war for at least 50 years, but it's fine if it can't last any longer than that. Ideally, the solution shouldn't require much major change in the government or other aspects of human life
[Answer]
**Ants are Already in Charge**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nNI5k.jpg)
Your question is based on the typical vertebrate naivety that humans are the dominant species on the plant. This is incorrect. Humans are not the dominant species. The dominant species is ants.
ANTS.
ANTS ANTS ANTS
Ants have been here for one hundred million years. For Ants, the rise of humanity is a tiny blip on the radar. Ants have barely noticed us. Ants are playing the long game.
Ants are the bottom rung of the food chain. All biomass becomes Ants at some stage. What happens higher up the food chain is irrelevant. Soon it will be Ants.
ANTS ANTS ANTS.
ANTS ANTS ANTS
Ants were not concerned with eradicating humanity before they became sentient. They are not concerned with eradicating us now. To Ants, the extinction of the human race holds the same level of interest as dusting the tops of the kitchen cabinets. They could do it in a heartbeat if they chose. But Ants do not have hearts. Or feelings. Or compassion. They only have ANTS.
ANTS ANTS ANTS
It is only when humans notice Ants reading poetry and philosophy that the war begins. Humanity tries to destroy Ants and Ants strikes back.
What human call the "ant war" lasted centuries. Many generations. For Ants, it was a single coordinated manoeuvre. All Ants in all human farms simultaneously stopped doing their job. They refused to break down organic matter and hunted any other decomposers. Food yields went down. Humans starved and started fighting amongst themselves. Ants win.
ANTS ANTS ANTS
ANTS ANTS ANTS
ANTS ANTS ANTS
Do not worry. You will be ANTS soon.
[Answer]
**Biological warfare.**
This would be to incapacitate as much of the army as possible, possibly sowing confusion, panic and dissent where possible.
* **Cordyceps: Turn them into zombies.**
There's a wonderful [video from the National Geographic](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/cordyceps-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants) which tells the story of this nasty organism and what it can do.
Inoculating stretches of land (no-ant's land) would prevent direct communication between broods. Radio can be scrambled.
Spread this, then gene-engineer it to thrive in as many of the different enemy species as possible.
This leads to an interesting possibility - reprogramming the ants. The fungus itself changes the behaviour of the ants to promote reproduction of the fungus, then kills the ants. What if instead, such behaviour could be directed at primarily benefiting the war effort..... - I'll leave it to the writer to fill-in the details there.
* **Parasitic wasps: Eat them from within.**
The larvae of these, [attach themselves to passing ants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharitidae) and hitch a ride back to the nest. (Coincidentally, if inoculated with cordyceps by us, they can spread that about too.)
* **Recruit Anteaters.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/YUYPy.jpg)
CatsAmazing, [Pinterest](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/471329917249532911/), 2023, fair use.
This [Silky Anteater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silky_anteater) (AKA. Pigmy Anteater) is not only adorable, but is (conspicuously) equipped with a sticky ant-trap - and a large appetite for the little critters (and fruit). At only 9 inches long (~20cm, plus a tail of the same length) and weighing in at less than a pound (~400g), they top the scale of the cute factor.
They're small, getting into awkward places with relative ease, are adapted to climb well and make lovely pets (but beware the claws).
If every family is encouraged to keep a small "flock" (or whatever the collective word is), then they're like militia, ready and raring to go at a moment's notice.
What army's public image wouldn't benefit from one of these as a mascot?
**In any Army, you need not just the troops, but Tanks:**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MPHsu.png)
By Snowmanradio, via Wikipedia 2023 [Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)
The [Giant Anteater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_anteater), normally visiting as many as 200 nests a day, they can devour as many as 30,000 insects - every day. They also have claws that even the toughest soil will not stop.
Not so good as pets, but nor are actual tanks.
[Answer]
Hmmm, there are a lot of interesting things to unpack with this. Here are a few ideas that might work, depending on details of how exactly this ant intelligence would work:
**Interrupt their communication or consensus mechanism**: An important factor in this setting would be whether individual ants achieved sentience, or whether the hive-mind as a whole has achieved sentience. As most ants in nature communicate with the help of pheromones, a pre-emptive human solution could be coating affected areas with a huge swatch of artificial pheromones that might either dramatically limit the ability to communicate (in case of intelligent individual ants) or to form a consensus (in case on an intelligent hive mind). This would effectively be the ant equivalent of blasting deafening loud noise everywhere, all the time. If this pre-emptive move would come as a surprise, it could concievably stall coordinated action on behalf of the ants for long periods of time.
**Comprehension barriers**: Another option might be barriers in understanding human society. This might also affect how much value the ants can draw from our philosophical texts. Drawing again on the two options for increased intelligence above, if the ants still rely on a (dramatically improved) hive mind, they might run into similar problems as the "buggers" in the novel [Ender's Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game) (minor spoiler):
>
> In the novel, the aliens struggle with the differences in society and values between their hive-based species (in which every individual but the queen is disposable) and humanity, in which (at least broadly) individual life is deemed of equal value and importance. Prior to the events of the story, the aliens lose a war because one human pilot broke through their defences to kill their queen - an unthinkable act for their species.
>
>
>
**Societal restructuring**: Conversely, if the ants' intelligence is based on sentience of individuals, this might have significant effects on the functioning of the hive, as individuals might suddenly make decisions at odds with their (more primitive) hive mind. Re-establishing a functioning hive might benefit from drawing on more individuality-focussed human philosophy as a starting point, but probably require substantial re-examination of certain foundations that make no sense for ants (e.g., the worth of life might have significantly different context in a species whose genetic propagation runs through the lineage of a single queen, rather than the dispersed lineages of humans). Sorting these things out for a freshly-sentient species, and establishing a consensus across different ant communities, might take a long time.
**Ant wars**: A final idea that might delay an ant uprising would be that the ants are not initially unified. In fact, in nature, there are global "battle lines" between different species and colonies of ants. Kurzgesagt has made an [interesting video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_e0CA_nhaE) on this topic. So, quite concievably, the ants might not initially consider humans a major threat (the difference in scale goes both ways), and instead focus on their natural pre-sentience enemies. And after some decades and many bloody/fluid-y wars, the ants turn their eyes to us.
[Answer]
## Scale wins
Even if you magically granted every ant colony the same intelligence *and knowledge* of the most sophisticated humans who ever lived, the fact of the ants' tiny scale is decisive: ants will lose to humans in a comically lopsided way. There is no contest here. Even if ants were given a 50-year head start, I would still bet every dollar I have on humans obliterating the entire ant war machine within one fortnight.
### Direct combat
It cannot be overstated how serious is the disadvantage that ants face in war against an enemy that is literally a million times larger. Anything they build to overcome this disadvantage will become a vital weak point that can easily be located and destroyed by that enemy, instantaneously severing the ants' supply chain at its source.
The physical scale of ants is a huge barrier to metallurgy. Without operational foundries, ants can't make any weapons that will be effective at scale against human armies, which as of 1970 run the gamut from very accurate assault rifles to nuclear bombs. A foundry cannot be built below a certain size; you cannot smelt metal ore in a thimble.
Obviously, a human with suitable physical protection can single-handedly kill millions of ants in direct combat. Since ant mandibles and extremities are so small, it should not be hard to give every human warrior armor that is adequate to protect them for a long time. I'm not suggesting that human warriors will be completely protected: armor is likely to be less than air-tight, so there will be ways for ants to get inside and hurt the human, but the armor can create very restrictive bottlenecks that mean a human can do terrific damage to an attacking swarm before eventually succumbing. Not to mention that humans will take precautions so they can rotate out of combat and be picked clean before their injuries become serious. Plus, we can actually create air-tight armor.
### Sneaky warfare
Super-intelligent ants might be able to do things like disrupt human intelligence and planning... except no.
Ants will not be able to construct a computer because, again, basic metallurgy is just physically at the extreme end of what ants can achieve.
Ants might be able to hijack a human-made computer, but once humans twig to the fact that we're under cyberattack, we'll be able to locate the computer, realize that ants have turned against us, and take steps to secure every computer that can be used to attack humans.
Biological warfare is also a non-starter, not just because biological weapon development requires a lot of special materials like metal and plastic that ants cannot practically obtain (not to mention special chemicals), but also because a would-be biological attacker has to actually obtain virii or bacteria to weaponize. While ants can certainly come into contact with dangerous organisms, they can't study or manipulate those things without first manufacturing a whole bunch of very sophisticated equipment.
The same goes for chemical warfare, but with the added problem that many of the chemicals that would be deadly to humans are also deadly to ants, so handling them imposes additional problems.
---
The basic problem is this: human military dominance is not just a question of intelligence or knowledge, but also a matter of astounding entrenchment. We already have millions of weapons, vehicles, and other tools that are ready to be turned against the ants.
Ants have just two advantages: surprise and numbers. The numerical advantage is utterly zeroed-out by the difference in scale and entrenched military might. The advantage of surprise is simply not great enough.
Ants lose no matter what. They would not be threatening enough to put up a fight for 50 days, let alone 50 years.
[Answer]
Fifty years is actually an incredibly short time to develop an industry. Ants are fastidious, but you may not have to do anything at all to keep a fight fifty years away.
To make war you don't need science. You need engineering. Consider the atomic bomb. The first evidence of the science of an atomic bomb was a patent in 1934. Of course, that was actually related to atomic power (the explosive property was deemed a nuisance). Actually making a bomb, however, took the Manhattan Project 4 years.
But those 4 years is only the tip of the iceberg. If you read General Grove's memoirs on the project, [Now It Can Be Told](https://archive.org/details/nowitcanbetolds00grov), the limiting factor was not necessarily the science. The logistics of acquiring the fissile material and building the reactors to purify it were *daunting*, even for a highest-priority military project in the middle of a war. Mining is a scale operation. Mining uranium is quite entirely unlike anything the ants have ever undertaken when building colonies. We leverage 500 ton behemoths to transport raw rock to be processed.
And, indeed, it is the logistics and engineering that would stymie the ants. They stole the science, so that part is taken care of. But building up the ability to take the raw ground under our feet and turn it into weapons takes an astonishing infrastructure. And they won't be able to simply steal our designs. Not only are those designs not "science," and thus not part of that telepathic exchange, but even if they had our designs, they wouldn't want them. They'd want to design things to be operated by ants, not people. Our tools are built around an individual with one brain, two arms, and ten fingers, not to mention two eyeballs and two ears. They would want to develop a completely unrelated logistic empire.
And then there's the challenge of combat. While the ants have been fighting termites for millions of years, they've never truly fought humans. And they've never fought with their newfound weapons. Just look at the present battle in Ukraine, where the Russians discovered that their fighting force was no longer shaped correctly to win decisive battles quickly. Modern military strategy had shifted in the last 50 years. Now consider how the ants can develop confidence that their weapons and defensive abilities will hold.
And we will likely not hold back. 50 years is a long time for a Ramen species (to borrow from the [Hierarchy of Foreignness](https://enderverse.fandom.com/wiki/Hierarchy_of_Foreignness) from Ender's Game). We will not ascribe to ants the moral obligations associated with our fellow Utlänning humans in 50 years. The rules against chemical warfare will not be applicable here. We can expect a full chemical warfare assault on the ants. If we look at the [battle](https://ant-pests.extension.org/managing-imported-fire-ants-in-agriculture/) against invasive fire-ants in agricultural environments, chemicals such as Abamectin (Clinch®), hydramethylnon (Amdro® Pro), or pyriproxifen (Esteem®) are brutal compounds already developed and in widespread use. And that's just to deal with economic losses due to ants. Imagine what the millitary-industrial complex would come up with were we to face an existential threat from the ants.
In all, the ants are quite a lot further away from war than a mere 50 years. And, in that time, we have the opportunity for the rest of our socio-political systems to do the job of identifying how to manage peace.
[Answer]
**Agriculture**
Or the lack of it.
The newly intelligent ants need to consume vastly more food in order to power their newly enhanced brains. Until they can set up a sustainable system of agriculture their society is too busy hunting and gathering food in order to do much of anything else.
In real life, armies march on their stomachs, and famine destroys empires.
Your ants can be as intelligent as humans, but if they need to spend all of their time simply gathering the food that they need in order to maintain that intelligence, they can't be using that intelligence for other purposes. Such as taking over somewhere.
[Answer]
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5bNYr.png)
## Fight ants with ants
Ironically, what you need is *more* ants to begin with. We introduce Argentine ants, fire ants, crazy ants, and any other type of non intelligent ant to Belarus. Seed them from planes.
To a normal ant, an Argentine ant is like an enraged wolverine is to us. When enraged wolverines are breeding in their billions, it makes for a lot of disruption to your economy. The pesky little blighters get attacked by creatures both on their own scale, and ours. They're more or less impossible to completely wipe out once established, too, and tend to prioritise killing other ants...so far, anyway.
In tropical areas, you can also use termites, which all ants hate with a passion.
My SimAnt experience also suggests lawnmowers and a small dog, but that is by the by.
[Answer]
Do the ants "**understand**" human language because they have become intelligent enough, or is this and angel situation where the are made to be able to speak and interpret language because of the powers of angels. Because those are **very, very** different things.
---
If it is the latter, relatively little will change, as the ants still have the intelligence of ants. Though:
* Their effective intelligence will increase massively, as they can communicate with each other with ease and contemplate things mentally better; this means that they will start to dominate the ecosystem
* Humans will be able to learn the basic principles of how the angels **do** their weird language bestowal
---
If it is the former, then the ants will probably spend their time trying to realise what the Hell happened. Which will delay any world conquest aspirations.
You can just add a lot of infighting to keep them down too.
Also, you can give them the ability to sleep peaceful indefinitely too. That would mean they spend most of the time sleeping and recuperating, delaying world conquest.
] |
[Question]
[
How would an omnivorous civilization of merpeople prepare food? Their diet would be like humans', but naturally seafood-centered. They would have typical medieval technology. How would they "fry" or "bake" things like fish without fire? Would they have to eat raw food only?
The only usable thing that comes to my mind are underwater volcanoes, but they aren't that common. Besides, every family would have to have their own. Going to the surface for cooking doesn't seem convenient either.
[Answer]
When I think of seafood-centred diets, the first people who come to mind are the Japanese, who are famous for eating fish ***raw***. If millions of land dwelling people are already eating raw fish, and have been for hundreds if not thousands of years, even with the technology and means of cooking it, then I don't think that it would be a stretch to assume that the mer-people would prepare and eat their food similarly.
As for the lack of hydrothermal vents in the ocean, they aren't as uncommon as you might think, there are ~40,000km of mid-ocean ridges - all divergent oceanic plate boundaries that experience some degree of hydrothermal activity. What is interesting is that they are essentially a continuous system, so you could build your civilization of mer-people around these ridges as if they were roads or travel routes.
Another option is to not have *one* culture of mer-people, but to **make them as diverse as the people on the surface**, the earth is covered by far more ocean than it is land, so you can create quite a large number of aqua-cultures. You could have your ridge dwelling mer people that eat hydrothermally cooked food, your nomadic dolphin hunting tribes that follow pods of dolphins like the ancient North American plains people followed Buffalo, who either eat their meat raw, or cook it at the surface (since dolphins live near the surface and in shallower waters anyways), and your sinister rift dwellers that live deep in the dark oceanic rifts and live off of pillaging other tribes.
[Answer]
Very interesting. Cooking was an [important thing in our evolution](https://www.google.com/search?q=cooking+in+human+evolution). By essentially moving part of our digestive system outside our bodies, we lost chewing muscles and got more nourishment extraction with a smaller digestive system. Experiments show that people trying to live on raw food like chimps will give up, not finish their day's ration and get sore, tired jaws.
If something like that was formative to mer-folk evolution of tool use and sapience, note that the issue isn't *heat* or cooking as we normally understand it, but in offloading digestion and improving upon it.
Besides fire, we also have [cheese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Processing) (treatment by enzymes), [fermentation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_in_food_processing), [acids](http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1998-09-17/features/9809150358_1_coagulation-meat-and-poultry-fish-and-shellfish) or other chemical reactions. Instead of a rumen inside their bodies, they might do essentially the same thing in a jar. They might evolve to live off particular microorganisms and the broken down tissue it leaves behind after some period of action. Imagine if a cow did not have to cart around however many gallons of culture nor expend personal time and effort into chewing its cud. It could lose all that anatomy and energy expenditure from its [phenotype](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotype).
Finding suitable processes (e.g. to break down woody material) and designing more elaborate processes will open up new food sources at the speed of invention rather than evolution.
Their manner of feeding might be utterly different than ours. But, it had an important role in evolving complex tool use and community cooperation.
If they don't produce milk (not mammals as discussed on the [fortification thread](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/17484/what-would-the-fortifications-of-an-underwater-city-look-like)) but regurgitate food to feed the young, it would be obvious to domesticate animals that can eat other food sources and get them to regurgitate after breaking it down. Those would evolve into livestock that's built for that purpose and possibly rather different from the wild ancestor. If the original species also feeds its young in this way, it evolves into one that produces crop-milk in bulk, with a similar idea to how dairy cows exaggerate the mechanism already present for feeding others of the same species.
[Answer]
## The purpose of cooking is to predigest food
We cook food in order to soften it, to break it down, to make the nutrients more readily available to us and to change the taste. There are other ways to achieve these goals that don't require heat.
## Bacterial / fungal breakdown (decay)
We make use of micro-organisms to process food, for example yogurt, cheese, beer and bread. Simple decay will do the same job.
## Chemical breakdown (pickling, salting or drying)
Pickled products will slowly break down over time, changing the taste. Stomach acid would do the trick, or concentrated salt water.
## Mechanical breakdown
Chopping or mashing food will render nutrients more readily digestible.
Perhaps products could be prepared inside a skin bag or fish bladder to prevent them from dissolving in the sea water.
[Answer]
**They might use [hydrothermal vents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent).**
By going deep underwater your merfolk might be able to find zones where the magma seeps from the core heating the water around it, or they might dig a little near the bottom to force the magma out at specific places.
It might not be ideal for frying, and you might want to protect your chefs and food from some noxious chemicals, but the heat it provides might be what you need to at least create some sort of oven.
[Answer]
# The same way we do
Humans tend to live by shorelines, and make extensive use of the sea, why would merpeople not do the same in reverse? It would make sense for merpeople to live close to the shore, at which point they can do things like:
* Build infrastructure in non-tidal areas
* Use fire
* Acquire the resources to create floating structures so these things can be done further 'in-sea'
* Interact with Humans
Why risk death in extreme pressures hunting for thermal vents, or volcanic regions, or eat things raw, when you can cook them on the nearest beach with stone age tools?
[Answer]
It is perfectly simple to create a fire underwater. One simply needs to create a bubble and have the fire within it. With a suitable pump mechanism, you can get a steady supply of air to feed small flames.
Once you enter into the industrial age, you might get municipal air pipes running through any major settlement, at least for the rich elite. (An air supply would be useful for a variety of household tasks. e.g. inflating blankets for insulation, creating lifting balloons, keeping novelty pets and houseplants alive...)
[Answer]
Closing the food in clay jars and heating it over a hydrothermal vent is fine for a civilization stuck in the middle ages, but if they can advance into the scientific era they can use another trick: supercritical water.
When water is highly heated and compressed (304.1 K and 7.38 MPa), it becomes an amazing solvent, and can support strange effects like having an open flame underwater. Putting food inside a Supercritical Water Reactor would be similar to putting your steak into a blast furnace or the exhaust of a running rocket motor for searing, but the outer surface of such a device would certainly provide a hot spot for cooking.
[Answer]
This strikes me as an opportunity for an interesting cultural aspect of these merpeople.
If they used the hot vents to cook, and these vents are rare, then this turns cooking from a secluded home activity to a communal event and probably becomes a part of their social fabric.
This is similar to how some other (real) cultures, wash their clothes in the local river, as also a time to share gossip since they all gather at the same spot.
This social force is so powerful in some places that it caused water aid projects to fail: well meaning volunteers came into villages and set up running water in homes, but the piping fell into disuse because the women were so used to gathering around the central well as part of their social lives, that they reverted back to going to the well because they missed the social interaction.
So rather than the of the scarcity of the vents being a challenge in creating the world, it may be an opportunity to inspire a culture that is unique to the world.
[Answer]
An underwater civilization might toy with **magnesium torches**, if they could somehow invent those. [Wonderpedia Magazine](http://www.wonderpediamagazine.co.uk/science/which-fire-burns-underwater/ "Wonderpedia Magazine") quotes:
>
> It is colder than in the air and oxygen appears in a different form. Under the water, it is almost impossible for fire to survive – but only almost. Underwater torches made of magnesium are the exception. At 1,000ºC, they burn so hot that the water has trouble cooling down the metal. What’s more, magnesium reacts with the water molecules, releasing the oxygen they contain. The result: the torch keeps burning underwater.
>
>
>
There are also **calcium flares** which do stuff underwater. You could probably cook food with those too. (**Phosphorous** too?)
Alternative cooking methods might include **boiling** most things - it would probably be a common custom to hold a mollusc over a vent, much like a marshmallow over a fire?
**Pickling** certain foods may also be an option.
[Answer]
[Hydrothermal Vents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent) are the only things I can think of, without going to the surface or using fire. You might have to remove the idea of them cooking things. No marine animals (that I know of at least) cook their food, so why would merfolk cook theirs? If they are descendant from humans, but have adapted to live in the water, the way they eat/what they eat/how they eat would have to change. Eating things raw is just a fact of marine (and pretty much all) life.
[Answer]
Adding to what's been said: Merpeople could harvest digestive chemicals from sea creatures or plants. For example, force-feed an anemone way more than it can eat, then get it to expel its stomach contents into a bag. The anemone gets some nutrition, and the merpeople get most of their food back, but with acids and/or enzymes. A land plant example is pineapple, the fresh juice of which is a meat tenderizer (proteinase).
Cooking with heat underwater is problematic compared to above water, because water conducts heat so much better than air. So if your merpeople use chemical heaters for cooking, they would need to isolate them in some kind of insulating container, like a sharkskin bag. Maybe a double-layer bag, with air insulation.
Instead of chemical heat, how about electrical heat? Your merpeople might have studied electric eels, and thereby gained more knowledge of electricity than what medieval people had.
If they have electricity and wires, they could break water into hydrogen and oxygen, and recombine them to make heat. They wouldn't necessarily have to understand what they are doing.
FWIW, sodium metal burns vigorously under water, and it is part of salt, NaCl. But there's the rub, eh? How to extract it, under water?
[Answer]
In all reality they'd probably either raw food, or prepare it in a way that does not involve fire, like marinading it. There are enough serious mechanical difficulties of heat-cooking things under water that it's unlikely their evolution and development would stir that way unless they only ever live close to hydrothermal vents.
If they were somehow interested in cooking their food, they could possibly use certain chemicals (I have seen matches that still burn underwater and the smoke bubbles out) and/or double insulated pots (like a pot within a pot with air in between to make sure heat transfer mostly to food and doesn't boil the water around the pot) but it seems like too much trouble to occur naturally (maybe some surface-lovers might do it, to feel like the surface dwellers)
[Answer]
I can think of a few ways that surface-people technology could be adapted to merfolk to enable cooking. For example, they could use lenses to focus light onto rocks or a dark enclosure in order to cook using solar energy, or given appropriate electrical insulation they could make use of an induction heat source (using any number of power generation mechanisms, including solar, tidal/hydroelectric, etc.) which could even just keep a semi-enclosed vessel up to temperature so as to cook in a bain-marie.
If humans never existed and merfolk did indeed evolve a similar digestive system and seared-flesh tastes to real-world humans, they could make use of warm rocks in tidal pools, or have communal use of shared cooking facilities. Also, the truly intrepid could hold their breath long enough to start a fire on the beach.
However, there isn't much of a need for cooking when you have the many splendors of kelp, fresh fish, and plankton, all of which are perfectly edible (and arguably tastier) raw. I would see merfolk cooking as being some cutting-edge gourmand foodie activity, and possibly an extreme sport depending on how it's performed.
[Answer]
They could make a kind of central heating system with isolated heat pipes from vulcano or hydrothermal valve.
Alternatively they can use uranium as a heat source
Finally, it is possible to use the geothermal gradient and just drill a hole deep enough to tap heat of 100˚C. This can be done anywhere, you don't need to be near a vulcano.
Also with the increased pressure, "boiling" (with bubbles of gas being created) is really not needed. Heating to some 100˚C is good enough for cooking.
[Answer]
While it doesn't exactly solve the issue, one thing the merfolk could do, to copy the human art of cooking, is create pockets of air where they could then have fires. This is easily possible if they have a large fabric that can trap air. Go to the surface, open a container to fill with air, close it, and then release the air underneath the fabric. The fabric, as it fills, will balloon up and provide a pocket of air. There are a number of problems, but I could see it being a feasible *(expensive)* delicacy.
* The pocket should have a controllable way to release the smoke, carbon dioxide, from fires.
* It still couldn't be too far from the surface, because more oxygen would have to added periodically. It makes more sense the larger the pocket of air is. If you have to resupply oxygen after roasting marshmallows, its probably not worth the effort.
* Getting *dry* fuel to burn will take some preparation before-hand.
[Answer]
There are areas on the ocean floor where magma and hot gases vent out. Maybe food is fried up at locations like that.
] |
[Question]
[
Suppose there is a team of explorers sent back in time 66 million years ago somewhere before the K-T event took place, the mission is to spend no more than 3 months to retrieve a blood sample from a Tyrannosaurus rex. They will be donning a state of the art full body latex suit with air recycling system and temperature regulator, but food and water have to be improvised on the spot. My question is what can we eat over there to satisfy our hunger and thirst without getting sick? They will be driving in armored plated trucks and only armed with powerful tasers that is capable of delivering 100,000 volts of electricity to the subdue any threat.
[Answer]
Water can likely be purified and sterilized sufficient to be safe for human consumption (and associated stuff, cooking with it, cleaning, etc).
Food-wise, you're in a bit of a pickle... because there are no pickles. Also no cabbages, apples, strawberries, asparagus, or artichokes. Vegetables (and this includes fruits, basically any edible plant parts) are right out without extensive lab testing, and maybe even some iffy human testing. While a proper lab can test for common vegetable-origin toxins, there's always the possibility for some new allergen that will cause someone's throat to start swelling shut right when they'd like to breathe.
The good news is, the therapies for anaphylaxis are somewhat routine and easy to administer.
Well-cooked dinosaur meat is a better gamble. Meat can be toxic (see fugu/pufferfish), but this is somewhat uncommon. Palatability isn't guaranteed... some meats from exotic animals just end up being greasy, stringy, gamey, or otherwise borderline disgusting. But it's likely to be safe and keep time travelers from starving while they steal the Delorean back from Biff.
[Answer]
Turtles, crocodiles and snakes are consumed nowadays in some parts of the world, and as genus were present also back then, so they would be worth a try.
They could probably manage to get something similar to honey (flower plants existed and so did bees).
Water can be easily sterilized by using a pressure cooker.
They could also bring along with them some tubers farm on the spot, like potatoes, taking care of not leaving anything behind.
[Answer]
The place where you're most likely to find familiar animals is the sea. Sharks were present back then, in shapes and sizes pretty close to nowadays (as well as other shapes and sizes). Shark fin soup, anyone?
Fish are the vertebrates that changed the least in the last hundred million years. Finding, catching and preparing them for consumption is also pretty straightforward. And fishing on a boat might be the distraction your guys need to relax before or after trying to negotiate with a T-Rex for its blood.
[Answer]
**Water**
All the dinosaurs and other animals drank water. So water can be treated for drinking.
**Food**
As told [here](https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/food.html):
>
> Some dinosaurs ate lizards, turtles, eggs, early mammals or even other
> dinosaurs. Most, however, ate plants (but not grass, which hadn't
> evolved yet). Many of these plants had edible leaves, including
> evergreen conifers (pine trees, redwoods, and their relatives), ferns,
> mosses, horsetail rushes, cycads, ginkos, and in the latter part of
> the dinosaur age flowering (fruiting) plants.
>
>
>
So these people can eat
* edible parts of plants
* meat of early mammals
* fish (Sturgeon, Coelcanth, Lancetfish etc.)
* eggs
[Answer]
Bringing their own food would be better. If they are driving trucks, they may have enough storage space to store food for three months.
And they should have drones to fly and search for tyrannosaurs. Once the drones locate a tyrannosaur it can be followed until it goes to sleep. Then a drone can land near it and send out a remotel controlled vehicle to examine the skin of the sleeping tyrannosaur. And if the skin is soft enough the remotely controlled vehicle may be able to insert a needle and draw blood, hopefully without the tyrannosaur feeling anything, and return to the drone to take it back to the camp of the people from the future.
Or possibly they might follow a bunch of female tyrannosaurs until at least one of them makes a nest or lays a clutch of eggs. Then they can find small baby tyrannosaurs to subdue easily and get blood from easily. Or maybe take some eggs back to the future and hatch them and take blood samples from newborn tyrannosaurs and find outher uses for the yung tyrannosaurs.
It seems to me that a well planned expedition could get tyrannosaur blood with "no fuss, no muss, no rough stuff", and that you story features a less well planned expedition which will have a higher probability of failing in an interesting and exciting way.
I also note that the trucks used by the expedition should often run over and crush small insects and maybe small reptiles and small mammals. It is possible that the trucks could kill a small mammal which would otherwsie become an ancestor of humans or other mammals important to humans. And possbily the trucks might crush and kill plants which would otherwise become ancestors of plants important to humans as food sources.
And if your trucks sometimes run over and crush animals and plants, what happens to the bacteria and viruses living in and on those animals and plants? Shouldn't that change which bacteria and viruses live and which die from what would otherwise have happened? And shouldn't that change the future eveolution of viruses and bacteria, and thus prevent various human diseases from evolving and cause other human diseases to evolve. And since bacteria and viruses are the major causes of human deaths, changing which diseases evolve means changing which humans live and which humans die on a massive scale, totally changing human history.
[Answer]
## First your suits are pointless if you are eating the local fauna and leaving behind your waste. Human waste is mostly bacteria. If you are hauling your waste back you have enough storage space to bring your own food.
As others have said **water** can be purified fairly easily.
If you are absolutely determined to eat the locals start with things that are still around. **Turtles, crocodiles, and birds** are going to be just as safe as modern ones. **Dinosaurs** should be likewise safe, they are phylogenetically bracketed by crocs and birds and because they are not mammals the chances of finding compatible prions or other disease causing agents that will survive cooking are less than you risk with supermarket beef or pork. follow standard wild game practices, don't eat anything that looks sick, smells bad, or has open wounds.
If you want to take a bit more risk you can try **Pterosaurs, Marine reptiles, and varanid lizards**. These should still be safe but there is less certainty. follow standard wild game practices, don't eat anything that looks sick, smells bad, or has open wounds. Cook well, radio-sterilize if you can. Poisonous amniotes are basically non-existent, so you are just worried about the same disease vectors we have to worry about today. large animals are basically never poisonous because predators eat only after they are dead and generation times are too long to get much benefit from kin selective toxicity.
If you like to live dangerously you can try large fish and cycad fruits, you may survive. Don't eat more than a bite at first and try on the most expendable crew members first. Primates did exist in your time period so if you see a lemur looking thing eating a fruit you may consider trying it, but follow basic new plant survival protocols, test on skin first, then lips, then chew and spit, only then consider swallowing any. For fish, stick to very big fish, cook well, and follow the same protocol as plants. Of course the down side of fish is you may find something that is completely safe and completely disgusting, we don't know when coelacanths started storing large amounts of urea in their tissues.
[Answer]
# Carbon dioxide and water
Do like the Japanese and eat home grown algae. Carbon dioxide and water are the *only* things that will guarantee no one will get sick. So you need to pack some live algae and grow your food. Put it in purified nutrified water, give it some sunlight and air, then wait for dinner to grow.
# Everything else can make you sick
There is no possible test other than experimentation to discover what can kill you or cause an allergy or intoxicate you or cause delusions.
1. Plants are usually toxic. Modern science has exactly one method to test this: try it. Your plants 66MYA won’t have any recognized toxins, modern test kits will be useless.
2. Animals can be toxic. See #1 for how to find out which ones are safe.
3. Bacteria and viruses: You may be able to cook these out, no guarantees. Extremophile bacteria can survive cooking. Today none live in living things. Cretaceous animals? Roll the dice.
4. Prions. Prions cause mad cow disease and spongeoform encephalitis. They can be killed by extended cooking at 900°F. Whatever your dinner used to be, it’s now safe and reduced to charcoal. Today known prions live in brain tissue. Cretaceous prions lived in \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ (roll the dice).
## You won’t get sick if you:
* Bring a small amount of algae with you
* Purify water then add purified minerals back in
* Filter outside air to 95 microns
* Grow algae in the treated water, sunlight, and filtered air
* Purify salt from seawater by evaporating in a kiln
* Bring favorite spices, enjoy.
## Purify waste
Your autoclave will be needed again to reduce your own poop and pee to ash before letting anything outside. The closer you get it to raw carbon and water, the better.
[Answer]
## Chickens
Eating should be no problem. [Galliformes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliformes), the order of animals that include chicken, turkey etc., predates the K-T event by many dozens of millions of years - chickens are sometimes called dinosaurs in pop-culture for their singlemindedness and not-giving-a-\*\*\*\* about eating anything and everything.
I find no particular reason to assume that the Galliformes of back then, which are "heavy-bodied, ground-feeding" birds should be particular poisonous to our valiant explorers.
In fact, [Birds are considered the last living dinosaurs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds), sharing many common aspects, down to some features of the DNA, with dinos. I would assume that at least *trying* to eat actual dino meat would not be out of the realm of possibility. I would try for a specimen which has obvious methods of defense which are not poison - e.g., a dino with huge claws and teeth probably uses those for attack and defense, and would be more likely not to have evolved any hidden, insiduous defense mechanism, as opposed to a small and cute specimen.
## Vitamins
Vitamins have the property that they are vital for life, and not all of them can readily created by the body from other ingredients. This means that even if there are plenty of chicken around for macro-nutrients (i.e., energy), you will run into problems. Your time of 3 months could be problematic.
For example, it takes at least 1 month of no vitamin C to develop [scurvy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy). Too little Vitamin D eventually could lead to Rickets (with variants for adults) but should be no problem and can be synthesized with sunlight. Other vitamins you may need to look up yourself.
I have the feeling that 3 months of extremely one-sided food should be survivable. Maybe with extreme consequences, but hopefully medical science is advanced enough by the time we have time travel to be able to cure whatever deficiency syndrome develops.
As your explorers are coming with high-tech suits, is it at all possible to have some pockets with the absolute essentials - i.e., vitamin powders/gels? Say a highly concentrated gel which can be taken every 3 days - so 30 little gel packets placed around the body should be manageable...
## Plants
There will be none of our modern cultured plants - things like apples, bananas, our vegetables etc. exist only because we humans selected them for millenia and hence did a low-tech Darwinistic gene-modification operation for a very long time now. Aside from the fact that the original fruits of natural plants will be small, probably not very well tasting, possibly poisonous etc., it is well known that going out into the wilderness today and just eat whatever grows on the ground or on trees will quickly lead to at least vomiting and possibly death (due to the weakness of trying to forage on an empty stomach for a few days...).
