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[Question]
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Yesterday I closed a deal with a man who claims to be from Haiti, I've successfully bought 5 zombies from him. According to his posting on eBay, the specs are as follows:
1. The 5 zombies belong to a quintuplet.
2. Carbon dating suggests they have been dead for a decade.
3. All of them appear to be middle aged males of unknown race.
4. No pulse, no blood circulation and they are cold-blooded (someone forgot to drain properly!).
5. They are very obedient and only follow orders from a master who happens to be me.
6. They don't need to breathe, eat, drink, or sleep.
7. They have body odour and are quite pungent.
8. They must be allowed to do at least 1 minute of [jumping jacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_Jack) every hour otherwise their body will crumble and fall apart (irreversible).
I'm hatching an evil scheme which will be revealed in due time, for now how can I have my packages delivered to my house intact? (This is not a spam, the entire transaction is legit and btw I live in Washington D.C.)
Item 8 is quite counter-intuitive but according to the man he mentioned about a Haitian's ritual and something about brewing "black-medicine", a unique solution that is needed to animate the deceased else the body would rot. The mind must kept active that's why it is recommended that they do jumping Jack on their own accords (actually this is preprogrammed before I got them second-hand).
[Answer]
Easy. Tell them to swim from Haiti to a beach on Elliot Key in Florida. Rent a boat and wait for them to walk on shore.
You would want to equip them with a suit to help protect them from the water, and [shark repellent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_repellent) to keep predators away.
It's a swim of 580 miles, and with currents and winds they could get lost, so equip them with waterproof GPS watches with waypoints ([Like this one](http://www.westmarine.com/buy/garmin--tactix-tactical-gps-navigator-abc-watch--15334857?cm_mmc=PS-_-Google-_-Shopping_PLAs-_-15334857&adpos=1o4&creative=55065560404&device=c&matchtype=&network=g&gclid=CjwKEAjwpPCuBRDris2Y7piU2QsSJAD1Qv7BIhunm19dlRwDc_M8GZJgom92ILGezaSxdrLy9tLF_xoCSz_w_wcB)) and tell them to follow it to 25.404655, -80.214206
If you also tag them with the kind of [tracking devices they use for sharks](http://www.hawaii.edu/himb/ReefPredator/Tools.htm) then you'll know what kind of progress they are making and when to go meet them.
Alternately, put them in a shark cage, and just tow them under water behind your yacht from Haiti to where ever. You may have to work out the [stuff to deal with customs](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/11085/how-do-customs-and-immigration-work-in-a-sailboat), but that doesn't sound all that hard if you prepare ahead of time. Worse comes to worst, you drop the cage to the bottom a little out of the harbor, do the customs thing, and a day later sail out and pick it up. You could put a radio controlled winch and buoy on it to make pick up easier.
[Answer]
Ok, I'm going to assume you have reasonably significant resources, enough to rent some trucks, perhaps a reasonably big boat etc and that you can spend some money on setting up the cover. I'm assuming these zombies are valuable to you.
So, we need to deal with the smell but they don't need to breath, they just need to be able to move about. Most border controls would be looking for human migrants who do need to breath.
So you come up with a pretext of buying some chemicals or liquids from a Haiti company. You make sure all the paperwork is impeccable with all import taxes paid and make sure that it can be easily verified that the tank actually contains the liquid the paperwork says it does (say by dispensing some).
You pad the bottom so that their feet don't make sound, put your zombies in ,weld it all up and fill the tank with the liquid. Anything which doesn't dissolve flesh works. they can spend the trip doing underwater(liquid anyway) calisthenics.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GGeq3.jpg)
At the far end you drain the liquid and cut the container open.
[Answer]
**Just pack them in coffins and ship them same as other dead people.** This kind of shipment happens all the time and [can be done using air freight](http://www.swacargo.com/swacargo/shipping-hr.shtml). One stop flights through Atlanta to Dulles take about 6.5 hours. Suspicions at the border should be easy to placate especially if you open the coffins and the contents are clearly human remains. Depending on import procedures, you may not even need to open the coffins.
Regarding the physical movement requirement, OP says that
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> ...they don't need to to jumping Jack exactly as long as the fluids circulates to keep the body in good condition any workout is fine.
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Coffins are already heavy so adding in a fluid circulation system shouldn't be difficult to avoid the physical activity requirement. Further, the zombies can be ordered to flex all their muscles while they are in the coffins, to make doubly sure.
[Answer]
I was thinking the swim idea too, but maybe a boat from Haiti to the Chesapeake Bay, the zombies then only need to swim up (or walk with weighted boots) the Potomac and you can pick them up in Alexandria with a cargo van. The boat would save you a bunch of time, and a fishing boat with a bad refrigeration unit could cover the bad smell.
Just, please, keep them away from my grandmother who lives on Mason Neck.
Sharks do not eat carrion, and no heartbeat means nothing for the shark's electroreception, so there is no reason they would bother your zombies.
[Answer]
You did ask about delivery rather than transportation. But any delivery option runs the risk of interception by border protection. See the earlier answers for good ideas.
I see two options for transport depending on your budget.
If your zombies have passports this becomes really simple.
1. Expensive and quick = Charter aircraft. 4-8 hours round trip Miami - Port-au-Prince. You'll need to find a relatively remote airstrip on US soil. Pack 5 coffins and list the cargo as repatriation of dead bodies to Haiti. The repatriation will fail in Haiti and you're turned back to point of origin. You'll need to sort your documentation out for that. Fly your zombies back to the states and have them enter the coffins before landing. If you get stopped or the coffins get impounded your zombies expire like bad fruit.
2. A bit cheaper and a lot safer. Charter boat. Take a boat to Port-au-Prince load up as crew and sail back. Jumping jacks every hour like they were in HM Navy. They "jump ship" in the US and become 5 of the "illegals" Trump will sort out come November (January actually).
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[Question]
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If a person had control over each and every single cell in his body, I.e:
1. Cell growth
2. Cell multiplication
3. Shape and form of cells
4. How cells bond/bind with each other
5. Cell Function
**Would they be able to transform to another creature, and regress at will if they wanted to? Say this person transforms from human to a bulldog or something twice as big as a human**
[Answer]
# It depends (but probably not).
*Some* forms will be achievable, with more or less difficulty. *Any* form? No.
There are several limitations you did not take away (some of them are discussed in the *Sight of Proteus* (Behrooz Wolf) series by Charles Sheffield, where an intentional transformation machine, the "form-change vat", is a plot device):
* conservation of mass. You cannot become a bulldog twice as big as a man, since you'd also need to become half as dense as a man - your mass cannot change (you might be able to take in some water as ballast).
* conservation of chemical species. Bones require calcium; there is between one and two kilograms of calcium in a human body. If you want to grow bony armour, you can't do so using calcium, as there is not enough of it.
* "square–cube" law - your organs, bones etc. must be able to handle the stress (for example a femur twice as long would need to have half the cross-section to maintain the same mass; this would make it twice as likely to break per unit length, and eight times as likely to break overall).
* the target organism *and all intermediate forms* must be survivable. You cannot transition from a human being to a fish, unless the transition is so short that you can literally hold your breath (actually blood oxygen levels) while it takes place. You need to mutate into an amphibious life form first.
* metabolism requirements.
Also, the target and intermediate forms must be able to sustain a human brain in more or less unchanged form - otherwise, the "control" would vanish as soon as the brain changed enough.
There are also subtler difficulties:
* to be *able* to do something is not enough, you need also the *knowledge* about what to do. As discussed with @ShapeOfMatter, you might redesign your bones to make them stronger while using less building material - a thicker cortex with trabeculae organized in tetrahedral lattices along stress vectors; but to do that you need to not only know [Wolff's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolff%27s_law) but also make very precise estimates of the stresses of a structure *that does not exist yet* (or do it slowly through trial and error over a period of many weeks, if not months).
* not all body material is actively remoldable (hair, nails, teeth enamel). That will need to be discarded or digested and recycled, which requires temporary specialized cells (that you don't have and must make on purpose).
[Answer]
**Frame challenge**
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There's your problem right there:
(1) Estimates put the number of cells making up the human body at around 30 trillion. No 'person' could hope to control (or even comprehend) that number of cells.
(2) Humans contain a similar amount of bacteria - perhaps 40 trillion - mostly in their gut. They are not part of the body and therefore not controllable by your criterion.
(3) Even if you were able to change your body to look like that of, say, a sheep, you would be a bald sheep because hair is not alive. Even if your cells were sheep cells, it would take months to grow any kind of a fleece. Similarly with hooves and ram's horns.
(4) Tooth enamel is not made of cells. Your old teeth would have to be rejected, but then you have to form *new adult teeth* of the creature you changed into.
(5) The hardened part of bone is dead. Destroying your skeleton and creating a new one would take years during which time you would be completely incapacitated.
(6) Your knowledge of biology would have to be greater than any person ever to live, in order to correctly 'build' a creature of a different species. Most people cannot correctly *draw* a dog let alone create a fully working replica of one.
(7) Your brain would not fit into most creatures. If you changed your brain, you would lose all your memories and skills.
(8) About 100 other reasons...
**Conclusion**
Unless you are pretty much omnipotent and omniscient (i.e. a god) you have zero chance of doing what you are asking for.
[Answer]
Short version : No.
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Your problem are essentially two key things :
**Physics**
Physics doesn't let you just suddenly generate energy (or equivalently mass). So let's say you want to convert to something one kilo less than are, that means converting the one kilo you loose into energy and letting it go away. That's nuclear bomb levels of energy every time they transform. The converse also applies : transforming back from something one kilo less to your original state will require you to suddenly acquire all that energy back, which is even harder.
**Just one gram ...**
It's probably worth noting that for the ["Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy#Design), the core was 64 kilograms but only 600 mg ( less than one gram ! ) was actually converted to energy. Little Boy was a 15 kT nuclear weapon so your shape-shifter losing one whole kilo would be equivalent to about a 1.7 Megaton nuclear weapon. I wouldn't want to be nearby when they change !
Physics is a cruel mistress and she's *real* fussy about converting mass to energy and back.
**Biochemistry and life**
The other problem is "to another creature". Making you *look* from the outside like another creature *of the same mass* is doable, but if you start changing cells and their operation then *you* start dying. Those cells have specific functions and they connect together into a complex biochemical machine that does not work when you start changing things like cell behavior.
We have names for various changes in cell functions as you describe : they are serious illnesses.
**The term "person"**
Who exactly is "you" and how do you maintain "you" when you change everything else ?
Your psychology and your body and connected by the biochemistry of the whole gizmo. Becoming e.g. a horse at a cellular level, means you no longer have the functions that knit together to make a human.
But even if all I change into is another human, that's still a problem.
I have a *lot* of things I have learned to do and expect to happen in a particular way. My coordination, movement and muscles are things I have learned to expect to do certain things in certain ways. When they don't perform as expected, you do things like trip, stumble, fall over, fail to catch the ball thrown to you, don't pick things up properly and so on.
Anyone who has had an injury that changes their movement capability permanently will know what I mean. I suffer from an ongoing knee problem I developed in my forties. Buy my brain learned to do things and it's hardwired ("muscle memory") and very hard to change without conscious effort. I still find myself absentmindedly trying to e.g. take two steps on a stairs ("the normal way") rather than the "one step at a time" approach I need to avoid pain and falling. You adapt a little over time (a long time) but the old "instincts" are still there waiting to (literally) trip you up. You'll e.g. stretch your gait too far (but it wasn't too far for thirty or forty years, but is now). You'll see that bus nearly ready to leave and instinct will say "run before it leaves", but one step will explain why you're not actually going to be able to do that.
You shape-shifter will find themshelves suddenly in possession of a set of limbs which don't work as expected. Their brain issues instructions they can't match and pretty soon your shape-shifter is face-planting and falling all over the place.
It's a bit like being a new-born. It takes a *long* time to learn how to use those legs and arms and keep your balance and you go very slowly from "helpless as a baby" to "ballet classes" :-). You take it for granted when you've been doing it all your life, but for your shape-shifter it's a whole new ball game every time. It's going to be very, very bad.
[Answer]
With the current constraints, yes they could. Assuming that the control remains if their brain capacity reduces.
For those thinking of a rapid transformation within minutes or days, that's not going to happen: <https://youtu.be/CLY-FMxsb2U>
The catch is the time and energy it takes to transform. It takes an awful lot of energy to change your body in a relatively short timespan, and "relatively short" is already measured in weeks and months. Look at the growthspurt or baby growth for example. And that's when the body does the planning for you!
There is also the matter of staying alive during transformation. If your heart or bloodvessels aren't finished yet or finish too quickly, you are going to have cardiovascular problems. Or if you haven't prepared a decent layer of fat for the energy and material to transform and you are changing your limbs causing you to have limited ability to get or eat food, you'll likely starve yourself with your own transformation.
Needless to say, any transformation would need to be meticulously planned and prepared for, from the food you eat to the time it takes to the likely capabilities you have at certain points to what shapes you have in the meantime so you don't kill yourself with nerve/bloodvessel problems. It's probably best to check in a hospital and let them help you with intravenous food and going to the toilet for the extensive amount of extra waste you are going to produce...
[Answer]
There is a widespread natural process to transform into another creature - pupation - and most insects do it. However, the larva dissolves itself completely, including whole nervous system and grows again from stem cells. It indicates clear evolutional advantage in growing new body from scratch instead of trying to morph existing cells in place.
This is probably not what you want, the person doing it would die in the process. Preserving the brain alive is nontrivial, it needs quite involved supporting structure, not to mention reconnecting it to new body. With this in mind there are some options:
1. Old body is kept alive and new body is grown on it. Only when new body is self-sufficient, then the old body is shrunk or discarded except for the brain. This means the old and new body must be fully biologically compatible.
2. Brain is kept alive by some external, natural or artificial, support system umbilical, while the new body is being grown around it.