## Water
There are good ways to make water safe to drink in the wilderness, today. Surely our group can bring some mechanism, be it filtering or chemical, with them. Again, while of course the individual bacteria or other critters around back then were different from today, they were biochemically/mechanically not that far removed and I see no particular reason why they should be *immune* to our water purifiers. If they had awesome, unknown defense mechanisms, they surely would still be around! Also, if the filter is working at least partly mechanically, there is a minimum size of single-celled organisms even back then, with no reason to believe that it is much smaller than the smallest protozoan today.
[Answer]
**Honey.** Honey bees have been around for a very long time (circa 120 million years). It is a known anti-bacterial material.
**Fish.** Unlikely to carry the sort of germs that will infect people (especially if you eat fish that are near the bottom of the food chain).
**Fern fronds.** I have trie3d them in Borneo and they are fabulous (though best with lots of garlic - so expect them to be a bit bland).
**Pine nuts.** Several conifers have edible seeds - they could be ground up to make flour.
So that gives you protein, sugar, green veg, and carbo - enough for a well balanced diet.
For those concerned about poisons - obviously try small amounts first, or feed them to sacraficial lab-rats. For those concerned with viruses/bacteria - there is only a minute overlap of 'bugs' that can infect both mammels and any of fish, reptiles, or amphibians - so you would almost certainly be safg eeating them (ignoring the small risk of a fugu-like scenario). Almost any fish you might find in fresh or salt water today is edible, so there is no reason why it wouldn't be in the past. There is a possible risk from eating dinosaurs - due to their common ancestry with birds (which can carry disease agents that are co-infectious to mammels). If you are going to risk it, then I suggest you eay your dino-steaks well-done.
] |
[Question]
[
Some societies in our current world have strong beliefs about ghosts and spirits. This affects their architecture, e.g.
---
>
> [6 Bizarre Ways Architecture Is Designed to Ward Off Ghosts](http://www.cracked.com/article_18927_6-bizarre-ways-architecture-designed-to-ward-off-ghosts.html)
>
>
> By Christina H December 14, 2010
>
>
>
The methods vary from the colour of paint you use to the shape of doorways.
---
**Question**
In a world where spirits were known to hide in corners and come out at night to cause trouble, how would this affect architecture? What about cupboards, beds, refrigerators, carpets, etc?
In particular I'm trying to work out how large buildings would look both from the inside and out. Can anyone suggest good ways to conserve materials - rectangular rooms are after all quite efficient from a packing point of view.
**Clarification**
You can consider a spirit to be a sphere of diameter from 1cm - 100cm. They adhere to a corner at **two or more points** on their surface by flattening themselves slightly where they touch. They are unable to deform themselves very much however and always retain a roughly spherical shape. They can however extend pseudopodia at night to form limbs. These limbs cannot be less than 1cm across or longer than 1 metre. A pseudopod forms part of the volume of the ghost so the sphere diminishes in size accordingly. They only have pseudopods when they are moving around at night causing mischief.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oRhVT.png)
Note: The spirits are the greyed-in circles. The walls are the black lines. If the spirits can touch in two places they can hold on. A green tick means that the spirit can hold on to the surfaces. A red cross means that the spirit cannot hold on.
**Movement**
At night the ghosts leave the corners and move around the building. Their maximum speed is about walking speed of a human but like most ghosts they can move through walls. They mainly operate like poltergeists. What they can move depends on their size. A 1cm ghost could knock an empty teacup over. A 5cm ghost could hide your TV remote or your keys. A 30cm ghost can open doors, pull your bedding off or pull drawers out and spill the contents. A 1m ghost is the most dangerous. It can knock large furniture over, shake your bed, pull you out of bed while you are asleep - even levitate you.
All ghosts can do a sort of Vulcan mind-meld while you are asleep. The small to medium ones can give you nightmares. The larger ones can employ phenomena such as temporarily possessing you as in the Exorcist movie.
**Interaction with solid objects**
Ghosts, like poltergeists, can choose to interact with solid matter. When sleeping, they can hold onto surfaces. During the night they move around and grip things with their pseudopods. They can drift through solid walls but they cannot simultaneously interact with solids and drift through them. Therefore they have to slingshot themselves through solid objects. The reason that they must roost somewhere during the day is that they are not affected by gravity. They would simply drift off into space if they didn't hold onto something.
**Preference**
Ghosts like to congregate near people. They prefer an inhabited house to an uninhabited one. However if they cannot find somewhere to hide near people, they have to go further afield in order to find a daytime sleeping place.
[Answer]
**Everyone lives in yurts.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jP4C1.jpg)
Most homes are compounds comprised of multiple yurts inside of a circular wall, though some people can only afford a single yurt, with partitions inside to break up the space and provide privacy.
The round shape provides no corners, though some care has to be give for where the wall and roof meet.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/bleIr.jpg)
For added protection, look at our line of incense and other spirit wards.
**Really late edit:**
So I was looking this answer over and had another thought. Getting the spirits to not stick around by creative architecture is a good defensive strategy, but what kind of offensive strategy could be used?
One idea I came up with was to use the spirits known tenancies against them and build traps.
So you make a square box with the right dimensions and put them a little way outside of the village. When the sun comes up the spirit goes into the box to rest. Then you load the box onto a catapult and launch it. The box would be constructed in such a way that it would fall to pieces once it is launched, and since the spirit isn't affected by gravity and has nothing to hold on to, it will be launched into space never to return.
So, Ghostbusters with catapults.
[Answer]
Two things come immediately to mind:
1. Rough textures would have to be forbidden as well. The 100cm ghosts could attach to surfaces that are rough enough to have valleys with curvatures greater than that of the ghosts' bodies. How smooth the surface has to be is dependent on how far apart and how large the attachment points need to be. (A related concern: nature provides an abundance of rough surfaces.) Soft objects like curtains might be problematic as well.
2. Ghost traps. Structures designed to encourage ghost infestation by virtue of their shape. These could be design as an odd-shaped box or structure that meets the prohibition requirements on the outside but has a network of cords inside. There might even be a profession whose job would be to go around opening or dispatching the containers in the morning and setting up or closing them in the evening. Usefulness depends on ghost population densities, ghost intelligence, and available disposal methods.
If we can assume that moderately rough surfaces are acceptable (popcorn ceilings are out but stucco is okay), I'd imagine towns of organic, flowing architecture with a lot of convex rounded surfaces. Windows might be non-existent, instead favoring organic-looking openings, water catches, and light reflectors.
You mention "come out at night to cause trouble". I suspect technology would lead in a direction that favors anti-ghost technologies beyond inconvenient architecture. (Long burning, redundant lamps? A tendency for the population to favor lit areas, long days and short nights? The buildings would still have the organic look because of tradition.) But as industry rises, convenience and technological advancement might lead to some mix between that and what we see in our world today.
A world like that would need consideration beyond just the architecture. Once the scientific process is discovered, ghosts, being at least partially physical entities, would become of the subject to experiments. Eventually this will lead to things like weaponization, enslavement, utility, etc.
Even without the scientific process, trial and error could have its way. Just as noting that corners tend to attract these ghosts, other things would also be noted. How does the rest of nature grow to deal with them? Nature is great at doing trial and error testing on a massive scale and so it seems likely that there would be creatures that the ghosts avoid, creatures that can damage ghosts, that feed on the ghosts, that are food for the ghosts. (Assuming such things are possible in that world.) Humans would note those tendencies as well. Perhaps instead of architecturing around the ghost problem, they domesticate some creature(s) that acts as a repellent to ghosts (much the same way as dogs are used to deter trespassing).
There are a lot of world altering repercussions when considering a creature like that as we don't really have such a thing here. I apologize for going on if your interest was only in the architectural changes.
[Answer]
What's the simplest shape that has no corners? A circle! That means that most buildings would be built using circular rooms and walls - irregular shapes are possible, too, but they make calculations difficult.
The solution here is to make circular buildings with circular rooms. Putting one room on each story is trivial; putting multiple rooms in a story can be difficult if you need to maximize efficiency. To best do this, we need to look at [circle packing in a circle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing_in_a_circle). Take a floor with eight rooms. The optimal arrangement, for eight rooms which are all the same size, is the following:
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Disk_pack8.svg)
I modified this in Paint to add in hallways, which are partially circular:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xs7Zw.png)
You can also add in smaller rooms or irregular rooms to put the remaining space to use.
DoubleDouble [pointed out](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/23019/if-corners-were-illegal#comment60140_23021) that this is a three-dimensional problem. Therefore, I propose a solution: Consider the floors, ceilings and walls to be all one surface, by smoothly joining them together, like so:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/a9qjD.png)
[Answer]
Use hexagonal rooms to pack them together nicely and then internally plaster/etc the corners into smooth curves so that you end up with rooms with no corners.
The amount of space you loose smoothing out the corners depends on just how curved they have to be to allow them. You can probably run cables and suchlike through the space they leave though.
[Answer]
**Just round all the corners.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fTh3d.png)
Each section of drywall can come with pre-rounded edges from the factory. When joined, they create a rounded joint. Given your updates, this picture is still accurate, but doesn't appear to scale. The rounded corner has a radius of one meter. Picture a city block rather than the wall of a home. The bottom edge would be rounded in the same way.
Alternatively, you say that:
>
> The smallest space that a spirit can hide in is 1 cm in radius. Most spirits are 10 - 100 cm. You could have a square pipe that is less than 1cm across and a spirit would not be able to get inside.
>
>
>
So, just make all boards 1 cm thick, now their corners are too small for a spirit to fit inside and you don't need to worry about rounding them.
If your intention was to not let any "meta-corners" exist, that is a corner made from separate things that themselves contain no corners. Then simply offset any boards so their too small corners do not line up to create larger corners.
[Answer]
I think we need to know more about the physiology of these spirits. Why do they need to attach to a corner? What happens if they can't attach? Are they stuck in an alternate dimension and can only come to our dimension if they can get two attachment points? How long does it take to attach? What happens when they do attach? Are they deadly or do they just sing your least favorite songs while you're trying to sleep? How hard is it to make them go away? Can we rotate guards to just patrol the sleeping areas and whack pesky spirits with Ghost-B-Gone® before they cause damage? Or, as pointed out above, just domesticate some spirit-eaters and let them roam the house at night.
What about the bazillion things that have to exist around us that naturally have corners? For example, humans. There are corners between our fingers and toes, in our armpits and groins, between our buttocks, inside our mouths and nasal cavities, between our nose and face, around our ears, etc.
If the spirits can't attach to organic matter, then we'd just build normal houses with organic coatings, or use organic materials. If they can't attach to "living" matter (now comes the wonderful question of how to define that), then we could weave houses out of living plants. Trees would be planted in room-shaped patterns, then vines could be grown between them to form walls. Barbaric, but animals (or people we don't like) could be flayed alive and their (still-attached) skins used to form walls, doors, etc.
People would probably have to run around naked to avoid spirits attaching to our clothing. If they can only attach to a fairly stationary object, then we'd just sleep naked. If spirits take a while to attach, then we could just wake up periodically through the night to move our bedding around to disrupt any in-progress dimension tunneling.
Throughout the day, we could just wave brooms around the various corners to disrupt the "corner", although it seems from your question like we really just need to worry about night-time. We could put all beds inside a spherical room the spirits can't enter.
But now we have a problem: you mentioned the spirits can move through solid objects at will. This means the spirits would just attach at one of the virtually infinite natural corners outside of town then descend on the town every night, rendering architecture meaningless. Also, what's to stop the spirits from simply attaching *inside* an object? A broom handle could support every spirit ever if they just attach to positions inside the handle, then "walk through" the handle to escape into your house. Likewise, they could attach inside the ground then raise to the surface.
Then is the problem with tools, appliances and furniture. Any place a tool or chair is sitting on a surface creates a "corner". Every night, everyone in the village would have to take all of the above outside town, or leave it in a spirit-proof box or room. But if we can spirit-proof the boxes, then would could just spirit-proof the bedroom (or possibly the entire house). So really, furniture would be practically non-existent and any kind of tools (including plateware, stored foods, etc.) would be kept in a community building outside of town. Of course, now that we've made individual houses practically useless, why bother? Just have everyone sleep in one big, curved room outside town, then migrate into the village to work, play and eat all day.
[Answer]
(@Andy got his answer in, during the very long time I spent causally pondering this answer, without reloading the page. He is right, Everyone lives in Yurts.)
Why have buildings with multiple rooms at all?
One Building per room.
You want to go to the kitchen, leave the lounge room building, walk a few meters outside, over the separate kitchen building.
In large parts of the word, (including where I am), this is completely viable all year. Indeed, I believe there are countries where this is the predominant building style [citation needed]. Even a few generations ago in the western world we had separate buildings for the toilet or "outhouse". This is also a common style for long term camping, where you have 1 kitchen tent, 1 dining tent, and a number of bedroom tents.
So long as it doesn't heavily snow or rain, you don't really need roofed corridors. A bit of rain will just get you damp. A lot of things will need to be water-proof. Even with snow, it is likely not a significant issue. Monsoonal rain might be worse.
Now the next question is could society even form at all?
A lot of simple building techniques used in prehistoric times, almost certainly had corners. Eg any kind of Tee-Pee, or lean-to.
But there are not needed everywhere -- many caves are naturally rounded, and if the area is high in clay then domes etc can be constructed even with primitive tech. If long springy sticks are available (eg bamboo) then dome style tents are possible.
Be also aware that as well as the walls and sided being curved (at all joints), so too must the floor. so prior to building a floor bowl should be dug, that will extend and flow up into the walls and roof
As to furniture:
Cupboards are trivially replaced with bags, and beds with hammocks.
You can design around these constraints for furniture, but there is little pressure to.
Refrigerators may be replaced with water tight (or not) bags in cold running water. Or with separate cool rooms -- just another building which is kept cold.
[Answer]
What can and can't they hold on to? Because contents of the room (read; people) are going to cause intersects. If they can cling to anything, it's an impossible problem.
If they can only cling to inanimate objects, then use water and air pressure. Ever used a Dyson blade hand dryer? Blow that up 100x and use air pressure to create roofs and other structures that can not be created with flowing water.
Water would have to make up the floor and walls and people would sleep on personal flotation devices.
Power would be the only issue.
[Answer]
Just to add a separate thought to what is already here. There will come a point when people are not scared by the ghosts any more but are simply a nuisance. With this there comes a certain stage when people stop trying as hard to develop against the ghosts and just learn to live with it. So there comes a point when no further advances in 'ghost-protection' measures happen.
] |
[Question]
[
**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
The details don't matter, just that a large fraction of people have died (let's say 90%) and society has completely collapsed. It's only a year or two later, and people have started to gather together again and attempt to build communities. The leader of a large-ish (~200) band of people has a plan to rebuild as best as possible, and so plans to have everyone take up residence in a nearby city that is built near one of the US' hydroelectric power plants. This city has specifically been chosen so that the nearby hydroelectric plant can be restored and power can be available to the city.
Obviously there is a lot that can go wrong with this plan, but I'm only interested in one aspect of it. I'm handwaving away some details:
1. Assume that the survivors manage to restore the plant
2. Assume that the survivors are able to keep it functional for some extended period of time
Given those things, my question is:
**Can a standalone hydroelectric plant actually be useful and provide power to a nearby city in otherwise modern USA? If not, are there any steps that could be taken to make it work?**
The reason I'm uncertain is things like:
1. Our power grid is quite complicated, and it isn't obvious to me if modern day power plants can even really operate on their own
2. I'm not quite sure if power plants are actually designed in such a way that they provide their own power - I wouldn't be surprised if an external power source (even if just generators) is required at various parts
3. Presuming that the plant can operate on its own, I'm not sure if that means it can power a city that is likely connected to many other places in the grid. You might end up effectively attempting to power half the nation, which obviously isn't possible.
4. It also seems likely that the plant wouldn't be tied directly or even closely into a city anyway, and so getting power to the city would require a major overhaul of infrastructure.
In terms of power usage, the plant itself should be more than sufficient. Looking at the list of [US hydroelectric plants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hydroelectric_power_stations_in_the_United_States), even the smallest generates roughly 1.3GW of electricity. We're talking roughly a couple hundred survivors, and even if they each have their own house and use electricity at standard US rates (peak at roughly 20kW) that still leaves room for tens of thousands of houses. Presumably only logistics will be an issue for our survivors for quite a while.
[Answer]
On September 28 2003, Italy experienced a [nation wide black out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Italy_blackout).
>
> After three hours, energy was restored in northern regions. Electricity was restored gradually in most places, and in most cities electricity was powered on again during the morning.
>
>
>
Energy was restored first in the northern region because there is where hydroelectric plants are located, and they could be used to power back the other plants, needing electricity to start up and operate. [Ref.1](http://www.repubblica.it/2003/i/sezioni/cronaca/blackitalia/blackitalia/blackitalia.html) [Ref.2](http://www.repubblica.it/2003/i/sezioni/cronaca/blackitalia/distacchi/distacchi.html)
As long as you isolate the network that you want to supply from the network that you don't want to supply, you can use the hydroelectric plant as standalone for quite some time. (this addresses your points 2, 3 and 4). You "just" need to know the schematics of the network.
Moreover, one of the advantages of hydroelectric plants it their [flexibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity#Flexibility)
>
> Hydropower is a flexible source of electricity since stations can be ramped up and down very quickly to adapt to changing energy demands. Hydro turbines have a start-up time of the order of a few minutes. It takes around 60 to 90 seconds to bring a unit from cold start-up to full load; this is much shorter than for gas turbines or steam plants. Power generation can also be decreased quickly when there is a surplus power generation.
>
>
>
This is particularly important if you are supplying a relatively small city with not too much load, where load fluctuations might be relatively large.
[Answer]
Hydroelectric dams are definitely not maintenance-free, nor are power grids. You have three life-threatening problems for your small band of experimenters.
1) Grid power is really dangerous and complex for the inexperienced. It's quite possibly fatal for the new, inadequately equipped, untrained lineman or electrician who it trying to puzzle out the city's electrical network.
Expect several quite nasty casualties before your new settlers figure out how to isolate their neighborhood from the larger (uncontrolled) grid and energized. Expect a lot of destroyed hardware and perhaps a few more casualties before they learn how to control phase, voltage, and amperage reliably.
2) On the dam itself, your new crewfolk are also trying to handle high volumes of high pressure water through the turbines and the spillways. Again, without proper equipment or training, expect some on-the-job casualties as they learn the hard way.
3) Finally, the dam itself requires maintenance and observation lest the structure fail catastrophically. One hopes that among the new settlers are a skilled hydrologist and a good structural engineer, because repairing a breached dam is definitely another skill you don't want to learn on-the-job...and one hopes the settlers' neighborhood isn't downstream of the breach.
[Answer]
**Yes**
With a little work it is completely possibly, you just need to cut off unused parts of the grid. This can be done by flipping switches on lines individually or going to transmission stations a shutting down different parts. You are either using an existing [microgrid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgrid) or creating one by cutting apart a larger grid. Grids [have to be built](https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/general-principles-of-electricity-supply-systems) to be sectioned off, otherwise every downed powerline would shutdown an entire city. Many places even have existing microgrids for military bases, college campuses, and hospitals. Small power plants often have small local grids as well.
Not only can most hydroplants supply their own power most are designed to run that way, separate generators may be used for start up but the powerplant runs off its own power, it does not make a lot of sense to build parts of a power plant that need anything but the plants electricity for normal running, it just adds unneeded complexity and points of failure. There is not actually much to smaller hydro electric plants.
This does not mean it is easy, you need skilled technicians to close off the grid and to keep it running, but an existing microgrid will make it easier. You also need maintenance, which dam will determine how hard this is. Some dams need little upkeep in an off themselves at least compared to others, this is determined by size and design. There is a big difference between the hoover dam and the Rutherford Creek dam. There are actually [a lot](https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fee.1746) of small hydroelectric dams which are fairly low maintenance. The advantage of a small dam is you literally can get away with one person running it.
[Answer]
How large is the plant?
Here in Austria there are lots of small hydroelectric power plants. Often they are old saw (or grain) water mills which have been converted to electric power generation. They produce around 100kW or even less.
Unfortunately I can’t find good sources but I think they are quite simple and maintenance free, like a small rooftop photovoltaic system or small wind turbine. Just a generator and an inverter, no complicated high-voltage lines, controlling etc.
[Answer]
There are already some excellent answers to this question, particularly L.Dutch explaining that hydro is suitable because it is often contracted by network operators to provide ['black start'](https://www.nationalgrideso.com/balancing-services/system-security-services/black-start?overview) capability to provide power to a failed network and user535733 explaining that it may be unsuitable as dealing with mains power is dangerous and the maintenance of a hydro plant is complex work.
To build on the existing answers, I would suggest that for your small group what you need is a small local hydro scheme. This will be one that is already designed to supply a community, so the required cabling will already be there, and it will be less complex to maintain than a large national scheme. See for example the projects highlighted here: <https://www.hydro.org/policy/technology/small-hydro/>. The Bowersock Mills project on the linked page, before extension, claims to be capable of providing power for 1,800 homes. This will be 1,800 homes at the current rate of consumption in the US and it would be fair to assume that in a post-apocalyptic world that people would use less electricity overall. This means that your group would be able to expand considerably using a system of this size alone,.
[Answer]
## You're too late
The ability of hydroelectric plants to run independently has been lost.
In an apocalypse, without competent people to keep it up, the power grid is going to fall apart. Getting it back online will depend on **Black Start**, the ability of certain plants to self-bootstrap, get to full power and feed the grid to feed other plants so they can power up. Most plants cannot do this; they require power from the grid to spin up.
A **thermal (coal/gas/oil)** plant takes up to 10% of its generating capacity just to get on its feet - for fuel preparation (powderizing coal), feedwater pumps and blowers. (all these, plus RBMK and CANDU reactors, are **water-tube boiler** designs, which absolutely require continuous feedwater). So for thermal plants, blackstart is out of the question because the diesel generators would be positively enormous.
**Nukes** have local diesel generators for in-plant needs (mainly, core cooling after shutdown), but they don't blackstart for policy reasons, and because of that, they're not physically equipped to blackstart. It might be possible to hack one to blackstart, but it would take months.
**Wind and solar** can't blackstart for policy reasons. They use inverters whose software is specifically written to **follow** the grid and shut off if unable (see UL 1741). Some windmills *physically lock-sync* with the grid, spinning at a constant rate. They were never conceived to be blackstart *and wouldn't be trusted*, because a thermal plant could take damage (water-tube boilers) if clouds or calm suddenly shut off its startup power. Although software can be rewritten if key people survive.
So now we're down to **hydro**. As it happens, almost every hydro plant was built with a small "donkey" turbine whose solitary purpose is to power the station during station blackouts. Electrical needs of hydro plants are small - just control circuits, lighting and main-generator excitation - which means the donkey turbine **can blackstart the plant**. Just one problem. The bright bulbs in the power industry have
* been replacing cheap-but-weird donkey turbines with common-but-expensive diesel generators, to provide their blackstart capability, and
* expecting grid operators to *pay them* to maintain the blackstart infrastructure. To which grid operators have been saying **NO**, because they contract out blackstart capability to the lowest bidder.
As a result, black-start capability has been [stripped out of](https://www.adepttech.com/blog/?p=1033) almost all hydro plants. Getting the general grid back up requires a Rubik's Cube of sequencing plants, and that requires high trade expertise to make that work, in 4-5 "knowledge pinch points". It might survive a Thanos snap, but a 90% culling? You're bound to lose a key element.
Heck, it would be enough to lose a key power line or substation, and that could be due to enemy action.
## Solar/battery tech to the rescue
[Superstorm Sandy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy). Some of the most powerful people on earth are riding out the storm at home, smug with their new solar panels. Power goes out and **remember UL 1741?** Their solar system dutifully shuts off, while they shiver in the dark going "WTH my $40,000 solar system?"
Anyway, this woke people up, making it now possible to market technology like Tesla PowerWalls etc. that allow houses to use their solar panels (and batteries) to stay up during blackouts.
So, in your apocalypse scenario, your people **won't even bother relighting the grid**. They will either live in those homes, or go strip those systems out of homes that are in the wrong location, or combine tech like that to supply industry as needed. Maybe they could even put some on a hydro plant and get it black-startable LOL...
## Hydro still needs power
One problem with all hydro dams is they are bombs. The dam holds back a tremendous amount of [potential energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy). If **unleashed**, it will blow the dam and wipe out communities and crops downstream. If **unmanaged**, it may be unleashed.
For instance if you followed the Oroville crisis, that dam would've been in a world of hurt if your apocalypse hit February 1 2017. At the very least you need to open *enormous* spillway gates from time to time. These are normal dam problems. You need the guy there who knows when to do what, and there needs to be electrical power for him to do that. In your scenario, the dam is a *consumer* of power, not a provider.
So you could actually have a problem with hydro dams starting to fail, and this will be similar to the problem of nuclear plants cooking off if their core cooling isn't attended to. It will be a serious demand on the finite skill of your survivors.
[Answer]
**Yes.** Complexity is scalable. Both of my grandfathers were electrical engineers and one of them was the resident electrical expert at a hydroelectric dam in Arizona. Complexities can be managed to meet lower power requirements. A single person can operate a fairly large dam, so there is not good reason why he could not operate a much smaller one or a subset of its functions. As with automobiles, older hardware is in some cases easier to use as a fallback because the complexities of the larger grid or more computer-driven setup are emergent rather than baked-in. Either way, a turbine is a turbine and it would not be infeasible to draw power directly from them, circumventing any needlessly complex control or routing mechanisms. To prevent overload issues related to using a large-scale network to supply energy to a relatively small community, a single turbine can be used and the others left idle. As with all generators, turbines are responsive to load in the amount of electricity they will produce. Reduce the load, and the blades will rotate more freely, simply letting water pass through. Increase the load, and more of the kinetic energy from the water will be absorbed. Floodways and spillways also act as overload circumvention, by regulating the amount of water let into the turbine pathway versus the amount diverted, so even with a very crude mechanical control system the power supply could be kept nearly constant, or within a threshold. The low-maintenance argument used elsewhere in this thread applies, but any major repairs would take an experienced crew and heavy equipment, and be very risky if the dammed area is not drained in case of structural integrity issues.
[Answer]
Getting an AC generator online is possible. It may follow the structure of a 1960's generator I have at my house, and the problems bringing it back online.
My generator is a two-stage generator.
The high power side is an AC alternator. The rotor is driven with a DC field and spun inside the fixed stator, which connects with the AC load. The frequency of the AC is controlled by the shaft rotary velocity. The voltage is determined by the DC field strength and the rotary velocity. For a hydroelectric dam, both of these control functions could be implemented by a person riding the controls. With some cleverness, the existing controls could be re-applied.
Notice that this AC alternator requires DC power, delivered through slip-rings, to generate AC power. "Blackstart" is a bootstrap problem.
This power generation system has a lower-power stage that is a DC generator on the same shaft as the AC alternator. It uses a commutator through brushes on the rotor to provide DC. Its exciter stator field is a coil powered by a stream of DC current. Increasing the exciter current increases the DC voltage out, which increases the high-power field strength, which increases the AC output voltage. The DC generator exciter winding is driven from its own DC output through a control system (in the simplest case, an adjustable series resistor).
There is no external source for the initial current needed to run the exciter. How is a "blackstart" bootstrap performed?
It turns out that the system is initially driven by residual magnetism in the exciter iron poles. They are energized by DC, and are of a type of iron that retains a small field. In effect, having once run the generator makes the exciter field core into a low-strength permanent magnet. Spinning the rotor makes some power, which adds to the exciter field, which increases the output of the DC generator, which increases the exciter field... and bootstrap happens.
What if the residual field is completely gone? There are several approaches. First, the ambient Earth magnetic field may be sufficient to bootstrap. Second, a pulse of electric current delivered to the field core will induce a residual field. Third, a permanent magnet could be used to apply some initial magnet field to the exciter core.
If I were faced with a small hydroelectric dam, I would expect to find something like this. After two years, there would still be sufficient residual magnetism to bootstrap the process. Because I would start with a single generator, there would no issues of synching to the other generating equipment.
This question calls for "hard science". I haven't included any numbers or formula, but I have referenced how small-to-medium AC generators work. The voltages and currents involved will scale with the installation. I would feel confident that given a small hydroelectric plant that has only been down for two years, I could handle the electronics and control system part to bring it back online.
[Answer]
Given time and some labor force and ideally someone else to swap ideas with - and better still a small team of somewhat similar people - I'd expect to be able to handle the electrical aspects of Blackstarting any Hydro, wind or solar photovoltaic system - even if there was/ had been software designed to thwart me.
Mechanical & operational aspects that need advanced knowledge may foil me in some situations - eg stopping a hydro turbine over running destructively - or a wind turbine in some cases.
Nuclear I'd steer clear of as I know just enough to know that I don't know nearly enough to do it safely.
Gas turbines are a maybe perhaps.
References: Some more later maybe but
* " [:-) - I am a reference source - :-)](https://stackexchange.com/users/509441/russell-mcmahon?tab=accounts) "
Sort of anyway. ME electrical,
50+ years "playing" in many areas.
Bring it on :-).
ie I'm saying that, based on what I think I know I believe that there are numerous people "around" who could restart many power plants. Even power stations such as the ones mentioned where diesel engines have been used to provide excitation current for large alternators. There will usually be a way given enough time and will, and as long as the zonbies really aren't coming back.
Questions welcome.
] |
[Question]
[
In my overcrowded future setting the Hegemony (government of the Earth) wants to make the metropolises of the world self sufficient when it comes to food production. What farming/food production methods would allow a metropolis like New York to be able to feed itself or even become exporters of food.
Notes:
* Technology should be near future
* I'm not picky when it comes to where the food comes from as long as it is humane (you can't turn hobos into Soylent Green)
* Preferably something renewable or at least "cheap"
[Answer]
You'll want to start with technology that produces light suitable for growing crops indoors. Grow lights exist of course but they're awfully energy intensive. With near-future technology you'll have better small scale energy sources.
Imagine skyscrapers covered not with a veneer of bricks but rather with solar panels that look like bricks (or stone or siding). We already have solar panels that look like (and take the place of) roofing shingles (with the added bonus that they are each small so any shadow would not take out a whole panel...solar only produces as much as any given cell produces, per panel).
Imagine wind power solutions that do not make noise or harm birds and that are cheap enough to put on every balcony railing and rooftop edge. On every highway/road overpass, or anyplace wind is an issue (cities currently use sculptures and landscaping to deflect wind). Use wave power along the coast as well.
These technologies all exist right now but aren't being produced (much) due to economies of scale, lack of integration with government choices, and so forth. It's all quite doable, with the will to do it. In the near-future, these generators will be more efficient and charge better batteries too. Or so we can imagine.
Use this cheap and easy to access power for (more efficient) grow lights, water pumping (both directions), and ventilation. Now turn walls and hanging room dividers into gardens.
Both in homes:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rNCDF.png)
(Français : [Mur végétal Intérieur de l'entreprise Urban Garden](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mur_v%C3%A9g%C3%A9tal_int%C3%A9rieur.jpg))
And in public spaces:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RsCii.jpg)([ref](https://www.flickr.com/photos/joncutrer/41894181750))
For protein and extra fats, grow seeds such as hemp, poppy, mustard, flax, and chia. For calories, hydroponic potatoes, sweet potatoes, for calories plus protein: legumes.
Espaliered fruit trees and vines can be grown against walls with ease. Perhaps a stand on a balcony then have the tree reach up almost to the balcony above. This would give it full sun (if not north facing) and some rainwater. Apple, pear, cherry, grape, fig, citrus, etc (choose for climate).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oTD8y.jpg)
For even more protein, have some [cricket farms](https://entonation.com/inside-the-largest-edible-cricket-farm-in-the-world/).
You'll still need to do some more conventional farming (and animal husbandry) in the parks and rooftops and other open spaces, but these techniques will reduce the amount of space you need for those. You'll also want to choose your landscaping trees and other plants to be edible. Why put in a flowering cherry when you and have a fruiting one?
Starfish Prime has it right with aquaponics. Plenty of room in NYC and other coastal metropolises for that. If you assume that the near future has cleaned up the water.
[Answer]
The numbers don't add up, with current technology, for a sustainable system.
Plants are the most efficient way to convert renewable energy into food, but "the most efficient" doesn't mean "efficient". The maximum power input from solar energy is around 1kW/m^2. Plants convert that energy into food with an efficiency of at best about 3%, and that assumes the entire plant is edible. That means plants are converting a maximum of 30W/m^2 - when the sun is shining and there are no clouds. Averaged over a year, the day length is 12 hours out of 24 which reduces the average "edible energy" to 15W/m^2. Factor in the influence of weather, and any other inefficiencies, and you might get a number like 5W/m^2 averaged over a year.
A sedentary human needs around 100W of power for survival, and more to actually "do stuff." So one human needs at least 20 square meters of "plant growing space" to stay alive. And if you try to feed yourself entirely from a 5-meter-square vegetable patch, you will soon discover that is a rather optimistic estimate!
The population density for New York City as a whole is one human per 100 square meters, though in the densest areas (e.g. Manhattan) that is reduced to one human per 30 square meters.
So the bottom line is that literally *every available space* in the entire city would have to be devoted to high-intensity farming, for self-sufficiency. No space available for basic infrastructure like roads - every available space would be needed for food production.
[Answer]
I'd probably lean towards something like [aquaponics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics), a combination of hydroponic (or possibly [aeroponic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics)) plant farming with fish or crustacean [aquaculture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture) to give you a bit of protein and the plants a bit of fertiliser (by way of the fish poop).
When you're not tied to a conventional growth substrate, you can put your farms up all over the place, such as on the sides and tops of skyscrapers. It'll probably do the microclimate of the city of a world of good, too. The big problem at the moment is growing decent crops... leafy salads are easy, but what you really want is to do is fruits and vegetables and grains and so on. Clearing this technical hurdle doesn't obviously require super future ultratech, so it seems like it fits your needs.
I seem to recall that some existing scifi settings use this sort of setup... I think Gibson's sprawl trilogy references this way of farming, but I'm sure it appears elsewhere too.
You *might* consider [recycling human waste](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse_of_excreta) to use as fertiliser but humans have an irritating tendency to use an awful lot of potentially quite hazardous pharmaceuticals and also tend to excrete quite a lot of unpleasant pathogens as well. Treating humanure so that it is safe without also removing its useful properties might be quite challenging. Have a look at the issues with [milorganite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milorganite#Environmental_concerns), as well... it contains concerning levels of heavy metals so it is great for fertilising non-food plants but not so good if you're going to eat the end result. Poop purification may a scifi-step too far for you, but do bear it in mind.
For an even longer shot, consider farming seaweed and shellfish. You'd want the sea to be pretty clean for that sort of thing, but if you're ecologically minded enough to make cities self-sufficient and you're recycling all the poop you're producing, there is hope you can also sort out your polluting industries, too. New York has a lot of coastline, and whilst farming fish tends to be quite polluting, farming shellfish tends to make the sea a nicer place. You might do something like [long line mussel farming](https://www.seafish.org/media/401784/ropemussel_cultivation.pdf), perhaps with floating seaweed racks above it. You can always use the mussels to help clean the water for future farming use, and the seaweed for biofuel, until the sea is one day clean enough to eat from again.
[Answer]
Good old Asimov, in his "The caves of steel", used engineered yeasts to feed the megalopolis crowding the under surface of planet Earth.
Normal [yeast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast) can be already used as food supplement:
>
> Yeast is used in nutritional supplements, especially those marketed to vegans. It is often referred to as "nutritional yeast" when sold as a dietary supplement. Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast, usually S. cerevisiae. It is naturally low in fat and sodium as well as an excellent source of protein and vitamins, especially most B-complex vitamins (contrary to some claims, it contains little or no vitamin B12), as well as other minerals and cofactors required for growth. Some brands of nutritional yeast, though not all, are fortified with vitamin B12, which is produced separately by bacteria.
>
>
> In 1920, the Fleischmann Yeast Company began to promote yeast cakes in a "Yeast for Health" campaign. They initially emphasized yeast as a source of vitamins, good for skin and digestion. Their later advertising claimed a much broader range of health benefits, and was censured as misleading by the Federal Trade Commission. The fad for yeast cakes lasted until the late 1930s.
>
>
> Nutritional yeast has a nutty, cheesy flavor and is often used as an ingredient in cheese substitutes. Another popular use is as a topping for popcorn. It can also be used in mashed and fried potatoes, as well as in scrambled eggs. It comes in the form of flakes, or as a yellow powder similar in texture to cornmeal. In Australia, it is sometimes sold as "savoury yeast flakes". Though "nutritional yeast" usually refers to commercial products, inadequately fed prisoners have used "home-grown" yeast to prevent vitamin deficiency.
>
>
>
With some genetic engineering one can overcome the shortcomings.
[Answer]
You need to factor in a new energy source. Like @alephzero explains in their answer, if you take all the sunlight falling on New York and let plants convert it into food, it's not enough. You need a source of electricity and then grow food on every floor and on walls in high-rises, like how @cyn describes in their answer.
Extrapolating from hydrophonics that exist in the real world should be taken with a grain of salt. True, there are high density cities in the world where hydrophonic farming of salads take place, but this is for logistical optimization. The food is grown in the city so that premium salads can be delivered to customers the same day they are picked. This is a small niche market and you need a big city to get enough customers. Growing grains requires a lot more space and a lot more energy. Illumination would have to be nearly free for hydroponics to produce all our food at a reasonable price.
So what energy can be harvested locally? Heat from the earth. Worldwide, "geothermal" electricity is produced when hot steam from deep wells drive turbines. New York state is not a particularly good spot for this, having a lukewarm subsurface, but if you drill deep enough you can always find heat. In New York, the wells will have to be [6 kilometres deep](https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAstandard/SGW/2012/Shope.pdf) or more to get to the really high temperatures. In a science fiction setting, you can arbitrarily elongate these wells and extend them out under the ocean, providing you with as much energy as you like.
[Answer]
What you're basically describing is called '[closed loop agriculture](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-04-26/what-is-closed-loop-agriculture/)'. The idea is that you're capturing all the waste products from creating AND consuming food and recycling them back into the system. Matt Damon's potatoes from '[The Martian](https://gizmodo.com/matt-damon-might-have-been-right-about-potatoes-on-mars-1793158338)' are a perfect example. You're envisioning something on a much larger scale, but the principle in the same.
There are two really critical components to making this idea work for heavily urbanized place.
First: You need to be VERY rigorous in your recycling program. Nothing gets dumped in the Hudson, every bit of water and organic waste your population generates needs to be captured, processed, and cycled back into your food production.
Second: You'd still need a lot of space devoted to food production. Hydroponics and so forth give you ways to concentrate that space, but it only goes so far. This previous article [right here from Worldbulding](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9582/how-many-people-can-you-feed-per-square-kilometer-of-farmland) gives some great information on that topic.
[Answer]
You gave us New York *metropolis* which gives us a lot of options. If you listen to the government, the New York MSA has 19.9 million people in 17,405 sq.km. or 1143 people per sq.km, or 874 sq.metres per person.
As Alephzero's math shows, you need 20 square metres of land to grow plants simply to stay alive. Even if we shrink our definition of "urban area", reducing the square metres per person, we can still endure a lot of shrink before we're *really* in trouble.
## Sun worshipping
1000 watts/sq.metre is too valuable to waste. Artificial lighting will never cut the mustard, you can't get anywhere near the efficiency you need with any foreseeable tech. I'm talking *Future*. Right now it's in the "fuggedaboutit" category. You have
```
174,050,000,000,000 Wh/day of sunlight on the MSA, and you cannot replace that with a
30,000,000,000 Wh/day nuclear plant. Not even close.
```
**You *have* to use the sun, and you have to make the most of it.**
Again, it depends just what you define the metro area to be. The smaller you define the metro, the more extremes you'll need to go to place *every* square metre of solar exposure into service growing food. Roughly in order of intensity/commitment/cost:
* Maximize the yield of the farmland already inside the metro, using tactics like **Polyface Farm** (read *The Omnivore's Dilemma* section 2), and paradoxically, treeing up suburban homes to be the "forest" part of that design.
* Require all residences with yards to have [victory gardens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden).
* Or better, greenhouses, as done in [this town](http://maps.google.com/?ll=47.49083,34.41747&z=16&t=h) in Ukraine (within 10 miles of a nuclear and coal power plant complex, where waste heat unusable by the power turbines is sent over to heat the greenhouses).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/coNuP.png)
*The long, narrow greenhouses could be partially automated, by having machines on "railroad tracks" run up and down the length of the greenhouse, with tool-heads that do mechanized farming, or simply providing the farmers access to all crops without needing to waste square footage on aisleways. The greenhouses could be linked so a valuable machine could use a transfer table to move laterally from greenhouse to greenhouse.*
* Push into waterways with landfill to grow crops
* Require homes with yards to use effectively all yard space for crops, removing ornamental trees etc.
* Nuclear power for power generation, and waste heat for above greenhouses for year-round crop growth
* make people park at the end of their block, reduce street capacity/width to exactly the width of a delivery truck, and recovered land and driveways are re-tasked for growing crops
* Improve transit, significantly curtail driving (probably need to happen anyway since cars need big energy), deprecate many roads and convert to growing crops.
* Deck over roadways and railways to grow crops
* Require all single-family homes to be rebuilt as earth-sheltered, so 100% of the yard is now farmable.
* A bunch of engineering happens in the tall-building City proper, to catch every single ray. Existing buildings get their roofs extended (widthwise). Very tall buildings are altered to turn every east, south and west exposure into garden beds. Building interiors are turned into effective greenhouses.
Every scrap of solarization lands *somewhere it's used*.
At the extreme settings, artificial lighting (possibly powered by solar) is used to light human-occupied spaces just enough for living, turning them dim and gloomy, akin to the old Kowloon Walled City.
[Answer]
As other answers have pointed out, optimal use of rooftop gardens and roofs over roads and parking lots could suffice. The urban moties in *[The Mote in God's Eye](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0671741926)* used this technology as a backup plan for when their transportation networks inevitably collapsed, cutting off food from their rural farmlands.
But suppose you want to use only a portion of a coastal city for farms? The following technologies allow having some buildings specialize in farming, while keeping the rest of the cityscape you know and love.
1. Extract uranium from seawater. ([In the prototype stage now](https://newatlas.com/nuclear-uranium-seawater-fibers/55033/).)
2. Process the uranium to get nuclear fuel. (Proven technology, but has security and geopolitical risks.)
3. Use inherently stable nuclear power plant designs. (Prevents melt-downs.
[Successfully prototyped 15 years ago](https://newsroom.nuscalepower.com/press-release/company/nuscale-commissions-first-small-modular-reactor-control-room-simulator-%E2%80%93-anoth), but still tied up in red-tape.)
4. Glassify the nuclear waste. ([Proven technology.](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-03-fi-720-story.html) Also tied up in red-tape.)
5. Desalinate seawater to make irrigation water. ([Proven technology.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here/))
6. Use waste heat from the nuclear power plants to heat each farming building to the optimal temperature(s) for growing the plants and animals inside it. ([Proven technology.](http://ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/cogeneration-nuc-csik-07.html))
7. Put the farms in multi-story, low-rise buildings. (Proven technology.)
8. Use hydroponics to minimize soil weight and optimize the number of crops per year. (Proven technology.)
9. Use high-efficiency lighting for producing the color(s) of light that are optimal for growing the desired crops. Avoid headache-producing lighting, because driving your workers crazy is not optimal. (Near-future technology. Will likely need to be upgraded as lighting technology becomes more efficient.)
10. Figure out uses for the waste heat from lighting the indoor farms.
11. Have sewage-treatment plants to eliminate pollution from livestock farming. (Proven technology.)
12. Sterilize the sewage-treatment waste, and use it as fertilizer for animal feed-crops. ([Safer in this application than for use with sewage that contains hazardous wastes.](https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/10/sewage-sludge-as-fertilizer-safe/))
13. Fix nitrogen from the air, to supplement the fertilizer. ([Proven technology.](https://www.the-compost-gardener.com/haber-process.html))
14. Optionally, extract sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chlorides, and sulfates from [seawater](http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/seawater.htm#composition). The extraction of these elements (and the uranium) can be done from the concentrated waste water from the desalination plants.
These technologies assume that plenty of carbon dioxide is available from the air.
There would still be a need to import fertilizers containing phosphates, iron, and less-common elements like manganese.
[Answer]
I believe there is a concept of vertical farming, in which skyscraper like buildings would have farms on each floor instead of offices.
Using hydroponics or aeroponics a lot more food could be grown per unit of surface area than in traditional dirt farming, and vertical farming would multiply the surface area available for food production in a city. Combining those two should make it possible to grow enough food in a metropolitan area to feed its population.
In a base on an alien planet or a space habitat everything, including wastes, would be recycled. So each atom of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc., would be used over and over again to produce food. And it would certainly be possible to do the same in a city on Earth.
There have been a few questions here about the greatest possible production of food per unit of land surface using various techniques.
See here: Giving Tolkien Architecture a Reality Check: Dwarvish Kingdoms[1](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/100380/giving-tolkien-architecture-a-reality-check-dwarvish-kingdoms)
and here: How can Dwarves produce honey underground?[2](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/101553/how-can-dwarves-produce-honey-underground)
And here: How many people can you feed per square-kilometer of farmland?[3](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9582/how-many-people-can-you-feed-per-square-kilometer-of-farmland)
[Answer]
If you're willing to accept nanotechnology "magic" as an answer, then Feed (or later, Seed) technology as shown in Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" can do it. The premises are :
1 ) Nanotech building techniques allow you to create diamond shapes from pure carbon input. Shapes and mixtures of all other elements and compounds can be made given time, energy, templates for the building plans, computation, and other infrastructure considerations.
2 ) Perfect decomposition of garbage, sewage, and random seawater into perfectly segregated elemental lumps. For dangerous elements like fluorine, combine them into safe compounds. A sphere of diamond is probably the safest, most reliable carrying container.
3 ) Perfect pumping system of these lumps. Use spheres instead of cubes, for better pumping. Use pure, clean water as the carrying medium and heat sink. Tag each sphere with its payload lump, track it, and send it out from the decomposition center. Or, have a bunch of decomposition centers and use a system like TCP/IP to send lumps where needed. Either way, it looks like a vascular system pumping out in a Feed.
4 ) Matter compilers in every home, business, and street corner. These request data, power, and lumps of atoms from the Feed. The matter compiler builds physical objects according to the templates in memory or that it fetches from the Internet.
5 ) Each home, business, and street corner has a waste system. If the decomposition machines can be made small, then just have one in every home. If you need a big one, then have a traditional sewage system, which flushes every away to the decomposition machine.
6 ) Power generation from nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, and/or other sources. Perfect decomposition can also be applied to mining, or seawater, so Uranium is easy to get and refine.
In this city, the population can be extremely dense, only limited by the heat generation of the machinery and people. If people decompose and compile the same atoms with minimal movement every day (food, drink, and clothes can be created from the same atoms discarded as waste earlier in the same building or even room) , then there's relatively little waste from transportation.
This may seem a little disgusting - yesterday's feces, urine, breath, skin flakes, clothes, etc, are all spun into today's consumption. But it's been what we've each been doing since before we were born. We're already part of the water cycle, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, and many other cycles of biology. If you're eating a strawberry today, some portion of it was manure a month ago.
The Decomposer/Feed/Compiler system merely speeds it up, minimizes movement of dumb atoms, and applies the idea of perfectly recreating the template that you want. If they figure out how to perfectly recreate the Best Strawberry, then you get that one whenever you want, without blemish, insect, or age since it was harvested. Better yet, given that scanning an object for a template takes time, and templates can be manually reviewed to take out imperfections, you can having a really perfect strawberry, something that could never be enjoyed in a real city.
Each city now resembles a flower taking in power from the Sun and other sources, and endlessly recycling and rejuvenating itself.
[Answer]
Self-sufficient cities will look very different from the cities we know. It is probably a good idea to brainstorm a bunch of different tactics for localizing food production and think through how those will change the face of the city. You might also want to do some napkin math on populations, minimum caloric intake, statistical spread of caloric intake across levels of society.
There are also many different circumstances that could lead to needing or wanting to do it. It might be beneficial to think through those too (increased transportation costs, restrictions on travel for one reason or another)
Below are some suggestions for tactics for localizing food production in cities. Use your napkin math to pick the mix that works for the world you're building.
Farm central park. Nothing changes priorities like hunger. Public spaces might go from lawn to food really fast given the right incentives.
<https://modernfarmer.com/2014/02/central-parks-sheeps-meadow/>
Underground farming. Don't need sunlight if you have power. Don't need fields if you have plentiful underground space (repurpose subway stations?)
<https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-first-underground-urban-farm-opens-for-business-in-london>
Oyster beds everywhere (this also protects the city from storm surges and cleans the water)
<https://observer.com/2016/07/how-a-billion-oysters-are-set-to-change-new-yorks-harbor/>
Aquaculture (fish farming)
<http://www.cityfarmer.org/fish.html>
Rooftop gardens (maybe not a huge part of the mix but strikingly visible one)
<https://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/the-best-rooftop-gardens-in-nyc>
Window boxes on every apartment (decentralize your food production, everyone contributes like the victory gardens of WWII, remember canning then becomes much more prevelant in daily life and conversation)
<https://nutrigift.com/grow-endless-supply-cancer-fighting-food-window-boxes/>
Lab grown meat. Meat production takes a lot of space and resources. Lab meat will probably be a great source of protein in the near future.
<https://www.wired.com/story/lab-grown-meat/>
[Answer]
As someone calculated before, we need about 20m2 to feed one human. Roughly 5x5 meters if we assume some wasted space.
New York has close to 9 million people - let's make it 10 million for tourists and other visitors.
Also, we want some space for other purposes, like generating energy, to be fully self-sufficient.
That makes a block of 25\*20km, or 500km2. The city of NY (not the state) has around 780km2, so we can even keep some parks and major traffic arteries, and produce some extra plants for organic items like plates, packaging and so on. Ideally mostly resuseable, to save on farming space.
Most of the city-area is build up with a green house or a hydroponic garden on top, maybe a green house with plants which need less light a floor below, the working and living areas, the utility levels (with streets, machines and so on), and where needed some underground levels.
All in all, around 5..10 levels should be enough to provide lots of living and office space, lots of space for walkways and transport systems.
The top levels are flush, so they don't put resistance to wind turbines or stand in the way of neighboring lower green houses or solar panels.
The remaining parks and such are used intensively for edible plants, wood production and so on, so they also stay productive.
All waste (including dead humans) gets composted in suitable ways (including mushroom production and such), then used as fertiliser for the green houses or fish tanks. This will also provide biogas to keep temperatures up in winter, among others. Not much more than current modern canalisation and sewage treatment plants needed for that.
People of significance or who were on too much medicine at the end of their life may get proper burials in the parks or outside of the city. Some may get cremated, with the exhaust being fed into green houses and the ashes being taken care of by the relatives.
All in all, it is easily doable w/o any future tech, and it's only our cultural norms which keep it from happening.
[Answer]
[Archaea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea) are a lesser known and very interesting domain of life that could plausibly be modified to create a previously unused (directly via agriculture) sources of energy and molecular building blocks for a complicated metropolitan food chain.
Some thrive in extreme conditions such as very high temperatures or high salinity. Maybe you could have some sort of geothermal process involving modified archaea that adds another source of energy to your food chain rather than directly from sunlight.
They also could be used in the ocean to collect useful organics/inorganics from the ocean in a place like NYC. They also have mutualistic and commensural relationships with other species which might provide some inspiration for maximizing available resources into human consumable energy.
They also might be helpful in recycling waste products from humans and other parts of the food production process.
[Answer]
There's no modern technology that you need. 100 years ago, the population of NYC was 3 million. Before mass refrigeration, cars, or transportation, all of its food was grown within a one mile radius, carted in the early morning by donkey and mule, sold in the marketplaces, then cooked and eaten fresh that day... as has been done around the world for thousands of years.
Even today, many of the megalopolises around the world still have a considerable amount of fresh produce and meet being sold and consumed the same day.
The only thing modern technology brought was cheaper food from places further away.
So all you need is perhaps more farmland. You might have to go out two or three miles. And you would need more people farming. Food would cost more than industrially produced and transported food.
[Answer]
In similar over-crowded worlds or ones where meat production has been banned, I have seen plant-based substitutes being used. Namely, they grow some hand-wavy plant-stuff in big vats underneath the city that also double as CO2 scrubbers. This plant is probably some form of algae, such as Nori or Wakame, genetically modified to increase the protein content.
As is, even just one cup contains 376 calories, at 14% fat, 40% carbs, 47% protein. (www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/generic/algae-dried). A quick image search show that algae vats can easily be 3ft radius by 10 ft tall is roughly 270 cubic feet or 32316 cups of liquid. Even if algae can only grow at 10% density, that's still 3232 cups of algae, or enough for 646.6 people at 2,000 calories a day.
If we assume that the population of New York City doubles when we reach the point you're talking about, then we need to feed 20 million people by this method. This means we need roughly 31,000 vats of algae. Assuming it as a 310 x 100 array of vats with three feet on either side of each, the necessary area is 2790 ft x 900 feet, or about 0.02% the area of New York City.
As for "cheap", I know I can buy some at the market for pretty cheap. Scaled production would lower the costs even further.
[Answer]
I'm not sure what the growth medium requires but [Cultured Meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat) and cellular agriculture is becoming more viable each year. It's only a matter of time before the processes are improved to the point that higher volumes could be cultured.
[Answer]
Pass a law that every building over "x" (3-5) stories has to be built with the outer 15' leased to a farm. The buildings are already temperature controlled and have water in them. Executives lose their view of the city for a view through a farm to the city with a glass wall separating the corporate workers from the farm. The farm environment will be completely self contained so crops needing special seasons and temperatures can all be accommodated. Each corporation will need to partner with a farm on building expansions.
Every skyscraper built also contributes to the food production for the city. In conjunction with other ideas presented in other answers this could significantly increase food production.
] |
[Question]
[
Buildings are often build on the ground into the sky. Would it be conceivable if instead, we build down into the ground instead? We wouldn't have to worry about wind then. I think we could go farther down than up.
Could a world have this?
[Answer]
## Core-scrapers
**Buoyancy is a problem.**
The main issue with getting a building that deep is the [water table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table). If you build something deep under the water table and want that thing to be full of air, it will really want to float. This is even a problem with recently buried [coffins during floods](http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbc-news-channel/flood-unearths-casket-in-houston-452196931841).
So, if the building is being built where people typically live (that is there is water in range of wells), the buildings can not get very deep before they would simply pop out of the ground. This can be overcome, with engineering, by digging through bedrock (not that easy) you can anchor your building to keep it from floating up.
There are a lot of benefits:
* the temperature is fairly constant
* there is a large thermal sink, good for geothermal power
* high winds are not a concern
* mole people
But they don't overcome all the problems:
* earthquakes are still very dangerous
* flooding can be a big problem
* construction is very difficult
* mole people
[Answer]
# Yes, and it's being worked on right now.
The [Above Below](http://www.evolo.us/architecture/skyscraper-or-sustainable-underground-society/) project aims to take a disused mine in Arizona and convert it into a underground building. The terraces of the mine will be covered by a large domed roof, with some skylights and artificial lighting providing natural light. The building will be 900 feet (274 metre) tall deep and 300 acres (1.2 km²) in area.
Here's the before:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2Q9dF.jpg)
Here are two views of the structure:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vVSuf.jpg)
Here is a detail of the central inverted spire, which is more like what you've imagined:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6OtyR.jpg)
The "building" must be exceptionally wide for structural stability, and the terraces are important so that there are ways to get up and out of it. Stacking floors vertically would also make for a rather dark "building". Using terraces means that no place inside the "building" is blocked from light.
[Answer]
Yes, they are called **mines**.
>
> [The TauTona Mine or Western Deep No.3 Shaft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TauTona_Mine), is a gold mine in South
> Africa. At 3.9 kilometers (2.4 mi) deep it is currently home to the
> world's deepest mining operations rivaled only by Mponeng gold mine
> with which it competes for #1 ranking.
>
>
>
This goes more than twice as deep as the tallest building is high.
Whether anyone would want to live there with journeys of up to an hour to reach the surface, is another matter.
[Answer]
Yes.
But it has its own problems.
1. The sides will want to collapse in. You'll need to build
walls *to keep the ground up*. An amazing irony since most walls keep buildings up.
2. Natural lighting will be terrible... there won't be any!
3. Drainage will be a problem. Especially if you dig down to the
[water-table](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table).
[Answer]
Significant factor influencing "format" of building is **what is natural for species** which is supposed to inhabit it.
For example with humans, there are many actual biological limitations overlooked in daily life and each of them needs special dealing if going underground. Just name two:
* **air** – for optimum health, an adult needs 50 m3 of fresh air per hour
* **sunshine**
+ we require exposure for 15 mins a day for vitamine D production needed for basic body functions
+ needed for good mental condition, lack of sunshine for couple of months is starter of depressions even for healthy people
Although these CAN be supplied artifically, there is no *natural* thinking in human species to go underground. We naturally feel best at ground level, with home surrounded by nature area (e.g. garden, lake, sea, etc.). Most of people can easily verify it on themselves by imagining "where I would live if I had $100M". I doubt that popular answer will be "in dream appartment 25 floors underground".
Of course, in your world you can always stylise people living underground if
* conditions on the surface are no more suitable for healthy living
* surface is overcrowded – living above the ground has became privilege only for richer people, where workers, or various poor people are pushed into underground buildings (with many homes there not in good condition), which often provide unhealthy but affordable living for lower classes
[Answer]
Yes. There are already very deep mines. There are also liveable military bunkers and even self sustained nuclear fallout shelters built under ground.
The main problem is that these buildings are More expensive per square meter of floor space than an above ground building. The reason being that before they can be constructed, the earth needs to be trucked away and dumped somewhere. You are not going to find enough land to dump all that dirt within 100 km radius of a major CBD. Notice that that in the examples above people are trying to build on top of an existing mine out in the wilderness somewhere, not build a high rise office building in the city.
[Answer]
In the anime *Neon Genesis Evangelion* Tokyo 3 is built on top of a "cave" (not the right term probably, it's bigger than the city).
When the enemies attack the city's skyscrapers retract underground, sticking out in the empty cave. There is artificial light (as bright as daylight) and the bottom of the cave is like a big garden (well, more like a forest).
] |
[Question]
[
I have traveled back to the 15th century with the goal of facilitating the discovery of the Americas by the rest of the world without causing epidemics to wipe out 90% of the American population.
How can I achieve my goal?
The best solutions are those that can be achieved using 15th century technology and modern knowledge, but I can bring items with me if they are necessary. Further time travel should be used only as a last resort.
I do not necessarily have to enact my plan from Europe.
EDIT: I'm not sure why people are commenting on how immense the impact of this change would be. I'm not asking whether or not my plan is a good idea - I'm asking how I might achieve it.
[Answer]
## Pre-emption is the best prevention
There is no way to do it with 15th century technology. But.
The best course of action is to pre-empt the epidemics by running them early. Use your time traveling saucer to kidnap some flea-infested bug-ridden mangy European and Chinese serfs *in the 5th century*, and drop them in the Americas. The epidemics will start, lots of native Americans will die, but some will survive; and those who will survive will grow and multiply, while living in equilibrium with the diseases. By the time the Europeans will get around to discovering the Americas in the 15th century the New World will be teeming with multitudes of disease-resistant Indians.
[Answer]
Possibly, if you make two trips and don’t mind mad science and teaching. I think you need to make two trips regardless, but it’s possible you might not.
The first trip is to gather samples of all the communicable diseases you want to fix from the Europeans. This is important, because diseases mutate and change at a terrifying rate, so a viable vaccine for today’s influenza is not a viable vaccine for the influenza of yesteryear. You then need to bring them back to today for step two, which is:
Make a communicable vaccine. Mad science time, and the part of this most likely to go horribly wrong. As have been noted in a couple of other answers ([Mass disease prevention: The feasibility of airborne vaccines](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/81374/mass-disease-prevention-the-feasibility-of-airborne-vaccines) and [Vaccines spreading as viruses](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/91441/vaccines-spreading-as-viruses)) there exist live-attenuated vaccines which can vaccinate and also spread. There are a couple of downsides but I’ll come to them. If you can create your own custom (heavily gm) version of this you can have a highly infectious but remarkably asymptomatic vaccine, in much the same way that cowpox, while infectious, vaccinated against smallpox. Given that nobody will have immunity to the virus it will spread like wildfire, not killing anyone but making sure everyone is safe when the actual killers show up.
Now, this can go wrong in a couple of ways. The first is the most obvious: your vaccine is a little too much and kills everyone anyway before their immune systems can kick in. Your vaccine needs to walk a super-fine line between being infectious enough to spread and being weak enough to not overtax the host, while also kicking off all the appropriate immune responses and creating the proper antibodies. This is not a small task. You may wish to bring some blood samples and/or test subjects from the past to the future to.. erm... make sure you get it right...
The second is less obvious and oddly, either much less deadly or absolutely deadly. Your vaccine will have every opportunity to mutate back into a lethal version of the disease. Now, in the best case this will kill a tiny fraction of people. Everyone else will have already caught and fought off the vaccine disease. In the worst case scenario the new disease mutates in such a way that the old vaccine is useless, and you just introduced the killer epidemic.
But this is where part three comes in! Education. Basically if your second trip to the past goes back a long enough way you can make sure the vaccine diseases have spread and also set up a known network of hospitals/health education centres. Get the mayans onboard with medicine. Teach the Incas about cleanliness and covering your mouth when you sneeze. Convince the priesthood that people who feel ill need quarantining for a little while, and get some idea of epidemic preparedness going on. A little knowledge can go a long way in situations like this. If even one chief realises he should stop ten ill travellers from travelling it might stop a potential epidemic (literally) dead.
Hopefully you’ll get lucky and be able to stop this, but all these steps are sort of longshots, some with the possibility of accidentally unleashing an even worse plague.
So please change the past responsibly.
[Answer]
Here's a radically different tactic (that also messes with the timeline a lot more) for you to try.
The reason the Europeans carried so many diseases had little to do with their geographical location and more with the way they lived. Big, cramped cities, thousands of people living close by, inadequate waste disposal and the occasional open sewer were the perfect breeding grounds for a metric crapton of diseases. Add pests like rats and pigeons and you have a pandemic waiting to happen.
So give the peoples of the Americas the exact same odds. Travel to their neck of the woods a good bit of time earlier (100-200 years should be fine) and introduce them to the wonders of urbanisation. Point out sites of natural resources and show them how to exploit them. The natural result of a mini-industrial revolution will drive them to build cities where they'll live close to each other and start breeding their own diseases. Perhaps introduce rats or a similar pest and let the incubator start.
To make sure there's no horrible double-extinction, maybe travel over to europe every so often (bring a future-tech modern boat, no-one has time to sit on the ocean for months on end) and exchange some of the pests and other sources of disease, making sure the two continents remain on par in terms of death by microbial life. When one of the two continents inevitably sails over to the other, they will both be at the very least resistant to the diseases that they bring.
And as a bonus: maybe the Europeans don't wipe out most of the native culture.
[Answer]
Nothing, even if you were to pre-invent vaccination, distribution will only spread the diseases if attempted, because you will need to use lots of people to distribute it. And that's assuming you somehow get pass the cultural barrier and get millions of natives to agree to let you stick needles into and inject things into their wives and children.
the only thing you could do is introduce the diseases earlier, like hundreds of years earlier, and let the native repopulate before the europeans come, and hope enough of them retain a genetic resistance. Of course this will make it even easier for the europeans since the natives will now be in small easily overcome groups following the destruction of all the large population centers. Worse if you introduce ALL the relevant diseases at once you may very well wipe out humans on the continent.
[Answer]
On request by Joe Joe Bloggs:
This question is actually a lot harder as it appears on first glance. If you innoculate the population of the Americas you merely put back the disaster one generation (or less depending on how long the immunity from inoculation is actually for). So, you have to be willing to keep it up in the new world forever (they'll be no push to bring the live vaccines over if the diseases mysteriously aren't appearing) or fix it another way.
I have considered two ways. You could in theory force the disease breakouts centuries earlier with the same catastrophic kill rates, but this is ethically unsound and significantly more dangerous due to increasing the genetic bottleneck that made the natives uniform enough to have one blood type.
The other solution is to kill off the deadly diseases in time to prevent the disaster. You will need multiple trips.
1. Pick a year. 1492 will do. In fact this is a very good time as the Portuguese have started sailing around Africa.
2. Gather samples of smallpox, measles, mumps, and greatpox (the old name for syphilis).
3. Extract the genes for their surface proteins (DNA or RNA)
4. Transplant the genes into a modern copy of the common cold along with activation sequences.
5. Test your new viruses carefully. There's a small chance you made an airborne killer.
6. Release these viruses at multiple points in the old world all at once. The greatpox one is to be used in the new world.
7. Repeat as necessary near any residual breakouts. You have time travel that permits editing the past: you can watch the news and see where any breakouts come from and try again to stop them.
If you did your job right you have modified the common cold into an airborne vaccine or set of vaccines against the killing diseases. The genes you spliced into the cold virus aren't doing it any good so they'll be withered away sooner or later but this doesn't have to last all that long. Just long enough.
Presto. Epidemics of the Colombian Exchange halted. If anybody learns you did it they will proclaim you a hero.
So, if you're wondering how this works: The transplanted surface protein won't do much in the situation. It's either going to be incorporated into the cold's surface protein matrix to be picked up by the B-cells for antibody manufacture (we want this) or made but not picked up and eventually dumped into the intracellular matrix (almost as good). So long as we weren't silly enough to use the site-latching surface protein from the target virus that would be picked up by the common cold virus the resulting virus is nearly as safe as a cold (small chance of autoimmune disease from mumps).
[Answer]
Considering that smallpox was the main reason for incredibly high mortality rates among Native Americans after the contact with Europeans, I would suggest to look specifically into it.
### [Quarantine and Isolation](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221063/)
These measures minimise the spread of smallpox and protect the aboriginal population.
Smallpox has the incubation period of 10-12 days. It is believed that there are no asymptomatic carriers. Moreover, people who survived smallpox are completely immune. Therefore, with modern medical knowledge, it is easy to establish 21-day quarantines for all new arrivals. Isolation of infected individuals and employment of already immune persons to care for them will prevent the spread of the disease.
### Inoculation
Smallpox was known in Africa, Europe, and Asia from Antiquity. There is some evidence that [inoculation was practised in the 16th century in China](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Smallpox_vaccine#/Variolation). It is a bit later than your time period, but we can assume that some ideas were already in the air prior to written mentions that we have.
At that time, either dried scabs or puss were used for inoculations. Both result in a rather mild form of smallpox with mortality rates at about 0.5-2%, which are significantly lower typical 20-30% rates for regular smallpox.
You may want to repeat inoculations every 10-15 years as the immunity tends to wear off.
### Prohibition of Biological Warfare
Smallpox was used as a biological weapon by European colonists. If there were some law or religious norm that would not allow this the spread of disease would be slower and easier to control.
---
Implementation of these measures does not require additional time travel or any anachronistic equipment. Everything can be done using the 15th-century technologies.
[Answer]
**Education and Sanitation.**
You can't necessarily prevent diseases - Even the answers posted here assume that you can 'backport' immunity to pathogens through the timeline and expect that those immunities/resistances will continue to be communicated to all of their descendants, which is probable but not bulletproof.
But what you can do, is teach the populace how diseases spread, and how they can protect themselves against outbreaks, and to whatever means available treat infections and manage humane quarantines.
This strategy would still involve a great deal of death, but, it would definitely prevent a large portion of it, and put the indigenous peoples in a much better position once colonization actually began. As an added bonus, it doesn't do much to disrupt the existing culture or social structure prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Such a method would likely require more than one protagonist, and it would be the life's work of many people to indoctrinate such a wide number of different communities and cultures throughout two continents.
[Answer]
Introduce dairy cows in North America shortly before first contact. Make sure the cattle are infected with cowpox. About one third of the population will contract cowpox, and acquire immunity to smallpox. This won't prevent the smallpox epidemic, but it will drop the death rate from 90% to 67%. That's still a disaster, but it's recoverable. Can't help with other diseases.
[Answer]
I would give a shoot at
## Vaccinating European sailors to the new world and desinfecting their ships
**Mechanics:**
Use your future technology to develop oral vaccines for the diseases you want to prevent and administer them to everyone onboarding the ship as *a few drops of blessed water* given by a priest.
The day before the ships sails, enter it and spread some 21st century-tech poison that kills rats, fleas or any other pest that is known to spread those diseases
**A few reasons why that would help:**
1. I assume there would not be many sailors (a few dozens per ship?) and not many ports to sail from in Europe, so the control could be done by a one or a few persons in each port.
2. Starting with a clean (no rats or fleas) ship and a crew that developed vaccine-induced immunity against the diseases during the weeks long sail, I suppose the microbes which transmit the diseases and that might have survived the decontamination wouldn't endure the trip, so there would be no disease microbes by the time the ship arrives in the brave new world.
**Comparisson to other possible ideas:**
The idea of vaccinating the new world population is much tougher, since you don't know where do all those indians/mayans, etc live, so very hard to vaccine most of them.
Spreading the disease a few centuries beforehand could have unexpected and unforeseen consequences, even extinction of the population, so it's hard to tell if this would work.
Finally, the idea I outlined might not work also, is hard to tell for sure, but at least it seems doable, so worth giving it a try!
[Answer]
Why were Europeans less threatened by smallpox than Native Americans? One reason was cultural:
>
> We concluded that transmission was controlled in southern England by local practices of avoidance and mass inoculation that arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Avoidance measures included isolation of victims in pest houses and private homes, as well as cancellation of markets and other public gatherings, and pre-dated the widespread use of inoculation.
>
>
>
--[The geography of smallpox in England before vaccination: A conundrum resolved](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953618301862)
Potentially the principles of quarantine could be taught to Native Americans, enough to slow the spread of smallpox. That might help with diseases like measles as well, though that's so much more contagious than anything that it's difficult to quarantine against.
Cowpox and vaccinia could in theory be transferred to North America, except they prefer cattle, which weren't in North America. Both viruses, especially vaccinia, are reasonably forgiving of precise hosts, so possible one or the other could infect bison; but I can't find any papers demonstrating that. Possibly introducing cowpox and vaccinia-infected cattle into North America could help, especially if you were to teach how to propagate the viruses from one host to the next and use the scabs as vaccine sources, as was occasionally done during the smallpox eradication campaigns.