3. Some way to transfer the consciousness with memories into newly grown brain. Most flexible but requires much deeper understanding of biology than former options.
[Answer]
No, our body is too complex to change it in a way to be able to survive it.
With a needle and a steady hand (or with an ISO image file and a hex editor) you can theoretically change any bit on a DVD. Does this mean you can take a DVD containing the latest version of Windows, and change it to contain a working Linux installation DVD? Or change it to a DVD with the latest Avengers movie on it?
Being able to change any byte doesn't mean you can do it.
Being able to change any cell doesn't mean you can create a functioning lifeform.
Your job would be even harder than my example with the DVD, because the DVD doesn't have to be kept "alive" during the operation.
[Answer]
Everyone here has very good points. It would be very difficult and inefficient to transform. On top of that it would also be very dangerous. But you could do so much more with a power like this.
Your immune system has a cell to fight every disease, and if you could control every cell in your body you could direct those cells to fight off dangerous entities in your body, essentially making you immune to every disease. It would be possible to stop the aging process as well, making yourself inmortal.
You could also direct your cells to build muscle, making your body stronger and more aesthetically appealing without having to workout or wait as long.
You could do this with any part of your body, you want longer hair, easy peasy. Want to increase certain hormones to improve your mood, too simple. Cant get it up, no need for viagra.
The possibilities are endless. You body is your play ground. Take a good biology class and you can do anything.
[Answer]
**Yes, absolutely!**
Embryology starts with a single cell that can transform to whatever complex life it is programmed to become. This process can of course be restarted, e.g. salamanders regenerating lost limbs etc. At the same time controlled cell death is part of every day normal maintenance in all living things.
The only thing you need to control is your DNA. The DNA will control everything else including the things you mention. There are many possible ways to alter DNA. For example:
* Highly efficient gene editing viruses
* Nanobots
* A very precise radiation device
* etc.
Viruses and nanobots could be stored externally (pills/syringes/cream etc.), or internally in biological compartments and released at will starting the DNA editing and subsequent transformation process.
The transformation would need some time though. The longer the more realistic. Months, weeks or days. If the transformation need to happen in hours, or maybe even minutes, you are starting to push the speed of biological processes into their theoretical limits.
It would of course be impossible with any foreseeable technology due to the complexity of it all. But there are absolutely no theoretical limits saying it is not possible. Below I will address some of the other points that has been brought up in other answers:
**Physics / conservation of mass etc.**
If you are increasing mass, eat more during the transformation process.
If you are decreasing mass, leave mass behind. Your body could self amputate your human legs and instead you would grow smaller bulldog legs. Or maybe liquefied cell waste would be expelled through the skin or an existing orifice.
**conservation of chemical species**
If you want to grow bony armour, eat something containing a lot of calcium.
**"square–cube" law**
If you are turning into a dinosaur, grow larger bones.
**the target organism and all intermediate forms must be survivable. You cannot transition from a human being to a fish**
Grow your gills at the same speed you degenerate your lungs. Submerge yourself so your gills receive water, but keep breathing air through a straw at the same time.
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[Question]
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Is it possible to weaponize common tap water in some sort of gun?
Imagine a basic water gun. It doesn't do much damage at all.
But what if we could fire the water out in controlled spurts, at high speeds? Imagine a highly complex water gun. This gun internally controls the amount of water in each shot, and propels said amount of water in a given direction, allowing the water to be used as a projectile.
**What are the limitations of this weapon, how much damage could it potentially do, and how would it work?**
Note: This weapon must not fire ice. It must fire the LIQUID form of water.
* Range wise, I'm looking at preferably bow and arrow range or higher - definitely not close range.
* What if we used the water as the "weight" behind the projectile, and a small plate/cone/something were used as a "barrier" in order to stop the water from getting deformed due to air resistance? Would this weapon be plausible?
* As long as it's liquid water hitting the target, it passes the "this weapon fires liquid" test.
* When designing this weapon, even if we currently don't have the technology to actually make it, as long as the technology is sound and the physics/theory works out, it's okay. (It's okay to go slightly into future tech, but don't think up something you can't explain)
[Answer]
You've experienced water flying through the air at its eventual maximum speed.
**Rain. This is water at its [terminal velocity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity).**
Gravity is trying to constantly accelerate the falling water, but that force is matched by the wind resistance and the water will not go any faster.
Starting slow, it will reach that speed. Starting fast, it will reach the same speed. It's the point at which the forces equal out.
You can pressurize the water, like with a water cutter:
But the water will rapidly break into droplets and slow down, within several meters, to (at best) its terminal velocity. Without a constant force behind it to counteract wind resistance, the best you'll get is rain.
The only way to weaponize water droplets is to add poison to them or make them very hot. Either one will be fairly lame, poison is cheating and the hot water will rapidly cool.
You could do [drop all the water from a rain cloud at once](https://what-if.xkcd.com/12/). It's technically in a discrete packet and utterly destructive.
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Edit:
Using the water as the weight is also not great. It's not really the water doing the damage and there are far denser materials that could be used which would work far better due to inherent structural stability and the higher mass per unit volume. The penetration of something with the density of water would be poor due to [impact depth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth) approximations.
[Answer]
There is something which contemporary police forces already use for riot control: a [water cannon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cannon).
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French officers using a water cannon 4 years ago. Image by [The Sun](https://www.thesun.co.uk/).
This does not see that much use in the US, but in the EU and Asia, this nonlethal weapon is often used to help control riots. A riot-grade water cannon can shoot 20 liters of water per second for nearly 10 minutes. Earlier iterations of water cannons have been known to knock protesters over and tear their clothes. some protesters have even been permanently blinded by the sheer force of the water. A water cannon is basically a large-scale jet cutter.
[Answer]
Water alone is not enough: you need either ice or steam.
There are several steam options below which would probably work well together:
* As other answers have pointed out, squirting out water at high pressure makes a [water jet cutter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_jet_cutter). An 'abrasive' water jet *can cut stone and metals*! You might also have seen high pressure cleaners that take a bucket of water and squirt it out 10 meters. They however are not really all that dangerous.
* [**Supercritical water oxidation**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical_water_oxidation)
Pressurise your water to 22-23 MPa and heat it to 380°C and you have, as [Winchell Chung](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/lifesupport.php#id--Closed_Ecological_Systems--Supercritical_Water_Oxidation) put it: "hellfire-in-a-box". Since you wont be able to get your enemies into the box, you will have to use a *very* high pressure squirt gun to weaponise a SCWO. This may or may not be feasable depending on your setting.
* High pressure steam, which has been vapourising people since the 1800's! As you may already know, the [boiling point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_point) of water changes with atmospheric pressure. At the top of Mt. Everest (34kPa) for example water boils at 71°C. At high pressures, like in a steam engine or SCWO, water boils at a higher temperature. [This](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2665/can-high-pressure-steam-cut-a-body-in-half) straightdope article has relevant information on the dangers of high pressure steam. If you have a pressure chamber with boiling water and it ruptures, then **BOOM**, you have a steam bomb. Squirting water out of a SCWO (above) would produce a large gout of high pressure/temperature steam.
So you can weaponize high pressure and temerature water by shooting it out of a pressure vessal, technically this gun shoots water, which immediately becomes steam, which then cools to become merely boiling water. Firing in spurts would allow the weapon to build up pressure between 'squirts'.
I would like to note that this steam/water weapon will be a short range weapon, limited to a few tens of meters at most. The weapon would produce buring death in a large area and could potentially kill the person firing it as well... Do not use this weapon in small rooms :P.
A weapon that kills or maims with only liquid water is not feasable.
There are several other ways of weaponizing water or anything else: Velocity, Mass, Temperature.
* Velocity is all well and good, but your water jet will quickly become mist rather than a usable weapon. This negates Piercing Damage because the water's impact against the target is spread out. The water will also spread too quickly to produce serious blunt damage. One commenter (HadesHerald) on your question suggested frezing the outside of your jet of water to help it retain its shape. This is somewhat feasable but you don't want ice.
* Mass: also known as dropping a swimming pool on top of the target. This is quite destructive, especially when combined with Velocity and Temperature, but could be impractical for your weapon.
* Temperature: Melting or vapourising your target is your best bet. High pressure/temperature steam can cut through meaty flesh, cook you from the inside or burn your lungs so you suffocate. Fun!.
As you can see, I recomend high pressure and high temperature steam. Your weapon might be a lot like a flame-thrower that produces steam or a gun that squirts water at very high pressure.
[Answer]
I think I have to go with No, not feasible.
Water does not hold an aerodynamic form in flight...the air resistance will reshape it and see much of the liquid water convert to gas mid-flight. If you could get this up to supersonic speeds (not easy given waters properties...non-magnetic being a biggie) it'll likely evaporate long before it could hit a target.
The only real weaponization use of water that I can see gets into the water cannon, which is more due to the mass of water pushing around the target as opposed to actually damaging the target.
[Answer]
What sort of range do you require?
You could use [bomb-disposal equipment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_disposal#.22Pigstick.22) that blasts water at the triggering mechanisms. It propels water so fast it destroys the circuitry faster than it can fire.
Limitations:
You'll need water.
You'll also need explosives.
These weigh down the operator, and you can run out of them.
Short range. Friction, surface tension and viscosity of water will make it form droplets. These droplets will slow down. Basically, they'll turn into raindrops.
Advantages:
Short range is actually a nifty safety feature. Bystanders downrange of the projectile are pretty safe. Be sure to bring an umbrella.
[Answer]
I'll expand a bit on the answers by Twelth and Shalvenay. The basic issue is that since water is fluid and the speed of sound in air is much lower than the speed of sound in water and any supersonic projectile creates a conical shockwave, the water bullet will spread into a conical shape matching the shape of the shockwave. This will rapidly increase air resistance.
Note that this is not due to air vaporising the water, this is due to the pressure ahead of the projectile being much higher than on the sides and pushing the fluid to the lower pressure. So no a solid shock plate or cone would not help, you'd need to cover the sides to contain the water and prevent it from spreading.
There are two exceptions to this. First the water jet cutters mentioned by Shalvenay create a continuous stream of water. In a jet the medium water is pushing is also water that has the exact same speed of sound. So as long as you start below speed of sound in air and wait until the stream hits the target, you can increase the speed all the way to the speed of sound in water. Or simply waste water by pumping it faster while the jet reaches the target at speed of sound in air. Which is high enough that the jet is quite useful.
Second is simply that the expansion takes time which means distance. So if your target is close enough you can get an useful effect. A short range water hammer essentially. This could be useful for breaking doors or locks for example. Or as user6511 says bomb disposal. Although a shaped charge does the same and is mature technology.
[Answer]
In the comments, @HadesHerald made the best suggestion I've seen here. The projectile COULD be made of ice that is *carefully calculated* to melt immediately before impact.
If necessary, it could be composed of multiple layers, all frozen to different temperatures. Potentially, the core could even be liquid initially.
Then the only limit on speed/distance the projectile can travel is absolute zero.
Even if we can't rely on the water to *pierce* a body, the momentum alone would be enough to cause fatal damage if the speed x mass were high enough.
[Answer]
Water rapidly loses velocity and pressure in atmosphere. However, if the rules allow the water to be wrapped in a shell, you could create an extremely lethal device: a pressurized bullet.
First, place the water in a spherical chamber. Using pistons, pressurize the water to the point the chamber can barely withstand the pressure. Plug the chamber (a metal plug already inside the chamber would work best).
Then, fire the bullet. When the water-filled chamber impacts, the intense pressure will cause the sphere to rupture, spraying shrapnel and water. More importantly, if the bullet hit a fleshy target, it will do serious damage add the pressurized water decompresses.
Alternately, the container could be a syringe; on impact, it drives a quantity of pressurized water into it's target. Essentially, this gun fires a water cutter.
[Answer]
Basically, what you are describing would be a weaponized form of a [water jet cutter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_jet_cutter). The main limitations that would make such a thing impractical are the weight of all that water (industrial cutters are plumbed instead as they need a high volume of water to work) and the rapid effectiveness falloff due to the jet losing pressure.
[Answer]
## Shaped vortex in air
As many posters have correctly pointed out, the issue with a high speed water projectile is that as a fluid it will rapidly fragment and become less aerodynamic. If it breaches the speed of sound it will be vapourised by the shockwave.
## Create a focussing vapour conduit
One solution to this would be to create a conduit in the air prior to firing the projectile. A stream of vapour rings could perhaps be used as lenses to refocus the water pulse as it travels.
I don't know if this would work or not, you'd have to try it, but it might.
## Weapon characteristics
This would be a short range weapon, it would perhaps only fire a few meters across a room. It would also require fairly still air. A strong wind would bend the vortex. There would be a short warm up time before the shot while the vortex was established.
This would be a very high tech weapon. A society would need to be fairly advanced to perfect it.
[Answer]
[Water cannons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cannon) are widely used as a crowd control weapon. Both [purpose-built police equipment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cannon#Gallery) and [repurposed firefighting equipment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_campaign#Fire_hoses_and_police_dogs) can be used in this way. Water cannons [can cause severe injuries](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/04/water-cannon-shocking-device-transform-british-policing), but they are not a particularly effective tool for doing this; their main purpose is to inflict pain, inhibit movement and coordination, break formations, and provoke fear.
The [HowStuffWorks article](http://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/engines-equipment/water-cannon.htm) on water cannons contains some information on their typical range and power, as well as their basic engineering. The [Guardian article](http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/04/water-cannon-shocking-device-transform-british-policing) linked above also mentions a few technical details.
Many people in the U.S., I think, strongly associate water cannons with the police response to the [Birmingham campaign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_campaign) of 1963. They're [ubiquitous](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/07/1963-defining-year-civil-rights) in [images](http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1358) and [descriptions](http://crdl.usg.edu/events/birmingham_demonstrations/?Welcome) of the campaign.
Although they're deployed for crowd control mainly on land, water cannons have [also been fired](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/25/us-china-japan-taiwan-idUSBRE88O02C20120925) against unarmored boats, like fishing vessels. Some reports suggest that small boats can be [damaged](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/21/us-southchinasea-philippines-usa-idUSKBN0NC0MN20150421) or [flooded](http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17264:israeli-navy-fires-on-gaza-monitoring-boat-with-water-cannons&catid=51:Sea&Itemid=106) with water cannons.
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As plenty of people have pointed out, it's totally unfeasible to fire liquid water a long distance and have it hit hard.
However, I think that there is a pretty good option if we allow multi-stage weapons. A water balloon could be fired fairly far. Put a small explosive in it, and detonate it when it gets near the target. This multiplies the force of the pressure wave from the explosive, because water is, compared to air, effectively incompressible.
Maybe that's cheating. That said, it's the only reasonable way for liquid water to deliver a strong impact at long range. More energy could be delivered with a rigid (glass?) Container and a shaped charge.
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Forest-fire fighting helicopter with water drop bucket. Multiple shot, controllable effectiveness from non-lethal crowd control to absolutely deadly kinetic street sweeper.
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Since the fundamental limitation is based in physics, we will have to cheat a bit. One comment upthread mentioned a water balloon, and that is essentially what you will need to make this more useful as a weapon than a water jet cutter (which essentially works at point blank range).
The water needs to be encased in something which will contain it and protect it from direct interaction with the air or any shockwaves produced as it passes the sound barrier. Depending on how far and fast you actually want to go with this, the projectiles can range from sponges and water balloons (generally slow and short ranged, but if the projectile is large enough to hold a lot of water, the sheer momentum of impact could do a lot of damage). On the far end of the scale, an artillery shell designed to fire flares or leaflets could be used as a carrier shell for your water. If the base eject plug is released and water simply pours out, it will rapidly disperse as in all the other examples, so even here the water needs to be contained in some sort of sub munition. Mind you, a submunition the size of a pop can moving at near supersonic velocity will pack a lot of kinetic energy as it strikes, which will rip the thin skinned metal container open to release the water after all....
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Why not think about changing the nature of the water molecules themselves? I would look at exploring various options of creating hydronium?
From Wikipedia:
>
> Hydronium is the cation that forms from water in the presence of
> hydrogen ions. An acidic solute is
> generally the source of these hydrons; however, hydroniums exist even
> in pure water. This special case of water reacting with water to
> produce hydronium (and hydroxide) ions is commonly known as the
> self-ionization of water. The resulting hydronium ions are few and
> short-lived.
>
>
> Hydronium is very acidic: at 25 °C, its pKa is -1.7. It is also the
> most acidic species that can exist in water (assuming sufficient water
> for dissolution): any stronger acid will ionize and protonate a water
> molecule to form hydronium. Unlike hydronium in
> neutral solutions that result from water's autodissociation, hydronium
> ions in acidic solutions are long-lasting and concentrated, in
> proportion to the strength of the dissolved acid.
>
>
>
The rest of the gap could be filled by a more competent physicist/chemist/engineer...
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So far, many of the answers seem to be in unison: no, not feasible because the water stream falls to bits and becomes useless rain.
**Water Cannon**
I see this not as a flaw, but as a design specification for a weapon. I don't see weaponised water as discrete "bullets", but rather as particle stream. Consider the [World's Largest Water Cannon](https://maritime-executive.com/article/test-of-worlds-largest-water-cannon). This one shoots about 70k litres of water per minute as a fire fighting tool. That's a bucket load of water! And it's useful range is about 200m.
In order to weaponise, one strategy would be to multiply the basic system by perhaps eight. This weapon system, delivering as much as 560k litres per minute in a concentrated area would certainly be able to clear the deck of an attacking vessel and may even be able to deliver enough water to swamp & sink a small vessel. The curtain of water acts as a shield, foiling the enemy's attempts to fire and manoeuvre. The pressure of so much water might even cause physical damage to, for example, the bridge of the enemy vessel, rendering it useless. Used in conjunction with other conventional weapons and I think you'd have a viable system that combines offensive capability & defensive screening.
Basically this idea is simply the anti-piracy water cannon principle on steroids.
Another possibility for weaponising water:
**The Dam**
Throughout human history, people have lived along rivers. Say two rival city states inhabit a stretch of river. Their wars have been ongoing for decades and neither side seems to be able to gain the upper hand. Now let's say some clever genius comes along and tells an ancient myth from a far distant land about how the whole country was flooded by the gods and wiped everyone away.
The archon will say, nice story, but how does that help me?
The wise genius says: take the beaver as your totem and build a huge dam across the river, with just enough outlet to keep some flow going downstream.
Once you've got a nice reservoir built up, break the supports and the let the dam fail. Gouts of water and debris rush down stream, wiping out your rival city-state!
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## **WATER AS A BOMB**
---
Well, water is made up of 2 atoms of Hydrogen & 1 atom of Oxygen if we separate them (process is called Electrolysis) and somehow able to use Oxygen to create fire, it would be better than water gun. Like a Bomb which consist of two parts, in First part there will be something which easily ignites(like rubbing two stones) spark and the Second part consist of Oxygen derived from Electrolysis of water. But the problem is that it should be done at a greater scale(large amount of Energy required for Electrolysis) and the Advantage is that Hydrogen is also an explosive gas.
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The biggest problem is the water losing energy too quickly as it deforms.
I have a few ideas on this. You need to add some kind of bonding agent. We have real world thing you can add to water to keep it together, but I see the most potential in say electrically charged powder and a magnetic field sheath.
On firing, the weapon would contain the water in a magnetic field that would let it hold it's shape longer, but not far.
Liquid water is just not a suitable long range weapon. Even if it's doable, it's just not as good as other options at the tech levels.
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How about a more si fi take with a sort of electro kennetic fused substance that can allow it to continuelessly push a stream at high velocity, maybe connect it to neuro tech and get into some water bending xP
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[
So, an island-dwelling stone-age tribe has [discovered gunpowder](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/77880/what-explosives-could-a-small-island-nation-feasibly-discover-without-metal?noredirect=1&lq=1) and invaded several neighboring islands using their [explosive arrows](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/114836/how-to-trigger-explosive-arrows). However, a coalition of enemy tribes has formed in response to this new weapon and is preparing to make an assault on one of the islands held by the tribe. The tribe wishes to defend their island using their gunpowder, but aren't entirely sure how to do so. They plan to set up some kind of booby-trap that will detonate when enemies get close enough for it to kill them, but are having trouble with the design of the trap. **How can the tribe build landmines with only stone-age technology?**
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**The best weapon is fear**.
A fist or a spear or a bomb works while you are using it. Fear and uncertainty keep working on your enemy after he goes home. Fear is contagious - it will work on his comrades and his family as well. Your gunpowder is a scary new unknown. Maximize the ability of a weird new technology to create fear.
Below - how to trigger a primitive gunpowder bomb and then what sort of bomb would be optimal in this scenario.
1. [Fire pot.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_pot)
This is the answer to the question as posed: a slow-burning pot of fuel is the trigger and it sets off the gunpowder bomb when tipped (into the bomb) or broken (falling from a height or crushed by a falling stone).
Back when making fire was time-consuming, people carried around coals in a fire pot. This contained slow burning fuel and live coals. A device like this makes sense as a trigger: on tripping the trap the fire pot tips or breaks, releasing the coals which then trigger the gunpowder.
Also, the fire pot will be hot. It can here serve double duty containing a reservoir of sand. The sand will get very hot.
2. [Thermal weapon.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_thermal_weapons)
>
> Water, sand and other heated missiles
>
>
> Hot oil was considerably less common than boiling water or heated
> sand, which was cheap and extremely effective; even "dust from the
> street" could be used. These would penetrate armour and cause terrible
> burns. Sand, especially, could work its way through very small
> gaps in armour. The Phoenicians at the Siege of Tyre (332 BC)
> dropped burning sand down on the attacking Greeks, which got in behind
> the armour and burned the flesh...
>
>
>
On detonating, the fire pot sprays its hot sand. The tripwire should be near the punji traps so that persons coming to the aid of persons in the trap set them off. Or they could be set off manually by a hidden person watching - this in the manner of an Iraq-style IED.
The hot sand (and whatever else - hot sap, oil, etc) will not immediately kill. It is meant to hurt. A hurt warrior must be taken back to the shore by his comrades, taking 2 or 3 total out of the fight. Seeing comrades hurt and screaming is bad for morale.
3. Shock and awe.
Your scenario is not Vietnam. Here, gunpowder and thermal weaponry is a scary new thing, of unknown power. Capitalize on that. With the hot sand, include flour, fine sawdust or some other flammable. Explosions should be huge and fiery and spectacular.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IaWYY.jpg)
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIkk0D2tUU8>
Killing a guy who falls in a hole on a bomb is not much different than killing him with a sharp stick in the hole. It is not that scary. The idea here: **psychological warfare**. Leverage your tech to damage morale. Hurt your enemy with burns and scare and confuse them with huge fiery explosions. They will not be sure what the limits of your new abilities are. They will need to bring their screaming burnt comrades back to the boats. A fair number of these will live to get home, and the tales these scarred veterans tell will naturally grow in the telling. These tales will ultimately be a better defense than anything you whip up in your lab.
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Given a stone-age technology, the classic percussion mechanism would be too sophisticated for these people.
**OPTION 1: HIDDEN BARRELS**
That's it! Bury many barrels of explosive mixed with sharp shards along the lines where the enemy is likely to move. Make sure to protect your fuses from rain, and when the enemy comes, BOOM!
**OPTION 2: [FOUGASSE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fougasse_(weapon))**
Similar to the barrel thing in concept -excavate a line of holes in the ground along the potential enemy path. Fill it with projectiles (stone shards), and gunpowder. Hide. Wait, Light up!
The advantage of the second is, you will not risk wasting barrels of explosives because of miscalculations or fuse defects. The Fougasse can be used when you are sure of your target, with the bonus that you can hit targets over a wider distance as well.
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# Use a variation of the [trapping pit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapping_pit).
You can do this with a few simple steps.
1. Dig a hole, perhaps 6 feet wide, 6 feet long, and 10 feet deep.
2. Fill the bottom of the hole with gunpowder, as much as you'd like. As Trish pointed out, compressing this in small packets - as you might do for a gun - and placing them inside might lead to a much better explosion.
3. Put a tripwire in front of the pit.
4. Place a sort of crossbow, fitted with an [explosive arrow](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/114836/627), in a nearby tree, and aim it at the pit. Alternatively, rig up a pulley system that releases a taut bowstring. Attach this apparatus to the tripwire.
5. Cover the pit with large leaves or something similar, so that it looks to be solid ground. Make sure the bow, too, is well-hidden.
When an enemy combatant moves through the area, they'll trigger the tripwire and fall into the pit, which will then be shot by an explosive arrow, which will, in turn, ignite the gunpowder.
Here's what it might look like:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GtAPy.png)
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The same fuse/trigger mechanism they use for the arrows could be adapted to a step-on pressure plate, with a payload delivery system that uses the victims weight instead of the impact of the arrowhead.
This methodical approach would reduce the time needed to develop the fusing/delivery system, would be intuitive since the hard legwork of getting the mechanism to function is already done, and would likely be the first 'easy' solution suggested.
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Using methods I also explained [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/115064/25822) to get the arrows to detonate, two of these can be adopted to make mines:
1. A ceramic jar filled with a small ammount of water is set up to break and wet the calcium oxide coated tar package, which contains a load of powder in a ceramic or bamboo container. This is a nice design, because it does not decay lightly, if glazed ceramics are used and thus stays active for a long time - but that is also the bad side of it.
2. The friction ignition described in the end of the answer (pretty much an early match) is used: a stick with a friction igniting coating is stuck through a bamboo tube containing a load or fuses to several loads. Upon applying weight to the stick, it rubs the match, striking flame. This ignites the compressed charge and blows up (or the fuses to the other charges). If putting the ignition chemical on the far side of the place the force is applied to, one could make a pull-out trigger too (and possibly convert this pull-trigger into a primitive sort of stick-handgrenade). Or booby trap it to trigger on BOTH ways, making disarming the mine dangerous. The benefit of these designs is, that they shoud rot, so a forgotten mine won't endanger the own troops in the long term, as it either self-ignites or breaks apart.
[Answer]
For this answer, I will be using a fire piston, basic shaped charges, and basic shrapnel. Besides gunpowder, none of these materials should be expensive or difficult to make at any level of sophistication.
## The Trigger
I will be using a basic pit trap design. First, place a single bowl or plate of gunpowder in the center of the pit. Second, place a bamboo, animal grease, and twine fire piston on top of this bowl or plate. It would likely be a good idea to give the piston three legs, like a tripod.
## The Payload
Then, surround the tripod with a layer of gunpowder bundles set in thick clay bowls, facing upwards. Connect the bowls to the trigger with fuses, trails, or tubes of gunpowder.On top of this layer,place a thin mat of shattered pottery, metal, or glass debris. Atop the arm of the fire piston, place a wood platform.
## Desired Function
When an enemy steps into the pit and lands on the platform, it depresses the fire piston. With a rush of compressed air, the trigger bowl is ignited, setting off as many of the bundles as possible. The bowls either shatter or focus the blast upwards, sending the shrapnel through the platform and into the enemy.
[Answer]
### Underground Mines
Borrowing Willk's burning coal idea, you could have small stoneware pots that are filled with powder; the "lid" of these pots would actually be two layers. The lower lid would be *very* thin, easily shattered by the weight of someone stepping on it, and concave (bowed upward) with a small indentation in the top. The upper lid would rest on top of the lower one, ideally shaped so it actually rests at the edge of the indent in the lower lid.
Here's the arming process:
1. The pots themselves would be placed in holes ahead of time (but not too far ahead, as rainfall could spoil the powder -- this could be another plot hook as the other tribes might figure out that the traps are foiled by rain) with the lower lids, but would be left without the top lids and not yet be buried.