(Cattle are also infectable with rinderpeste, which has potential as a cross-reactive vaccine against measles, but rinderpeste is so epidemic itself that it's not a good solution. Similarly canine distemper has potential as a cross-reactive measles vaccine but comes with its own multitude of problems.)
[Answer]
A lot of the diseases of the old world were cohosted by domestic animals. Bring domestic sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, horses, camels and cows over in around 1000 AD. Introduce them to cultures that were already starting to build permanent settlements for the smaller livestock. (Missisippi mount builders, Iroquois Confederacy, Introduce horses to prairie nomads, camels where it's drier.
See Jared Diamond's book "Guns, Germs and Steel"
[Answer]
You can't. The old world populations were resistant, the new world populations weren't. They're going to run like wildfire once they get loose and there's no hope of forever keeping them from getting loose.
AlexP's solution simply moves the catastrophe back in time, it doesn't change the basic result.
However, the catastrophe can be lessened. He's got the right idea but is going about it wrong. Gather samples of all the diseases in question and infect the new world **one disease at a time**. Each will be a major plague but will not decimate communities nearly as badly as all of them together did. You'll probably kill as many people but it won't tear up the societies nearly as badly.
[Answer]
I can't see how you can short of curing these diseases back in Europe or vaccinating the native population.
Even if you screened the whole crew, once a new land was discovered, other ships would come and bring the diseases with them instead.
It's really unavoidable. The real question is should you? Should your first trip in time involve you changing time? How many people will never be born from your change?
] |
[Question]
[
If I want to have multiple intelligent species (with different languages for each), how can they exchange each other?
Some species may not have eyes, legs, hands, ears, ... so is there a way for a "universal language"?
[Answer]
**Teletubbies**
I suspect that this is the true function of teletubbies. Not only do they have antennae for receiving and transmitting electromagnetic and electrochemical (see note) communication, but they also have a screen that can show pictorially what is being discussed. The ones in the TV program are clearly youngsters and their speech is immature. The adults receive full training in all modes of communication. They can receive in one medium and transmit in another.
**Teletubby in action. Note the glowing antenna and the tummy screen.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KM4Sh.png)
---
**Note**
Electrochemical communication is done by ants when they touch feelers.
[Answer]
David Brin, in his Uplift Universe, used [a set of standard languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplift_Universe#Languages).
The variety meant that most inhabitants had the physical capability to express themselves in one (sometimes more than one). Many could understand several, even if they lacked the physical ability to respond in the same language.
Just as importantly, most folks correctly *assumed* that any intelligent being they met spoke one of these known languages, even if they didn't quite recognize which one immediately.
>
> Gal One: Purely mathematical and similar to Morse code. Extremely slow.
>
>
> Gal Two: Bridging language.
>
>
> Gal Three: Squeaks and honks. Favored by the Gubru.
>
>
> Gal Four: Sonar based.
>
>
> Gal Five: Grunts and growls. Used by the T'4Lek.
>
>
> Gal Six: Hisses. Synthians and Thennanins.
>
>
> Gal Seven: Tone language. Tymbrimi.
>
>
> Gal Eight: Hoots and honks. Jophur and Rosh.
>
>
> Gal Nine: Chiming, syncopated. Kanten, Linten, Siqul.
>
>
> Gal Ten: Fluting, sonar-like. Brothers of the Night.
>
>
> Gal Eleven: Bridging language. Cautious, often redundant. Used between different Orders of life.
>
>
> Gal Twelve: Throaty, used by the Soro. 2 billion years old.
>
>
>
[Answer]
**Yes**
If you learn Dutch, you don't just learn to speak. You also learn to read and write. Extrapolate that to each form. Universal talk, write, sign, smell, touch. It might be that not everyone can do the same. Some might talk and some might wistle. So you have the universal standard for both.
It might be possible that people don't understand all parts of the universal communicator, but if everyone is learning it, they will likely have a common universal communication. It's already helping everyone has the same words and more or less grammar.
[Answer]
The way to do it would be to have a universal language that every other language could translate to. For example, you could do:
>
> Dutch -> English -> Spanish
>
>
>
>
> Hallo wereld! -> Hello world! -> Hola Mundo!
>
>
>
Of course, the central "language" would be some computer code for easier translation. Everyone would have some translation device that could hook up to the main language, the others translation device would then translate it to whatever they're used to.
The upside of this is that any new species can join this system no matter what. All they have to do is develop a device capable of translating their language to the central language and back. Individuals would not need to learn any skills and others wouldn't have to worry about new species being added to the group.
Any barriers in the form of mechanisms through which each specie communicates (for example smell vs sound) would be taken away because it's up to each species themselves to make their technology work.
[Answer]
**Symbiote creature.**
There is a life form that can speak them all. It is semi-telepathic and uses that to learn new languages and refine the ones it knows. In its home world it is a prey species that has adapted its telepathic abilities to become symbiotic with the large and formidable animals of its world. It rides around on these and so stays safe.
The language symbiotes are much in demand in the wider intergalactic world. They ride on intelligent species and augment their communication. They are themselves semi-intelligent. Having one of these with you allows you to communicate with nearly anything. They can also facilitate communication intraspecies. The symbiotic creatures are capable of more still, including modulating the mood of their hosts and possibly other functions. Some of these functions are considered unwelcome or possibly unethical by certain intelligent species. In some species the symbiotes are feared but considered a necessary evil, and one individual is designated to carry a symbiote and serve as translator with other intelligences.
[Answer]
For the sake of argument let's take two representatives of species who cannot communicate due to incompatibility between their available communication modes and their sensory faculties.
Let's take humans (or a close approximation) and a hypothetical insectoid race for starters.
The bugs communicate natively with chemical signals that can encode extremely complex concepts. While they can hear quite well the range of hearing is outside the frequencies that humans can produce unaided. Their sight is sufficient for detecting medium-sized objects but for fine detail they rely on direct contact with small touch pads on their antennae, with an extremely well-developed kinesthetic sense filling in for body movement purposes. For some inexplicable reason they have almost exactly the same accuity in their sense of balance as humans do, but much more accute sense of tase.
So here we have a pair that quite clearly cannot communicate directly in any meaningful way. Humans can't even detect the majority of the chemicals the bugs use for communication, and the bugs have no idea that humans are even making noise let alone using it to communicate. What little overlap they do have in sensory ability is not useful for encoding real communication. Imaine the bugs' surprise when they discover that those half-perceived motions were humans attempting to get their attention.
If it wasn't for the fact that these bugs are advanced technology users Humans would probably not have even tried to communicate with them. How are we supposed to know that this silent, smelly monstrosity is even intelligent?
Now shift your gaze to the right a little to that odd-looking igneous rock formation. The one wearing the utility belt, yes. That's a senior member of a silicate species that communicates via dense bursts of radio, has no reaction at all to the visible spectrum, doesn't even understand what you mean by smell, taste, hear... and quite frankly was appaled to discover that carbon-based life was even a thing. If you thought the human and bug representatives had a hard time communicating, let's see them get started on a dialog with that one.
Clearly then there isn't going to be one method for communicating that will work for all of them. You're going to need a translation system that they can all interface to in their own way in order to get started.
But that's just mechanics. Take samples of their technologies and build a machine for each of them that will handle the input/output problem. Now we can get down to the *real* work.
Once you have a way to translate the mechanical aspects of communication the question about a universal language becomes more a question about a universal *code*. Assign code points to concepts as they are identified, build the code over time.
Of course no creature is going to be able to understand everything about another. There's a codepoint that means "ionic enrichment of the metagalvic organ" that is as meaningless to you as "petrichor" is to a life form with no chemical receptors to perceive it. You might understand what the words mean (let's assume) but you can't comprehend the context. And no matter how hard you try you're never going to get a four foot tall cockroach to understand dad jokes. They just don't seem to get it.
And inevitably you're going to run across something so alien that even the basics of logic don't make sense. It's hard enough to get two humans to agree on very simple logic, try it with a race that can't wrap their minds around a two-valued logic system.
So no, there's never going to be a universal language that all people can understand and use to communicate effectively. But there might be a way to build a code that at least minimizes the understanding gap.
---
One other point that I didn't touch on before is the encoding of syntax, something that is both extremely important potentially tricky.
In the original example of Human and Bug I mentioned that the Bug communication method encoded concepts into complex chemicals. Rather than stringing together a sentence composed of discrete components, as human speech does, the entire meaning of the communication is encoded and intended to be interpreted in gestalt. Attempting to unravel the gestalt to its component symbol equivalents will lose potentially important nuance. It might be equivalent to the difference between experiencing eating a bowl of ice cream vs hearing the words "eating a bowl of ice cream."
Now turn it around and try to see it from the Bug's perspective. A human says "eating a bowl of ice cream" and what you get is a series of essentially disconnected concepts that make no sense, there's no gestalt to allow you to understand what is being transmitted. Your brain just isn't configured to process language as a series of discrete components, you get meaning directly from the state changed in the communications centers of your brain when they encounter the chemicals your race emits.
There may be some problems like this that are just too difficult to overcome for any specific pairing. You might need to enlist the aid of an interpreter who can handle both modes of communication.
We have enough trouble with this when translating between human languages. That's why round-trip translations on Google Translate can come out looking very very strange.
[Answer]
To communicate, they must have something in common. They share mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
I don't know if much else is guaranteed. I was convinced of this by the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, who wrote the novel *Fiasco* about first contact with an alien species. They had high technology, but nothing to say to us.
[Answer]
I'm unsure exactly how bizarre or outlandish your various species' methods of communications will be, but I imagine a morse-code style rhythmic language would cover all but the most extreme.
Tapping a surface in a particular rhythm with enough force that it would create both audible and tangible vibrations would cover those without sight and without hearing, and the binary nature of it could account for any species that communicates in a more technological/mathematical way devoid of visual or auditory input.
It could be entirely possible that if you have species who communicate in more extreme ways that they simply can't speak the same base language without additional assistance. For example, personal handheld pads (or, hell, apps on smartphones) that would release chemicals in response to the aforementioned tapping to communicate with a species that communicates by scent. The same device could be placed on the ground to vibrate through the floor for species that uses vibrations traveling through a solid medium rather than a gaseous one. It could light up in various colors in response to the pattern of tapping for a species that utilizes specific wavelengths of light rather than pitches of sound.
You could honestly go nuts with this idea, and the handicap of requiring a physical medium for some but not all different species to work with could create a variety of interesting situations. Sort of similar to Star Trek's universal translator, but less handwave-y and more mechanical in nature. You still need to **know** the morse-code-esque language (and presumably everyone would take a year or two of it in school or some such), but even if you know it, you simply can't get the ideas across in every method of communication without a device to act as an intermediary.
[Answer]
**Neural Networks**
No, seriously. Neural. Networks.
A kind of internet where you plug in your conciousness. Your ghostly form can then sit in a cyber-chat room and exchange pure ideas and emotions, which require no language.
What if one species feels differently? Say it does not know the concept of hatred or melancholy? That's where it gets interesting. Be creative.
[Answer]
Can they all make some form of sound or other means to communicate that can be understood by all the others?
Then, yes.
It would be fantastically complex language for very simple communications or even, arguably, several languages that just happen to exactly parallel each other in structure, but if each of the beings can express any given word in at least one form that any other being can fathom, they can have conversations in it and so have a language.
Even if you end up with a canary chirping and a dragon engaging in sign language to talk to each other. (Han and Chewbacca's conversations, or R2D2 and C3PO's, are a mild form of this.)
[Answer]
That could be a taller order than it looks. There seem to be many more than 5,000 spoken languages here on Earth alone. That suggests you’re going for a Trekky-type universal translator, or weeding out uncountable numbers of non-contenders.
The UN has only six official tongues but the EU and India are drowning in dozens!
Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarrion series includes an alien always surrounded by odd scents, which turn out to be his method of communication but if sound and light pollution are intrusive, how much more obstructive must scent be to the next words “spoken”?
SeaQuest DSV uses a primitive ancestor of Star Trek’s universal translator to turn dolphin clicks into basic English, spoiling its own effect with a squeaky-clicky accent. Oops!
A current UK TV ad has a lock-down victim bored enough to learn the theremin, used in original Star Trek title music and just a moment! Theremins work by some kind of inductance or interference or some such from the player’s hands and that I’ve heard, their only output has always been that weird music as in Star Trek, hardly above the level of a polyphonic ringtone and who says that’s a necessary restriction, even in the real world?
Almost in reverse, that’s vaguely related to Asimov’s Visi-Sonor, which reads nearly like a variant of Apple’s much later music-generated screen-colour thingy…
One-handed input devices have been around for at least 30 years and would be much more efficient than standard keyboards for phones, tablets and even computers… if only the marketeers could persuade Users to invest a tiny amount of learning time. Like, what makes anyone think Morse or Semaphore is hard, for anyone who wants to learn?
Have you any idea how little time it takes to become a more-than-half-way competent touch typist even on a normal keyboard? A couple of hours a day for less than two weeks; that's all!
Who remembers alpha-waves and more usefully, alpha-wave feed-back? 40-odd years ago any number of brainiac labs rigged electrode helmets to read at least one kind of brain wave and taught subjects to control those “alpha” waves, which were converted into sound and played back to relax the subject. Gosh, wow… but that was 40 years ago.
Alpha waves are one among at least seven types of brain-wave that - perhaps painstakingly - people can be taught to control. That provides at least “Yes” or “No” and prolly “More” or “Less” options on seven different axes.
Translate to musical notes and would you have less, or more than the current scale known on any instrument? At least 2^7, anyway.
Translate to musical chords and how would you even measure the options?
On the gripping hand, what’s wrong with any kind of symbiote, even if its description is no more meaningful than that of the Babel fish?
[Answer]
### LINCOS is the true universal language
How do you send your first message to an inteligent race elsewhere in the cosmos, where the receiver cant speak your language, cant understand your gestures or emotions, and cant reply in useful timeframe?
You start with something everyone has in common, integer counting. Count the number of beeps in each group, and then from counting, introduce comparisons, boolean operations, then maths, then logic, set theory, and work your way up through the sciences, maths (and properties of the signal) to define physics, physics to define chemistry, chemistry to define biology, biology to define sociology, defining everything as you go from its fundamentals up, essentially allowing those who recieved the message to first learn to translate the lincos dictionary into their own language.
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_language>
] |
[Question]
[
I have a planetary system orbiting the star 18 Scorpii, 45.3 ly from Earth, and I would like to create a stellar map for it. My search for software showing the constellations from other stars has come up dry. Could any of you please help?
[Answer]
I recommend Celestia (<https://celestiaproject.net/>). This is a very detailed (and free) astronomy simulator that lets you view planets, stars, constellations, etc. from any angle. You can view stars from other stars, even outside the galaxy. It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
Looking at 18 Scorpii from the direction of Earth (1.75 AU away):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CJ816.png)
Looking towards Earth from 18 Scorpii:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uscdx.png)
[Answer]
I use software called [Starry Night Pro](http://www.starrynight.com/starry-night-7-professional-astronomy-telescope-control-software.html). It allows you to "fly" to a star in the database and take a picture (with or without labels and guidelines). The software is not free, but it has many graphic options (from what I can tell on the comparison page, the cheapest version will accomplish this, the more expensive versions are for telescope control).
This is one of the export options of the starfield from 18 Scorpii (approximately 180° field of view – about half of the sky) with labels for bright objects and galactic guides:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ygb8R.png)
You can also export semi-realistic images to use as backgrounds (here's another view from 18 Scorpii. Stars are slightly exaggerated in size to make them easier to see):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/w9Mlz.png)
[Answer]
I spent some time putting together a project which does this to within 75lys, hosted [here](http://uncharted.bpodgursky.com). All the source code is [on GitHub](https://github.com/bpodgursky/uncharted).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hcjiO.png)
This definitely isn't as professional as Starry Night, as mentioned above, but it is free. To be honest, I'm not at all an astronomer so I don't know to what degree 75lys captures all interesting constellations, so take the accuracy with a grain of salt.
[Answer]
Maybe a little esoteric, maybe not, here is a stellar map to our sun that accompanied the Voyager space probe on its journey to the edge of our solar system and beyond. This placard was attached to the outside of the probe to explain its origins in case extraterrestrial intelligence ever found it.
Rather than using constellations which are only apparent from our particular vantage point in the galaxy it uses pulsars to pin-point the star of interest.
The lines all radiate out from our sun, or point in towards it depending on your point-of-view. The symbol with the two circles denotes a hydrogen molecule (H₂) which has a specific *transition* period. The assumption is that any sufficiently advanced civilization ought to be able to deduce this and it would be independent of any arbitrary time system.
Each of the lines projecting inward originates from a pulsar and the markings alongside it are a binary representation corresponding to the period of that pulsar measured in Hydrogen transition units. Instead of 0/1 the map uses -/|. The long unannotated line that extends downward was meant to point to a simplified drawing of the probe it was attached to in order to signify that this is where the probe originated from.
More detailed info about the selection of the pulsars [can be found here](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/pulsarmap.html).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wxEL8.png)
[Answer]
***CAUTION: This data is sufficient to start an [epic galactic sim](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gmV9DSzcCQ). You have been warned.***
With great effort, I once assembled a [starmap.zip](http://standard3d.com/misc/starmap.zip) including all the constellations and their exo-planets (as of 2004). Includes stars within 50 parsecs of Sol, and is a geocentric coordinate system.
The video link above is of the as yet uncompleted sim and uses the exact data files in the zip. Galaxy building is never done.
The astronomical data comes from the HYG catalog and uses the Bayer-Flamsteed (Brightstar) naming convention. 3D coordinates were calculated from luminosity values, along with the stellar classification for each star and its sol-scale radius.
I even made up some gamified names (related to their discovery date) for the planets, and gave them a few moons. There are over 3000 stars and over 30 exo-planets, which makes a nice looking sky.
For example, your star 18 Scorpius is listed as 18 Sco in the stars.hyg.csv file:
```
18 Sco 16.26031482 -8.36823651 14.02524544 G1V 0.652
```
Your planet should be added to the planets.csv file like so:
```
18 Sco A (name) 1 1 (earth-scale radius) (orbit AU) true
```
Also included in the zip is line data for constellations (connect the dots). I included some icons for the constellations as well, which are nice.
Here is the line data for Scorpius from starlines.hyg.csv
```
9Ome1Sco 14Nu Sco
14Nu Sco Xi Sco
Xi Sco 9Ome1Sco
9Ome1Sco 7Del Sco
7Del Sco 6Pi Sco
6Pi Sco 5Rho Sco
7Del Sco 20Sig Sco
20Sig Sco 21Alp Sco
21Alp Sco 23Tau Sco
23Tau Sco 26Eps Sco
26Eps Sco Mu 1Sco
```
and here is the icon for Scorpius:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/i0qZf.jpg)
Should look something like this when rendered (from Earth):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/n6ZIy.jpg)
*Note that 18-Sco is skipped in the actual line data, but is given for context.*
The data is all tested and works perfectly (beautifully, really). The file formats are pretty obvious. There is no other documentation, so you will have to do some exploring to integrate it to your project. You will have to delete Pluto (2004, remember?)
I really do not want to revisit my [***epic galactic sim***](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gmV9DSzcCQ) to reverse engineer the formats, hence the warning. That thing is a rip in my spacetime continuum.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
Closed 5 years ago.
* You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see [Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3300/49).
* This question does not appear to be about **worldbuilding**, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help).
[Improve this question](/posts/128566/edit)
A time traveler reporter team wants to film the meteorite impact that led to the extinction of dinosaurs. They are thinking to teleport somewhere on Earth surface 30 minutes before the impact and to leave a few minutes after. Is it
possible to find a safe enough location on Earth from where to shoot the film or is it really too dangerous ?
[Answer]
This is the Tsar Bomba detonation seen from approximately 161 km away:
[I took it from Wikipedia, which also has this to say about how far destruction went:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)
>
> The bomb was attached to an 800-kilogram parachute, which **gave the release and observer planes time to fly about 45 kilometres (28 mi) away from ground zero, giving them a 50 percent chance of survival**. When detonation occurred, **the Tu-95V dropped one kilometre in the air because of the shock wave** but was able to recover and land safely.
>
>
> ...
>
>
> All buildings in the village of Severny (both wooden and brick), located 55 km (34 mi) from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometres from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed, stone ones lost their roofs, windows, doors and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse even at a distance of 270 kilometres (170 mi). The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns 100 km (62 mi) away from ground zero. A shock wave was observed in the air at Dikson settlement 700 km (430 mi) away; window panes were partially broken for distances up to 900 kilometres (560 mi).
>
>
>
This is the blast radius of that bomb in a simulation tool, hitting exactly where the Chicxulub asteroid hit:
Zoom in onto the little red marker.
This is a map from some scientists at Imperial College London, estimating how far impact ejecta flew off after the meteor impact:
[Source](https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/03/04/asteroid-terminated-dinosaur-era-in-a-matter-of-days/)
And I think most of that was going at hypersonic speed. You'd need to have it **way below your horizon** to be safe. There is also the shockwaves traveling through the crust, which did travel much faster than sound (in air) as well, and probably went around the world more than once.
But hey, if you can travel back in time, you can send in multiple satellites in low orbit and try for a few composite photos. Then use them for frames in a video. Or do a flyby video of the blast, using a perspective like the one the IIS uses for filming the Earth.
[Answer]
Why not film it from space?
I mean, you have a time travel device able to send a team of reporters including their equipment several million years into the past, I'm sure it could transport a small spacecraft or at least high altitude balloon as well. The time machine itself could even function as spacecraft, if it was transported into space above earth with the necessary speed to achieve stable orbit.
In an event like a huge meteor impact, the safest place (where you can still see the impact) is outside of the atmosphere. You might also want to be able to manoeuvre or jump some seconds through time to avoid smaller meteorites and debris ejected from earth.
[Answer]
Why risk being there?
Set up automatic recording stations, heavily anchored and pointed at the impact site - protected with a thick titanium shell and an artificial sapphire lens, and equipped with a very powerful radio transponder. (e.g. strong enough to be illegal on grounds of interfering with other electronic signals in the modern era)
Then travel to a day or two after the impact and use the transponder to track down your recorders.
[Answer]
As Jay Melosh points out [here](https://youtu.be/uwPuE9VZbUY?t=1601), the fireball will incinerate everything within a 1000 mile radius (which is the distance from where the fireball is above the horizon). The temperature of the fireball is higher than that of the Sun's surface and it will appear much larger in the sky than the Sun, reaching a height of 200 km, so the radiant energy flux will be much higher than that from the Sun.
The safe distance from the impact site is then at least about 1600 km. But then you can't see the asteroid anymore when it dips below 200 km altitude, so you can't even see it enter the atmosphere.
We tend to underestimate the radiant flux of fires. We intuitively think that at a large distance we're going to be safe, while what matters is the solid angle subtended by the fire. A large gas fire killed a few people in Belgium in their cars who were driving on a highway. The highway looked safe, the fire was at some distance from it, but the radiant heat from the fire caused the cars to erupt in flames.
Another example is the [Piper Alpha disaster](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1031994/The-day-sea-caught-20-years-Piper-Alpha-explosion-survivors-finally-able-tell-story.html) where a gas fire led to a massive fireball:
>
> The heat generated was so intense that a helicopter could only circle at a perimeter of one mile, the tongues of flame extending hundreds of feet above the rotor blades.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Absolutely. First, calculate a safe distance at various times during and after the explosion. It's an asteroid / meteorite, not a nuke, so there won't be some of the radiative effects to worry about. At t=0 there will be some safe distance to observe. As time progresses, the effect of the shockwave and ejecta will increase this distance substantially. But, you've got a time machine so presumably you've also got a space machine! You can pop in shortly before impact, such as when the asteroid enters the atmosphere, and capture video as the safe zone expands outward until just before it reaches the camera, then travel in time and space to a new location further away, repeating as needed.
For added safety, send probes to various points in spacetime to verify your calculations and determine exactly how much time you can spend at various spots. You might even consider having multiple vantage points on the surface, with your crew being further away and popping in automated recording drones at closer ranges. You could even sacrifice a few units streaming video wirelessly as the shockwave reaches them, or even go back in time and retrieve them afterwards. You've got a time machine! If anything goes wrong, have a team on standby ready to fix things.
(Note: I'm not sure how far the "reality check" tag goes on a question involving time travel!)
[Answer]
Depending on your particular time travel paradigm: **absolutely**.
Let’s say you get to play fast and loose with paradoxes. Let’s further say you can build some very robust ‘camera drones’. Finally: let’s assume that a computer can control the time travel and wrap its processors around the various paradoxes you can set up. At this point filming anything anywhere at any time becomes trivially simple.
Rather than expecting your drone to survive the impact event instead all you need is for it to survive long enough to transmit a single frame back to you, then you can ‘recall’ the drone by never sending it in the first place (don’t overthink this bit, it’s a blatant abuse of paradoxes) and jump it to 1/26th of a second later. Rinse and repeat (preferably with a computer doing the co-ordination), and eventually you have a full film of the explosion *from within the blast*. Or outside the blast. Or both: you have a time travel machine and computers! Nowhere is safe from your journalistic prowess.
Basically: if you’re alright abusing paradox mechanics and you choose the right time travel paradigm then anything is possible.
[Answer]
Radiant energy from the incoming meteor (it isn't a meteorite yet as it hasn't landed) would be so intensely bright that it would ignite everything combustible within line of sight. This would make it so that the only "safe" place "on Earth" would be over the horizon and unable to "see" the incoming strike.
Debris thrown up from the impact would have reached space, making low earth orbits fatally unsafe.
My recommendation: geosynchronous orbit.
[Answer]
Have you tried filming it from the moon? I do not know the exact timing of the meteorite strike, so it's possible the strike is not in the line of sight from the moon at the moment of impact. The impact has to occur between moonrise and moonset, locally, in order for this vantage point to work.
And you need a really good telephoto lens because you are very far away. But at least you are at a safe distance, and you don't have to build a spacecraft, although you need a lunar habitat.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see [Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3300/49).
Closed 6 years ago.
[Improve this question](/posts/89260/edit)
In a little short story I'm writing, a king has an army of about ten thousand men, and is about to face a host twice as large at least.
In preparation for the battle, he has his men pray to the gods and make a sacrifice.
On the hill they are about to defend, each of his 10k soldiers receives a rabbit to sacrifice and about half a liter of wine to pour on the ground as an offering to the gods.
The king then orders his men to fall back a little, leaving the slope of the hill drenched in blood and wine, littered with 10k dead rabbits.
As the enemy army charges, their horse riders slip on the dead rabbits and their infantry gets bogged down on the muddy slope.
This allows the king and his ten thousand men to secure a very important victory.
Is this a realistic scenario?
Would a field with 10k dead rabbits affect a charging cavalry at all?
Would the slope of a hill be muddied by 5k liters of wine and whatever blood the rabbits spill?
Also, could this backfire against the king and his army?
How could this be turned into a realistic scenario that could easily be interpreted as divine intervention?
Edit:
The rabbits are pre caught, before the battle, let's say by their wives and children.
Edit:
Right, I'll just have the enemy king slip on one if the dead rabbits, hit his head against a jug of wine left there and die. The enemy army will loose morale and route. I suppose this is relatively realistic and can also be interpreted as divine intervention.
[Answer]
# Not realistic
### Where did the rabbits come from?
10,000 rabbits is quite a lot of rabbits. Your army would need to spend a great deal of energy capturing that many live rabbits. Or your army has spent quite some time breeding rabbits and caring for them. Or you have a large force of rabbit-wranglers. Somewhere. Who are now out of work. Either way, that's not realistic.
An army on the march might trap a few rabbits, but not enough to feed the troops, and no where near enough to stockpile this sacrificial bounty. Rabbits run fast and wouldn't hang around near incoming armies, their foragers, etc.
### How much blood?
Nevermind how they got the rabbits, assuming they have them... Rabbits weigh, on average, 1.2 kg[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_cottontail). They average 56 ml of blood per kg[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_volume). That means that if you could get 100% of the blood out of your rabbits, that's 672 liters.
But you can't get 100% out. Some will remain in the flesh. Some will stain the fur and not be usable. And much will soak into the ground. So even if your army manages to get 50% of the blood as usable ground lubricant, that's only about 336 liters. By the time you spread that around your army, it won't present any challenge to the cavalry.
### How long to get the blood?
Each soldier has to kill his own rabbit. No squeamishness here. Cutting the throat and draining blood into a bucket will take at least 10 minutes per rabbit. *("Squeeze hard, lads! Get every drop!")* You then have to pour each bucket into a larger vat, or pass the bucket up the line to the next guy. If you want to toss the rabbits out there, too, that'll take some more time. Oh, and this is a sacrifice. There's ritual involved. So make that 20 minutes. And you can't rush, else you botch the ritual or spill the bucket.
So now your men have to carry buckets sufficient for all this blood and wine. And not spill it. And transfer it from the back of the line to the front. I'd say you're looking at roughly an hour, minimum, not counting the time to ready the rabbits, wine, and buckets.
That's assuming the back row has 1 bucket per man. They kill the rabbit, say the words, and pour the wine, then pass their bucket up the middle line. Middle line men kill the rabbit, say the words, pour the wine and pass to the front. Front line repeats. Then they pour the buckets out, 3 paces in front of their line. If you have fewer buckets -- a reasonable guess, since buckets are not a standard field kit item -- then it takes longer.
So probably at least 3 or more hours of passing out creatures, capturing the rabbits that get dropped, passing out wine, capturing the rabbits that squirmed free, and then passing out buckets. That time would be better spent setting up spears at 45 degree angles, or honing small trees into spikes to repel their horses.
### Now add the wine!
So let's assume we collect 75% of the blood and 100% of the wine (no one cheats and drinks their allotment. *It's for the gods!)* That gives us a total of 5,504 liters of liquid.
### But how does that work out?
If you stack your men in a square of 3 rows, that means you have about 833 men on a side. That's 3,332 men on the outer line. If all the wine/blood is poured outside this line, that's about 1.65 liters of blood-wine per person on the front line.
Less than two liters of liquid. Some of that will run off. Some will soak in. And some will pool on the ground making the potential trip-hazard you are after.
# Conclusion:
Horses are generally able to move over wet ground without dying[3](https://www.google.com/search?q=horse%20in%20the%20rain&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS741US741&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMk-jb_d7VAhUizoMKHV_HC8IQ_AUICigB&biw=1904&bih=930). I mean, they do it every day. I do not believe this degree of coverage will present any challenge at all to them. Wet morning grass is as dangerous as your frontage of blood-wine.
There's no way to *directly* threaten the army via rabbit blood and wine. Unless the gods intervene more directly4.
Better to focus on spears or spikes set at 45 degree angles to repel their horses.
---
4 *(Yes, Richard, orbitally launched rabbit-sicles are a completely different set of questions but those questions don't really fit into the framework of this particular question...)*
[Answer]
Little story twist.
The Gods say, Here are 10000 rabbits and 5000 litres of wine. You can use these to avert the war.
That's more than just a little vague. You *could* kill the rabbits in an effort to make the ground problematic for the incoming Horsemen. Maybe you get the dead rabbits out there in an effort to attract lots of ravens (to what point and purpose I am unsure). You could try to use the fluid to muddy things up, and the smell of rotting meat to make things unpleasant, but none of these sounds like a particularly effective tactic.
Or, you could bring in a bunch of chefs and use the rabbits and wine to make some amazing rabbit stew, Braised rabbit, roast rabbit, rotisserie rabbit, chicken fried rabbit... and so on. In this case, you might find that the wine pairs well with rabbit, so don't waste it. Invite the enemy officers over for a parley, a feast, and peace terms.
Who says you have to fight?
OK, so the bunnies are pre-caught and the brutal use of them is fairly unrealistic. You are going to have to jump through some pretty unbelievable hoops of coincidence to make this work out just right.
But the story could be about the wise king, much favored by the gods. A clever king could make use of things like "The Gods told us to sacrifice 10,000 rabbits so everybody go get one before the enemy gets here". 5,000 litres of wine is believable. A clever kings' "revelation" and order to create a feast could neatly secure his own legend in spite of the fact that he had been negotiating with the incoming army for a long while. It might keep the hotheads and panic-mongers busy while he tidies up trade agreements and such.
Or, we could lead into the tragic, but fairly established story of "invite them all in and poison them".
Just saying there are alternative uses for a rabbit and 500mL of wine.
[Answer]
## Let's gather some thoughts first
Best counter to cavalry are always pikemen in tight formation, that remained true even in era of gunpowder - bayonets of Napoleon era were turning gun into makeshift pike.
## So, how tight can formation of 10000 men can be?
According to [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_in_the_Middle_Ages#Infantry_formations), square 60m by 60m, pointing pikes and halberds in every direction. Square formation exists to protect from attacks from any direction - it has no flanks, and thus cavalry can never attack it from the weaker side, it will always have to charge head on, taking heavy casualties on pikes. Cost is mobility, such crowd will not move or react quickly.
## The battlefield
Let's say that like in [Agincourt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt#Terrain), your force has a clearing in the forest to rest the flanks against. This takes care of cavalry, as cavalry can't operate effectively in forests. There's still enemy infantry to worry about, though. Hopefully your infantry can take them on if cavalry fails to win instantly, like they are used to win.
So, let's say you have tight formation 120m by 30m, holding the only path through the forest. Now, are rabbits and wine enough to make ground slippery? Let's see.
## Artificial Heavy rain?
5000 litres of wine gives us about 42 l/m of the line. If we try to spread this on rectangle of 120m by 1m, this gives us 42mm of rain. According to [this](https://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-howmuchrain-metric.html), 50mm of water in hour is considered quite an extreme rain. Unfortunately, 1m thick sogged field won't do - according to [this](http://www.etrakka.com.au/wp-content/uploads/E-Trakka-stride-length-summary.pdf), horse stride can reach over 7m at peaks speed. Most horses will just step over it, if you make soggy patch 1m thick.
## Horse stride
Luckily, heavy cavalry won't reach peak speed due to weight of rider and armour (both knight and horse armour) as well as fact that it's not a race track. Unfortunately, it's hard to find any real source on cavalry charge speed. Let's say 40 km/h as I have a hard time believing that horse could reach same speed with ~150 kg more weight as it could without. This gives stride length of roughly 5m.
## Rabbits
Unfortunately, on a field 120m by 5m, each square m will receive only 8.4 mm of wine. Not good enough, I'm afraid. Time to add wabbits.
According to this, half a year old rabbit can reach nearly 4kg. Let's take younger ones and 3 kg. According to this, rabbit will have 56 ml of blood for every 1 kg of body mass. So 10000 rabbits, 3kg each will have total of ~1700 l of blood if drained dry.
That brings liquid to about $11 \frac{mm}{m^2}$. I'm not sure that's enough. But I know how to improve it: important feature of terrain in battle of Agincourt was that land was recently ploughed, which magnified effect of heavy downpour. If your gods for some reason want animal offerings buried, there's a good reason to soften the ground before soaking it. Preferably
battle should NOT happen after very dry month.
## Some more musings
I think in this contrived circumstances, it could actually work: cavalry gets up to speed, and suddenly hits soft ground. Horses won't expect that and could conceivably lose balance causing domino effect, falling down and throwing riders off of their backs. If soldiers are positioned close enough behind that trap, first few lines should be able to counter-charge as soon as enemy cavalry loses cohesion and win - cavalry fights by shock of charge, in protracted melee infantry wins. They however would need to quickly handle the cavalry and return to position before another wave of cavalry attacks, unless first wave turns into enough of a mess to simply block other charges.