2. "Arming forces" would consist of pairs, one person would be carrying hot coals and the upper lids, and the other would have a small spade. When advancing enemies are spotted by scouts, the arming forces would go out. The first person would lay hot coals in the indentation and place the lids over the coals. The second person would dig up small patches of turf several feet away from the mine and gently pack it over the upper lid; not too tightly though, to allow a little ventilation so the coals don't snuff themselves out.
3. For extra nastiness, smear guano or human feces on the upper lid prior to burying (more on this later)
4. With the hot coal in place (which should be able to burn for a couple of hours inside its chamber), the mine is now armed and the arming forces retreat and take up more traditional weapons behind the mine line.
When the enemy advances, they'll see the pockmarked ground... but their first instinct will be to avoid the holes, not the turf. When someone steps on a mine, the pressure on the lip of the indent shatters the lower lid, dropping the hot coals into the powder and igniting it. Since stoneware is quite fragile, the explosion shatters it, so the enemy now not only has an explosion underfoot but also stoneware shards being launched up and out. This has the potential for area-of-effect damage as well if they are in tight formations. Lacerations might not kill, but will at the very least injure the enemy. If the lids have been smeared with feces/guano, anywhere the shards break the skin is very likely to get infected, which in the stone age would be devastating. Even if they survive the infection, the recovery period would certainly take the victim out for a significant time (assuming they can retreat or be taken to safety and not get slain in a counterattack).
Since the enemy would eventually learn the holes are actually safer, they might try to step there... so to mix it up, sometimes bury the mines under turf patches, and sometimes just throw some dirt on them so they look like the pockmarks. Now any stretch of land that's riddled with pockmarks becomes entirely unsafe to traverse!
As your gunpowder tribe continues with their warfare, they will undoubtedly refine the process, learning better ways to make the coals able to burn longer or finding other more reliable triggers, so they can bury the mines longer in advance. At some point they may just churn up entire tracts of land, plant mines, and seed the area, so the only thing the enemy can determine is "this whole area is mined" and becomes unsafe.
### Hanging mines
If there are a lot of trees in a given area or any other natural structures, it may actually be easier to make hanging mines. Especially if they're coconut trees, emptied coconuts could be used as the vessels, and hung alongside normal coconuts; ideally, the meat would be scraped out too to make the walls as thin as possible for maximum explosive force. Simple twine tripwires would be set up that would drop said coconuts. The stoneware "inner lid" would shatter on impact, dropping the coal in and causing detonation similar to the underground mines.
If the trees aren't coconut trees, then stoneware vessels could be hung, and just hidden higher up in the foliage so they're not immediately visible from below. If necessary, a couple of branches from the trees could be cleverly strapped to the lowest branches to provide optical cover for the vessel. Even if the vessel explodes upon hitting a branch (assuming they're no more than 10-12 feet up) the flying shards would still cause serious damage.
### Either way...
Even if the mines are only like 30-50% effective at actually going off and causing severe injury or death, these weapons serve as psychological agents. Seeing your comrades -- friends and family, fellow villagers -- getting shredded by flying stoneware or having limbs blown off is horribly demoralizing, especially in tribes that aren't used to such devastating warfare. Survivors will certainly think twice about proceeding further in their attack and will be hesitant to join on subsequent attacks.
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Gunpowder requires some sort of fuse or ignition. So either use long fuses or fire burning projectiles at the gunpowder. You could just have a line of gunpowder from your tribesmen to the gunpowder and light it from there if you want.
Gunpowder works best if contained though, personally I think grenades is a better option, contain the gunpowder in gourds or similar along with sharp stones with a fuse and throw them.
[Answer]
**String Trip**
You can get firecrackers that pop when a string is pulled. These are done by looping a piece of string back on itself and binding it tightly so that pulling it generates a large amount of friction as it slides. This is not enough to light traditional tinder on fire, but black powder is far more sensitive to brief moments of extreme heat than traditional tinder and is quite readily ignitable by this method.
The caveat is that it takes a fair amount of force and won't go off if pulled too slowly, so consider using some kind of spring mechanism attached to a more normal snare trigger that gives the string a hard yank when pulled. A bent stick should do, just like for a snare.
Of course, black powder is expensive to make with stone-age technology, so throw in plenty of less expensive traps too and only use the expensive ones where it's most effective... Like if you can make it bring down an entire hillside on the enemy.
[Answer]
So here's my idea...
You take sharpened bamboo stalks, sharpen them, then fill them with gunpowder.
Then you dig a pit and cover it on top like a punji pit, and make sure to plant the stalks within. Cover the stalks in lard and feces.
Then create a fire piston out of wood to use compression ignition to ignite gunpowder. It's a device where you hollow out a stick and create a tube open on one end, and then make another stick small enough to fit in the tube, so that when the smaller stick is slammed down on it creates a force that ignites the gunpowder within the tube making a small explosion.
so the pistons are placed within the punji sticks, so that when someone falls into the pit and get impaled the sticks slam down on the pistons and they trigger an explosion that would shoot the sticks into them or blow them apart.
This creates an impromptu pipe bomb.
Now the issue here is if the person doesn't fall fast enough or isn't heavy enough the fire piston won't trigger, but even if it doesn't they are now impaled on bamboo poles filled with gunpowder and covered in feces and lard that would seriously injure them and leave the wounds infected.
Now keep in mind this principle though would require very good wood working skills, so it may be very complex to set up.
[Answer]
>
> They plan to set up some kind of booby-trap that will detonate when
> enemies get close enough for it to kill them, but are having trouble
> with the design of the trap.
>
>
>
No one is going to drive tanks over their traps and enemies will step around any suspicious objects on the ground.
They need some kind of Trojan Horse, i.e. a treacherous gift.
The foe needs food so the defenders should booby-trap their best fruit trees or vegetable patches. As soon as the item is plucked it explodes in the face of the interloper.
---
Alternatively, they leave fake settlements unguarded at night. The enemies creep in and stab the dummy sleeping defenders. This sets off the explosion.
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[
Assuming that in the not too distant future space travel developed enough, that large numbers of ships and people were leaving the earth's surface on a regular basis. Would this ever reach a point were the amount of mass leaving the earth became dangerous?
Would the resulting decrease in mass lead to changes in the earth's orbit that in turn lead to catastrophic climate change?
Would the amount of metal leaving the earth cause changes to the gravitational filed?
Would policies need to be put in place to regulate the amount of material resources that can be shipped off planned every year?
[Answer]
Earth is big.[citation needed]
The mass of Earth is about $6 \* 10^{24}$ kilograms. Not all of that mass is usable to make spaceships, of course, but let's just hand-wave that and look purely in terms of how much stuff we have.
The Star Trek spaceship USS Enterprise is 3,205,000 metric tons; that's $3 \* 10^9$ kilograms.
In one year, there are about $3.154 \* 10^7$ seconds.
If we were to launch one USS Enterprise from Earth every second, it would take [590,805 years](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(%5Bmass%20of%20earth%20*%200.01%5D%2F%5B3205000%20metric%20tons%5D)%2F(3.154*10%5E7)) to reduce the mass of Earth by *one percent*.
In half a million years of interstellar spaceflight and expansion, we'd surely find other sources of building material as well. From a pure mass point of view, Earth will be fine.
Now, like I said, not all of Earth's material can necessarily be converted into spaceships. We may need to find other sources of some materials faster than others, but that's what the vast expanse of space is for. As we expand into new star systems, we can start dismantling other barren worlds, many of which are even bigger than Earth.
EDIT:
@Dercsar made a good point in the comments, that the reduced mass of Earth would shorten the length of the days. Fortunately angular momentum is easy to work with. Assuming the radius of Earth stays the same (which seems logical enough, since we would keep our houses and such where they are), the only two variables are mass and time. It works out that to reduce the length of a day by one second, we need to reduce the mass by about $7 \* 10^{19}$ kilograms. That's $2.3 \* 10^{10}$ USS Enterprises, which would take just over $729$ years at one spaceship per second. The good news is that it would in actuality take much longer than that (as one spaceship per second is simply not feasible), and when we finally do launch that much mass, we won't need to add a leap second nearly as often!
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Long and short of it is **No**.
We are not going to start exporting dirt off of the Earth any time soon, and even lifting water into orbit is far too expensive to keep up in the long term.
In fact, there aren't enough readily accessible resources on Earth to get mankind truly established as an interplanetary species. We'd have to start mining asteroids, and at that point we'll have access water in the form of comets, etc. (or we'll just make it out of hydrogen and oxygen).
On top of all this, comets and meteor regularly crash on Earth, *adding* mass to the planet. (not sure what the loss to gain ratio would be, but it's really, really not a problem either way)
[Answer]
This is completely the wrong problem to think about. Once humanity becomes a properly interplanetary civilisation, the mass of the earth will *increase*, for the simple reason that most manufacturing will be done in space.
The ships you talk about moving off to distant planets, these will all be built in orbit, out of metal mined from asteroids. But things built in space will also end up back on Earth, for the simple reason that not having to contend with gravity will greatly simplify a lot of manufacturing processes. There's the possibility that we could set up hydroponic zero-gravity farms in near-solar orbit, the raw nutrients and water for these plants can be harvested from space rocks, and the finished crops can be blasted off back to Earth. Transporting the vehicles that brought these crops over back up to the space farms will be more expensive than having some automated asteroid-based space factory build a new one, so the spent space transport drones will just need to stay on Earth.
As others have said, Earth is big, so it will be a long time any of this makes any difference to anything, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that within a century or so Earth will be a massive net importer of goods manufactured in space.
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[
The basic idea is that a building (house, business, etc...) would be on a type of foundation that would allow it to be lifted into the air (not by a lot, I'm thinking inches at most) to store energy that is created by a renewable source. The building would slowly and very minutely raise as energy is created. When the energy needs to be used it would then be lowered and use a flywheel or another method to power a generator and convert the energy into electricity.
Would this be possible with current technology? What reasons would prevent this from being possible/practical (money, materials, design, legality, ect...)?
[Answer]
We have done experiments with gravity energy storage using [trains loaded with rocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage#Mechanical_storage) in the southwest US.
I can see several drawbacks to your suggestion.
## Plumbing and other utilities
You'd need to make all your utility connections flexible enough to deal with this change in elevation.
## Walking in and out of the house
The last step into the house is now going to be different, and people are going to misjudge the distance, fall, and break bones.
## System failure
What if one corner of the building sticks in the high position and the other corners drop? Now the entire thing is crooked.
## Fatigue
All this up and down means something is going to wear out sooner or later, and then break. Fixing the foundation of a building is hard, expensive, and disruptive work.
## Capacity
I don't think you're going to get enough work out of the system to justify manufacturing and maintaining all the mechanical parts to do this. Lifting 20 tons by 6 inches (15 cm) gives you a potential energy of 7.4 Watt-hours. Not KILOWATT-hours, Watt-hours. That's only enough to run a really efficient LED light bulb for a couple of hours.
[Answer]
This idea is an application of [Compress Air Energy Storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage#Storage_2). CAES provides a reasonable method to store energy, but the idea of using buildings to provide the weight has associated challenges which would be less than ideal.
## Insufficient Pressure
In short, a house weighs too little. Solutions involving mines will typically store air at up to 1100PSI. By comparison, the ground that a house lays on typically has a maximum bearing pressure of [43.51PSI](http://www.idh-design.co.uk/blog/what-is-bearing-pressure) (300kN/m^2). That represents a huge discrepancy is capacity and efficiency. Building on bedrock would increase capability, but the logistics of building a compressible air chamber on top of bedrock AND constructing a large building on top of it would be extreme.
## It Would Destroy the Building
In this situation the building is effectively sitting on a large, inflatable balloon. Since the balloon must be collapsable, it means that load shifting within the building would impact which side of the building pushes further into the balloon. At worst (which is very realistic) this could lead to a catastrophic failure, with the building tipping over. At best the building will experience constant re-settling, which would destroy the foundation and all stiff components of the building.
## Other Problems
There would be other logistic issues with such a building, like plumbing, electrical wiring, transpiration of goods and people, etc. I think that those challenges could be overcome with some careful thought, but the cost of installing the highly specialized solutions would vastly outstrip any potential cost savings associated with energy storage.
[Answer]
The cost of building such a building could be high. In general, buildings don't move, so we can make some assumptions about what sort of structure is needed. For example, if your slab cracks, you don't have to worry about your house falling. You just have to worry about termintes.
However, the general idea of lifting things for power is reasonable. [Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity) is being used in several places. In this system, you store energy by pumping water uphill, and then release it by letting the pump run backwards and generating electricity. In areas where there's no convenient hill, there has been exploration into storing the water in a plastic bag-like container and putting that container under a large volume of sand. Sand is easy to come by, and as you store power, you fill the bag, lifting the sand. That sounds similar to your building solution. The only difference is that sand doesn't really mind being lifted up and down, while lifting a building comes with all sorts of challenges.
[Answer]
**Both impractical and stores surprisingly little energy.**
The energy stored is given as **m*g*h** where **m** is the mass of the house, **h** is the height and **g** is the gravitational acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2.
You can see from this expression that if you double the height, you can get the same energy with half the mass. Lets work through an example:
250 metric tons is a guesstimate for the weight of a house and the question calls for lifting it something like 5 inches or 13 cm. With these numbers we arrive at:
```
250 tons * 13 cm * 9.8 m/s^2 = 289 kiloJoule.
```
This is enough to light an old-fashioned 60watt lightbulb for 1.3 hours:
```
60 watt * 1.3 hours = 281 kiloJoule
```
How about alternative methods? A standard water tower is about 40 metres high. To get the same potential energy in the water you'd need:
```
0.8 tons * 40 m * 9.8 m/s^2 = 284 kilo Joule.