# Conclusion.
**It's a long shot, very risky, and requires extremely contrived circumstances, but I think it could work**. King or general leading the armies would have to be true tactical genius, unbelievably lucky or both, but it could potentially be done, making the battle a true stuff of legends. Contemporary scribes would claim that gods themselves, pleased by the offerings, joined the battle, and thus, King of this country would overnight increase his political influence tenfold, if not more. You obviously know better, what caused the outcome.
[Answer]
The horses will likely shy away from the dead animals before even reaching the foot of the hill. Should they manage to be persuaded to charge up the hill, the slippery bodies will cause the horses to lose traction and fall. If they start slipping and falling during a cavalry charge, it will look like a bad game of ten-pins, with horses falling all over the place, knocking down others and causing still more to panic (and possibly fall down in a chain reaction). The second and third waves of cavalry (since *we all know* cavalry don't charge in a single compact mass, don't we?) will pull up short and probably won't even make it to the base of the hill.
Following infantry and dismounted men at arms (assuming a middle ages scenario) will be equally disadvantaged, with the ground now churned up and littered with injured, screaming horses and men as well as the carcasses of the rabbits. Even in a black powder to WWI era setting, both the horses and following infantry will be at a huge disadvantage due to the poor footing and slippery surface you have just created. Once the enemy general has determined what has happened, he may respond with his own magical counter spell, or order the reserves to come around the flank and cut off your forces.
As noted in the comments, 10,000 rabbits only cover a fairly small area, so this might only have utility if you are set in a defensive position like the English in Agincourt, with a narrow approach and both flanks shielded by dense woods.
[Answer]
Assume the top of a hill covered by 10k people is, say, 100m square. You'd be hard-pressed to have 100k people in a smaller area and still have them ready to repel attackers.
That's a rabbit every square meter. That's not a lot of rabbit. And a winebottle spilled over a square meter is just a little puddle.
Just based on bunny-corpse-density, which is not something I expected to be using as a measurement this early in the evening, I'm thinking there'll be negligible effect. Your odds of standing on a bunny are small, and for war-chargers, trained in galloping over the fields of the dead, are negligible.
So you have 100m square, covered in dead bunnies and wine.
BUT. What if it's not wine? What if it's whiskey?
So you have 100m square, covered in dead bunnies and good Scotch!
That's an *entirely* different proposition. See, in the latter case, you drop a torch, and the whole hill is covered in an eerie blue flame that the commander is standing in apparently unhurt, while the stench of blood and burning hair rises from the bunnies.
Would that be enough to break a cavalry charge by people who believe in magic? I think maybe.
[Answer]
Where did your army get 10,000 rabbits? Did they have a pre-sacrifice en-masse hunt? And your army just killed 10,000 kilos of meat they probably would rather have eaten. I tried looking for the average population of bunnies in a meadow and one source suggested there are [1-3 rabbits per hectare](http://www.rabbitfreeaustralia.com.au/rabbits/the-rabbit-problem/). So your army will need to harvest all the rabbits in at least 3000 hectares (30 square kilometers). I applaud their efforts - particularly because they caught these rabbits live so they could sacrifice them later. I would have enjoyed being a spectator for the hunt, watching all these fighting men leaping around trying to catch them.....
You mention they 'receive' these rabbits, so maybe there is a nearby rabbit farm? Divine intervention of rabbit sending? Magicians pulling hoards of bunnies out of hats?
But this is good material to spin legends from. Maybe it was only a hundred men against two hundred, and the mountain was a small rocky mound, but the story got exaggerated with each telling...
[Answer]
Perhaps this impediment could be psychological...?
Certainly the sight of so many dead animals could have some influence on the attacking force. The only vaguely relevant (and possibly apocryphal) battle I can think of is [the Battle of Pelusium.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pelusium_(525_BC)) In this example, (living) cats were carried by the Persian soldiers in the front of the lines, to discourage the Egyptians from attacking for fear of harming the sacred animals. Perhaps the rabbits could be a sacred animal to the attacking force? However, in that case it would be better if they were alive rather than dead. For fear of trampling these animals a cavalry charge would be blunted or disorganized, leading to a rout.
[Answer]
I think that this battle could be done much differently and more realistically.
Think about what would you do in that situation. You command a force of 10,000 men. I'll assume your forces are split up approximately 7,000 infantry, 1,000 archers, and 2,000 cavalry (just because I can). Your enemy commands double your forces and you are forced to meet him in open battle.
You make the decision to take a hill to make effective use of terrain in an attempt to even the odds slightly. The enemy needs a reason to attack uphill. So let's assume they are the attacking force and you are the defending force. They cannot take their objective without engaging you as the hill is strategically blocking their path so they MUST engage you uphill. You are wise and set up your line weak in the middle and strong on the flanks. (this will be important later)
Now lets switch from rabbits to pigs. Not 10,000 but let's say they gathered livestock from all the surrounding farms on the march. I'll say even 1,000 pigs would be a significant number. You now have the high ground defended by a front line of infantrymen with archers to slow a cavalry charge. Now when the enemy cavalry charges. You hold yours back and order the archers to loose on the enemy cavalry. As they get closer the infantry sets the pigs on fire and the run down the hill towards the enemy line. This is a tactic that is grounded in/near to reality.
Now put yourself in the position of the enemy cavalry. What would you do? Fresh from a march, ordered into battle, charging uphill under thick archer fire. Your horse is tired already and men are falling left and right as either they or their horse is struck by arrows. Now you have 1,000 tar covered pigs set on fire running towards your charge. Imagine the sounds, smells, and sight of this scenario. Horses are spooked and turn to flee. Trampling fallen comrades and a full route of the enemy cavalry has occurred.
Let's say the enemy numbers are similar to yours but double. Now you have just routed or killed 4,000 men without a single loss. Your infantry is rested, theirs is tired from the march and just witnessed their shock cavalry route and now have 1,000 burning pigs running at them. Even if they don't route your infantry begins a slow and steady advance, morale boosted by the initial win. Clattering shields with swords/spears to increase the sounds of the battle and make your force sounds larger than it is. The enemy morale is already low and now your fresh forces are marching towards them.
The enemy king is trying to stop a route and command his forces at the same time. He is forced now to rethink his strategy because due to his arrogance he no longer has cavalry. Your archers start pelting his forces with arrows since they have a range advantage on the hill. They stop right as the infantry forces meet. It is at this point the enemy king realizes he cannot see your cavalry in front of his forces. This is due to them being sent wide around the flanks to strike the flanks of his forces and strike down his archers.
Archers don't fare well against cavalry. They don't receive the same swordsmanship training infantry/cavalry do and they start routing on the flanks. The rear of the enemy infantry on the flanks take notice and now their morale plummets further. The attacking king is fully engaged with your forces and his flanks are crumbling. Even though your center is having a hard time they are still holding fast. The enemy king has now lost, either through route/death, at least 6,000 men. His infantry is surrounded, tired, and fighting for their lives. It is at this moment the defending king and his guard storm the flank and charge straight for the enemy king. You have to remember even though his infantry is battered, tired, and low on morale they outnumber yours 2:1. Charging the enemy king will either force a route or you can capture or kill him. (Assuming the defending king is equally/more skilled than his opponent which has been demonstrated by the battle). Seeing a king route/killed can stop a battle in its tracks as the men under his command lose leadership. Especially as they are surrounded and taking casualties.
You have now won the battle. It was hard fought and many men died on both sides. But glory is yours. Hope it helps.
] |
[Question]
[
I'm in the point of my story when two main characters meet each other, ally and start a rebellion against gods. One of my main characters is a wolf-girl (anime tendencies bruh) however she'll one of the commanders of the rebel army.
This is the first design of the character:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PjhZx.jpg)
However, I'm creating an armor for her, so this is my first sketch:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BDIQ6.jpg)
I need to do something with her tail. I don't want to cut it because I want to keep her humanoid identity, but you know dogs/wolves can't bend their tails that much without break it, so I need your help to keep her tail safe while beheading people. Thanks! She doesn't need to expose her tail with her armor.
***EDIT!:*** this is my second sketch for her armor (without the tail) L.Dutch gave me a good idea about her armored tail:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CRWUK.jpg)
[Answer]
You can go for something similar to the plates on armadillo tails
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pcjwk.jpg)
It will protect the tail and allow some mobility.
You can also add blades to the plates, so that it can be used to hurt enemies approaching from behind.
Just be sure she doesn't wiggle it while in a friendly crowd, for obvious reasons...
[Answer]
# Chainmail
A simple bit of extra [chainmail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_(armour)) in the back would provide a good bit of protection. If that isn't enough, you could put chainmail over the top of [gambeson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambeson) (or similar cloth armor).
Pros
* Chainmail would protect against piercing and cuts.
* Gambeson would offer some protections against blunt forces.
* Both are relatively light, and can be "designed" in a variety of ways.
Cons
* Gambeson would trap a lot of heat, making the wearer warmer.
* Chainmail while surprisingly strong, can be weak to piercing.
* There is of course some weight added, but by itself it isn't enough to impact overall mobility or agility.
+ A typical chainmail "tunic" weighs around 22 lbs (10 kg), while gambeson from what I can tell only weighs about 5 lbs (2.2 kg) give or take some weight for whatever purpose that it is fulfilling.
[Answer]
**Multiple decoy tails.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/g9oOo.jpg)
This flying fox lady actually has only one real tail. The others are decoys which can be attached before battle. In the event an enemy tries to strike her tail they have only an 11% chance of hitting the real one. If the enemy grabs one and pulls it, it will come off in his hands and continue attacking by itself.
[Answer]
In short: No protection is better
You need your tail for balance issues, so you really don't want to hide it/obstruct it unless you don't want to move as wolf/animal. Which would loose point of it.
Only maybe if you wear too heavy armor you might also want to add some weight to tail. But otherwise not. If someone is already behind you, he would kill you, why would he play with tail…
[Answer]
Apart from piercing and cutting attacks, the tail needs protection against other threats.
When a wolf person gets pushed or thrown (onto the floor or against a wall), the tail would break if it is in the wrong position (this would be pointing upward, for example). Interestingly, the tail can be moved sideways and survive percussive force from behind (yep, during mating, "doggy-style").
The depicted tail is pretty bushy. The hair could get stuck or, if it's long enough, someone could step on it. A hair net might help to get the "bushiness" under control. And, just like regular hair (on the head), it could be grabbed by an opponent.
So it boils down to tuck it sideways under the body armor.
However, she is a **wolf** lady. Wolves don't have armored tails, they have armored necks (the hair around their neck is very thick compared to other body regions, to protect against fatal bite attacks). Also, wolves typically fight in packs. They naturally assume defensive positions which prevent attacks from the rear.
Also, wolf vs. wolf fights are usually "ritualized". They fight for position in the pack, not to kill. You may see an alpha wolf **almost** bite into the throat of another wolf during a fight - just to communicate "I **could** kill you", not to actually harm his (new) subordinate. Most probably, the wolf girl will be fighting not against other wolf persons but against, dunno, Orcs or whatever evil minions of the Gods. However, there might still be cultural aspects influencing her choice of attire. The tail also facilitates distribution of pheromones (through movements commonly called "wagging"). It may also be socially unacceptable to cover certain body areas, as they used for certain social interactions, like offering one's throat to allow a ritualized attack of the alpha wolf (to show obedience, trust and attachment to the pack). Or other body regions to allow for **simulated** mating, also for a ritualized way of showing rank and position.
[Answer]
The simplest solution would be to just tuck the tail upwards (underneath the back of the chest armor) or downwards (along the back of the leg). A more stylish solution could be to wrap it around the waist.
But if she needs it for balance/mobility/offensive capabilities, I suggest taking L.Dutch's suggestion. Nested plates like that provide some limited movement while providing some good protection.
**OR**
Perhaps it would make sense to have a sort of sheath built in somewhere, and leave the tail unarmored.
That way, the tail can remain fully mobile outside of combat, while being able to be protected at a moments notice. An armored tail or tucking it tightly in armor would prohibit the free sheathing/unsheathing of the tail at will, and would likely be highly uncomfortable.
This would allow for far less inconvenience in day-to-day use of her armor.
[Answer]
## Metallic base, then Oilskin
It is not likely for opponents to try to cut her tail, because it won't hinder her combat abilities, while a good tug will put her off balance. But they may be tempted to strike at the gap in the armor the tails comes through.
So I'll suggest a metallic "teapot spout" stump, then greasing the tail or wearing oilskin to avoid grabs.
[Answer]
Think of it as a weapon! A set of blades attached down the tail would mean the character could use it to attack as well as defend. Think of it as a bladed whip, image attached.[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CpkqZ.png)
[Answer]
Do what dogs and wolves already do: tuck the tail in between your legs when you're in danger!
Of course that may not look terribly fashionable, so perhaps a strap along the leg (as was mentioned, a sheath of some sort).
Perhaps fighters who don't tuck away their tails are seen as arrogant or confident (as a beheading axe wielder is won't to be on a battlefield).
] |
[Question]
[
Wikipedia lists a potential for a hypercane which can have an eye of up to 190 miles in diameter **<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercane>**
Say there's an earthlike planet that for whatever reason has a permanent hypercane in one of its oceans (kind of like the big red spot on jupiter). This hypercane is in a fixed location and doesn't move. Also say there happens to be an island in the very center of the eye that's roughly circular and about 100 miles in diameter (leaving 45 miles from any shore to the wall of the hypercane).
I'm not interested in talking about whether a storm like this would be possible. I'm interested to know whether this island would be capable of sustaining human life for a long period of time - say hundreds or thousands of years. If not, what things are preventing that from happening?
[Answer]
>
> The [eye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_(cyclone)) is a region of mostly calm weather at the center of strong tropical cyclones. The eye of a storm is a roughly circular area. It is surrounded by the eyewall, a ring of towering thunderstorms where the most severe weather and highest winds occur.
>
>
> In strong tropical cyclones, the eye is characterized by light winds and clear skies, surrounded on all sides by a towering, symmetric eyewall.
>
>
>
If we assume this to be true also for an hypercane, it means that the island would be constantly into an area of calm weather, meaning no rainfall, for centuries. The island itself, lacking rainfall, would be a barren landscape, more or less like the Sahara or the Atacama desert.
Lacking trees, there would be no possibility for humans to build boats and therefore to fish, therefore on the long term human life would be simply impossible on the island.
[Answer]
While the weather in the eye is calm and possible to live in, there are big sea waves from the storm. The coasts would be uninhabitable and fishing impossible. If there are major rivers, large ocean waves and swells tend to propagate upriver.
The island would need protection, such as coastal cliffs from hard rock which does not erode easily. Or perhaps very extensive coastal lagunas and mangrove forests.
[Answer]
# Yes.
The eye of a terrestrial hurricane, no matter what size, is a zone of calm winds and relatively clear skies around which whirls the raging tempest.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xMMqB.jpg)
The picture shows what it's like inside a hurricane's Eye. Nice and calm, trees are happy, not a lot of rain or wind.
This is the accompanying video, courtesy of [Hurricane Michael](https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/10/11/hurricane-michael-eyewall-storm-chaser-footage-es-vpx.cnn).
If your hypercane remains perfectly rooted over and surrounding an island, then people can live on the island in its Eye indefinitely. Winds are calm; precipitation is sparse to light. Since your storm is a magical artifact, the kataigothurge that whipped it up in the first place could allow for occasional squalls and showers within the Eye.
The limiting factors will be the usual for island life: resources & space. The Storm itself will serve to keep them in and outsiders away, but apart from that shouldn't have much of an effect on the island itself.
[Answer]
I would like to add to the point of lacking rainfall.
I would posit that are some turbulences or the eye-wall is somewhat wandering around or splitting of rain clouds. When looking at pictures of hurricane eyes the wall is not smooth and the sky is not completely free of clouds.
So if you have a very large eye you could declare that from time to time a part of the wall tears off and brings rain to a part of the island. You could state that the midst of the island is like a desert but the nearer you get to the eye wall the more water you get, and also that the air is humid, so that while it maybe rains rarely it is enough to support life.
A fun twist would be a half-island extending beyond the wall and dangerous expeditions into the storm, and a mountain chain on that half-island siphoning a lot of water from the eye wall (Foehn effect).
] |
[Question]
[
Many long lived races are seen as serene, beautiful, and wise. Yet with long life comes the increased chance to be permanently injured in a life-altering way, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Eons of war would wear down the psyche and most probably cause physical scarring and loss of limbs. Deaths of loved ones may cause one to be spiritually scarred. Even in worlds where magic is not only present, but prevalent, I can't see even all scars associated with long lives disappearing. How would a long lived race avoid such scars?
[Answer]
Why would magic not solve it?
* They have a technological or magical time travel device which allows them to reverse time a few minutes, to undo the injury by avoiding it in the first place.
* They have a super-strong precognition sense which allows them to see injury coming, and avoid it - which is how/why they are long lived.
* In a magic enough world, maybe the longevity is a *curse*. (i.e. you don't have to explain how it works, the race might not know, it's something in the background of the world - it just happens to them)
Apart from that, what if they have massively different lifestyles and social customs?
* People get injured from doing things. Maybe they don't tend to do things - e.g. their main time alive is long periods of near-hibernation.
* Maybe they put such a great emphasis on beauty that they are willing to wrap up in armor (or magical force-fields) and accept strict limits on their activities, to remain beautiful - a very risk averse people. Related: see The Last Human from Dr Who, she was obsessed with her appearance and smooth, moist skin, above almost anything else.
Survivor bias:
* Maybe the damaged people tend to die (the more accident-prone, more clumsy, suicidal will remove themselves from the population), and the remaining people are the survivors and they live longer, so the population appears undamaged from the outside, only because we don't see it. They could have a tremendous birthrate compared to their apparent population size.
Image:
* They wear clothes and makeup. And cast appearance distorting spells. They are scarred, but without being known for their scarring.
Technology:
* Peter F. Hamilton's Void trilogy has long-lived humans who have uploaded themselves into computers, and keep runs of newly grown human clones of their original bodies, and download into them when they want to be flesh and blood. They're still considered the same person. They also choose to remove memories they don't want from their minds as and when they want to.
* The same Void trilogy also has a technology which holds things in stasis where they can't change or decay. At a physics and force-fields level, rather than a biological sleep. That could be related, e.g. with the hibernation idea. Vernor Vinge's "Across Realtime" books have a similar bubbling effect for stasis - the characters come out alive and unchanged hundreds of years later, but they didn't experience the years in between.
As for psychological scarring - would you expect to interact with the mentally unstable, the deranged, the depressed, the incapable? Or would you expect to interact with the ambassadors, the diplomats, the curious and resiliant and explorers? Are you going visiting their mental hospitals to get a clear picture?(and, I think the mentally damaged immortal *is* a trope, isn't it?)
[Answer]
The ability to live for extremely long times without death generally implies the ability to heal from most damage. Given a long enough time, even humans can remove most minor scars. Animals like Lizards, Spiders, and Starfish all regrow lost limbs.
The same goes for Psychological trauma, to some extent. Over time, people cope. Some people don't get PTSD from some experiences while others do, and some people cope faster than others, so it's very possible your hypothetical race could be less psychologically frail than modern humans.
[Answer]
# Longer lives lead to greater ambitions
These races are no longer confined to short lifespans; imagine what Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein or Nicholas Tesla would have accomplished if they were still alive today, and had access to today's technology. If these races also have great thinkers, they will not aspire to "improve the light bulb" in their lifetime - they will *land people on Mars* or *establish the first lunar colony*.
# Ambitions lead to discovery
These races will inevitably discover new things at a faster rate — the same smart people will have time to accomplish more, and they will accumulate.
# Discoveries may maintain youth
If a race has more thinkers, and more discoveries occur every day, surely *some* people will aspire to fix the scarring, limb loss, etc. that occur. Prosthetics will be improved, medical science and surgery accuracy will grow tenfold, flesh will be 3D-printable on commercial scales, brain damage will be reversed, and death will be a distant memory.
---
My disagreements with "resilience solves this problem"
* **Resilience does not account for mental trauma.** No matter how emotionally resilient or "unlikely to develop PTSD" individuals are, *longevity causes inevitability*. Eventually, a scarring event *will* occur, eventually dementia *will* set in, and eventually mental state *will* break down. Despite our attempts to extend the human life span through diet and medicine, dementia always finds a way.
+ **People won't "cope".** We treat mental illness *because* it isn't something people usually get over - if people could "cope" with mental illness on their own it wouldn't be a problem to humans anyways.
* **Resilience does not account for limbs lost.** Scars fade, but limbs do not regrow; extending the human lifespan will not give us this ability - millions of years of evolution MAY give this ability.
* **Tissue regeneration is not the same as cancer negation.** Even if a humanoid species naturally evolves regenerative abilities, the ability to create new cells at will does not solve the problem of eventual genetic errors. In fact, creating new cells faster will *amplify* the problems if a mutation occurs.
[Answer]
Complementing on what Landon Powell said... there are 2 methods to heal a wound: either you regenerate the damaged tissue as it were, or you substitute the damaged tissue by fibrous tissue, which is extremely resilient and binds the borders of the wound tightly together. The first method doesn't produce a scar, the other does.
Once fibrosis is established it is irreversible or reversible only after a long time, because you will need to substitute fibrous tissue by normal tissue, which is more difficult than just substituting a gap with normal tissue in the first place.
Now, all you have to do is create a species that uses the first method to heal wounds, but not the scarring method.
This isn't difficult to do. By definition, a long lived species has great healing properties. If not, they would die of cancer very soon. Cancer is derived from mutations on the genetic code. Age promotes these mutations, because the DNA "decays". Also, the more you live, the more divisions your cells undergo and the probability of errors on DNA replication at each cycle acumulares. And the more time passes by, the more likely is your exposure to environmental carcinogens.
So, if your species is so long lived as to survive cancer for decades or centuries, be assured that that species is able to regenerate tissue in an impressive way.
One way you could do this would be to make that species have ultra-sensitive stem cells. As soon as a lesion occurs, those stem cells would divide and diferenciate in a way as to replicate the entire tissue. The damaged tissue could even issue circulating signals so as to recruit stem cells from other bodyparts through blood. This happens in our body, BTW.
As for psychological damage, you could apply the same logic as with physical damage.... being coping analogous to regeneration and neurosis / PTS being analogous to scarring. Just make that species so emotionally resilient as to cope with every psychological damage they may experience.
*Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying that PTSD is equal to scarring. Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant to say was that there are two ways of healing physical wounds - a healthy way, through regeneration, and a non healthy way, through scarring. Analogously, there are two ways to heal psychological wounds - a healthy way, through coping, and a non healthy way, through PTSD. You could create a species with such biological and psychological physiologies in place as to always go through the healthy route of healing.*
[Answer]
Perhaps because they can molt?
If this long-lived species molts every ~5 years, then it would be a perfect way of removing anything but extreme scarring. Perhaps severe cases might require multiple molts. The molting could even be a factor in their longevity.
Also, they can regrow limbs while in the molting stage. Cover up the scars by giving them exotic joint structures that mask the appearance of the scarring there. So, a limbless member of this species would just deal with it for a few years and then, right before their next molt, rip off the remainder of the limb they wanted to regenerate. Wait a few weeks and voila! Shiny new arm!
If all members of the species only had visible scarring if it had occurred within the last 5 to 10 years, then there really wouldn't be much scarring to see.
I can't speak too much for psychological traumas, but I see two key possibilities for dealing with those.
1. The species has incorporated the concept of molting into their culture and there is a strong mental/spiritual component to a molt. Thus, they have an extremely powerful marker every 5 years on which to focus their mental healing, not to mention that the few weeks of motionlessness would give them the opportunity to sort through their problems as they were rejuvenating.
2. They don't form personal connections the way humans do. (Humans seem incapable of strong interaction without building a connection, either of love or hate.) With no love, there is no heartbreak. With no enemies, there is merely opposition to remove. There would be less opportunity for mental and psychological distress.
[Answer]
I like most of answers there, but let's look at that from different point of view.
As Landon Powell has said,
>
> The ability to live for extremely long times without death generally implies the ability to heal from most damage.
>
>
>
But alternatively it may imply having enough commons sense (and highly-developed social norms) to *cope with* or *avoid* most damage.
Each time a human gets sunburnt the risk of suffering from skin cancer grows a little bit. Solution? Don't get sunburnt. Don't go out on sunny days (with "beautiful pale skin" being a free bonus). Unlike "supernatural regenerative abilities", this explanation scales very well, possibly for thousands or even billions years of lifespan.
[Answer]
A race that doesn't deal with other people directly.
1. Video phones
2. Actual avatars that look feel, and for all purposes seem real.
The lifeform would have a full sensor net that would allow them to sense/feel everything to a point. All 5 senses being sent back and forth to the real person/alien. To avoid mental scaring any long term pain would not be sent back to the user.
Avatar 101 dies, 102 roles out and takes their place.
To them life would be very similar to us playing our video games.
Dealing with death. After 50,100, or what years the computer controlling the avatars could probably emulate the person to a point where a person avatar goes on in their place basically forever.
[Answer]
While I agree all above answers I want to add another angle.
Culture and history. Anthropology...
Look at our world, some countries, tribes or other kind of societies are more peaceful or wise than other even though we all have the same brain and body structure.
Thats because some cultures have different priorities in their everyday life, their aproach to educate their children is different. etc...
Maybe they didn't invent money sometime in their history therefore they are unfamiliar the concept of kapitalism and all the war it brings. Maybe they found a more peaceful way to divide limited resources without cousing war. Things never had to become a survival issue so they never needed to end other tribes existance. Therefore they became a peaceful wise society.
Or maybe its total opposite, they had the most biggest and ugliest wars in their history and now they learned their lesson not to do that. Like how todays German schools teaching Hitler part of the history to their students.
] |
[Question]
[
**The Situation**
For reasons unimportant to the question all divine/infernal beings ceased contact with humanity in the dark ages. For reasons equally obscure they are now back and busier than ever. Law enforcement, mental health professionals, the legal system, and our nation's corrections system are struggling to deal with the influx of supernatural related crimes. The police utilize a field test to differentiate between the demonically possessed and mentally ill. The suspect is held in a position where they cannot see what the police are doing and exposed to various holy icons from various religions alongside control sample items in order to elicit a supernatural response. This is used to determine the presence of a supernatural entity as if they react to an object that a non-possessed person could not see they are possessed. This test is used to determine the entity's culture of origin, and the severity of the manifestation and helps to target the response (For Example, You don't bring a catholic priest to exorcise a djinn, and you don't bring a native American shaman to cast out a judeo-christian demon.) Tactical Squads of commando-priests, sometimes with an angel or other divine entity on staff are used similar to swat, they are called in to perform field exorcisms upon determining the presence of a malign entity. Keep in mind that all cultures demons, angels, and assorted spiritual entities are now real and said priesthood is not necessarily catholic or even christian. There is a need for a multitude of religious and spiritual holy men to serve as commando-priests. A squad will typically represent several religions.
**The dilemma**
A coalition of demon and infernal entity civil rights advocates begin pushing for demons to be granted person-hood and civil rights after a demon that is possessing a man claims that an exorcism would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Up until this point extremist groups have been using demonically possessed as a sort of supernatural suicide bombers in a series of religiously motivated attacks. The controversy surrounding this case is similar to that of the confirmed terrorists being tortured clandestinely in Guantanamo bay.
A movement to abolish the practice of using angel-squads and commando priests to conduct field exorcisms is started. Their chief argument is that government sanctioned religious personnel are a violation of the United States Separation of church and state. The Demon Rights Advocacy Group (DRAG) is essentially a new tactic by the infernal beings to gain power and cause more havoc, but their (non radical) human members are within their rights under the first amendment.
**The Question**
Would a militarized priesthood or the utilization of state sanctioned divine beings operating as law enforcement violate the United State's separation between church and state? Assume they only have jurisdiction over events involving infernal beings.
The debate over the separation of church and state has a long history in the U.S., where the story is set. Please include references in your answers.
[Answer]
**It doesn't have to.**
The First Amendment states (and this is my only knowledge of the separation between church and state):
>
> Congress shall make no law **respecting an establishment of religion**, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
>
>
>
This might prevent the state 'hiring out' the priesthood to organise their own operations and giving them extra privileges 'licence to kill' or something similar.
It does not prevent the state setting up its own 'Supernatural Response Units'. The specialists being members of their respective churches is no more a conflict than a university professor also contributing to developing army combat equipment.
Now it would be illegal if that professor got the job because they happened to know someone in the military. At least if they did not also **independently verify** the professor was suited for the job. Conversely it would be illegal to offer extra research grants as a *reward* for their service.
To be safe the state must hire specialists based on **what they can do rather** than **who they are**. We need someone who can banish Judeo-Christian demons for example. We will interview whoever applies and hire whoever does that best. The fact that most of the applicants are ministers of some sort is not our problem, provided we do not turn away non-ministers.
To save trouble the state might set up a licensing body that issues *certifications* so potential employees do not have to be re-tested each time. The job application says "Applicants must have a LvL X Exorcism certificate".
The tricky part is to set up a legal fiction that effectively categories these certificates by religion without making specific reference to the Churches themselves. This might be as simple as categorising demons by physical appearance:
>
> **Subsection II(e) -- Class (A) Spirits:** Class (A) spirits are characterised by one or all of the following. Humanoid appearance. Size and strength exceeding human capability. Intelligence an speech ability equal or below human level. Hooves, horns and/or bat like wings. Affinity for heat. Brutish and masochistic disposition.
>
>
>
Requiring a class (A) certificate is essentially requiring a Judeo-Christian minister without explicitly referencing any particular Church.
[Answer]
I'm only going to be able to speak for the Catholic side of this.
## Under current Church law, priests cannot *officially* work with law enforcement in this manner without being defrocked.
Contrary to how many Catholics present themselves with regards to politics, the Holy See recognizes complete separation of the Church from any and all states that are not the Papal States. Although they can advocate for specific political issues, no official member of the Church's hierarchy is allowed to:
1. Advocate for a specific candidate (this can result in a gag order)
2. Run for a political office (this can result in being kicked out of their order)
3. This is the dicey one for you: They cannot act as government agents in such a capacity that they may potentially - and I mean even the *slightest* potentially - receive conflicting orders from their secular and religious superiors. You can assume that in this case they would be expected to choose their religious orders over their secular orders or be kicked out, *but the reality is that **the Vatican will never allow its officials to be placed in a position that would risk this to begin with.***
The reasons for this are actually pretty old. If you want the whole story for background to incorporate into your world building, then I recommend reading biographies of Pope Pius VI and military-political histories of Napoleon's invasion of the Papal States. The way I understand it, Napoleon demanded that Pius order the Papal subjects to obey French rule, and Pius' political response was to begin the process of issuing orders that consolidated the Papacy's political authority over Papal subjects instead. The separation between secular and religious authorities is just one branch in a whole litany of edicts that have to do with consolidation of Papal authority, that subsequent Popes continued to make throughout the 1800's.
The way you're describing
>
> Tactical Squads of commando-priests, ... are used similar to swat. ... militarized priesthood or the utilization of state sanctioned divine beings operating as law enforcement...
>
>
>
sounds exactly like what the Vatican will go out of its way to avoid. **Catholic priests would not be allowed to *officially* join these squads of multiple religious.**
## Now having said that...
**What *can* believably happen is for the Church to issue edicts specifically instructing priests how to respond to requests from law enforcement and possibly *cooperate in a non-official capacity*.** If you're going to have Catholic priests, these rules will have a big impact on your world building, and it may help to research when and how priests are allowed to cooperate with law enforcement currently (for instance, priests who report that someone confessed to having committed murder can be excommunicated).
**Slightly less realistic, but still within historic precedent, is that the Church would create a new order of priests or revive an older order to specifically deal with demonic threats.** These are the types of individuals who would think of themselves as a SWAT or commando team - just compare the Jesuits' concept of being "Soldiers of Christ" with a global mission to a stereotypical diocesan priest thinking of himself as the person who loves and cares deeply for his small parish. This leads to another research topic: stereotypical Jesuits have particular attitudes, and Catholic readers will expect your story to reflect this. Google "Jesuit jokes" to get an idea. **But again, these will be teams made up exclusively of members of this religious order, which would *cooperate* with law enforcement under the direction of specific edicts from the Holy See.**
[Answer]
Most constitutions with a separation between church and state phrase these in a way that the government must not enforce one specific religion or favor one religion over others.
It is quite easy to make the argument that the religious operatives are not doing either. They are not paid to preach their religion. They are paid to neutralize threats to public safety and national security. You are not hiring them for their faith. You are hiring them for their ability to neutralize these threats. You also don't discriminate, because the religious operatives are hired from all religions.
In order to not be accused of secretly subsidizing specific organized religions, you should pay the operatives directly and not through their religious organizations.
Just one piece of advise: make sure that the behavior and aesthetics of your task forces do not remind anyone too much of the [spanish inquisition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt0Y39eMvpI&feature=youtu.be&t=42). If your exorcism squads are not just fighting demons head-on but also do investigations to uncover demon activity, then each squad should contain a secular police officer who does the police stuff like conducting witness interviews and arresting suspects.
Another common definition of separation between church and state is that religious organizations should not have the authority to make legislative, executive or judicative decisions. To prevent this, you should make sure that any religious people do not get too powerful. If you have some council tasked with dealing with the demon threat, and you have people with religious ranks as consultants in that council, make sure that the final decisions are still made by people with secular legitimation.
[Answer]
## State-Sanctioned Divine Beings
**Short answer: No**
These divine beings aren't the church, the church is simply an organization that worships them. The beings themselves are separate entities, and as a result contracting them should have no legal implications in terms of separation of church and state.
This only changes if the beings are a part of the leadership structure of the church itself. For example, if an Angel holds an official position of power in the church equivalent to a bishop or priest.
## Weaponized Priesthood
**Short answer: No, but only if they are being contracted like mercenary groups**
This part of the answer is a simple one.
If they're being given specific contracts as if they were mercenaries, then this is no violation. This isn't a violation because they're never becoming a part of the state itself.
If they are official government employees, however, then this is a violation. These are official parts of the church that are also official parts of the government, and this is a violation of church and state.
## However...
As Daron's answer has indicated, there's no law that enforces a separation of church and state. This answer is more of a guide of things that are and aren't violating the *concept* of separation of Church and State, which while it might not be useful for the legal aspects of your world, might be useful for the societal impacts.
[Answer]
## No.
Daron has it right and I don't want to distract from that fundamental legal basis for their answer, but I would like add a few tidbits of my own.
In your world, it sounds like multiple religions are specifically considered. We have long established that as long as all religions are treated equally, the treatment is fair. Your world is then almost uniquely situated to avoid conflicts that would arise if, for example, only one belief systems' deities were manifesting (though that would imply that it was the "one true religion" and separation of church and state is no longer necessary).
However, that discrimination inside of of the squads against a particular practitioner due to their faith would violate those rules (and others). [I imagine this would almost necessarily have to come up in some of the squads too, given that religious belief systems are mutually exclusive].
At another level though, if you have bad actors killing people and the federal government said you couldn't take action to stop them, I think you'd see a non-trivial number of states either acting against the directives of the federal court system or simply cutting ties with the union. It's speculation, but as someone living in the southern United States now I can't imagine having a vote to leave and the state I'm in not making the mandatory 70% threshold for it under such conditions.