```
0.8 tons of water is 726 litres, equal in volume to a cube with sides of length 90cm (35inches). This is more of a water "mast" than a "tower". Far simpler than lifting a house, but still only a tiny bit of energy.
**Conclusion:** We think of "lifting a house" as a gigantic effort, but cooking your dinner takes more energy!
[Answer]
**It would be possible**
I am certain that this would be possible but what you should be asking is "*Why would we use this method instead of [pumped hydro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity)?*".
Really the only reason for this is when there is no other water/material/substance nearby which you could use to store gravitational potential energy.
The only reason I can see for this would be [Ecumenopolis](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ecumenopolis). So in answer to your questions
>
> Would this be possible with current technology? What reasons would prevent this from being possible/practical (money, materials, design, legality, ect...)?
>
>
>
I would say the only thing stopping it is the fact that there are nicer, safer and easier options for those of us on planet Earth. If you lived on Ecumenopolis then it might well be a viable energy storage solution.
[Answer]
This would be possible, but pointless.
Houses have relatively low density, but can have sensitive structural integrity, so you would have to have cleverly placed supporters to prevent their foundations from bending and crashing from the weight. They are also connected to the ground with many pipes and cables, including water, GAS, electricity and internet.
So it's much more practical, to use water fore gravity based energy storage, wich is an alreadsy existing technology.
[Answer]
**Yes we can** - we just have to think big, big, **BIG!**
As other answers have already pointed out, lifting a puny house for only a few inches or so allows to save only a very limited amount of energy. So think bigger, don't go for houses, go for a whole town. [Heindl's Gravity Storage](http://www.heindl-energy.com/gravity-storage/idea-function.html) has already sorted it out for us.
>
> The fundamental idea of the hydraulic potential energy store is based on the hydraulic lifting of a very large rock mass using water pumps. The rock mass acquires potential energy and can release this energy when the water that is under pressure is discharged back through a turbine.
>
>
> The decisive variable with such energy storage lies in the storage capacity. If a piston is selected for the Gravity Storage having a radius r and a length l=2r, then the piston can be lifted to the height h=r. The height h=r results from the consideration that the seal must lie somewhat above the center of gravity, thus at a distance r above the bottom of the cylinder so that the cylinder is hydrostatically stable while floating.
>
>
> The storage capacity E is given by the density ρr of the rock and the density ρw of water, and the gravitational acceleration g:
>
>
>
```
E = (2ρr - 3/2ρw)πgr^4
```
Key is the **r to the fourth** here. The larger the radius of the piston the **absurdly** higher the storage capacity gets (double the radius, increase the capacity by 16 times)... and at the same time construction effort is expected to increase only with a lower power of radius.
>
> This has two important consequences. First, the storage capacity can increase 16-fold by doubling the radius, and second, the construction costs only increase by approximately the square of the radius. Therefore due to geometrical rules, the relative cost per energy unit decreases proportionally to 1/r².
>
>
>
Multiple GWh for diameters of a few hundred meters are easily achievable.
Bonus: You get yourself a fine tourist attraction too.
[Answer]
Since the purpose is to create energy, I assume the flywheel is designed to be attached to an electric generator. Using the flywheel means the axel will generate resistance at the connection points that hold the flywheel in place. How about instead, generate the electricity using magnetism directly on the poles that the house slides down? (By the way, if someone actually develops this, I want credit)
Electricity can be generated by moving a metal past a magnet. This is how a generator works...a wheel of magnets circle around a metal case(or vice versa) and the magnetic field causes the metal case to generate electricity.
In my idea, as the house' magnetic base slides down the metal poles, it would generate electricity on the metal poles. By removing the resistance of a flywheel, you eliminate moving parts that can wear out quickly, and also eliminate a source of wasted energy. As an added benefit, as the house is returned to the upper position, it would also generate electricity.
] |
[Question]
[
There are lots of books that explore immortality outside the context of society. Either they live alone or in a heaven/palace of one sort or another, or they drift from place to place to avoid recognition, or something of the sort.
What I'm interested in, and may write about, is a godlike being that likes people and visibly hangs out in society, but has zero interest in political or religious power.
Unlike [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/6665/which-real-life-constraints-must-be-considered-when-adding-immortals-living-alon), I'm only asking about a single individual with absolute immortality of the also-invincible variety, and rarely-used magical powers along the lines of deities in most mythologies. Unlike Superman, this individual has no overwhelming compunction to stop crime, solve people's problems, or impose their will on/act for the major benefit of others in any similar way. Magic is unavailable to any other member of society. Everything else is basically Earth-analogue.
For the sake of specificity, this being has enough power to be an Out of Context Problem for even a modern society, looks fairly unremarkable compared to the locals when not using its powers, is fairly humble and likable, has no patience for politics, doesn't give commandments even when asked, has been around at basically the same address under basically the same name for the last 5,000-10,000 years, and likes chess games with strangers, watching TV, and going to parties.
How would this sort of creature inadvertently affect the structure of society?
Edit: This being has a perfect memory, but only tells stories that they personally consider fun or interesting. The entity is a big fan of any social activity such as dance, games, and media of all kinds. They are mostly uninterested in serious research, creating their own works or deep inquiry. Their main hobby is just interacting with and meeting people.
[Answer]
I believe the creature would eventually become the benevolent ruler.
Accumulating extreme levels of experience and knowledge would be inevitable. As such, it would surpass others and be able to serve some really good advice. This would result in a following, that would nudge/encourage/request guidance, and soon the inefficiency of indirect guidance would become apparent. And even despite lack of personal interest/compulsion to take up the role, the immortal would yield to "peer pressure" to take up the role. Especially if it came with comforts and "allowances" that would by far exceed remaining just another "citizen".
It might be different if the immortal wasn't feeling indifferent/neutral towards such a role, but instead felt repulsed by the idea. But with merely "uninterested", I guess there would be enough willing to make the immortal "interested" by various incentives. Such experience and knowledge is a great treasure, and not putting it to use would be a terrible waste, which many would acknowledge and try to prevent.
[Answer]
So you have in mind an immortal entity who is highly social, majors in the fine arts, and doesn't care for political, military, or social power. Rather than continuously refer to everyone's best friend as *immortal entity*, let's call him entity Ien.
Now, Ien may not look like much, but his place is where all the best parties happen. He's in good with all the big names up on the Hill, not that he would ever let you know that or use that for anything. The police occasionally give him a warning if the parties start to get out of hand, but this doesn't happen much. The neighbours don't mind, since they're always welcome at the party, too.
There's a party there once or twice a week, and Ien's always got some new treat he's cooked up himself. He knows all the best restaurants in town and even gets chefs to cater his parties. Politicians and the people are always trying to get Ien involved in the government, but he has no interest in amassing power. Rather, he helps others get through life, providing a shoulder to cry on. He's a rock in the storm.
While no one was quite sure how to take it when Ien started taking in the homeless under his roof, no one can deny that he has had a major impact on their lives. Most are now stand-up citizens with decent jobs or they're going back to school to get an education, and most of these are funded by Ien out of money from his own pocket.
See, Ien's had a long time to watch and observe. While he's not any kind of money wizard, he's seen enough of human behaviour to accurately predict what will trend next. He's not always right, but his investments in the stock market over the years have netted him a tidy sum. He now funds a large number of kick starter programs, supports a number of college scholarships, and gives in great amounts to the destitute. Ien also knows from his long years of observation that if he does get involved in politics, his cheerful nature is going to be dragged through the mud, and he doesn't want that.
Really, at the end of the day, Ien's just like you or me, only with a wealth of wisdom, knowledge, and money. If you have a problem in your life, just go to Ien. He'll help you through it.
[Answer]
**What does he tell the rest of us about our place in the cosmos?**
Where does this entity fit into the various religions? If he has been around that long, most religions would be altered by his presence. God? Demon? Enlighted guru of the Church of Eternal Fun and Games?
Scientists would ask similar questions in a different guise. How does he live that long? Why can't we? Just 10 cc of your blood, please. If the presence of such a miracle didn't scuttle the scientific method early on.
I believe that there would be religions founded around him, if he wants it or not. "Reach the perfect spiritual balance and you can be like him." The parties would get interrupted by fans and groupies, all the time, if they can (see below).
**What do you do with the Outside Context Problem?**
The [tvtropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OutsideContextVillain) entry references *Excession* by Iain M. Banks. An OCP doesn't have to *do* much, just by existing it starts all sorts of plots.
Sure, you say he doesn't tell secret stories unless he feels like it. Still, it would be a danger to national security if those evil commies/capitalists/fundamentalists/whatever could just knock on his door and ask questions. We have to control access. Everybody who goes to those parties needs a security clearance, everybody who comes out again gets debriefed in painstaking detail.
Does he have mind-reading or mind-altering powers? If not, better make sure that there are plenty of personable young members of the appropriate sex to influence him to see things our way. Surely he must understand that those evil commies/capitalists/fundamentalists/whatever are a threat to *his* way of life, too. Those dour types wouldn't know a party if it hit them with a two-by-four.
If he does have mind powers, make sure that the [honey traps](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HoneyTrap) are not aware that they're tools. More of a challenge, but not insurmountable, I think. At least every now and then.
**Is he the only one of his kind?**
How do they get along? Did one set up where the evil commies/capitalists/fundamentalists/whatever live? We can't allow an *Immortal Gap* to develop. We have to strike first, before those immortals spill their wisdom to our enemies. If our enemies have the only immortal, we have to strike even faster.
**What does he do about party poopers?**
The question specified that he is "humble and likable", but does that extend to the people who want to end the party? Or relocate it to a better place, a mile under Cheyenne Mountain?
[Answer]
The immortal may become an "Adam" or "Genghis Khan" in the sense that he may **sire a large portion of the population**.
Adam is recognised by the Abrahamic faiths as the father of all men. Genghis had 500-1000 direct offspring by most accounts. This immortal being, by fathering one child every ten years, will have by the time that the story takes place fathered as many children as Genghis Khan. Those children will have many children as well. Being spread out across the centuries, the immortal being will likely be an ancestor of almost all living beings.
[Answer]
If the immortal is sensible, s/he WILL live disguised as a fairly ordinary human, drifting from place to place and changing identities every few years. Otherwise, life will be plagued with all the problems celebrities and wealthy people have, in spades. Hounded by papparazzi, plagued by autograph hunters, the target of everyone who wants a handout or financing/publicity for their latest great idea...
Given a reasonable intelligence, the entity will have learned through experience that direct handouts seldom help in the long run, and will apply any aid in an indirect "teach a man to fish" fashion.
[Answer]
It seems like Immortal would be looking at the long game. Like, he may do you a favor that might not be paid back in your lifetime.
Favors and information would be a bigger currency than money, and would feed into his need for socialization and people.
A guy goes to Immortal and asks for a big favor. Immortal hands him half of a coin and says "One day someone will come to you or your decedent with the other half of this coin and ask you to do a favor in return."
Information would also be a pretty big currency, since it would last a lot longer than actual money would. He'd have plenty of money anyway, but it's a pain when it changes every few hundred years, while information/knowledge lasts much longer. "Tell me something new, and I'll give you money in return. You can ask me for information, but it'll cost you something."
The only thing that might be more valuable would be stability. It's hard to throw big parties when there's a war happening, and since he's a big people person with lots of experience, he'd probably become a good mediator focusing on the big picture. So the world might end up having a lot less wars. It might be enough to get him to not completely avoid politics, if only in that small area.
[Answer]
How would you feel if you lived next door to this being with superpowers and you spent years watching your beloved mother twisted with the pain of cancer, your begging for the being to help her always falling on deaf ears? How would the people of the beings community feel when a school shooting or other tragedy destroys the lives of many children in the community while knowing the being had the foresight to know it was coming, and yet the being did not even give a warning?
How would religious groups react to the being lounging around while it represents a tremendous blasphemy and undermines everything they believe? Keep in mind that many (if not most) of the wars of history were fought on religious grounds.
Philosophically, there are already a great many people who do not believe in a god because the concept of a god who allows the starvation, mutilation, rape, and death of children along with the ravages of war and calamity of natural disasters is a repugnant concept to them, or at least one which they can not integrate with the idea of such a god being benevolent. What would their thinking be if instead of this being a concept in the abstract, it stood in front of them in flesh and blood?
Any argument that the entity is not responsible for its inaction, and is not bound by moral duty to prevent the suffering which would take essentially no effort on its part to prevent would, I imagine, be rejected by society. If such a powerful being is not bound by some moral code to exert even the most minimal of effort to help those around them... what duty binds man?
The existence of a friendly, but inactive, supernatural being would present a tremendous philosophical crisis to essentially every single system of belief which exists. The religious would hear their tales of the power of their god met with 'Yeah, there's a being three houses down that can do that too.' Humanists would see the being as supremely immoral as the cessation of suffering is the primary tenet of their beliefs.
None of these things would be helped should the being use its powers to help, either. Any degree of falling short of delivering everyone into a world free of suffering would be seen as a malicious act (though it may take awhile for that to come about). And delivering everyone into such a world would rob people of their essential humanity, as such is bound inextricably to their biological nature (though few are aware of it).
[Answer]
What you've basically described is the first half of the movie [Hancock](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157/), which should give you some indication of where this answer is going.
In short, that immortal, powerful, magical being would wind up doing whatever they want, in whatever manner they want, and the world at large would be unable to stop or touch them. Which means that individual would be completely in charge of their own destiny.
However, the actual result of that would be *entirely* dependent on the type of person that immortal being is, and what *they* want out of the world. And because no one could stop them, they'd inevitably wind up going to the extreme of whatever path they chose to take.
If they're like Hancock at the beginning of that movie, drinking heavily and taking very little responsibility for their actions, they'd likely wind up going around causing a lot of trouble, making news stories, but largely having only an occasional token impact on the world at large. Groups might try to recruit them or use their powers to their advantage, but without any actual way to control them they'd have very little ability to back up their assertions, and might wind up invoking this drunk and pissed deity's wrath.
On the other hand, the deity may be much more directed than Hancock, which could be good *or* bad. If they're the type to go around helping people, they may be very well received, possibly even starting a religious order around them with or without their endorsement. If they're the type that wants to rule the world, or a small part of it, there'd be very little anyone could do to stop them, other than undermining the people that they're trying to rule *over*. If they want to choose the way everyone dresses each day they wake up and make everyone dress identically across the entire world, nobody could stop them.
---
In short, life would go on outside of this deity's influence - alongside, regardless of, or in spite of that deity's wishes. They could change anything at any given moment if their mood so strikes them, but everything else around that deity's world would remain the same, unless it somehow comes into contact or conflict with that deity's desires.
But within whatever realm this deity decides to make for themselves, they'd have total control, and the end result would be entirely dependent on what that deity wants, or what they *don't* want, out of this world. And if that involves the **entire** world, then the entire world would be affected.
But it's just as likely that this deific being would spend his days sipping lattes at a coffee shop and flipping through newspapers, occasionally posing as a stage magician and leaving the whole world none the wiser of his existence.
[Answer]
It would result in end of sentient life in the universe. I can't predict what Len would do but I'm pretty sure he would be considered a "treasure" and therefore jealously guarded. Whatever government ruled in his vicinity would eventually control access to him. Not by restricting his behavior, but that of the population around him. Kind of like the Oracle at Delphi. No one controlled the Pythia but the priests interpreted his/her words for the "benefit" of the population...and themselves.
This would inevitably lead to widespread discontent the ultimately thermonuclear war. Len would find himself alone and probably move on to find another world to destroy. Having known this (because the scene has played out many, many times), Len can only be considered pure evil.
[Answer]
One weird and admittedly minor effect I would expect is a slightly elevated suicide rate in the population as a whole, the effect being more marked at higher age brackets. An immortal living openly, who just goes on living and *living* and, damn them to hell, ***living*** is going to be a source of serious emotional pain to a good number of people whether because they lose someone and *he's still there* or simply as a constant reminder as they age of their mortality.
As a side note I would expect that as time goes on and *on* any immortal is going to have trouble staying happy and engaged with life. It would not surprise me to see an immortal at some stage in their life deciding they'd had it and starting a competition aimed at finding a way to kill them.
[Answer]
Society would value parties and festivities much more, maybe even compite among them to see what event is favoured (attended) by the god-dess. Becoming a symbol of status. Perfomers would also have a high status as enterteiment is more valued.
Consider creating rites and/or myths based on the values of the god-dess life or their anecdotes becoming legends. Specially, If The Being is the only one of their kind.
Many would still try to use their power manipulating them through their interest (friendship, parties, etc.) even if the majority would be use to just letting The Being do whatever they wish like another force nature. Some people may hate them and conspire against them secretly if they can't be used (if they are around and visible, it will always exist people crazy/power-hungry enough to try).
This highly depends on the personality of The Being.
[Answer]
Step 1:
The Government kidnaps the Immortal and puts him in a Giant Hamster ball then starts it spinning which gives energy to a sharp poking device so he must keep running to avoid it.
Step 2:
A portion of the energy from his running is now rerouted into the poking device making it self powered while the rest of it is drained off for use somewhere else.
Step 3:
Now the Government has a perpetual energy machine.
Step 4:
????????
Step 5:
Profit $$$ :)
] |
[Question]
[
**Does size limit intelligence?**
I may make a small, but very intelligent species for a journal thing that I am making.
So could a microorganism achieve human-like intelligence? Or a small fly? Or does the brain have to be a specific size for things to be considered intelligent?
[Answer]
**Does size limit intelligence?**
**Yes**, but the limits are not where many assume them to be.
Older work on the subject relying on brain size (weight), body to brain weight ratio or complexity (all those little wrinkles & folds) has been superseded by more recent work.
Intelligence appears to be limited by 'total processing power, seems it's the number of neurons & connections between neurons (so much as processing power & memory in computers, unsurprising then when you think about it) rather than it's physical size but there are physical limits to how small you can make a neuron, how closely you can pack them & how many connections you can cram in inevitably leading to limits on the physical size of a brain that has 'intelligence' of any specific level.
---
Some links, [the elephant brain](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4053853/) & [birds forebrains](https://www.pnas.org/content/113/26/7255), as you can see current thinking is that number of neurons & their connections in higher thought centres (not the whole brain) is where intelligence is.
---
So you can't just make a brain smaller & smaller & retain the same level of intelligence, eventually you reach a point where you have to begin shedding neurons (& intelligence) to get any smaller.
The smallest brains with the highest intelligence by weight (& the highest neuron count by weight) known in nature are birds (unsurprising as they need to keep weight down for flight, so any tricks there are to achieve more with less for brains will have been heavily selected for by evolutionary pressures), they have more neurons per gram of brain than in mammals.
It's not unlikely birds are pretty close to having got as close to as small as you can go for the brains' weight to intelligence ratio given the evolutionary pressures they're under to cut weight for flight & (very rough unscientific) extrapolations from a Ravens 15g brain suggest something in the region of a 45g bird brain ***'might'*** plausible be as intelligent as a human, that's likely as small as you can go & have adult human intelligence (that of course is just the brain, you'll need a body around it too).
But it will also depend on how much of that 45g brain is given over to higher reasoning rather than other brain functions like processing sensory information & motor control of course.
*"very rough unscientific" aka, 'mine'.*
---
*A 45g bird brain is speculative & there may be reasons birds techniques won't scale easily to larger ones, cooling requirements of large brains may mean you just can't pack neurons as tightly for one.*
*Some of the heaviest brains in birds are probably found in macaws, the [hyacinth macaw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_macaw)s is 24.7 g*
---
**Could a microorganism achieve human-like intelligence?**
**No**, there is absolutely no way you can achieve that without magic, see above.
They'd have to organise themselves into some sort of colony or modular organism to achieve the necessary neuron count but then you won't really have a microorganism any more.
[Answer]
**Not Really**
There are a couple of creatures that are small and rather clever. I remember stories about octopuses for example escaping from their tanks, and one the says the octopus snuck into another thing to eat some of the fish and then snuck back into its own tank. I even remember the story about a guy who was training a raven to use a keyboard only for that raven to sneak out of it enclosure, destroy the keyboard, and sneak back into its enclosure in order to play innocent. While it is true that bigger size might allow more room for a bigger brain, never underestimate the cleverness of the little guy.
**Microorganisms might have to work together though**
I think for a microscopic organism you’re going to have to have a lot of them working together as a colony in order to become sentient. There’s an interesting species from a lovely Stargate episode called Message in a Bottle to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. <https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/A%27t%27trr>
[Answer]
## Hive Minds
As others have written, size matters.
However, it doesn't have to be the size of the individual that counts.
Single ants or bees are stupid. Anthills and beehives are much smarter. Nowhere near human smart, but perhaps in another world they could be.
On Earth, hive minds "think" using pheromones. This is slow. Slooow. You probably want find a faster way for hive mind members to communicate.
[Answer]
We don't know, but an intelligent insect or microorganism is dubious.
The size of the brain scales with the size of the species. It is the brain-to-body-size ratio that matters, more than the absolute size of the brain. This is thought to be because a larger body requires more neurons for sensory and motor control, so only the neurons beyond that minimum count towards abstract "intelligence." So a small species could be intelligent if it had a large brain relative to its size.
Crows are fairly intelligent for animals, while being much smaller than dogs or dolphins who exhibit possibly comparable intelligence. A crow-sized animal with an unusually large brain and human intelligence could be plausible.
Below a certain size, you're going to have to invent new computation mechanisms other than neurons. Fruit flies only have around 100,000 neurons; this isn't enough to remember very much. But if your fictional creature encodes information in molecules like RNA, then it could remember a lot more. I'd still be skeptical about a microorganism having intelligence. Still, I'd be willing to suspend disbelief. It's been [done before](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/21743/what-was-the-first-sci-fi-work-that-had-an-intelligent-virus-bacterium).
[Answer]
## A nuclear brain
This [book](http://doi.org/10.1017/9781316650394) provides good physical arguments for the minimum size for an intelligent system based on chemistry. If we rely on molecules for information processing and storage, one bit cannot be smaller than a single atom (0.1 to 0.3 nanometers). From this, the book derives a rough minimum size for living cells based on the amount of information they must store (0.1 to 1 micrometers). This gives the minimum size of a neuron and the minimum size for a complex brain.
Hence, information processing based on chemical compounds is limited by the size of atoms and likely cannot create a complex brain at the microorganism scale. However, there is a regime of physics where the structures are 100,000 times smaller and the timescales are at least that much faster: nuclear physics. We can't really build complex structures from nuclear matter at standard conditions. Just like the organic molecules that make up life on Earth are not stable on the surface of the sun, our world is much too cold for complex nuclear "molecules" (if such things can exist). But maybe in the core of a neutron star, you could build something like a neuron out of nuclear matter that is $10^5$ times smaller. In that case, you could construct something with the complexity of a human brain at the scale of about 1 µm, similar to the size of microorganism. It could also operate much faster. Of course the rules in nuclear matter are much different than in chemistry and we know very little about them. Certainly quantum effects will be more important for the nuclear neurons than for chemical neurons.
[Answer]
Frame challenge: Instead on focusing on the possibilities for "intelligence" (where, after all, "intelligence" is a description of behaviour), perhaps you can focus on what behaviours you want your creatures to have, and how those creatures could achieve them.
For example, [emergent behaviours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) can be (or appear to us) complex while while the components appear simple. As another example, evolution by natural selection has "developed" *very* complex machinery inside cells, in virus, bacteria, immune systems, and lots more. While not generally considered intelligence, it is complex. Maybe your desired behaviours can be achieved by evolution in appropriate conditions.
Of course, if "human-like intelligence" means "do everything humans do" including talking in English, then you probably need [idiosyncratic] humans for that...
[Answer]
Let's take a cell 0.1 mm big. So it is about 10^-6 of a gram. But it is still more than 10^16 of atoms!
So if we want to emulate 100 billions of neurons in human brain - 10^11, and brain will take about 1/10 - 1/100th of the cell that is still 1-10 thousand of atoms per neuron. And we can fit transistor [in a hundred of atoms](https://www.quora.com/How-many-atoms-is-the-current-worlds-smallest-silicon-transistor-made-up-of-What-is-the-smallest-size-of-transistor-we-can-reach-with-silicon).
Neuron is more complicated than single transistor, but ape/bird comparision shows that our brain architecture is highly redundant. And physics allows to lower energy consumption to reasonable values (google "minimal work cost of information processing").
So I would say we can fit human brain into a cell, maybe a bit bigger than 0.1 mm.
But for such efficient and powerful computing to be a result of evolution... That would be pretty much impossible. Unless you use completly different nuclear "chemistry", like inhabitants of neutron star from "Dragon's Egg" by Robert L. Forward.
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An idea for a story I’m working on involves a far away world that was once inhospitable. Scientists - likely alien ones - terraformed it so it could support life (coincidentally, Earth-like life). They then introduced new species to the world, species that had been genetically engineered to have certain minor modifications. In short, they built a habitable world from a desolate planet and populated it with new plants and animals.
The researchers decided to do one thing, though, which was to mess with the single, planet-wide [food web](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_web). Instead of the web being built up from plants to herbivores to carnivores to more carnivores in the normal [ecological pyramid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_pyramid), they made all the animals omnivores, designed to eat both the plants and most other species - disregarding cases where one animal could not physically eat another animal, such as a frog eating a giraffe. In short, the food web is now a food loop. Any animal can eat either plants or animals of another species.
Can this ecosystem sustain itself? I know that in a normal food web, there are fewer predators than prey, but that equilibrium seems to be broken here, because all animals are predators and all animals are prey. I would guess that eventually eating habits would change to reach an equilibrium state where some species are higher up on the chain than others, but I don’t know for sure.
Essentially, can every animal eat most other animals? Or are the scientists in trouble?
[Answer]
From the plant's point of view the herbivore ***is*** a predator. The only thing that matters as far as that goes is that more plants grow than the herbivores can eat, otherwise they will run out of food and die.
You have the same problem in your case, with one additional problem: the cycle of energy.
Basically, plants capture and use solar energy to grow. When a herbivore eats that plant it converts that energy (which it is able to process) into tissue. When the predator eats the herbivore it converts the tissue into energy yet again. That energy will eventually be used for other purposes. Also, when the predator dies its body will decay and, to some extent, feed the plants. No energy is created or destroyed, however much of it will be rendered "useless" in the form of heat, etc.
Due to the bleed-off of energy you will require the constant input (and conversion) of solar energy in order to maintain the ecosystem. If your creatures are not sufficiently herbivorous this will not work out!
The problem, as I see it, is that it would be very difficult for a balance to be created. In my opinion some species will prove very well suited to hunting a few other weaker species. Since the caloric intake of eating meat is much higher (and possibly tastier) than eating plants, there should, in my opinion, exist a bias toward behaving in a predatory, carnivorous fashion.
What this would mean is that a few blood thirsty and well adapted species will first hunt some weaker species to extinction before they resort to eating plants (and as a result their own population will die out due to a famine - plants will not be as nutritious as a hunk of meat, and the competition for those plants will be very high, with many individual animals simply withering and dying out).
Eventually the system will probably balance out, but your planet will see many many species become extinct in the first couple of years.
[Answer]
[To a certain extent, this is already the way things work in the real world.](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/11/deer_eat_meat_herbivores_and_carnivores_are_not_so_clearly_divided.html) The reasons why not all animals eat plants are not the same as the reasons why not all animals eat meat.
Not all animals eat plants because digesting plants is difficult. Plant cells have thick cell walls which call for specialized biological machinery to break them apart into something useful. Additionally, even when that machinery is present, the energy return per unit plant mass is less than the energy return per unit meat.