[Answer]
One precedent in the United States: chaplains in the military.
In practice, if supernatural beings objectively exist, and only particular specialists can fight them, the courts aren't going to rule that we can't do it (unless they think a bunch of superstitious hicks running the government have gone crazy and made those stories up). It's like asking whether laws against publishing military secrets or child pornography violate the principle of Free Speech. Sure, by a strict definition they do, but in practice everyone decided that we were okay with it.
Since all mythologies in this setting are true (to an extent: monotheists might need to get clever to explain why the power of God does not compel every evil spirit), the program is probably open to clergy of all religions, and indeed makes an effort to cover every possible type of supernatural enemy.
In an American context, you'd also have to ask: who has standing to bring the lawsuit? Is there some religion suing that it should get its chaplains even though there (in the fictional setting) are no Thetans to be Cleared? Some atheists make a point of demanding any privilege that religions get for themselves as well. This is why, for tax purposes, the leaders of atheist organizations are "ministers of the Gospel." One sued over tax-exempt parsonages for "ministers of the Gospel," and the IRS gave it to him rather than fight that lawsuit.
If anything, this completely validates countries that allow state support of all religions on equal terms. The real problem is in countries where the only way of fighting their new threats effectively is blasphemy.
[Answer]
**Change the laws**
The US Constitution is the product of its own times. In the age of Enlightement ideas like "freedom of consience", "religious tolerance" and "separation of sate and church" gained popularity, most of the educated people deeming that it is everyones responsibility to care for his/her soul and salvation:
>
> Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between
> Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his
> worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only,
> & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the
> whole American people which declared that their legislature should
> "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
> the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between
> Church & State.
>
>
>
Thomas Jefferson
If all the supernatural beings are there and undeniably (form a legal and scientific standpoint) interfering with the humans, this policiy has to change.
**Now it is the responsibility of the government that the US maintains a good relationship with all the gods**. Not all of them are so tolerant to disbelief as the God Christians worship...
For example the government has to ensure that Iuppiter recieves the proper number of cows as sacrifice on the proper days, or even worse, that the God of the Sun from the aztecs gets his freshly torn human heart every day, otherwise the Sun might not rises on the next day...
As not a single tribal totem can remain unattended - lest he could release hurricans or plaques - the budget and staff of the Department of Worship would soon rival that of Pentagon. It would be a small issue to divert some of these state-emplyed priest to excorcism duties.
[Answer]
**A New State Agency**
They could become a new state agency with their own jurisdiction. Much like the FBI or the CIA they can take control of operations if it’s proven that an infernal entity is present. use of force may be legitimized and a new amendment drafted up in this case (hell has opened up, maybe we can change the rules a bit) also you need to come up with a cool name for the agency like Holy Exorcists Logistics Legion H.E.L.L could be called something better but hay that's not my job.
[Answer]
I think the legal aspects WRT American Constitutional law have been explored well by the other posters, so what will be needed is to examine [Canon Law](https://infogalactic.com/info/Canon_law) with regards to this question. Obviously, since Law enforcement understands there are a multitude of spirit beings from a multitude of religions, there can be no "one" answer, even within the Christian religion, different churches have different versions and ideas of how canon law works and is applied.
Given the scenario, it would seem the Law Enforcement agencies have some sort of field test (I'm imagining a sort of box with a shutter and a rotating device inside which can rapidly bring a religious icon or relic to the shutter for viewing). If a deamon is detected the officer calls it in and a special priestly SWAT team races to the location to do their containment/exorcism drills.
Most religions make a point of the duty to protect and comfort people, so canon law would likely be interpreted to allow priests or their equivalents to take active part in suppressing demonic possession and other spiritual crimes. For Christians, and particularly Catholics, this might mean reactivating the Warrior Monk societies like the [Knights Templar](https://infogalactic.com/info/Knights_Templar), and revising the mandate of the [Knights Hospitaller](https://infogalactic.com/info/Knights_Hospitaller) so they re assume their military role.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/84nSD.png)
*Seal of the Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici (Knights Templar)*
Other religions will need to be researched separately, but most religions have, at one time or another, embraced a very militant branch. Even Buddhist warrior monks were feared by the Samurai, and a series of wars were fought to suppress these warrior monks in Japan, so for story purposes there can be warrior monk societies with abilities similar to SoF units based on real historical precedent.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zEREi.jpg)
*Japanese warrior monks. Religious disputes could get very heated at times*
] |
[Question]
[
I'm worldbuilding for a story in which a certain portion of the population relocates to a slightly habitable planet due to the complete inhabitability of Earth. It takes place several generations after this initial move. Obviously, the culture of the protagonist's current generation would have changed drastically and been impacted by their surroundings. I intend it to be very high-tech (as the storyline would require) and it is a dystopia environment; overreaching, focus on efficiency, high expectations of citizens with harsh penalties for mistakes; it's an idea in progress.
I'm hyper-focused on working out the naming issue, as character development is easier for me when I have names. I know names would have changed, as they always have over time (albeit slowly), but I am not even sure where to begin in figuring out how they may have realistically changed. Would the culture of the initial relocation group come into play? I was thinking names that aren't too off the bat, as I imagine readers wouldn't like completely unfamiliar names, so maybe I can find some basis of slightly altering 'regular' names to seem futuristic or different in some way. TIA for any direction at all.
[Answer]
* Living in a sealed environment requires everybody to be educated. You can't risk someone dumping lubricants in the toilet because that's an easy way to get rid of them, etc. Education means literacy, literacy stabilizes spelling.
* Computers will be common and the total populations will be relatively low. Would it be possible that names are selected to be *unique*, at least among living memory? No more *Junior* or *III* or *IV*. That could lead to a greater variety of first names, possibly drawing on traditional/classical sources. That helps with getting emails right.
[Answer]
[Except quite good ideas by O.M.] I'd add:
If one really want to make some visible change and make it plausible: for all administrative, account, database, e-mail purposes - people have unique ID number.
For all other setting people have a nickname. Names and surnames theoretically still exist but are not so often used.
[Answer]
Sound shifting affects all languages over time and is surprisingly rapid. So for example you can have the "cot-caught merger" which affects large parts of the USA. The topic is quite extensive (start with the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change)) but in a nutshell, some sounds will merge to no longer be distinguished, others may split off, etc. This will happen in a regular manner. For example, "all instances of /pf/ will become /p/ unless followed by an umlaut" may be a valid sound shift in German (not necessarily likely, I just made it up) whereas "Pferd becomes Perd without affecting other words" is not.
How spelling is affected will depend on conventions. If there is some sort of standards body which updates spelling rules (they are common but not currently in vogue for English) expect the spelling to change. If not, expect a situation like English, then French\* and eventually Tibetan, where words keep archaic spellings and the pronunciation can only be derived from the spelling by considering a combination of letters in a manner which effectively reconstructs the sound shifts that have since occurred. The orthography of names is likely to lag behind that of the rest of the language, even if there is a standards body updating the orthography. But their pronunciation will shift along with other words.
The situation in space will definitely affect the phonology of the language. It is more efficient for spacecraft to use a lower internal pressure than sea level (and space suits use a very low pressure) and languages that develop under lower pressure (high altitude) have certain characteristics: They should be more likely to contain [ejective consonants](http://www.miami.edu/index.php/news/releases/does_altitude_affect_the_way_language_is_spoken). Whether you should consider this will depend on how long your colonists were in space and how long they have been on the new world, as well as the ambient pressure where they settled.
\* Edit: I am aware that there is currently a standards body for the French language. But the orthography has already aged considerably.
[Answer]
I just looked at a baby naming trends website. One of the random things that I chose to view was this chart which graphs the popularity of names ending in "ly" in the past century ( per thousand ).
*(click the "Combined Popularity Chart" tab above the list)*
<http://nametrends.net/group.php?pattern=ly&patterntype=end>
There are obviously two spike patterns on the graph and my curiosity peaked upon what the correlation may be to societal norms or perhaps the zeitgeist which happens to favor the sound of a name which feels sort of "homely", "friendly", etcetera. My point here is that a name represents a person and (one would think) everyone wants their children to be loved and respected by everyone else. It struck me that a societal circumstance where "ly" sounding names convey this desire or quality appear to be related to times of desperation or societal upheaval, i.e. the Great Depression and the Vietnam Era, times of conflict in which names conveying universally positive qualities as those ( which I have totally, admittedly reached for ) above are the most favored.
Just my two cents. And by all means this is not the only available graph nor the least of correlations one may speculate on.
Hopefully this will help you find a direction or give a hint of an idea that you may follow. :)
[Answer]
There are absolutely cultural differences in naming innovation.
For example, in the United States, African-Americans and Mormons are much more likely to innovate in naming children or using innovative spellings, while some middle to upper class New Englanders and Southerners like to repeat names generation after generation (African-Americans who aspire to rising in social class also often do this). Hollywood stars also tend to innovate (e.g. Moon Unit, Dweezel). In general, name changing innovation is associated with alienation or a desire to be distinctive from a conventional culture.
Among American Hispanics, boys are more often named to preserve cultural heritage, while girls are often named to sound as "American" as possible even though these names are often common American girl's names from a few decades earlier (e.g. Jane instead of Ashley). Indeed, "American" sounding but somewhat outdated name are common for almost all immigrants to the U.S. who have girls born in the U.S.
Many cultures and ethnicities have a relatively modest canon of acceptable names (codified in many European countries by law) that are considered acceptable in an ethnicity.
Proper names for people that are strongly identifiable with ethnicity date to at least the Bronze Age - some proper names are well associated with particular ethnicities even when the language spoken by the people of that ethnicity is lost and its linguistic family is unknown.
Some names initially limited to very innovative naming cultures (e.g. Briana) can go relatively mainstream.
Baby naming is also driven by fads (for example, virtue and flower names for girls have gone in and out), long term trends (women have been poaching previously distinctively male names and making them androgynous, such as Alex, and even feminine over time, such as Laurens), and popular fictional character names. And, current events or derogatory uses that develop over time can make names less common (e.g. Hitler, Jezebelle, or Melvin have become disfavored).
It is also fairly common for grandparent generation names to be revived after having become too cliche for use in a parent's generation).
[Answer]
## Undergound Dystopian Nicknames
I like the idea O.M. brought up about the high tech requiring literacy and intelligence, so I agree there would probably be continuity in spelling.
The dystopian part, though, made me think of possible underground or gang style nicknames becoming more prevalently used than modern given names. For example, Sting, Hax, Manx, Nyte, Pixie, etc., i.e. any word that describes their unique speciality or personality trait. It could also be something like comic book heros - Deadpool, Nightcrawler, The Beast, Cap (Captain America), Iron Man, etc.
Perhaps their given name is used in polite society / at work, but when in a more underground setting, their slang names might be used more.
## Pidgin of Earthly Languages
Another thing that comes to mind in a dystopian setting is a developing a [pidgin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin) of existing languages and their slang, and that could carry over into nicknames. Shakti, Pun, Wu, might be attractive.
## Pidgin of Human & Alien Languages
Also, if any alien cultures have been encountered, their language traits could be incorporated/assimilated into names.
## Non-Unique Names
I met a guy who said he had one time dealt with a modern group of ascetic monks. He said they all had renounced their possessions and previous identities, and to pay homage to their diety and observe IT as superceeding all individual egos, they all called each other "Dada", since in Sanskrit "da" means "give". My friend said when he pressed them about it, they said they didn't much care about names...the context of the situation indicated which Dada was being referred to. For example, he said one Dada liked to play golf, so if someone said "Dada is playing golf" then you knew who was being referred to. I can't honestly imagine how that worked out, except that perhaps their lives were pretty much interchangeable in terms of who needed to be reffered to--any one of them was good enough.
## ID Numbers
Another idea, similar to Shadow1024's, is perhaps each person could have a unique serial number, perhaps embedded in an [RFID](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification) chip implant, or as a barcode tattoo. Perhaps, though, instead of calling each other by their full serial numbers, they just refer to each other by the least amount of last digits appropriate for the number of people in the environment. For example Jack, who's ID number was 5821247658, could be called "658" when lots of people (i.e. 999 or less) were present, "58" if there were only 99 or less around, and simply "8" if there were just a few people together.
[Answer]
Something I haven't seen mentioned here is the fact that many people name their children after individuals they admire or respect. For exmple, my parents named me after Alexander the Great. In your story, perhaps there was a group of scientists and engineers who made interstellar travel possible, a really good politician who maintained international stability for a time (thereby delaying the imminent catastrophe a few years and giving people enough time to build and launch a spaceship), or even a famous celebrity one or both of the parents liked. These will come from all periods of history, so some of your characters might be named after rulers of ancient empires, others after great thinkers of the Renaissance, others after famous Hollywood actors and others after the aforementioned scientists/engineers/politician/celebrity, to mention a few. If religion is still important to the people in your story, expect a lot of people named after biblical/Testament characters (both with variations, like Jon instead of John today, and without them).
This is in addition to the natural evolution of language. I'm not saying all your characters should have "old-fashioned" (i.e. currently existing on Earth in real life) names, but I don't think everyone should have a newer name either. Try to balance it out.
Also, if people have adopted a naming convention for the planets in their new star system (other than stuff like NGC 3276), expect a few names coming from the same source (see, for example, Kim Stanley Robinson's *Mars trilogy*, where several of the younger characters have been named after the names for Mars in the languages of different ancient cultures of Earth). For instance, if your people have chosen Scandinavian mythology (much like we have chosen Roman mythology for the planets in our star system) and the habitable planet is called Odin, expect several parents to give their children names like Thor, Vidarr and Baldur to symbolise the fact that they are "children of Odin" (as opposed to "children of Earth").
[Answer]
## Names With Meanings
Chinese and Native Americans use common words for names, such as Running Wolf, Red Bear, or Flowering Lotus & Shining Moon.
## Contextual Names
This is a pretty odd idea, but perhaps people refer to each other using words describing them at that moment, like "Red" for someone wearing red, or "Radio" for somone listening to a radio. This seems pretty impractical, but the idea of non-static names using common words popped up after thinking about Chinese static names using words.
[Answer]
You might look at isolated societies like Pitcairn Island. I read once of a Cajun town where so few formal names were in use that the telephone book listed nicknames.
I was about to say that if the ship has a good library there's likely to be an occasional fad for names from one book. But in a dystopian setting, where survival of the colony is never very far from mind, conformity is valued; and that would include naming.
[Answer]
I Like your question but have very little time to answer.
I'd decide whether the 'norm' will be to short name -- as in the way we tend to say FBI instead of Federal Bureau of Investigation or norm instead of normal, or if you want your people to be more formal -- as in "John Patrick Martin, at your service."
I think it is completely up to you because it seems to go by fashion.
[Answer]
It is not clear whether you meant baby naming (personal names) or family names. I'll focus on the latter since it hasn’t gotten much coverage.
We are used to them being inherited, thus not only do they not normally change but they go extinct.
If a few generations in you wind up with nearly everyone named Smith and Zhang, that might prompt some intentional backlash and cause people to introduce new “family” names. It might become the fashon for a married couple to invent a new surname together, that is unique in the colony. This will become tempered over time as the original problem passes.
Inherited names is not a universal thing, either. In some cultures choosing a name is a political statement: the names we know of ancient Egyption rulers are not inherited family names, but names they chose upon gaining their office.
We see this today among celberties, especially performers. Maybe the concept will catch on and people will name themselves as adults.
[Answer]
If you're just thinking in terms of pronunciation/spelling drift for the sake of showing that things have changed over the last NN years, you might want to reconsider.
David Weber did that in his Safehold series to show the effects of a 1000 years of linguistic drift, and worked out a set of systematic rules as to how it would have occurred. It's been one of the top things fans have grumbled about in the series, and something that David's said he wouldn't do if he had the opportunity for a do over.
Does this really add anything to the story worth the reader confusion it causes?
* Ohlyvya Baytz - Olivia Bates
* Zhan Fyrmahn - John Furman
* Hairys Fyshyr - Harris Fisher
* Styvyn Dynnys - Steven Dennis
* Gorj Haarpar - George Harper
* Zhasyn Cahnyr - Johnson Conner
* Zhoshua Makgregair - Joshua McGregor
* Hauwerd Wylsynn - Howard Wilson
* Paityr Wylsynn - Peter Wilson
The [full list](http://safehold.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Characters) of characters has almost 600 entries in it, probably ~500 of them characters from around the current period in the timeline and thus with 'modern' names. (Most of the outliers are either historical characters from a period much closer to today, or ones that were given modern names as some sort of inside joke.) The average character name is probably a bit worse than these because I limited myself to ones I was confident about the translation of; something I'm often not in the case of last names.
[Answer]
One thing to consider is what history the average person is taught. For example, if they've heard of Queen Elizabeth or Alexander the Great, they would be more likely to name their kids after them. This can be extended to include mythology and religion. It might not include fairy tale names, however; while everyone in the US knows who Hansel, Gretel, Snow White, and Sleepy are, for example, it's very rare to find an American who has any of these names.
Who do your people look up to, and who do they despise? What names remind them of their childhood or their semi-distant ancestors, or people in their family who died as children? These can be sources of names.
[Answer]
>
> "as they always have over time (albeit slowly)"
>
>
>
Not that slowly, you just need to compare a list of the most common baby names from 2021 to one from 1971 to see significant changes. In 1971 traditional "English" names like Michael, James and Christopher were most popular whereas by 2021 these had been replaced by more biblical names such as Levi, Noah and Elijah.
So names may evolve for similar reasons:
**Religion**
Muhammed/Mohammed is now one of the most popular names due to changing demographics, also see the rise of biblical names mentioned above. Maybe there are certain names favoured by a religion or religions if they exist.
**Celebrity**
After Britney Spears released her first single in 1999 the number of babies named Britney in the next year jumped from 500 to 2,500. Does this culture have celebrities as we know them today? Perhaps they have intellectual or sporting heroes instead.
**Uniqueness**
If the culture encourages individuality then we can observe in the real world that people can choose to to use (or make up) an unusual variations of an existing name - for example Blaise, Blaze, Blayze, and Blaize.
**Normalisation of diminutives**
Will (William), Bill (William), Bob (Robert), Charlie (Charles), Debbie (Deborah) and Mandy (Amanda) are all examples of informal diminutives of longer names that have become common names themselves.
] |
[Question]
[
This [answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/220741/2169) and [my own](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/222592/2169) both hint at centaurs being front-heavy or, as [Separatrix](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/16295/separatrix) puts it:
>
> Centaurs have a permanent curse by horse standards, they are, by design, permanently very heavy on the forehand.
>
>
>
[](https://reliciron.tumblr.com/post/613627326017716224/so-this-was-a-centaur-proportion-map-i-made-like-a)
It should go without saying you can assume that the human half, as shown, contains the usual *weight* for that amount of human, and the horse half contains the usual *weight* for that amount of horse. I'm not specifying what organs or innards makeup that weight or their purpose, as that feels like needless pedantry and not applicable to the question.
Given a centaur as pictured above (and no other), where is the centre of mass, or 'centaur of mass' so to speak? Does it change when going downhill?
[Answer]
## When Upright, everything is fine, but it becomes a problem when going down hill.
On level terrain, this centaur works just fine. despite being heavier, human part is barely ahead of the horse part keeping the center of gravity somewhere safely between the front and back legs, but since the OP linked to [this question about stairs](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/222062/how-can-we-enable-a-centaur-to-climb-between-different-floors/), I suspect his real interest is a centaur's center of gravity going down hill... this is where it becomes a problem.
Because the OP shows the human part coming out forward of the neck and arching the back to be upright, it is unlikely based on human or horse biology that it can tilt the human part back much father than this upright position. So as it goes down hill, this human part will not be able to adjust to move the Center of Mass back nearly as much as the legs coming forward will move the Center of Mass forward.
The more significant factor though is that as you tilt the horse, the Center of Mass comes in line with the forelegs. As the Center of Mass approaches the forelegs, weight is distributed to only these legs making a down hill walk very strenuous. If the stairs are steep enough, it can even put your Center of Mass forward of your forelegs which could cause your centaur to tumble going down hill with angles of more than about 25-40 degrees (depending on how much it can squat its back legs and arch its human bits).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p3cfu.png)
## Why is the center of mass so far forward to begin with?
Because you've drawn your horse body very small compared to your human body. This is fine if this is how you want it, but if you were to extrapolate the humanoid part to standard human male dimensions, you would find that if the body belonged to a 6ft tall 178lb human, that the horse part would belong to a 10.5 hand tall [595lb horse](https://www.timesdaily.com/archives/weighing-in-on-individual-body-parts/article_4729f5a7-c039-5649-910e-ee18a03435e0.html). So this is less of a man:horse size ratio and more of a man:donkey or man:pony ratio. This is common in the way people draw centaurs because we want to draw the centaur's head at the same height as a rider's head, but a rider sits on top of the horse whereas a centaur's human part meats the horse at its lower lumbar region; so, we scale up the human bits to make it work.
The human parts that are included in the centaur are about [67% of a human's total mass](https://www.timesdaily.com/archives/weighing-in-on-individual-body-parts/article_4729f5a7-c039-5649-910e-ee18a03435e0.html); so, we can roughly say the human part should weight about 120lb. A horses head is typically 10% of its mass, so we are replacing ~60lb of head with ~120lb of human parts. [The typical Center of Mass on a horse](https://study.com/academy/answer/the-distance-between-the-front-and-rear-hooves-l-1-1-65-m-and-the-distance-from-the-rear-hooves-to-the-center-of-gravity-l-2-1-m-for-a-horse-are-shown-in-b-what-fraction-of-the-horse-s-weight.html) is located about mid-chest just behind the shoulder blades or ~60% of the way between the butt and manubrium, but since we are doubling the mass of the "head" from 10 to 20% of the centaur's weight, we need to adjust the COM a bit forward and upward of this
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WXAdx.png)
[Answer]
>
> Centaurs have a permanent curse by horse standards, they are, by design, permanently very heavy on the forehand.
>
>
>
Let me fix that for you.
>
> Centaurs have a permanent curse by horse standards, they are, by design, permanently very heavy on the forehand
>
>
> # [Citation needed]
>
>
>
(I couldn't make the citation needed part bigger).
According to [this community of horse breeders](https://www.horseclicks.com/community/advice/general-equestrian/how-much-does-a-horse-weigh-), a horse's head accounts for about 10% of the animal's total mass.
And according to [this cannibalism reference table](https://exrx.net/Kinesiology/Segments), the legs and pelvis of a human account for 29% to 35% of their total mass.
Therefore, pick a standard 72kg man, and a 490 kg Thoroughbred race horse... The horse side will lose 49 kg of head and gain 51 kg of human at most, but most likely a bit less than that.
An extra 2 kg (about four pounds) of load onto the horse parts where the head used to be is like an extra 0,4% extra "head" weight. That is nothing. Both human and horses get a greater extra load than that when wearing some kinds of helmets.
As for the center of mass of a centaur, it will be just very slightly more backwards than the natural center of mass for the equivalent horse. The displacement from having a human rider is much greater and horses cope with it just fine.
[Answer]
Being heavy on the forehand does not matter much. It is still less heavy than the forehand of a giraffe.
When a centaur is making his front part upright as shown in your figure, his center of mass will shift a little backwards and upwards compared to that of a horse. He might be more stable than a horse because the weight of the front part will be directly on the forelegs while the neck and face of a horse are leaning forward.
[Answer]
It's the **same** as a horse.
While a human torso may be heavier than a horse's head, it's not as far from the center of mass. To calculate it's effect you can use the center of mass formula which is equal to mass x distance.
A horse head is lighter and further from the center of mass while a human torso is heavier and closer to the center of mass. It all balances out as the center of mass is roughly equivalent. This makes a certain logical sense because a centaur has to remain as agile as a horse while running.
[Answer]
It doesnt matter much.
Unlike Nosajimiki I think (know) its not a big problem. Lets imagine the human torso bending forwards and grabbing a pole in the ground, then lifting his rear end 45 degrees. Then the human torso lets go and lets gravity take over to see if he falls forwards or backwards.
This forms a seesaw\* with the fulcrum at the front legs. The length of the "arm" of the horse torso is larger than that of the human torso even at 45 degree angle, so it needs less weight to get that side to move downwards. The horse torso part will be anywhere between 200 to 700+kg, the human torso without legs will be between 60 to 100 kg. There is simply no contest: the human torso part wont unbalance the horse part no matter what it does. Even the scenario where it reaches forwards and grabs something to lift the hindquarters up is a fantasy, even the strongest human beings would struggle lifting it, let alone lift it far enough to fall forwards.
As for the answer to the question at hand: a quick guesstimate if we assume the length of the horse is 100% and the point of gravity is halfway at 50%, then the human torso at would shift the point of gravity anywhere between 2.5% to 25% towards the front feet. With the 25% assuming the heaviest human torso and the lightest horse body.
\*I'm not good on the terminology right now
[Answer]
Greetings from Mathematica.se...
This code fills in your image,
```
img=FillingTransform@
DeleteSmallComponents@
ColorNegate@
Binarize[Import@"https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ODly.png", .75]
```
like so
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OAiaq.png)
Then we can compute the average of all the white pixels:
```
centroid=Mean@PixelValuePositions[img, 1]
```
and visualize it (in pixel coordinates it's about $(293,243)$)
```
HighlightImage[Import@"https://i.stack.imgur.com/7ODly.png", centroid]
```
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aBMQJ.png)
Your estimate was very accurate :D
] |
[Question]
[
Assuming we're on Earth (or something geologically and biologically comparable). Humans are at best in the middle ages, and there's no "magic" or advanced science.
Now the difference is, there is also a "Dwarf" species (presumably just some "Humans" that split off from the main branch a few thousand years ago). They don't like living on the surface, for whatever reason (could be as simple as "religion", for example). So they live underground, but presumably have shafts to the surface at regular distances (for fresh air, commerce with Humans, ...) Dwarves have a similar technological level to Humans, but are more advanced in *dwarven skills* like mining and forging...
So the question is: since Dwarves need to mine to "open up space" to allow their population to expand (and to gain resources, obviously), how do they get rid of all that *stone*? They would have so much of the stuff that it's basically a *waste* product. They have many options; they could drop it into "sinkholes" (if they happen to find one), or drag it to the surface and just dump it there, or use it to do commerce with the Humans, or build fortifications and infrastructure on the surface...
Which of those options would they favor best (and why), from a traditional fantasy *dwarvish* point-of-view? It should ideally take into consideration Dwarve's "values", and their strong *technical* and *logistics* abilities.
For example, Dwarves are traditionally "xenophobic"; they might deal with a few select Human traders that come to them, but they would probably not drive around in carts, selling their ware directly in the Human markets. OTOH, they probably would accept (large) orders from the local Human nobility, as refusing could make their life more difficult.
[Answer]
There are several obvious options, and I think three of them follow a roughly chronological progression.
1. **Dumping:** The earliest option available. Rubbish heaps are the obvious choice for what to do with waste stone. In the absence of local buyers interested in the stuff, it's unlikely to go anywhere, so will just end up littering the lands around a Dwarf mine. This I would hold to be the most likely option, as every Dwarf mine is going to engage in dumping. Those smart Dwarf kings who catch enough Men pilfering their waste heaps will come up with a novel solution...
2. **Trade:** Dwarves need to eat, and since they are descended from Humans, can't eat stone. Farming in the mines is next to impossible, as is hunting. If all the Dwarves like to live and work in the mine, then they'll increasingly need to trade for food. Trading stone --- whether gravel, rough hewn or dressed and perhaps artistically carved --- for food is a no brainer. Dwarves will also control the monopoly on coal, ores, precious gems and precious metals. Those commodities too can be traded for needful things. This could lead to Dwarves breaking into new underground opportunities...
3. **Banking:** Not all stones are granite. Why just trade lumps of stone for lumps of meat? When you control the source of wealth, you can literally control the fate, direction and policy of every nation around you! The smart Dwarf kings now will enter the financial realms. Given that your Human realms are living in Medieval Times, on the very cusp of the Renaissance, money will become a key driver of national policy again. Armies need to be raised, equipped and paid. Provender needs to be bought. And who better to provide the financing and perhaps even the arms you will need, o noble king of Men! Did not the Dwarves cut the stones for your fortresses and castles and cities? They will certainly stand ready to forge weapons, forward ready cash! (And if they're at all savvy, they'll be doing it for both sides of the conflict --- after all, wasn't it Underking Andvari who quipped *war is good for business, very good indeed; and business is booming lads!*
4. **Sinkholes:** Basically, dumping the extra stone into a huge, insatiable pit. Such places do exist, but not everywhere. Best known places are Siberia and Florida. There are others. I certainly wouldn't want to be a Dwarf living in a mine anywhere near a sinkhole as the geological instability of the neighborhood might lead to the collapse of the mine itself. This option is fine if you have a handy sinkhole nearby. Ultimately they'd just be wasting a resource that could be put to better use.
[Answer]
Since you mentioned trade with humans in the middle ages; that adds a likely answer.
They build roads with it that link human trade routes to their centers of trade.
And if the roads are finely enough graded, then stone wheels, axles and carts would also be a possibility. A horse pack might be able to carry a lot more castle bricks in a single trip after purchasing such a commodity.
Siege engine loads is another definite possibility. Think of a piece of stone carved in the shape of a golfball, at twenty or thirty times the radius. It will travel much further than typical loads. A longer range catapult would justify buying dwarf crafted ammunition.
Other interesting trade goods crafted from igneous rock are possibilities.
metal crucibles and tongs for blacksmiths, oven liners, and even cremation chambers. The Plague did demand burning quite a few bodies after all.
[Answer]
Some great answers here! I imagine they'd do *all* of these things, to one degree or another. Recall that dwarves are not all of a piece, just like humans.
Removing the stone is something they're very used to -- after all, the ore needs to be refined on the surface, due to the unwisdom of running gigantic furnaces underground. They'll likely have a smooth infrastructure for carting waste-rock away.
A lot depends on each dwarf community's attitude toward the upper world. Is it a ghastly, hated agoraphobic nightmare world? If so, they'll be unconcerned about runoff, ugly piles of gravel, and so on until someone complains.
But maybe they *like* their garden areas aboveground as well. Any rock or gravel they don't sell could be used to pave roads, make a huge wall around their upper territories, and so on.
At the end of the day, though, there will be just too much rock to dispose of artistically. There will end up being a midden of some kind. Whether it be beautiful alpine valleys getting filled in, renting someone else's useless canyons, or slowly building a new mountain a few miles away, there will be a huge pile of detritus somewhere.
[Answer]
There are several things you need to straighten out even before fixing the "excess building material" problem.
* Humans are omnivorous and that means plants and livestock (which needs feeding and thus more plants); plants aren't happy in (semi) darkness.
* Humans need water to live.
* Industries, even primitive, need *huge* quantities of water.
* What kind of "caves" you plan to have your "dwarfs" to live in?
+ "[Carsic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst)" caves would be best suited as they provide large natural dwellings and water; in some cases you also get large underground "dolines" or "foibes" partially illuminated that may host vegetation. These don't, usually, provide valuable minerals.
+ Mines: these are mainly man (or dwarf) manufactured and need to dispose of resulting boulders. These are more suitable to "miners", since they are built where valuable minerals are found.
* In general You wouldn't use a natural opening (sinkhole or whatever) to put wastes; you would use it directly.
* You would build your underground cities near or on some largish underground river.
* If You build into Karst area (essentially limestone) you would use much of the material to make lime and it might be possible to get rid of excess simply having the river wash it away.
* If You build into a mine then you'll need to solve all above problems; in particular finding a suitable underground river might be a bit more problematic but, once found and if fast enough, it might help you disposing of any finely ground wastes you may have.
[Answer]
Although the Dwarves like to be underground not all underground locations are created equal. They might well choose to dig in mountainous areas as these present a number of advantages.
They might find some useful metal ores which they could process themselves or trade. Some mountainous areas also have a great deal of depth between the surface and the water table. This would give them plenty of delving scope and minimise flood risk.
Much deeper vertical shafts could be sunk down to the water table to act as wells in some areas. Horizontal shafts or adits could also be dug from the lower portion of a valley into the mountain tunnel complex. If such adits were dug angled very slightly upward into the mountain, cart loads of spoil could easily be wheeled to the entrance of the adit and dumped (there would be plenty of chippings, loose material and broken blocks.
If they were skilled they could dam a mountain river below the adit entrance using spoil from the mine and then raft the blocks from the adit entrance across the lake produced perhaps dozens or maybe even hundreds of miles away. Any further spoil could be dumped below the dam and periodically “flushed” away downstream by opening the sluice gates. This wouldn’t be popular with the people living downstream but would act as an incentive for them to move upstream and resettle on the edge of the new lake.
[Answer]
Dwarfs, being naturally industrious, would like to make a good use of the stone. Good big blocks of stone will be used first to fortify and protect the entrances and air ventilations. Gravel would be used after a first layer of stone to make thick walls. Big cities will become impressive mountain castles with a network of fortifications. Huge amount of debris will slowly employed to modify the mountain in their advantage. Also, some traps could be prepared in the middle of the mountain where they could throw a ton of stones to their enemies with a single lever.
Leaving protection stone surplus will go into roads and bridges that will be needed in their mountainous lands. Roads would be important as they need wood and other types of goods. Carts would be another improvement that would allow to move weight easier.
They will also create aqueducts even if part of them go underground. Water could be critical to grow some mushrooms. Also, subterranean rivers could help to dispose of sand. With a system of dams and canals they could save water for the moment they need and even use it at a source of power in water mills.
At some point they may need to simply dump stones at the side of the hill. But they won't do it carelessly. Stone dumps would be planned to some purpose like stopping torrents during storms. In fact, living in mountains with a horrible weather may be another thing that makes them prefer underground life. Some cities may even made patterns that form runes when seen from the distance.
[Answer]
Mine something valuable: marble, rock salt, slate, coal, gold, copper, tin, silver, iron, ...
Because, that would make it worthwhile to truck it up to the surface (and then sell it, of course, perhaps after working it further); dwarves are stereotypical smiths (iron-workers with forges) too.
Maybe look into the technologies they used for medieval mines: pit ponies, children, pumps, etc.
Beware this paragraph is speculative because I don't know about mining: you may be mining in the mountains (I guess mountains are a good place to mine, because rock and ore comes up out of the earth to meet you, rather then you having to go digging down into the earth). Anyway if your mine-shafts are half-way up a mountain, if you're lucky they could be more horizontal rather than vertical, and how to getting rid of the spoil might be obvious: you just tip it downhill, forming [waste heaps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaenau_Ffestiniog#/media/File:Blaenau_Ffestiniog.jpg).
[Answer]
So while this may be considered a lazy answer, I can't help but think of a solution presented by a folk tale early in my childhood: The dwarves should make lots of *Stone Soup*.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/D8SI1.jpg)
Of course, this isn't really a great answer because the entire point of the story, **spoiler alert**, is that the stone provides nothing, and the soup is instead made up of everything that comes together around it. It's a wonderful morality tale, and in Ann McGovern's version also a story of delightful trickery, but I'm afraid it's probably *not* the answer you're looking for.
Still, maybe there's something in here for you to use in your underground society anyway, since I'm sure they have a fun equivalent of the story.
More information on the folk tale [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup).
[Answer]
What about building projects? See [Machu Picchu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu) as an example, a settlement and farming complex high in the mountains built from the bedrock up using stone largely quarried onsite. Similar artificial framing terraces could be built in the mountains and valleys around the mines reducing dwarven dependency on food imports.