Not all animals eat meat because catching and killing other animals is difficult. Plants largely just sit there, maybe they'll try to poison you but that's about as bad as it gets. Animals will fight back, potentially injuring you and thereby preventing you from reproducing. If you want to eat meat regularly, you have to be very sure that you will be able to kill animals without there being any significant chance of them killing you back, otherwise you will not survive long enough to mate. But if an animal is already dying or dead, pretty much any digestive system can handle breaking it down into useful parts as long as you're able to break off pieces of meat small enough to fit down your throat.
The changes you suggest should have absolutely no effect on prey species whatsoever, they can already eat meat in principle, they are just bad at doing so in practice. Predators will become somewhat more resistant to famine, since they will be able to subsist on plants even when prey is scarce, but will likely still preferentially target other animals for consumption.
[Answer]
Short answer: Yes.
More complex answer: The current "Food Web" is already a "Food Loop".
Herbivores eat plants, Carnivores eat Herbivores, Scavengers eat anything that dies. Plants absorb nutrients from the decomposing.
That said, an artificial ecology could be set up to have a much tighter loop. You could even make plants take a more active part by making carnivorous plants quite common.
Your loops would likely shift from "all animals can eat all other animals" to "all animals eat other animals and are eaten by yet other animals".
So you could have Animal **A** that feeds on Animal **B** that feeds on Animal **C** that feeds on Animal **A**. For example, a large whale-type creature (**A**) may feed on swarms of piranha-type creatures (**B**) and be generally immune to retaliation because of size. Creature **A**, however, is hunted by packs of Orca-type creatures (**C**) which are large enough to pose a threat to **A**, but are not large enough to be immune to the swarming attacks of **B**.
Such a cycle is quite flexible, so a small number of **B** might easily be eaten by **C** and an **A** might have survived an attack by **C**, but has large enough wounds that it is no longer immune to a swarm of **B**
[Answer]
In the short run, many of the omnivorous species will tend to drift towards one end of the spectrum or the other due to competitive pressures. If every creature is like a bear and can both hunt and eat berries, then after a while some will find it more advantageous to become specialized in eating nuts and berries, while others focus on hunting.
Omnivores have the evolutionary toolkit to selectively adapt towards a more specialized lifestyle quickly and efficiently (and can recover from poor choices; you may thrive on nuts and berries, but can still scarf down some raw salmon or a slow witted deer if needed). Carnivores like cats can evolve the other way as well (there is some evidence that the Domestic Short Hair can handle a much higher percentage of vegetable matter and proteins than a wild cat, due to generations of them eating "cat chow" rather than hunting mice and birds), but from a biological perspective this is much harder to do. Herbivores will have to do genetic handstands to evolve into carnivores, a far more difficult proposition.
The primary change in this ecosystem of all omnivores is that since all animals have the potential to kill and eat each other, evolutionary pressures will be driven towards adaptations and behaviours which can minimize the possibility of becoming prey while maximizing the ability to gain resources from the local environment. On Earth, this seems to have been done through the development and evolution of social groupings and pack behaviours: Packs of wolves, pods of whales or troops of chimpanzees are good examples of this sort of behaviour (and members of the dog family and chimps are omnivores as well).
Complex social behaviours *could* lead to the development of communications, intelligence, tool using, language and eventually a fully fledged sentient species like Homo sapiens.
[Answer]
Let's start from the most obvious and basic pattern: a single type of animal spread over the planet.
They are cannibalistic, and can photosynthesize, so there is no problem with it being a zero sum game; there're essentially infinite resources, but the only resources are sunlight, and eating each other.
Simplistically, you can pretend that there are just two areas where evolutionary improvements can happen, the two we care about: fighting, and photosynthesis.
If an evolutionary change can be developed which has a significant upside for one of these, but no significant downside for the other, you can assume all members of the population have that advantage (those that don't will basically die out). If a change confers a significant disadvantage and no advantage, assume no members of the population have it (those that develop it will die out).
So the only evolutionary changes we are interested are those which improve one area, while reducing ability in the other.
Over time, cooperative behavior will emerge. Herd members do not eat members of the herd, so only those on the outskirts of the herd are members of the constant battle for meat-resources, so everyone's average risk goes down; cooperation is adaptive, herds thrive.
Herds can also cooperate as packs - a group attacking a singleton will typically win, and can then share the spoils.
It is advantageous to the herd for those on the outside of the herd to be better fighters (defensively at least). It is advantageous for those on the inside to be better at photosynthesis (since they will never get to fight anyway).
If the majority of the population is specialized towards photosynthesis, it is advantageous for some smaller herds to specialize in combat, to pick off and eat those wimpy herbivores with ease.
So specialization cannot help but happen even in a homogeneous population with only two traits.
If that's the case, then a pre-distinguished group with an infinitude of traits will just specialize faster. Even if you make cows and sheep truly omnivorous, they are never going to become hunters, and their efficiency at converting grass to energy will drop, possibly below the level of survivability. Equally, being a cat takes far higher energy resources than can be provided by simple harvesting of nuts and berries, so while an omnivorous cat might eat them if it sees them, it's more likely to try to eat the birds eating the berries instead; and the adaptations to allow it to eat berries might make it less able to catch, eat, and efficiently digest those birds.
[Answer]
A big herbivore will spend much of their time *eating* and *digesting*. Their stomach(s) and intestines are optimized to break down large amounts of tough plant matter.
A big carnivore will spend much of their time resting between hunts. Their high energy diet is required to power the bursts of energy.
Omnivores like humans, bears, or pigs often specialize on high-energy plants like nuts, berries, or fruits. An ecosystem where all animals go for the nice stuff could have problems.
[Answer]
## You have a problem with space.
Your biggest problem is most plants require very large specialized digestive system to digest. you could not fit a deer's digestive system inside a lion for instance even though it weighs more. omnivores cannot digest plants as well as specialized herbivores, an in many cases the plants themselves will be toxic if they try. there is reason humans can't survive off hay. On the other hand most carnivores have very short digestive systems because meat is easy to digest, and is basically never toxic. dogs are omnivores and look how short their digestive systems are compared to dedicated herbivores below.
If you make a carnivores system large enough to digest grass, you will make it drastically slower, and less agile, just look at pandas, and to make it worse they need to spend nearly every waking hour eating to make up for their poorly optimized digestive system. Then you have super specialists like vampire bats that are parasites evolved to eat blood and could not digest meat even if you have it to them because their digestive system is so tiny.
**You also have an issue with processing**, if a lion did start eating significant amounts of grass its teeth would get so worn out it would not be able to eat anything very quickly. Many plants incorporate abrasives in to their tissue just for this purpose. There is a reason herbivores have huge grinding teeth. On the opposite side killing an animal and eating it is hard, just getting through the skin of many animals is decent barrier to eating them, even carnivores that do not kill with their teeth need sharp teeth or beaks to cut in to the leathery hide of their prey. A cow would not be able to eat the meat of anything it cannot swallow whole unless something else opens the carcass for them.
**Then you have to worry about specialized foods,** only very specialized animals can eat mot poisonous plants or animals. there is a reason only koala eat eucalyptus and only garter snakes eat pacific newts, both are just too toxic for anything but a highly specialized digestive system, but the down side of that is that digestive system is worse at everything else.
there are even less obvious versions of this, if humans eat the liver of seals for instance they can get toxic shock from vitamin A overdosing, since artic mammals need very high vitamin A levels to deal with their high fat levels and there are hundreds of local or regional toxins like this. Plant in particular have all kinds of defenses to make up for the fact they can't run away, that herbivores have to deal with, abrasive glass shards, a slew of toxic chemicals, latexes designed to literally cause lethal constipation, locking nutrients inside indigestible fiber, plants fight back too.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oQZqc.png)
**Lastly most animals are omnivores in the strictest sense**, almost everything will eat some plants (usually fruit or seeds) and meat when they can. but being able to is not the same as being any good at getting X. The few that can't digest both are called OBLIGATE. Either obligate carnivores like vampire bats or most big cats (sometimes also called hypercarnivores), which can't digest plants and don't eat plants (aside from using them to induce vomiting) or Obligate herbivores which are super rare (animals have to be able to at least break down most animal tissue just to be able to recycle their own cells) and usually have to do with specializing for eating something toxic. Because of this most animals can at least digest the tissue from other animals (again the exceptions are extreme specialists like vampire bats). So if you just want most animals to be able to digest most other animals congratulations, earth is already like that.
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I'm trying to build a world loosely based on ideas about afterlife in Christianity. In my world God is nowhere to be found and supernatural forces are split into three factions: Hell, Heaven & Purgatory. Each faction has a ruler, and army of angels and human spirits.
Michael rules heaven with army of angels and saints (spirits of good people)
Lucifer rules hell with his army of devils (fallen angels) and demons (spirits of evil people).
Gabriel rules purgatory where angels loyal to him fallowed him after disappearance of god. Gabriel believes that humans are flawed, but their uniqueness is in the journey for improvement.
All three factions covertly compete for human souls. Good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell and those who are flawed but have a chance in redemption go to purgatory.
How to call the angels and human spirits in the service of the Purgatory?
Preferably I would like something that references Christianity, Judaism is OK too.
**1st Edit**
I don't need biblically correct, just names at least loosely connected with Christianity, that make sense in my world. I don't want to introduce supernatural beings from other religions, like Shintoism or Hinduism or whatever.
I added purgatory because good & evil duality is very boring and has been done to death. Three way fights are much more interesting, whenever one side starts winning the other two gang up together against it, until the new leader emerges when alliances shift again. The unstable dynamics gives me more interesting background to work with.
**Conclusion**
After some thoughts I decided to combine suggestions from Werrf & Pedro Gabriel.
I decided to keep the name of the third realm as Purgatory, but will use ideas from Sheol. My reasoning is that the term Purgatory is known while the Sheol isn't.
I'll call the angels that rule the third realm watchers since that name fits with my story and there's apocryphal references in Books of Enoch. The alternative shepherds was also good but reminds me too much of Jesus. And those angels are far from good shepherds.
I'll call the human spirits that serve the watchers Rephaim since it has a somewhat sinister sound. The translation shades fits great into my story.
In the end I know that is far from biblically correct, but I don't strive for correctness. So I decided to use elements that I believe serve my storytelling best and at least to my ears sounds good.
In short my idea is described below:
God is absent and without it "angels" play a wicked game of who collects the most human souls by peddling their influence to humans using souls they already have as pawns.
After the soul is sent into one of this"realms", the "angels" might consider it useful enough to return it to Earth in order to bring more souls. They offer the soul a deal, go back to Earth to do their bidding as saint, demon or rephaim, in return you will receive respite from torture, chance to save loved ones or harm your enemies. While the soul is on the Earth, it's job is to influence humans toward the path that leads toward their own realm. Spirits in general work on edge cases, if someone is a remorseless killer, saints & rephaim wouldn't bother with someone who is destined to hell. However as soon as the human soul could go either way, they try to influence it.
[Answer]
Disclaimer: I'm not a hebrew scholar, this is entirely from a layman's perspective
## [Sheol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheol)
Something you may want to investigate is the concept of *[Sheol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheol)*, from early Hebrew mythology. This is distinct from later concepts of a divided afterlife in heaven or hell; in earlier times, Sheol was similar to the greek Hades, a place of darkness and quiet where all the dead, righteous or unrighteous, went after death.
In Christianity, Sheol evolved into Hell, the place of torment to which all souls go if they're not saved by Jesus. There are apocryphal stories that tell of Jesus going [into the edge of hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Limbo_of_the_Patriarchs) and retrieving the biblical patriarchs to take them to heaven - this is probably born of the older idea of Sheol as a place where everyone went. It's also the part that is referenced in the Apostles creed with "He descended into hell".
For your scenario, you could consider Sheol to be that third place, distinct from both heaven and Hell, where those who died with original sin but did not commit terrible crimes to deserve hell could be sent.
People (shades) who were in Sheol could be called *Rephaites* or *Rephaim*, though that name also refers to a tribe of giants. This could be a good name for those spirits and angels trying to redeem themselves.
[Answer]
Kingledion is right. You can't have a christian view where God is nowhere to be found and the angels rule over the Three Kingdoms. However, if you still wish to proceed with this idea, here are my suggestions:
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First of, I wouldn't recomend Gabriel to rule over Purgatory. I would recomend Raphael or Uriel.
Raphael is an archangel mentioned on the Book of Tobit and he is seen as having healing powers. According to Catholicism, he is one of the patron saints of Medicine. Since Purgatory is seen as a place of purification, this could be seen as a form of healing.
As for Uriel, even though his name isn't mentioned in the Bible, he is an archangel present on jewish tradition that says that he was the one that was sent to guard the Doors of Eden with a fiery sword. Since Purgatory is a fiery place analogous with the Door of Paradise, that will only open after penance has been achieved, I think he is a fitting character.
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Another source you **must** consider for you to study Angelolgy from a christian point of view are the writings of the Pseudo-Dyonisius Areopagite. He orderer the angels according to six hierarchies: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels.
Note, these are seven hierarchies that correspond to both angels *and* demons. It is probable that what we call archangels would be actually seraphim, the higher ranking. Lucifer could be a seraphim and all the other fallen angels could belong to any other rank below him.
So, as for angels of Purgatory, you would have to rank them according to this hierarchy too. However, you could make a rank more prevalent on the Purgatory side of the struggle than on the others.
The hierarchies are divided in three spheres: The higher sphere includes Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones - these are closer to God. The middle sphere the Dominations, Powers and Virtues - these are intermediates between the divine and earthly realms. And the inferior the Principalities, Archangels and Angels - these are closer to humans and the world, which they guard.
I think the inferior spheres would be nearer to humans and therefore, would be more compassionate for their frailty. But you can imagine other alternatives, just study each hierarchy's properties:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_angelology>
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Another hypothesis would be to use The Watchers. Those were featured on the recent Noah movie.