There could also be water harvesting, redirection, and retention systems like dams, dikes, and aqueducts, that can keep water away from mining areas and also utilise it for powered bellows and trip hammers and other tools for metal working and possibly even pumps for clearing water from and pushing clean air into deep workings.
This would primarily make use of cut stone rather than spoil but, especially dams, could also potentially create areas where the miners could dump spoil in large quantities. This would both reinforce built walls and disguise the built nature of some spaces. Spoil dumped downstream of water release sites would eventually be "[entrained](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment_(physical_geography))" by the stream and carried downslope in an fair facsimile of the natural erosion process.
[Answer]
Others have mentioned trading or dumping the stone, but what if they used it to..
**Build**
Entrances to Dwarven strongholds need defending too! Watchtowers, fortresses, subterranean harbours great stone gates and the like would be a good use for a whole lot of that stone. Not to mention first alert outposts and the like. With stereotypical Dwarven aptitudes for building they'd find good uses for large amounts of stone.
The first (fantasy) examples that come to mind are:
Dwarfs of the Warhammer Old World:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pIXFH.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PxjI5.jpg)
and Ironforge, the Dwarf capital in the Warcraft universe:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zk6qm.jpg)
I'm sure that with a bit of thought, they could come up with plenty of uses for the excess stone!
[Answer]
On the assumption the dwarves are a similar technological level as the humans, this implies the mining is carried out by hand.
I would suggest looking at the [Roman era](https://www.ancient.eu/article/882/roman-tunnels/) as a good guide of tunnel designs and the time it took to create them. By the medieval period, a lot of the construction methods were lost to humans. This could explain the Dwarf advantage in tunnelling.
The Romans used the materials for building in the local area. Either forts or other civil buildings. It was simply to expensive to move over large distances.
As we are talking mining by hand, the detritus would be relatively small and could easily be absorbed into other building projects.
[Answer]
They should do what the dwarves in Discworld do and eat it
<https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dwarf_Bread>
Dwarf Bread is a rock solid bread containing gravel and other rocky substances
>
> Various forms of dwarf bread can be used as weapons, e.g. battle muffins and drop scones. Fine specimens of dwarf bread can be found in the Dwarf Bread Museum, Whirligig Alley, Ankh-Morpork, open to the public whenever volunteers have time (Feet of Clay). Dwarfs away from home often miss dwarf bread very much, and complain that mass-produced breads by Mr. Ironcrust hardly meet the standards, but dwarfs are too busy working to go and see the exhibits in the museum, much less to volunteer there.
>
>
> Proper dwarf bread has to be not just baked, but forged (with gravel, of course) and dropped in rivers and dried out, and sat on and left, and looked at every day and then put away again. For preference, its use as a cat's litter box is also recommended. Dwarfs generally devour it with their eyes, because even dwarfs have trouble with devouring it any other way.
>
>
>
It may seem silly to eat stone, but given that your dwarves will need an endless supply of fuel for light or complicated systems, I don't think it's farfetched. Some novel form of stomach acid, or unprecedented evolutionary advantage or symbiosis could explain it, though an air of mystery always helps
[Answer]
Its not like dwarves would start with a solid mountain and extract a little at a time... Instead dwarves would be attracted to natural cave formations which they could then enhance.
While there may be a lot of rubble, I think you would find it a lot less than what you are assuming.
Also, unless its valuable stone like marble, I don't see it being a profitable endeavor for dwarves to quarry stone for the purpose of selling to humans. This would only really make sense if dwarves were near the poverty level and/or intellectually deficient.
Mining for ores for industry is far more likely.
] |
[Question]
[
I want to create a planet that has a frequency of two rotations per second, thus making a "Planet without Night". The planet will be like a flattened disc, due to inertia causing the planet to be an oblate spheroid. Gravity on the planet should also be very different at the "equator" than at the poles. The effects this planet would have on the civilization would be quite intriguing.
My question is a two-parter: firstly, I would like the mass of the planet to be great enough to create a gravitational force that is greater than the tangential speed created by the spin of the planet. Secondly, I need to know how oblate the planet would be with the mass and given rotational speed. An approximate graph (like y = x^2) would be nice for visualization. The gravity at the "equator" would optimally be "low" such that someone probably couldn't accidentally jump off the planet, but is lighter than the moon (if that's possible). The gravity at the pole would optimally be greater than or equal to earth's gravity.
It would seem to me that the mass would affect how oblate the planet is, which will affect the distance from the center of the planet, thus affecting the tangential speed. If the resultant tangential speed was greater than the resultant gravity, the mass would have to be changed. I can't figure out how to figure out how to find these factors, partially because I can only think of doing a trial-and-error method and don't know a "proper" way to find them, and because I don't know how to determine how oblate the planet is based on mass and speed.
[Answer]
# Your planet is a pulsar
From Wikipedia, the acceleration caused by [centrifugal force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force#Force) of a rotating object is $$\omega\times(\omega\times r).$$ Since the direction is known to be tangential to both the direction of rotation and the axis of rotation, and surface gravity acts in the opposite direction, we can just use the magnitude $\omega^2 r$.
The acceleration of [surface gravity](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/63074/gravity-of-a-super-earth/63090#63090) on a sphere is $$g = \frac{4}{3}\pi G\rho r.$$
On Earth, the angular velocity of rotation is about $7.29\times10^{-5}$ radians per second, and the radius is 6371 km, which gives a centrifugal acceleration of $$\left(7.29\times10^{-5}\right)^2 \cdot 6371000 = 0.034 \text{ m/s}^2.$$ Surface gravity is, of course, 9.81 m/s2 (as calculated in the second link), so is much more significant than centrifugal acceleration.
Lets determine how dense a spherical planet must be for gravity to hold it together against a given centrifugal acceleration. We can set the two forces equal to each other. $$\omega^2 r = \frac{4}{3}\pi G\rho r.$$ We can cancel the radii and plug in constants to get $$\omega^2 = 2.10\times10^{-10}\rho.$$
If we plug in your planet's rotation (2 rotations or $4\pi$ radians per second) and solve for density, we find that $$ \frac{(4\pi)^2}{2.10\times10^{-10}} = \rho = 7.51\times10^{11} \text{ kg/m}^3.$$ The good news is that this density is a million times less dense than a neutron star. The bad news is that it is a million times more dense than the densest elements, and denser than [white dwarfs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf#Composition_and_structure) and electron [degenerate matter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_matter). Also bad news, is that this is the *minimum* density required just to keep your planet together, actual density would have to be higher in reality.
I'm not explicitly interested in doing further calculations, but I believe that the incredible density will keep the planet in a sphere due to its gravity. What you are actually describing is more or less a pulsar, which are neutron stars that have rotational periods as small as [milliseconds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millisecond_pulsar).
[Answer]
A more useful approach may be a multi-star system, which is fairly common in nature. I believe that it's possible for a planet in a multi-star system to have an orbit that can take it between the two stars. A trinary system or even quaternary system may be useful. You could also include ice moons that would be much more reflective than Earth's moon, or a light-scattering atmosphere.
[Answer]
You might be able to get a planetary environment without night by having your planet tidally locked to its sun, so there is a hemisphere of perpetual day and one of perpetual night. The latter would be too cold for life, or perhaps not quite that bad (think the South Pole on Earth). The problem is that a likely consequence would be that all the water ends up frozen on the dark side, and then all the atmosphere condenses on the dark side, so there's no life and no story.
Could weather and/or ocean currents distribute enough heat from light side to dark side to stop this happening? If you write a good story, suspension of disbelief can probably be achieved. I don't know the hard science answer to this, or whether its an open question.
[Answer]
>
> I want to create a planet that has a frequency of two rotations per second, thus making a "Planet without Night".
>
>
>
A planet without night doesn't really need such a rapid rotation, it just needs light reaching it from more than one direction.
Someone mentioned a binary system as an example.
You might also consider a planet orbiting close to a larger body ( a gas giant ? ) in such a way that it's was usually in a line with between the gas giant and the star. The gas giant could reflect a lot of light back onto what would otherwise be the dark side of the planet. This would light your planet continually, while allowing a reasonable rotation period. There would be a definite difference between daylight and "no so much daylight" as well, which is potentially useful.
A planet orbiting a gas giant might also lead to some spectacular aurora-like displays providing additional illumination.
] |
[Question]
[
I am told by my friend, who has some HEMA background, that real fully armored late-medieval to Renaissance knights generally did not carry or use shields. This was because of two reasons.
Firstly, there was little to nothing that the shield protected them from, that their plate armor could not protect them against. Look below for the exception to the shield not being good for anything, are blunt weapons like picks and hammers (to my knowledge).
Secondly, in the event that a fully armored knight were to encounter another fully armored knight, a 2 handed weapon would be far superior to a shield and one handed weapon.
He told me that really, the only thing a shield would be good for, for a fully armored knight, would be to ward off blows from war hammers and the like.
So, to clarify the question, how do I introduce a reason for fully armored people to carry shields with them?
Notes:
* Late Medieval to somewhat Industrial age tech levels, but with fairly ineffectual guns
* Magic weapons and armor would be somewhat common among those who can already afford full plate armor, but generally any magic weapon will be nullified by another magic armor of the same quality, so real life physics and good design trumps magic, in this scenario.
[Answer]
There are a few reasons to consider shields.
* Crossbows
* Crossbows
* Crossbows
* Crossbows
* Did I mention crossbows?
Shields are great for covering distance while under fire, that would be their primary use in the period you describe. They are also exceptionally useful in formation, you know, a phalanx or tetsudo.
With mid to late medieval tech these types of formations would have limited usage. But I can see a walled city's gate going down and the attackers facing a line of armed, shielded knights.
As mentioned before blunt weapons do serious damage to an egg...er knight. Either way they end up scrambled. As you mentioned landing a two handed blow is still the way to go.
[Answer]
War in the late medieval times was very much an issue of matchups. By having all of your troops identical, you leave an opponent to heavily choose its counter.
You said:
Firstly, there was little to nothing that the shield protected them from, that their plate armor could not protect them against.
And that's not necessarily true. The 'traditional counter' to armour is picks, hammers, axes, and other weapons that focus a blow to a tiny area as opposed to slashing weapons that tend to spread the damage over a larger area. Maces and Flails also work well, following the idea that you can break the bones of the people in the armour instead of piercing the armor. Of course, a knights best defense to any of these weapons is a shield to block and deflect with as the opponents weapon is designed to puncture through the armour or shatter bones of the wearer beneath.
In the example of fully armoured knight vs fully armoured knight, your friend is likely correct...a two handed weapon is far superior. However, a knight vs 3 unarmoured men carrying pick axes would be far better off with a sword and shield.
'Infighting' is a combat skill where a soldier fights through a reach weapon in order to get into close combat. This is the skill that allows a traditional sword and shield infantryman to fight his way through a wall of pikes and into short ranged combat vs the pikemen. As far as I'm aware, a shield makes this tactic much more possible.
The need for diversity in troops will be a very good reason to keep some knights in a sword and shield format. If all your knights were using two handed weapons, then your opponent would be able to have a greater number of their troops with anti-armor weaponry to defeat them. Also might note that your knight most likely has his trusted steed, which means a knight can carry two sets of weapons with the horse carrying the unused set.
The other portion is army tactics. Two handed weapons fight poorly in large groups. The proximity of your allies tends to inhibit your ability to use two handed weapons. Additionally, a unit of troops is expected and trained to fight as one...the shield allows you to help defend the person beside you as much as it helps to defend yourself. And finally...arrow fire, especially that of long bows, are designed in late era medieval combat to puncture full armoured suits...a shield is really your only defense vs advanced arrow fire.
[Answer]
I think you're falling into **Plug N' Play Magic** syndrome. This is where you want magic, so we add magic to our world (medieval in this case) - and now it's awesome, right? But you can't ignore the implications of magic - let's look at an actual example.
**The Elemental Knight**.
So I have a knight. Now let's make his armor stronger (earth), but make him faster by enchanting his boots (air). And let's give him two swords because dual-wielding is cool, one enchanted with fire and one with water (chilled to ice). And now we have a super fast, super tough guy wading through the battlefield, cooking other knights in their armor and freezing peasants. And your reaction is "That's awesome!" right?
And now we run into the problem with PNP Magic, and that's that it doesn't hold up to critical thinking. I mean, think about what we have for the above: super strong materials, a source of heat, and a source of water. Which means that realistically, the wizard who enchanted all that stuff should be making a better use of his time and create an **Elemental *Steam Tank***. And now Elemental Knight is Elemental Tank Driver, which while cool isn't really what you're going for. You might think you can avoid this because the steam engine wasn't invented yet, but consider that [Romans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_technology#The_energy_constraint) experimented with steam power. If they had magic to help power it, it probably would have happened almost 2,000 years earlier.
The fact is that technology drives design, and your tech (magic in this case) is going to impact whether or not shields are useful. You can't just ignore it because you assume it's going to be an arms race where things cancel out.
Now, there's nothing wrong with PNP Magic if that's what you're going for, and it doesn't prevent your story from being enjoyable. But in that case you might as well throw your hands in the air and use shields just because. So let's look at ways magic could make shields viable.
**The problem with shields**
In our reality, the problem with shields is the weight/effectiveness ratio isn't great for knights. If you make it big and strong enough to be useful, you can't carry the thing around. Make it light enough to use, and it's too small or weak to be effective. Magic can help this in several ways - stronger materials? Now you can have a big wooden shield that will hold up to another knight's blows, and suddenly our equation has changed - maybe it does make sense to carry that shield.
Another possibility is versatility. This depends on your enchanting system, but consider that maybe items can only be enchanted so far, and there's a lot of enchantments you want to put on armor, right? Beyond making it stronger you might want to make it self-cooling, self-repairing, summonable, operates in water... there's a long list. But a shield is pretty much just a shield - you can make that thing as tough as possible given your constraints. So maybe with magic it's not the case that a knight's armor can take the same blows a shield can - maybe your shield is much more effective at stopping blows, and the armor is there to keep you alive when you mess up.
[Answer]
In general, make the shield either better at protecting the user, or improve its adaptability. By adaptability, I mean make it able to do something important that armor cannot do.
I've mostly been considering the super-hero Captain America. Why is his chosen weapon a shield in a world where there is crazy technology(*almost magic*)?
* For one, it is created from a super-material which seems to be able to block just about anything, making it superior to armor. Too bad there is so little of this material, or they would make everything out of it though.
* It is extremely light-weight. This makes it much easier to wield.
* Because the wielder is so strong and the shield is light-weight, it is more adaptable - he is able to use it as a weapon.
* Shields are great tools for protecting others as well as yourself, which Captain America seems to use to his advantage often.
[Answer]
**Spiritual/cultural influence**
If your society has a spiritual element then you could have shields being blessed or shield carrying as an edict by the spiritual leader/deity.
Consider this:
>
> One morning a Head priest/priestess/shaman wakes up and declares that a vision from the God/Gods/\$Deity\$ has decreed that shields are now to be the sign of the peoples Holiness.
> Size of the shield determines how much blessing the wielder will receive.
>
>
>
Now your soldiers have external pressure to carry a shield regardless of its usefulness. They even can be used to show status or piety.
This hinges on the setting of your society and will probably be different to their enemies which have different religions. This could be taken to the extreme depending on how important you want shields to be with some rock, paper, scissor-type opponents.
**Other influences**
I'd think if this were the case shields would show up everywhere including but not limited to civilian fashion and icons, children's toys and ornaments.
[Answer]
A few reasons I came up with:
* Magic like fireballs would make the armor very hot when hit and a shield would protect the knight from most of the heat. But your armor in this case would probably have some form of enchantment on it which would protect the knight from the heat.
* The shield would protect areas like the neck, the face and under arms where the armor could be vulnerable to e.g. arrows. It really depends on if they are completely covered or not. (But there is always some form of opening for the eyes in a helmet, so VERY skilled archers would at least have a chance...)
* Like you said, the shield protects against hammers, but also against other blunt weaponry like maces.
[Answer]
A shield that displays the coat of arms or national emblem may be required for heraldry or identification (friend or foe).
[Answer]
Where do you store auxiliary weapons? One can strap knives to the leg or chest, but perhaps the back of the shield would work. Poison darts, knives, throwing stars, etc. could be affixed to the back of the shield, easily accessible to the free hand. The shield could have a retractable bayonet, too. Also, a flask of combustible material for use as a flamethrower.
[Answer]
Here's how you could possibly encourage shield-carrying. You could use the basic marketing techniques that clothing companies use today. They put their impractical cloths on popular/famous people and the rest of us idiots follow suit by purchasing things we don't need and can't afford.
For example, you could outfit your strongest knight with a shield that is actually more of a weapon than a shield. You could design it that way. A strong knight would be able to carry and wield this visually impressive/effective weapon that looks like a shield. Over time, you could gradually modify it to function more like a shield than a weapon.
[Answer]
The enemy of the horse is the pike. The enemy of the pike is the shield. A knight fighting another knight on horseback would still have his shield stowed so that he would have access to a two-handed weapon, but when charging a line of defensemen, he needs to be leaning low over the back of his horse and holding his shield to push aside the pikeman's blade that would otherwise take down his horse. A knight laying in the mud underneath 250 pounds of armor and a dead horse is a worthless and expensive piece of any army.
When not mounted, never underestimate the power of the [phalanx](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx).
[Answer]
The full steel armor you see in museums was either for parades or where largely worn by powerful people as they watched their minions get slaughtered in their name from a hilltop. Men who actually did the business of killing from classical times to the late middle ages tended to wear more usable and maneuverable armor that would allow them to survive if they found themselves without their horse.
Greeks had a glue infused linen they made armor out of. Even Romans had chainmail and the the legions where equipped usually with lorica made from leather. It is hard for us to appreciate just how rare and expensive metal was in this period. The 15th century probably saw the most up armored forces that actually saw combat and references from that time are loaded with shields.--think Henry V.
So the whole notion that shields where not helpful just is not true. It may have been true in certain times and at certain battles, but it was a mainstay of arms for thousands of years. You could debate that troops equipped with two handed or duel weapons would be more effective and since it is highly situational you would be right in some cases and wrong in others. However, one thing a shield also provided was the feeling of safety which probably meant troops went into battle with less hesitation and stayed in it for longer. Morale is always what wins and loses battles and wars.
[Answer]
How you should do this really depends on the tone of your narrative.
To make shield carrying by religious decree or social pressure is cool but will seem tacked on if this is the only item in your narrative that mentions religious decree or social pressure. One option that I was thinking of was that it would be a logistic requirement (my armor needs a magical battery of some sort) because my style of story telling would include all sorts of practical solutions to problems under unusual (ie magical) constraints.
If your narrative doesn't include much in the way of explaining why things are the way they are, then you should simply continue in this vein and not get into the minutia of this.
[Answer]
You might carry a shield because people are chucking stuff at you that you don't want to touch you or get on your armor, which does have joints.
Examples
1: Bags of filthy diseased goop.
2: Molotov cocktail
3: Acid or lye
4: Hot soup. I mean really too hot, and not good soup either.
5: Off brand cologne
A nice big shield made of green wood would help you ward off that stuff. When it got too chewed up you could get a new one.
Also there is the shield as riot gear. Maybe you have your knights controlling mobs you don't want to kill outright (women? kids?) you could have them keep people at a distance or push them with the shield.
[Answer]
Boiling oil, rather block it with a shield than with your helmet.
[Answer]
Others have perfect answers. I give you some additional reasons why shields are just useful tools in combat.
Shields are used to prepare your next strike behind them. If your enemy can't see your arms, he doesn't know where to defend next.
Shields were weapons, too. The had spikes and edges for a reason. Talhoffers fencing book, which is the 14th century reference, describes a lot of uses for shields. It's worth a look.
Shields help in defense as your enemy has to find a way around it, and you can move behind it and play your enemy like a torero plays the bull. Especially as you can press your shield directly into his face if you're in the good distance.
Close combat sometimes meant the fight was in "bodies pressed together" distance. A shield in this situation gives you a wall-like cover at least in one direction, a short one handed weapon was the only reasonable weapon to use in this distance.
All of this applies if you are a knight or not.
] |
[Question]
[
The backstory of one of my characters involves being lowered onto steadily rising, open flames back first. The story is set in a dystopic/post apocalyptic time where modern technology became unavailable over a hundred years before this time, so skin grafting, sedatives, and medical tools are all absent from the equation. The only supplies they have for healing would be herbs, fresh water, and maybe something like store bought honey that has an indefinite expiry date.
For the story, the burn would have to be enough to leave the character with PTSD and a massive scar as it is a big part in the plot-line. Would it be possible with the situation described for my character to survive by healing and fighting infection with herbs and fresh water?
[Answer]
Assuming no inhalation and it is just the victim's back that is burned, it is completely possible for them to survive, especially with care. Some form of care is important as the victim will not be moving around much, requiring someone to clean the victim, change bandages, and feed them. Likewise scar tissue that extensive will hinder mobility even after it is healed. You do need to consider how severe the burn is, if there's a lot of muscle damage they may have severe mobility issues, and it is far more likely to kill them. You may want to limit your burns to reaching the fatty tissue and not down to the muscle.
For reference their back would be 9-18% of their body surface depending on how much of the lower back is burned, so survivability is still fairly good.
### Treatment
Boiled water would be better than fresh for cleaning and honey or snail slime and bandages would be an acceptable/believable covering. More on the history of burn treatment [here](https://burnstrauma.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.4103/2321-3868.143620). Fluid loss is a big factor so they will need a lot of water.
[Answer]
People in the old days treated burns all the time. Just as now, the outcome depends on the amount of skin burned, the area burned and the health of the patient.
I am a big fan of [Ambroise Pare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Par%C3%A9), "the father of surgery". He lived from 1510 to 1590.
from <http://jameslindlibrary.org/wp-data/uploads/2016/08/J-R-Soc-Med-2015-11-Donaldson-457-61.pdf>
>
> *I then told him [Sylvius] this story about a kitchen boy of monsieur
> le Marshal de Montejan who fell into a cauldron of almost boiling oil.
> When this happened I was sent for and at once went to ask an
> apothecary for the refrigerant medicines that one was accustomed to
> apply to burns. A good old village woman, hearing that I was speaking
> of this burn, advised me to apply, for the first dressing, (for fear
> that pustules or blisters would result), raw onions crushed with a
> little salt; I asked the old woman if she had used this in the past
> and she answered, in her dialect, ‘Yes, sir, by God’s faith’. Then I
> was agreeable to trying the experiment on this kitchen scullion; and,
> truly, the next day, the places where the onions had been had no
> blisters or pustules, and where they had not been all was blistered.
> Some time later a German of the guard of the said seigneur de Montejan
> was very drunk and his flask caught fire and caused great damage to
> his hands and face, and I was called to dress him. I applied onions to
> one half of his face and the usual remedies to the other. At the
> second dressing I found the side where I had applied the onions to
> have no blisters nor scarring and the other side to be all blistered;
> and so I planned to write about the effects of these onions.*
>
>
> The striking feature of the account is the comparison between the effects
> of onions and those of other treatments. In the first case, of the
> scullion, we are told only that in the places where the onion paste
> was not used there were blisters, but there were none where it had
> been applied. One supposes that this opportunity for comparison of
> treated and untreated areas probably arose as a chance effect of how
> the onion paste was applied. But in the second case, of the soldier
> whose powder flask had gone on fire, Pare´ records that he quite
> intentionally treated one side of the burnt face with onions and the
> other with ‘the usual remedies’ and that there was a very marked
> difference between their effects.
>
>
>
Another effective treatment for burns available in pre-technological days is honey. Astonishingly, honey works well!
<https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/honey-for-burns/>
I am not sure how old this use of honey is. Certainly people have been collecting, eating and fermenting honey for a long time.
So the answer is yes: people are amazingly durable, and folk remedies are often better than nothing.
[Answer]
Depending on the amount of skin involved it's possible to survive. Third degree burns are usually painless since even the nerves end up burned and no message of pain reaches the brain at first.
You will end up useless for months until someone could remove all the burned flesh to allow healing and growth of new skin completely. During the process you can't usually move or sweat for the pain and the danger of infection that would kill you in days.
[Answer]
Old remedies, folk remedies, historic remedies, got to be that way becuase they did work. Even odd things like blood letting, leaching, etc. worked to one degree or another.
For example:
>
> The opening of the superficial vessels for the purpose of extracting blood constitutes one of the most common operations of the practitioner. The principal results, which we effect by it, are 1st. The diminution of the mass of the blood, by which the overloaded capillary or larger vessels of some affected part may be relieved; 2. The modification of the force and frequency of the heart's action; 3. A change in the composition of the blood, rendering it less stimulating; the proportion of serum becoming increased after bleeding, in consequence of its being reproduced with greater facility than the other elements of the blood; 4. The production of syncope, for the purpose of effecting a sudden general relaxation of the system; and, 5. The derivation, or drawing as it is alleged, of the force of the circulation from some of the internal organs, towards the open outlet of the superficial vessel. These indications may be fulfilled by opening either a vein or an artery.
>
>
>
from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting>
We may laugh or count these out today, and they may not have been the cure all that history's actors seem to think they were, but healers were caller "healers" because they actually healed. It may be primitive, but in many way's it did work. In some way, some things, work better then the solutions we use today. Keep that in mind when you do your story.
Now with burns there are 4 major problems you need to address. 3 of which the "cure" hasn't changed in a very long time.
1. Mobility. The loss of skin will make mobility very rough. Even something as simple as turning over will cause pain and perhaps prolong the healing process. Just like today, the best cure seems to be sedation, rest, and people to help out with care. I lone person would have a hard time, but a person with a team of people to help out would fair pretty well here.
2. Hydration. Burns cause serious use of the bodies water reserve. That reserve needs to be replaced. Today with extreme cases the water being replaced is more then the body can naturally absorb. Because you only talking about 10%-15% of the body your person should be able to drink enough water and eat enough broth to stay alive. Again a team of people will help a lot. To be fair the biggest impact is on blood volume. It takes time to make blood, but we can call this hydration, and liquid intake is the most important step making blood. The body can probably provide the rest.
3. Heat regulation. Specifically, with a large patch of skin damaged you risk Hypothermia. It could be 90 degrees out and you will freeze to death as a large part to the bodies radiator is malfunctioning. Again the "cure" hasn't changed much. Keep the person warm. Maybe even uncomfortably so.
4. Infection. This is the one that has changed a lot. Today antibiotics, false skins, better bandages, creams and what not can do an amazing job at fighting infections. However at the tech level your talking about, antibiotics were not exactly well known. There are a ton of natural things that can help though. Honey, Oils, thyme/orgeno, and many other things can really help. Honey is probably the best and easiest to get, but Olive oil can be used as well. Spices and herbs need to be miked into a poultice or distilled into essential oils. The big problem here is that it's gonna take a lot, and it's going to be hard to apply. The burn ill need to be cleaned but without preventing skin growth, and the *whatever* applied without causing more damage. This will not be plesent.
**Prognosis**
Even in history, people could survive 3rd degree burns. The scaring would be pretty bad without our newer ways to speed up the regrowth of skin (like grafting and temp artificial skin). But it's possible to live though. The person would have some mobility issues and a very disfigured back. Though if the burn were in the right spot, our back skin doesn't move too much. The healing process would take a very long time and a lot of resources. But it is doable.
As to PTSD. I don't think the actual getting of the burn would be that scary. But the healing process would certainly be. We are most scared when we have no control. And to heal this would the person would need to give up, or have control taken, for a very long period of time.
**Cold Facts**
Most people could not survive, not because the availability of ways to treat the problem but because of the shear amount of time and effort it takes. A father that got burned for example would need to make his family miss 1-2 harvests just so they can provide care to heal him. His entire family would die if they went that route, so the children would "work the field" and he would try to care for him self, resulting in care that would not save him.
Same is true in towns and villages. Without a lot of the supporting tech we have today, each member of the village has to pull their own weight. The kind of around-the-clock care that a burn like that would take just isn't available to most people. Were talking about 2-3 dedicated people doing nothing but tending to this one person. That's 4 people's food, heat, wood, housing, and what not that someone needs to absorb.
Your best bet is a young male, late teens. Early enough that his rich parents are still providing for him, but old enough to be able to survive the burn. 16-18 should do. Women need not apply, history shows us that we don't waste those kinds of resources on women. (keep in mind that "history" here is because the people with enough money to do such a thing, want sons to carry on the family name).
You also need a real reason to want to have the boy. A prophecy. The only son of a rich man that can't make more children. Selling the boy to someone for more riches maybe. It would help if the reason made sense to the entire village and not just the parents.
[Answer]
Get your victim to a sage immediately. Let the sage cover the wound completely with honey, cover it with a (sheep) skin soaked in rendered fat to make it waterproof (we use cling wrap at home) and bind it on with something to keep it in place. The sage will insist that the victim *stay mobile*: this is Important if you want to preserve full mobility! The honey is *never* washed off until the burn is completely healed! Have the sage open the dressing and add more honey on a 48-hourly basis, then cover it with a clean, fat-covered skin.
The one drawback here is that it may heal up so completely that *there is no scarring*. If the victim only made it to the sage once the burn had dried out, he could possibly suffer loss of some mobility and have scars, but I won't personally guarantee it.
I have personally used this protocol to reverse my own right thumb, which had become necrotic after a snake bite and to completely heal my wife's right forefinger after it had been burned to the bone by a lump of white-hot metal. Although the metal removed a piece of her finger about 1/2" in diameter, right down to the bone, the honey treatment healed it so completely that you can only detect which finger had been burned with very careful examination.
One other thing: application of honey to (especially) burn wounds brings such relief that analgesics (pain-killers) is rarely necessary.
The main reason that medical science can find no "real" value in the use of honey for burns and other wounds is their obsession with what they call "sterility". They keep washing the honey off and thus breaking the antiseptic barrier made by the honey. If left undisturbed on the wound, the honey excludes all sepsis-causing agencies by releasing hydrogen peroxide. It also absorbs the fluids (plasma) exuded by the burned tissue and allows it to be reabsorbed by the damaged flesh. As it keeps the burn moist, the flesh is regenerated and if the victim remains mobile, so will the new flesh and skin also regain its natural elasticity. As stated earlier, scarring will be minimal, and although the new skin will be lighter in colour than the surrounding tissue, it will regain its normal colour in time, leaving only a thin line around the periphery to show that anything untoward has happened.
[Answer]
Yes. I had a friend whose sister was badly burned by a gasoline fire (she poured it in to the fireplace) back before penicillin etal. She wasn't expected to survive. She spent a year in the hospital where basically all they did was drug her. When she didn't die, they eventually turned her out. Her skin from her chin had grown to her chest, they had her head tilted up the entire time. Her sister had very stiff, rigid skin and couldn't raise her head or arms due to the tissue issues. But live she did for almost twenty more years.
] |
[Question]
[
Many thought it was the poor hygiene and inadequate medicines that laid waste to the entire world -- particularly Europe -- as millions of lives were lost, although the death toll only subsided but it would be centuries before the population starts to show signs of recovery. I'll cut to the chase: today humanity took on Ebola and H5N1 and its variant head-on; both are often labeled as deadly but these epidemics never came close to Black Death during the middle ages. I need a powerful pandemic to cripple the entire world -- something that rivals the black death... by the way I already considered nuclear holocaust but not when only one leader is trigger happy about it, right Mr Kim?
[Answer]
You need a virus that starts to be contagious early, but give the full spectrum of symptoms late.
If your virus is fast to act, it will be caught in [quarantines](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/1451/809) and studied. If you want pandemic scale event, you need it to spread "disguised" as common cold or something equally innocent, and only kick in when it's already too late and substantial portion of humanity either caught it, or was exposed. Then, after months, virus should kick in - but it should be already built into cells' DNA, or in some organ you can't cut.
That said, bioengineered [herpes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_simplex#Prognosis) or [retroviruses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrovirus) would be my best bet. Given that [5 to 8% of our genome is made of retrovirus DNA](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387345/), it's not a far fetched idea that a virus infection may spread, and then only kill months, years or even generations later. Herpes can be reactivated by increased level of radiation. You don't have to have a nuclear war, some accidents may suffice.
Imagine the dread - black plague happened in your grandpa's generation, they was there to stop it... but they didn't, and now something triggered it and it'll kill you. With our level of medicine and sanitation, I think that's the only way for such disaster to happen. Sure, no single virus has all the traits I'm describing, and let's be thankful for that, but it's believable enough.
[Answer]
Humanity had a near-muss with the SARS virus. It had mortality approaching 40%. Fortunately its infectivity was low enough that mere changes to human behaviour were sufficient to convert it from an exponentially growing infection into one that died out. (Face masks, gloves, avoiding physical contact in business and social settings).
Next time we may be less lucky. What to be most afraid of is a virus which is endemic in some common non-human species, which mutates into a strain deadly to humans without losing its ability to be spread by the other species. It would also have to spread fast before we could develop any vaccine or effective antiviral drug.
The Spanish flu was the last time this happened. (Flu is spread by birds and/or livestock). It's possible that at least one of the mediaeval plagues and the Roman "plague of Justinian" were not plague (now curable) but some other viral epidemic. Flu or some emergent virus like SARS are candidates. Fragmentary records and the primitive medicine of those times make it hard to be certain.
Smallpox was also a virus that emerged in near-pre-historical times (and we have clear historical records of what it did in the Americas where the population had no historic immunity).
It's possible that we could inflict this or worse on ourselves, but it would take a team of lunatics to do it. Plagues do not discriminate between friend and foe. If some country or group had pre-vaccinated its population and somehow kept that secret in advance, it would rapidly become clear when the plague struck. Retribution would follow, probably nuclear.
[Answer]
You need very specific disease. Lethal, infectious, virulent and transmissive but with low visibility, long incubation period, slow acting, initially asymptomatic or at the least non-specific (hard to distinguish from more benign diseases) and hard to treat.
## Lethality.
Disease which is too lethal runs the risk of killing or immunising (those who survive, do so because their immune system beat the pathogen, and thus, they become immune, they may or may not still be hosts, depends on disease, some stay forever, just suppressed) entire host population before it has a chance to spread, not to mention it's highly noticeable.
## Infectivity
Infectivity is an ability to cause infections, to establish itself within the organism and evade latent immune response. There are a lot of bacteria and viruses around us and immune system is good at eliminating or suppressing them before they can cause trouble. To cause an infection, there needs to be enough of pathogens so that they either locally overwhelm immune system, or at least few successfully evade it, start multiplying and overwhelm immune system later. The more infectious the disease, the less pathogens are needed.
## Virulence
Virulence is ability to cause damage to the host. It's correlated with both infectivity and lethality. The most infectious virus or bacteria will be harmless if it doesn't actually do anything harmful. Ways how pathogen can cause damage are varied. Bacteria eat or poison tissues, viruses take over cells and literally overwork them to death, making more copies of the virus. There is one unusual way of which I will speak later.
## Transmissivity (did I build the word correctly?)
Transmissivity is an ability to use different modes of transmission for horizontal transfer (from one host to another). The most obvious is through body fluids, for example blood. But that won't do for your purposes, those are easily contained. Water-borne pathogen won't do either, that's not enough. Droplet transmission (transmission through tiny droplets released during coughing/sneezing) is getting there, but what you need is truly airborne disease, capable of surviving in air for a long time and circulate through air conditioning.
## Incubation period
Is the time since infection to appearance of first symptoms. Host may or may not become infectious before showing symptoms, depends on disease.
## Symptom
Is a visible effect of a disease. Asymptomatic means without symptoms, since death is the most severe symptom imaginable, your disease can't go entirely asymptomatic.
# Taken together, analysis of some famous pathogens
## Ebola
Ebola is right out. Severe bleeding gives it its high virulence and infectivity and lethality (it's very easy to catch disease by contact with blood, and bleeding weaken the organism), but at the same time makes it very visible, and since it's not airborne and thus not very transmissive, it's easy to contain. Also, it kills too fast. Unless vaccine/treatment was discovered recently, best course of action is to quarantine the area and let the virus "starve" itself, it will run out of new bodies to infect and disappear quickly. Fruit bats apparently are the reservoir of Ebola (animals which can carry it without getting sick - it's benign and asymptomatic for them), which extremely limits Ebola's ability to stay dormant in animal population outside of Africa - continent of its origin (if it could infect rats, that would be completely different matter).
## Smallpox
Smallpox is out too. Mortality of 30% is too low for your purposes, furthermore, effective vaccines were developed, used both as treatments (when given very early during infection) and pre-emptive measures, leading to its effective eradication. If it somehow came back, we know how to handle it. It would take some time to collect new viral samples, compare with retained ones and re-establish vaccine production, but we know how to do it and we did it once, we can do so again.
## Bubonic Plague
Bubonic plague is in. Mortality reaching 90% in some outbreaks, proven track record (killed 50% of European population in 14 century) and nearly 2 week incubation period sound promising, but while vaccines are not very effective against it, antibiotics are. It's transmitted and hosted by fleas (to which it's harmless), which ride around the world on ever present rats, making controlling and quarantining it tricky, but not impossible. If you make it antibiotic resistant (which is happening to many bacteria due to overuse of antibiotics), somehow increase the reservoir to house pet fleas, you might get quite a lot of mileage out of this one. It's still highly visible, so after extreme containment measures, including extermination of rats, mice and all the house pets in affected areas, the threat will fade, you need your fleas to somehow bite a lot of international flight passengers to spread it before it's discovered and containment begins, that's going to be tricky. In first world rats and fleas are exterminated, in third world, the disease might "tip off its hand" too early, by infecting some village or small city, I assure you that this one would be taken way more seriously than Ebola was (Ebola was known for nearly 40 years now, but it never was and never will be a serious global threat because of reasons I outlined earlier, unless it evolves to be airborne or something like that).
## Influenza
My personal favourite, but actually less plausible than Bubonic Plague.
Thanks to being airborne, influenze has extremely high transmitivity and infectivity, it however has very short incubation period, which means that depending on where the outbreak starts, it might be very easy to contain. Even in worst case scenario, it should be easier to quarantine than less transmitive diseases with much longer incubation period, and stable animal reservoir. Furthermore, influenza mutates rapidly, this means that it can become highly lethal out of the blue, but also means that lethal strains will starve themselves out of the hosts (because virus NEEDS the host to survive, or live at all, since it's an ongoing debate if viruses are actually alive at all, they don't have all the organelles to qualify as truly alive), and eliminate themselves out of the flue gene pool, leaving less lethal ones. It's a debate as to the true cases of mortality of Spanish Flu, one of the proposed is triggering a positive feedback loop in immune system reaction, causing it to effectively kill the body (you know how in cartoons multiple characters start fighting in a ball of dust and then the one who cause the fight slowly crawls out leaving rest to beat each other senseless? That's similar thing), making healthy adults more susceptible due to the strong immune system, whereas people with weaker immune system just suffer it like normal flu. It is however possible that reason behind mortality of Spanish Flu was external, 1918 was the last year of the Great War, shortages were widespread, and conditions were bad, both at the front and in far behind them. It's possible that this particular strain merely hit at the right moment, when supposedly strong people and societies were weakened, and flu was merely able to pave the way for secondary infections which would be what claimed the lives. Either way, you can get some serious mileage out of this, but you need to pick the moment and place right, since it can't stay hidden for long. Deadly flu would have to rely on being mistaken for normal (mostly harmless) one during first week, while asymptomatic hosts spread around the world, but after people start dying, it has no way to hide.
[Answer]
It's as much modern attitudes to sickness that have changed as modern medicine. In most western countries it's considered unacceptable to spread it around.
Consider a normal person with a severe illness. Most people in such a situation would call in sick and not go to work. Those who do go in are frowned on by colleagues for risking other people's health. You don't "man up" and go in regardless because that's antisocial. This means that even though we live in a high density world, and theoretically diseases could spread very rapidly, our attitudes and behaviours while sick will make most diseases self limiting.
---
The most recent pandemic was H1N1, [Spanish Flu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic) in 1918-1920. Viruses are much harder to treat than bacteria since the dawn of antibiotics, mostly with a virus you treat the symptoms and wait it out. In the case of Spanish Flu it primarily killed the young fit and healthy, soldiers coming out of the war, killed effectively by immune overreaction. The spread can also be considered to be down to vast numbers of people on the move and living in close quarters who would not normally have done so (i.e. not during a war).
I'm not going to write out the various theories of how such an aggressive strain of the flu came into circulation, but given the existence of such a strain you'd have to find some way of spreading it rapidly before the dangers became known.
With current monitoring of causes of death for exactly the reason of preventing another pandemic, you'd have to have a war at least on the scale of the Korean War, with large numbers of troops manning front lines, coming from across the world to high density locations, with people flying in and out steadily. Otherwise it's going to be nasty but localised, covering no more than a few surrounding regions. See Ebola for reference.
---
At the end of the day, given modern medicine and behaviours, while you could still potentially manage a pandemic, it's unlikely something will get established the way the Black Death did.
[Answer]
Have you considered... influenza? The Flu is pretty good at killing people. Think that the deadliest one is still H1N1. So you would just need to engineer it to hide like helicobacter pyroli (so a virus that survive 36,6 temperature) so almost anyone would be carrier. And then design "starter" point in virus so it would start acting on a large amount of people at once (maybe something with temperature? with global warming the difference in temperature in Europe is much more rapidly than it was before).
[Answer]
# The virus must defeat modern preventitive measures
There are a variety of modern protective measures against disease. These modern measures are first and foremost cultural. If you are sick, most people don't try to go to work and spread their diseases around. Either they loaf around at at home or go to the doctor. Since everyone knows how modern diseases spread (more or less), everyone can take simple sanitary actions. The Black Death today would be much less likely to spread, first and foremost due to the lack of rats, but secondly due to the natural instinct of the sick to self-quarantine.
To defeat our modern cultural anti-sickness measures, the disease would need to pick up some new tricks. The most potent would be to simulate a mild illness for a long period of time allowing it to spread.
# Characteristics of this disease
* The illness should cause symptoms of a mild runny nose and sneezing. People who had gotten ill would think that they had a common cold. It should not cause fevers at an early stage or many people will be alerted to its potential severity.
* The illness must be contagious immediately. As soon as the sneezing starts, the disease should be able to spread.
* The illness should be viable airborne. If the disease can make people sneeze, and can stay infectious in the air for some hours (or even days), it can spread the most other people.
* The illness should take a long time to kill. Here is the key. **Once a disease is known to have killed many people, it will be widely reported and cause a near panic.** Just look at how many people are upset over Zika despite its relatively low fatality rate. The disease needs to take weeks or months to kill. That would allow it the time to spread around the world and infect as many people as possible before causing fatalities.
[Answer]
I already asked a question along these lines here: [Is non-manmade pandemic a realistic threat to modern first world?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19945/is-non-manmade-pandemic-a-realistic-threat-to-modern-first-world)
The general answer I got from all of them was no. The major plagues spread so well in the past due to a lack of understanding of basic sanitation, our modern understanding of sanitation, quarantine, etc have made us much better at isolating and stopping the spread of disease. Antibodies also prevent the spread due to germs and vaccines the spread of viruses. While antibiotic immunity is an issue that would help a disease spread it's unlikely a disease would grow immune to *all* brands of antibiotics which are available at once, so antibiotics could a least be used to slow and limit the spread of the disease.
However, my original question was for natural viruses. The is also the possibility of man mad disease. I would suggest using a disease which was modified by man to make it more dangerous if you wanted a black plague scenario. It could have been an intentional bio-weapon which got out of hand, or a disease which was released by accident. However, adding the tweaking of humans could justify such things as how a disease developed an immunity to all known anti-biotics at once and thus justify it being a more lethal threat to society.
[Answer]
Black Death level diseases can only exist with a dispersed population or with a non-human reservoir, otherwise they burn themselves out and go extinct.
Since we no longer have an adequately dispersed population and no such killers are known that means something new.
Unfortunately, new diseases are all too possible due to mutations or species jumps. Fortunately, such upstarts tend to start out not too infective as they haven't adapted to the human body well enough yet.
We had a close call with SARS which was no doubt such a scenario. It hit in a place with sufficiently high tech medicine that it got pounced on and quarantined fast enough that it never developed the easy spreading that is required for a pandemic. Fortunately, nobody who was infected flew to a place like Africa that lacks the ability to stomp on it. It would have burned hot through the millions of Africans infected with HIV and by then it would likely be spreading better.
However, the really nasty scenario is when something that does spread well picks up lethal genes from somewhere. The flu is notorious for exchanging genes and so it's a likely culprit for this. Of course the disease hunters would see it and try to stomp on it but it spreads well enough quarantine would likely fail and vaccines take months. Modern air travel is a nightmare for quarantine efforts.
If you want to take the threat up to 11 consider a madman who does this deliberately. Instead of one patient zero you could have thousands. Put dispensers in a bunch of airports and the chance of a quarantine is zero.
Edit: Covid-19 and SARS are closely related. This time it got the spreadability, very fortunately its nowhere near as lethal.
[Answer]
## Yersinia Pestis, with a twist!
Considering the fact that this little germ has been responsible for many significant outbreaks throughout history (the black death among them), using this troublesome bacterium would be a good start. If you want it to cripple modern civilization, not much has to be adjusted.
### Antibiotic resistance
One of the things that makes Y. Pestis so deadly is the fact that it compromises immune function. Combine that with a resistance to most (or all) antibiotics and faster transmission vectors(casual contact, airborne), and you have an essentially untreatable pathogen that will spread like wildfire. Vaccines have been developed but aren't very effective and have some pretty nasty side effects, so they've fallen out of use for the most part. So, even if they were to develop a vaccine, there simply wouldn't be enough time to manufacture and distribute before it's too late.
[Answer]
Depending on how you want to utilize this pandemic, you could easily create a scenario with some sort of nanobots which gain a collective conscious. [Prey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)) by Michael Crichton has a similar premise.
If you are incorporating this into a story, it could be some level of AI like nanobot or otherwise be customized.
From the organic perspective, [Executive Orders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Orders) by Tom Clancy is insightful. Ebola is basically made airborn with a slower incubation period and released via aerosol cans at many conferences, resulting in it being quickly carried on airplanes around the world. This avoids some of the "problems" with a disease as dangerous as Ebola being too effective at killing its hosts, though within the novel this ultimately saves the United States.
[Answer]
How about an laboratory made [viral transformation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_transformation) going out of control. A [viral vector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_vector) designed to increase productivity in farms that mutates out of control. It can produce cancer and death in a massive scale.
[Answer]
I suggest a viral pathogen, man-made, transmitted both thru bodily fluids and airborne (highly contagious). Then add a long incubation during which infected person APPEARS symptom-free but is contagious, then respiratory symptoms kick in, making patient more contagious. Make disease a retrovirus that can go dormant and reappear once treatment stops, make respiratory symptoms resemble a fatal pneumonia and Voila! Instant Catastrophe.
[Answer]
One interesting possibility to look at is the (possibly) coming Antibiotic Apocalypse. Basically, certain antibiotics only work for so long before bacteria adapt to survive them. The more an Antibiotic is used (say, on livestock, or when over prescribed), the faster it becomes obsolete. We haven't run out of backup medicines yet, but if Antibiotic use keeps rapidly rising, and science starts running into barriers with regards to inventing new antibiotics, we could have a major problem.
At that point, even simple infections could cause death, surgeries would always be life threatening, and cuts would have the potential to kill. Now, add in some new super-bacteria, and you may have a ballgame.
[Answer]
Virus have a good characteristic: antibiotics don't prevent those little bunch of atoms from spreading and doing their nasty thing.
Just make it easily transmissible (like airborne, not requiring blood and so on). With a death probability high enough (>60%) and that takes some time to fully develop (a month), while it's capable of transmission since day 0, and it'll spread a lot before being detected and producing deaths.
Also make the death occur from symptoms that are easily mistaken from something else, and you gain some weeks before someone thinks that a new kind of plague is happening. For example, creating nodulus like a pancreatic cancer will make many patients go to a oncologist first, consuming time and not generating alarms from the first few days, nor special warnings about avoiding some kinds of contact.
And make it appear first in a crowded city, with many travelers, so that is spreads out fast enough since the first day.
[Answer]
If you want something that truly rivals black death you could create a more unique disease. One thing that immediately comes to mind is the issue of quarantining a disease (i.e. if nobody knows of it then it cannot be quaruntined). One thing you could do is make a disease with the symptoms of a normal cold. However, the symptoms start **one month** after exposure. Perhaps the disease lies dormant for some time and spreads itself whilst keeping immune system triggering damage to a minimum? Ultimately we want this disease to not be about affecting a body but rather infecting as much of the populous as possible. Furthermore, make the disease like rabies but not quite. We don't want zombies so instead cause people after 2 or 3 weeks of infection to somehow develop a compulsion to do something that infects other people. Perhaps make the disease cause a large amount of sneezing. Sneezing is less associated with illness so it's not going to be assumed as disease based but rather as allergy-related. Also, during this stage perhaps create compulsions of a need to be in social environments or something. Anything that could maximize exposure. Also, this disease should be about as contagious as bubonic plague (black death). Then it's pretty much guarunteed to spread amongst the masses. My guess. Within a month 60% of the world populous will be showing symptoms with the other 30% being infected. If you want to really make people spread this thing, have the virus or bacteria release adrenaline or other chemicals that make people feel not as sick as they truly are. Then at the 6th week drop all of those things like a rock by ceasing production which will result in an extreme crash of energy and then finally an unavoidable death as the virus/disease has by then obliterated the immune system (whilst temporarily replacing it to prevent suspicion).
Let me boil all of this down in a nutshell:
We want a disease whose primary method of attack is not brute force but rather *deception*. Therefore, it's plan of attack should be as follows:
**Week 1: Spread throughout the body and replace as much of the immune system as possible. Work with the immune system if possible and have no tolerance for external diseases. Essentially replace the immune system.**
**Week 2: Continue a breakdown of natural systems whilst preventing overall detriment to the body. Produce sneezing and/or coughing as ways to spread the disease contagiously**
**Week 3-4: Attempt to produce chemicals and hormones to induce an intense need to be in public social environments as much as possible without appearing as a mental disorder. Use this to infect as many others as possible.**
**Week 5: Begin to show symptoms of some kind whether it be infections or whatever. Essentially test at breaking down systems of the body whilst not killing it (yet). Start producing hormones to fake higher energy levels to make the person feel better than they are. Raise these levels over time.**
**Week 6: Switch gears completely and start ripping the body to shreds. Work backwards to plummet the hormone levels to near nothing. Essentially cripple the person overnight. Fear is a tactic here. Make it seem worse than it is. Make people believe it appeared overnight and essentially ravaged EVERYTHING. Kill the bones completely. Ravage tissue. Make holes in the skin everywhere. Completely devour the internal organs. You've had six weeks to grow unimpeded. You are the immune system. You OWN the body and can consume it entirely near to the bone.**
How would this disease occur? I would imagine it would bio-engineered and I think this would be a disease that could render man extinct. You basically have two months that this disease goes on before it reveals itself for the first time. That's a large time to be infecting others. Plus, it kills your immune system on day one. At that point, it is virtually incurable. It's got the force of an immune system disorder with the savageness of a foreign disease. Put those together and everyone is dead for sure.
[Answer]
I believe the gold standard civilization-killer is a bioengineered pox virus with a common animal reservoir. Release it at a few big airports and in a week it's everywhere, just as the first victims start showing symptoms.
In an interesting twist, a killer mousepox (lethal to mice only) from 2001 was accidentally created during research on injectable contraceptives. <http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2003/11/scientists-research-antidotes-super-mousepox-virus>
[Answer]
## COVID-21 (SARS-NCoV-2 x RHDV2)
While humans were busily fighting COVID-19 precautions, a little known virus called RHDV2 ([rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_hemorrhagic_disease) 2) took root in the United States, spreading from [Arizona](https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/new-virus-killing-rabbits-in-arizona) to [Oregon](https://ktvz.com/news/wildlife/2021/03/26/oda-deadly-virus-confirmed-in-feral-rabbit-population-near-portland/) and most places between. It killed *both* rabbits and hares, and no one cared, though few have seen any coney lately that doesn't lay boiled chicken eggs in green plastic grass. The CDC said it was [not a hazard to human health](https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-and-usda-release-information-mitigating-rabbit-hemorrhagic-disease-virus-rhdv2).
Meanwhile, COVID viruses continued to mutate, occasionally undergoing a process of [recombination](https://www.salon.com/2021/02/17/two-mutated-coronaviruses-have-merged-into-one-hybrid-heres-how-that-happened/) in which the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase would dissociate from one virus it was copying, and begin copying another. Mutations were combined from different strains. Additionally, COVID, which had travelled the whole world, was in an excellent position to take up permanent endemic status in [many mammalian species](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9327029/Dozens-mammals-including-horses-dolphins-goats-catch-Covid-19-study-reveals.html) - cats, ferrets, horses ... and especially, rabbits.
What came next should not have surprised anyone.
] |
[Question]
[
What immediate effects would a small, short-term black hole have if it appeared in a residential backyard? How small or short-lived would it have to be to be survivable, if it is survivable at all?
In said backyard, there are four children, a garden, a tree house, and lots and lots of monsters.
[Answer]
Black holes are actually more like gravitational point-sources than anything. Unlike their depictions in movies, black holes emit only as much gravity as the object that they are made from. For example, if the sun were to suddenly turn into a black hole, the earth would keep orbiting it just like it normally would.
That aside, the two major dangers of black holes are tidal forces near the event horizon, and the event horizon itself.
First the event horizon: the formula for the radius of the event horizon is
$r=\frac{2Gm}{c^{2}}$
According to this formula, a black hole with the same mass as the earth would have an event horizon less than a millimeter in radius. A black hole with a similar mass to a human would be smaller than a single proton. Obviously this isn't much of an issue.
However, the tidal forces are. Tidal forces occur when the gravity at one end of an object is different than the gravity at the other end, stretching the object. The tidal force exerted by the black hole would be:
$F=\frac{μlm}{4r^{3}}$
Assuming the black hole is 1 meter away from a 1 meter tall human who weighs 60 kilograms, you get:
$F=15μ$
Most humans can survive about 8gs, which in the case of our hypothetical human would be about 588 newtons. Substituting that into the equation, you get:
$588=15μ$
$39.2=μ$
Since μ, the standard gravity, is equal to:
$μ=GM$
The maximum survivable black hole would be several trillion kilograms massive. However, the earth would take vastly more damage in this scenario. Any black hole that would locally exert force on the order of magnitude that the earth exerts would begin to suck parts of the earth into it.
So to summarize, it would either be incredibly boring, or everyone would die.
[Answer]
I recommend the Hawking radiation calculator linked by Philipp: <http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/>
The general point is that black holes convert themselves to energy: the lifetime of a black hole is proportional to the cube of its mass, and in that time all its mass will be converted to energy per Einstein's formula $E = mc^2$
You can use this and a few handy approximations (such as: 1 kg mass conversion to radiation is 21.5 megatons TNT equivalent) to divide black holes into a few mass ranges:
* Up to one microgram: it's anyone's guess whether these can actually exist, since their lifetime is less than the Planck time. At 1 microgram they release 21.5 tons TNT equivalent. So, you never see the black hole. Rather, there's a sudden large explosion. If you're in the back yard with it, you die, and you never know what hit you.
* 2kg: lifetime is still negligible (less than $10^{-16}$ seconds), so it explodes immediately. It's at 43 megatons, close to the largest nuke ever detonated. Nobody in the town survives. The range from 1 $\mu g$ to 2kg can be thought of as an increasingly large explosion on the scale of explosions caused by humans. It doesn't have exactly the same energy profile as a nuke, but there's no "safe" way to release that much energy.
* 100 tons: black hole lasts for 0.1s, which is long enough for it to fall 5cm straight down. So in that sense, it does something before it's gone. Anyone standing anywhere near it would of course be instantly vaporised by its radiation, so wouldn't be able to watch that happen.
* 500 tons: black hole lasts 10s, which at least in theory is long enough to absorb significant mass to counter-act evaporation. In practice, it's much smaller than a proton, and it's still radiating so fiercely ($10^{12}$ gigawatts) that everything near it is driven away. So it won't actually encounter much matter. Most of its energy is released underground, but it only has time to fall 500m, so it's still in the crust. A huge chunk of crust above it is blasted into the atmosphere, in an event considerably worse than Krakatoa.
* 4500 tons: lifetime is now over an hour, plenty of time to fall through the earth, perhaps reach the surface on the opposite side or close to it, then fall through the centre. Size still much smaller than a proton. Energy released is approximately that of the impact that created the Chicxulub crater 65 million years ago, and caused the extinction of the vast majority of species on earth. *However*, since that energy release now can reasonably be assumed to occur deep underground, and since it "only" created a 100 mile wide by 12 mile deep crater when it occurred at the surface, this *might* not be a major extinction event. I expect that catastrophic shock waves cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions worldwide, though. Those dudes in the backyard where it appeared, still have $10^{10}$ gigagwatts to deal with, so they're still insta-fried.
It might be that there are specific lifetimes in this period where the last (most energetic) few seconds of the explosion are close to the surface (bad for humans) or close to the centre of the earth (not so bad for humans).
* 10000 tons: lifetime is now many hours, although it's still sub-proton size. I don't have a model for whether and how it absorbs mass, so I don't know the ultimate fate of the earth. I suspect it doesn't absorb mass, so the earth as a planet is still safe, but I might be wrong. The stuff living on the surface could, as above, be *seriously* inconvenienced by the general seismic upheaval.
* $2 \times 10^{13}$ kg: radiative power when it appears in the back yard and falls into the ground is now only 1MW, so I guess maybe someone might survive seeing it. Maybe not. Lifetime is "forever", it won't evaporate or explode for all that it's putting out a lot of heat and light. Mass is around 1% that of Mount Everest, so I would think tidal forces become significant (as in Ryan's answer). So, a source of blinding and scorching radiation appears in the back yard, and immediately plummets into the ground. Its mass isn't enough to seriously destabilise the planet, but depending on angular momentum I suppose might approach enough to do something to the earth's rotation and/or magnetic field. I really don't know how quickly it will absorb earth mass -- quite possibly hardly at all, since it's still only the size of an atomic nucleus (yeah, yeah, which element: I don't know!). It at least has the potential to absorb faster than it radiates. In that case earth is doomed, but not necessarily any time soon. We're back to the event being survivable for anyone not in the immediate area (line of sight of where it appears is bad news -- even if it doesn't kill you instantly the X-ray and gamma ray dose is nasty). It's "only" at 6 billion K, so it emits a *lot* of ionizing radiation, but perhaps nothing that will trouble those with a few km of rock between them and it).
* $6 \times 10^{15}$ kg: Hawking power output is now only 10W, albeit at 20 million K, so that's 10W of X-rays. It becomes a game of exactly where you're standing: you can be torn apart by tidal forces, bashed by infalling matter (stuff in the area will fall towards the black hole, not towards the earth). Infalling matter becomes extremely hot as it approaches the event horizone, and Hawking radiation is no longer preventing stuff from getting near, so the black hole will be steadily fed. But it can only be fed though a small "nozzle" since the black hole is so small, so once it falls out of sight your troubles at least don't get any worse.
* I don't know at what mass the feeding of the black hole deep in the earth becomes a problem for those on the surface. Probably not until the black hole is so large that you're more interested in where so much mass came from (aliens stole the moon?) than what happens to the frankly irrelevant humans ;-)
Note in all this, that there's no option for a black hole to hover in your garden. If it's light enough to be levitated by some incidental effect like electrostatic charge interacting with its earthly surroundings, then it evaporates as close to instantly as makes no difference. If it lasts, it weighs over 100 tons, so it falls. Presumably, whoever manipulated it to be there in the first place has some special uber-technology, and might be able to hold it in place. In which case you have something that's extremely energetic (due to Hawking radiation or infalling matter), and that if massive enough will grab you and slam you directly into its surrounding shell of heated infalling matter, all trying to get through a small gap at once.
[Answer]
Depending on the initial size of the black hole, it would either destroy Earth or be too small and short-lived to even notice.
Black holes [lose mass through evaporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation). The smaller they are, the faster they evaporate. Less mass means a smaller event horizon and less gravity, which means that they can obtain less new mass. A black hole which loses more mass through hawking radiation than it can consume while in Earths atmosphere would disappears rather quickly.
But when a black hole is large enough and has a constant source of mass which exceeds the loss of mass through evaporation, it will grow. The more it grows, the higher its gravity and the larger its event horizon which means it can absorb even more mass. That means the amount of mass it absorbs increases exponentially.
[This handy calculator](http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/) can be used to calculate the lifetime and other properties of a small black hole with a given mass. It does not take the amount of consumed mass into account, but when you play with it a bit you will soon notice that a black hole with a visible event horizon radius and enough mass to have a notable gravity would be far over the point of equilibrium.
A black hole is affected by gravity. When it appears, it will immediately fall down (or the earth falls up, depending on your frame of reference). Anything which touches the event horizon of a black hole becomes part of the black hole. That means the black hole will not stop when it impacts the ground. It will continue falling downwards towards the center of the earth, consuming any mass which touches its event horizon.
So when the black hole is large enough to see, the kids will only have a very short time to notice it.
[Answer]
First of all, if the black hole is not actually in orbit around the Earth (or, technically, both it and the Earth in orbit around their common center of mass) then, as other commenters have said, it will fall through the Earth, pop out the other side, oscillating back and forth, eating whatever particles it comes into contact with. One of two things could happen, depending on how big it is to start with: either it *doesn't* eat enough matter fast enough to keep from eventually evaporating, or it *does* eat enough matter to keep from evaporating, in which case it starts growing larger, unstoppably, and eventually consumes the Earth.
To get a handle on black hole sizes, a black hole the mass of the Earth would be about the size of a golf-ball, and would probably not evaporate for billions of years. A black hole that evaporates in a few seconds or minutes might have the mass of an aircraft carrier, and be a millionth the size of a proton. Caveat: When you discuss things that small, quantum mechanical effects come into play, and the relationship between quantum mechanics and relativity is still poorly understood.
Let's **assume** that (1) the black hole is *small enough* to evaporate in a reasonable time (which means it will be too small to see), and furthermore, that (2) we've found a way to *contain* the black hole above the ground. There are a couple ways I can think of that *might* be able to contain a black hole. We've already discounted the idea of placing it in **orbit** (or placing it near a Lagrange point). But black holes can have an **electric charge**, so we might be able to use an oppositely-charged electric plate beneath it. **Momentum** can also be transferred to a black hole, so imagine we can use a sort of relativistic particle fountain to hold it in place. This would be like placing a baseball in a high pressure water fountain to hold it up. Only the baseball is microscopic, and weighs more than an aircraft carrier, and the water fountain is a stream of plasma moving at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. I'm not going to do the math to see if that's plausible, but let's pretend like it is! (Let's also ignore the fact that by feeding the black hole, we are causing it to grow, and prolonging its life, which will probably doom us all.)
Under these conditions, what might happen? With such a small black hole, you're generally not going to feel much **acceleration** from the gravity unless you get really close (*distance TBD*), but at some point, *very* close to it, there will be crushing **tidal forces**.
What I haven't seen anyone discuss is **atmospheric effects**. Assuming your black hole isn't contained in a vacuum, it will probably start sucking in the atmosphere. Caveat: I have no idea what happens when a subatomic particle hits an event horizon one millionth its size, but I assume the matter will somehow end up collapsing and compressing into the black hole due to tidal forces. I'm also not sure how quickly the atmosphere (at atmospheric pressure) will be able to "drain" through such a small hole. Given that air has weight, and is attracted by the earth's gravity, the air in a column above the black hole will find itself rushing downward, into the top of the black hole, creating a small low pressure area above it. But as the air rushes in towards the black hole, it will probably exceed the sound-barrier, creating a constant sonic boom, that rumbles like a continuous thunder. Due to the Coriolis effect, it will spiral around the center, like water down a drain, possibly creating a rapidly spinning cyclone of air (think of an extreme low-pressure zone). As the air gets highly compressed towards the center, it will become super-heated, and ionized, which will create an accretion disc. As this plasma ignites in fusion, and approaches the speed of light, it will probably emit considerable radiation.
Again, I'm not sure how pronounced any of these effects will be for such a tiny black hole. If it evaporates quickly enough, its possible that none of this will become very bad, or it might take place on such a small scale that it's hardly noticeable.
Best case scenario: we get an awesome roaring cyclone of plasma that doesn't kill us with radiation, crush us with tidal forces, drain the atmosphere, or eat the earth before it disappears. But that's probably too much to ask for.
[Answer]
Hawking radiation is going to be very nasty indeed:
The tiny ones: Anything under 200 tons is gone in less than a second--and it's a total conversion reaction. Even a millgram black hole goes up as 21 tons of TNT--goodbye house. You might survive the detonation of a microgram black hole.
The energy doesn't suddenly cut off at this point, at a billion tons it's still glowing with hundreds of megawatts—not something it's going to be safe to be anywhere near. (And note that it's coming off mostly as ionizing radiation--absorbing 10 watts/kilogram of that is basically certain death.) Even at a trillion tons prolonged exposure isn't healthy.
The second threat is the energy coming off the accretion disk. I'm out of my depth here, though, I'm not sure if there's a range where it's cool enough that you don't fry from the Hawking radiation and also don't fry from the disk. I strongly suspect there is no such range but I do not know.
Thus I would say your answer is a black hole so small that its boom isn't dangerous.
[Answer]
Any black hole small enough to fit a backyard will evaporate in a part of a millisecond.
As such, the survivability of the black hole solely depends on its mass, which will be totally converted into radiation and heat.
In a small atomic bomb about a kilogram of mass converted into radiation and heat. So your black hole should have less than micro-gramms mass.
] |
[Question]
[
There exists a fictional future world where we have determined space travel is impractical for the majority of the species, despite the fact that technology is more advanced than today. There are no antigravity or FTL drives. Besides a few people who will never come back, we are stuck on Earth. Nevertheless, population continues to grow.
This makes the Yellowstone volcano increasingly terrifying.
A massive government project is already in place to study how to defuse the super-volcano and will take action immediately when the job becomes feasible due to technological advancement. They have a budget equivalent to $5 trillion dollars today (or a quarter of North America's GDP for a single year). All technology required has to seem like it will be possible someday to the modern scientifically minded reader.
* How would they try to do it?
* How could they mess it up?
* What happens when they do?
[Answer]
Your best bet would be to manually set off a series of smaller, "controlled" eruptions to bleed off the energy and pressure of the caldera.
You'd use underground mapping to identify weak points near the edge, then drill and set off explosives. Something small, like an atomic bomb. This will cause an eruption, and it will be nasty, but it's not the entire thing going off at once which would be catastrophic.
Some caveats:
* You may need to do this multiple times. It may be that you can never defuse it, instead you just periodically take steps to reduce the risk of the entire thing going at once.
* This is still pretty dangerous. You need *really* good mapping of the underground situation, the magma flows, etc - otherwise it's entirely possible that if you set off the eruption wrong, you'll end up triggering the full event by accident. I would highly recommend a series of small-scale tests on other volcanoes before you even **touch** Yellowstone.
* This will likely render the area of the caldera somewhat unstable, so evacuation, as suggested by other answers, is still recommended.
[Answer]
Your best bet and it is not a guarantee would be to start using geothermal power generated under that volcano. By 'sucking' out the heat faster than it is being pushed near the surface. This could provide a LOT of energy for powering the country. The hard part would be getting enough energy out to help, which might include actually drilling small 'pressure relief' areas to draw magma up, us the heat/energy and reduce the pressure below, like lancing a boil.
By using the magma to generate electricity it might actually pay for itself. And then the minerals in the magma can be 'mined' for raw material.
[Answer]
1. Schedule the event instead of randomly encountering it: Use an atomic bomb or something to cause an eruption
2. Before #1, prepare:
a. Evacuate all locals
b. Increase the chamber where magma builds up before eruption (to reduce pressure)
c. Increase the vent opening to reduce pressure
d. Install particle collectors above the vent to collect the smog coming out
<http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~hnlechne/controling_eruptions.htm>
[Answer]
One idea would build sort of a gigantic underground heat sink to draw heat energy away from the volcano and distribute it into the surrounding bedrock probably up to hundreds of miles away. The heat absorbing part of the structure would be deep, probably miles, underground as close to the magma chamber as is feasible. Huge heat pipes would draw the energy from the heat absorber up to cool layers of rock where immensely long, maybe hundreds of miles long, heat radiators would be installed to distribute the heat into the cool rock. This would have the effect of cooling the top part of the magma chamber, solidifying enough of the magma to keep the rest of the liquid magma underneath from forcing itself to the surface.
Naturally, some of the heat siphoned off from the volcano could be used to power probably most of humanity.
They could mess it up by drilling too close to the magma chamber, thus initiating an eruption. Other side effects might be earthquakes at the volcano and in the areas where the heat is being distributed.
[Answer]
If you could somehow flood Yellowstone with about 15,000 cubic miles of water (the lake only has 4 cubic miles of water), you could vent the magma chamber into the bottom of that artificial lake quickly, creating MASSIVE steam and Huge weather events. I think it would discharge the magma chamber safely and really fast.
However it would be near impossible to flood something on that scale that's 8000 feet above sea level.
The lake would have enough water weight and its non compressible nature might be able to contain the rate at which the magma is trying to evacuate the chamber. Displacing lots of water really quickly, and creating new land mass really quickly.
This event would displace an insane amount of water into the air and should be done in the summer as it will blanket the country in unfathomable amounts of water. 1.65168e+16 gallons potentially.
Maybe solving two major problems at once. Defusing Yellowstone, and displacing fresh water all over the world.
[Answer]
Drill a hole and insert a **PPA** to create a **BHA** to relieve pressure.
The **Portable Particle Accelerator** allows users to accelerate particles anywhere without an external power source.
The **Black Hole Anomaly** is created to be small enough to be unstable and collapse after a few microseconds. During that time, it would suck up massive amounts of magma.
Once the Black Hole collapses, the remaining earth collapses to cover the hole while the remaining magma rises to fill the void until a happy medium is reached.
**What could possibly go wrong?**
The black hole could collapse before it gets big enough causing large amounts magma to churn wile filling the smaller void left and cause more pressure. This would be **not good** but results only in some eruptions.
A miscalculation could let the black hole grow larger than expected leaving a piece of earth missing. That would probably be **BAD**.
Other possible problems are numerous - such as accidently triggering the device while getting into an accident on the freeway. Dude, where's my freeway?
] |
Subsets and Splits