Basically they aren't present on canonical books, but in apocryphal books, like the Book of Enoch. They fell on Earth because they pitied the fallen human race. But they are not equal to the demons, who fell because they rejected God and hated humans.
So, the Watchers, while un-ortodox from a religious point of view, are actually a kind of intermediate state between angel and demon.
You also have a list of names: "And these are the names of their leaders: Sêmîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl. 8. These are their chiefs of tens."
Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watcher_(angel)>
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Finally, I would refer you to Dante's Purgatorio. Though the angels, as far as I remember, aren't named there, there are many names which you could use as characters from your book, even angelic ones.
I would also like to say that I like Lu22's idea of calling the humans, The Penitent. It is absolutely in keeping with the christian's idea of Purgatory.
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Well considering they aren't aligned with good or evil here are a few ideas:
* The Remnant (Those who do not fit good or evil)
* The Forsaken (Not good enough for Heaven so left behind)
* The Penitent or Repentant (Hoping to be absolved of their sin)
* The Unmarked (Neither having the mark of God or the Mark of the Beast)
For more effect you could also translate the names (Hebrew and Greek to keep with the biblical languages) or Latin (in line with the catholic texts).
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
*So we have had multiple questions on having multiple moons and this is another. I did check and didn't find questions that covered this specific setup.*
I have an [earth-like](/questions/tagged/earth-like "show questions tagged 'earth-like'") world I am working on, including a similar moon.
In my world I would like to add a second smaller moon that is about half the size of our moon and orbits Earth farther out than our moon. The orbit, if you are looking down at the north pole (the dot), would look something like this. I would also like the outer/smaller moon to orbit at a different rate so that at times it is behind the larger moon and at other times is on the other side of the planet.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/26T0M.png)
Is this setup possible?
* Is Earth's gravity strong enough to have a second moon further from us than our current moon?
* Is there a certain size it would have to be?
* Can an orbit like this be stable? (two moons, one half the size of the Moon and moving at different speeds, relative to Earth)
[Answer]
# Note: If anyone can double-check my numbers and result at the end of this answer, that would be much appreciated.
This looks like a question that can be broken down as per your bullet points, so I think I'll do it like that.
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> Is earth's gravity strong enough to have a second moon further from us than our current moon?
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As [JDługosz pointed out](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/23452/can-you-add-a-mini-moon-to-earth#comment62347_23452), the answer to this depends on whether or not the moon is inside Earth's [Hill sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_sphere), the region in which it can hold satellites in stable orbits. The general formula for a body of mass $m$ orbiting a body of mass $M$ with a semi-major axis of $a$ is
$$r\approx a\sqrt[3]{\frac{M}{3m}}$$
For Earth, this is[[1]](http://www.jgiesen.de/astro/stars/roche.htm)
$$r\_{\oplus}\approx a\_{\oplus}\sqrt[3]{\frac{M\_{\odot}}{3m\_{\oplus}}}=1.496\times10^{9}\text{ meters}$$
This is roughly one tenth of the distance to the Sun (and four times the Moon's orbital radius). It doesn't take into account influences from the other planets, but that shouldn't be an issue. After all, Venus and Mars are both much further than 0.1 AU away from Earth, even at their closest passes.
Regarding your request for different angular velocities: Two bodies in circular orbits with different radii will always move at different angular and tangential velocities, so you're fine there.
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> Is there a certain size it would have to be?
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So long as the mass of the extra moon is much less than that of the planet, there should be no ill effects on either Earth or the Moon. Any non-zero mass will perturb the orbit of the Earth a bit, so there's no cutoff line. You just have to specify what limit is okay with you.
It's interesting to think of the effects of the moon on the Moon. I have something to say on the subject - something that I've been meaning to write about for a while - but I'll make that a separate section.
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> Can an orbit like this be stable? (two moons, one half the size of the moon and moving at different speeds, relative to earth)
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Well, yes, it can - again, so long as the moon is far enough away from the Moon. The places where the setup are unstable can be found easily - again, this will come later. The short answer, though, is that this should be perfectly safe. Just use Newton's law of gravitation:
$$F=G\frac{m\_{\text{Moon}}\frac{1}{2}m\_{\text{Moon}}}{(r\_{\text{Moon}}-r\_{\text{moon}})^2}$$
This gives you the force at closest approach - which should be minimal, for large enough values of $r\_{\text{moon}}$.
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Here's the section on stability - the stability of the Moon's orbit - which I alluded to earlier. I'm going to base it strongly off of [these lecture notes](http://www.cambody.org/notes/lecture1-add.pdf).
Here, we use the [disturbing function](http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/DisturbingFunction.html), which has the same magnitude as the gravitational potential from the perturbing1 body - in this case, the extra moon. The general form of it is
$$\mathcal{R}=-\frac{Gm\_{12}m\_3}{R}+\frac{Gm\_2m\_3}{|\mathbf{R}-\alpha\_1\mathbf{r}|}+\frac{Gm\_1m\_3}{|\mathbf{R}+\alpha\_2\mathbf{r}|}\tag{1}$$
where the subscripts $\_1$, $\_2$, and $\_3$ refer to Earth, the Moon, and the moon, respectively, $m\_{ij}=m\_i+m\_j$, $\alpha\_i=m\_i/m\_{12}$.
To analyze this, we have to *expand* it - basically, write it in another form using summations and functions called [spherical harmonics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_harmonics). For those interested, the lecture notes provide a full derivation, but to make it short, the intermediate expansion is
$$\mathcal{R}=G\mu\_im\_3\sum\_{l=2}^{\infty}\sum\_{m=-l}^l\left(\frac{4\pi}{2l+1}\right)\mathcal{M}\_l\left(\frac{r^l}{R^{l+1}}\right)Y\_{lm}(\theta,\varphi)Y\_{lm}^\*(\Theta,\psi)\tag{2}$$
where
$$\mathcal{M}\_l=\frac{m\_1^{l-1}+(-1)^lm\_2^{l-1}}{m\_{12}^{l-1}}$$
and $Y\_{ab}(\beta,\gamma)$ is a spherical harmonic.
Why do we care? Good question. The disturbing function allows us to identify [orbital resonances](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance)2, which can help a system stay stable.
To do this, we have the expand the disturbing function *again*, this time as a Fourier expansion. We get
$$\mathcal{R}=G\mu\_im\_3\sum\_{l=2}^{\infty}\sum\_{m=-l}^{l}c\_{lm}M\_l\left(r^le^{imf\_i}\right)\left(\frac{e^{-imf\_o}}{R^{l+1}}\right)e^{im(\varpi\_i-\varpi\_o)}\tag{3}$$
where
$$c\_{lm}=\frac{(l-m)!}{(l+m)!}[P\_l^m(0)]^2$$
where $P\_l^m(x)$ is an [associated Legendre polynomial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Legendre_polynomials) and $f$ and $\varpi$ are [orbital elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_elements).
This can all be expanded *further* by way of . . . am I boring you? Well, I'll skip to the good bit. I just wanted to emphasize that this one little function contains a *lot* of information.
We eventually arrive at a function $\phi\_{n'nm}$ that is called the *resonance angle*, given by
$$\phi\_{n'nm}=n'M\_i-nM\_o+m(\varpi\_i-\varpi\_o)\tag{4}$$
$M$ is the [mean anomaly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_anomaly) and $\varpi$ is the [argument of periapsis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_of_periapsis).
We can find the rate of change of this with respect to time, $\dot{\phi}$, and then write a function $\mathcal{E}$ as
$$\mathcal{E}=\frac{1}{2}\dot{\phi}^2-\omega^2(\cos\phi+1)$$
There are three possible classes of values of $\mathcal{E}$:
1. $\mathcal{E}>0$: The system is circulating.
2. $\mathcal{E}<0$: The system is librating.
3. $\mathcal{E}=0$: The system is at an unstable equilibrium (think of a pendulum pointed straight up).
We can then write down *another* equation where
$$\ddot{\phi}\propto\sin\phi$$
The associated $\mathcal{E}$ tells us if the system is stable.
There's an explicit stability algorithm by the author of the lecture notes in a related paper (see [Mardling (2008)](http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?2008IAUS..246..199M&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf) using a different expansion. It should be able to give you a yes-or-no answer for resonant stability for given orbits of the Moon and the moon. I'll see if I can apply it here.
The precise algorithm is
>
> (1) Identify which $[n : 1](2)$ resonance the system is near and calculate the distance $\delta\_{\sigma n}$ from that resonance: $\delta\_{\sigma n} =\sigma-n$, where $n = \lfloor\sigma\rfloor$. (the nearest integer for which $n \leq \sigma$);
>
> (2) Take the associated resonance angle to be zero rather than the definition (2.18) (see discussion below): $\phi\_{2n1} = 0$;
>
> (3) Calculate the induced eccentricity from (5.1) and (if $m\_1 = m\_2$) the maximum octopole eccentricity from (5.3). Determine $e\_i = \text{max}[e^{(ind)}\_i, e^{(oct)}\_i]$ for use in $s^{(22)}\_1 (e\_i)$;
>
> (4) Calculate $\mathcal{A}\_{2n1}$ from (3.6);
>
> (5) Calculate $\mathcal{E}\_{2n1}$ and $\mathcal{E}\_{2 \ n+1\ 1}$: deem the system unstable if $\mathcal{E}\_{2n1} < 0$ and $\mathcal{E}\_{2 \ n+1\ 1} < 0$.
>
>
>
I've run some numbers, and gone through a resonance or two. Mardling focused on $[n:1](2)$ resonances, which are important here. I found that for a $[2:1](2)$ resonance, the system is unstable at most eccentricities, but it seems - judging from some of the graphs given - that at higher resonances, the system is perfectly stable.
I ran through a certain combination of values to test for stability; it would be awesome of someone could check them. Here they are, with intermediate values (the subscripts $\_i$ and $\_o$ refer to the inner and outer satellites, the Moon and the moon).
The given data are (I've chosen the last two):
$$m\_1=m\_{\text{Earth}}=5.9722\times10^{24}\text {kg}=81.285 m\_2$$
$$m\_2=7.3462\times10^{22}=1m\_2$$
$$m\_3\equiv\frac{1}{2}m\_2$$
$$e\_i(0)=0.0549$$
$$e\_o(0)=0.01$$
$$a\_o=2.75a\_i$$
The intermediate values are:
$$\sigma=4.5466$$
$$n=\lfloor\sigma\rfloor=4$$
$$\delta\sigma\_4=\sigma-4=0.5466$$
$$n=4,n'=1,m=2$$
$$e\_i^{(eq)}=0.02206$$
$$A=1.4891$$
$$e\_i^{(oct)}=0.09902$$
$$l=l\_{min}=2$$
$$s\_{224}=0.44833$$
$$F\_4^{(22)}(e\_o)=2.712\times10^{-6}$$
$$f\_4^{(22)}(e\_o)=2.6513\times10^{-6}$$
$$\beta\_4=5.6513\times10^{-8}$$
$$e\_i^{(ind)}=0.0549$$
$$e\_i=\text{max}[e\_i^{(ind)},e\_i^{(oct)}]=e\_i^{(oct)}=0.09902$$
$$s\_4^{(22)}(e\_i)=-0.16443$$
$$\mathcal{M}\_2=1$$
$$M\_i^{(2)}=0.006114$$
$$M\_o^{(2)}=0.0119568$$
$$\sigma\_4=1$$
$$c\_{(22)}=\frac{3}{8}$$
$$\mathcal{A}\_{241}=3.9059\times10^{-8}$$
$$\delta\sigma\_{41}=\sigma-n/n'=0.5466$$
$$\bar{\mathcal{E}}\_{241}=0.1493857019$$
This is greater than zero, so the system is stable.
---
### Update, 28 October 2016
I've been going through and checking some of these numbers again, in the process of trying to write an algorithm around this, and I'm fairly certain that there are some errors, potentially including (and thus starting with) $s\_4^{(22)}(e\_i)$. This may mean that the system is unstable, as [kingledion's results](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/59917/627) show.
I've been running some simulations of my own, using the European Space Agency's open source [ORSA](http://orsa.sourceforge.net/) software. I've only done four or five runs over shot periods of time, but they're starting to fall into two categories: Either the secondary moon is slowly ejected, or the two go into separate elliptical orbits, with periodic changes in eccentricity and semi-major axes. For the sake of accuracy, I've only run the simulations over one year, but it seems like there may be stable setups and there may be unstable setups.
Additionally, I haven't included the Sun in this, so I don't know how it could change any of this.
---
1 In this case, I'm talking about perturbing the Moon.
2 Specifically, orbit-orbit resonances.
[Answer]
# No, that setup is not stable
**There do not appear to be any stable orbits for another moon, of any size, outside the orbit of Luna**
I ran a simulation in [rebound](http://rebound.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) to see what would happen with this moon setup. I used a grid of different behaviors to check how the second moon would react in different scenarios.
Here was my setup in rebound:
```
import rebound
from math import sqrt
for m_selene in [3/2, 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000]:
for a_selene in [3/2, 2, 3, 5, 10]:
for e_selene in [0, 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25]:
sim = rebound.Simulation()
sim.integrator = 'whfast'
sim.units = ('AU', 'days', 'Msun')
sim.add(m=1)
sim.add(m=0.000003004, a=1, e=.016709)
sim.add(primary=sim.particles[1], m=0.000000037, a=0.00257, e=.0549)
sim.add(primary=sim.particles[1], m=0.000000037*m_selene, a=0.00257*a_selene, e=e_selene)
sim.integrate(10*365.2563)
earth_luna = sqrt((sim.particles[2].x - sim.particles[1].x)**2 + (sim.particles[2].y - sim.particles[1].y)**2)
earth_selene = sqrt((sim.particles[3].x - sim.particles[1].x)**2 + (sim.particles[3].y - sim.particles[1].y)**2)
print(m_selene, a_selene, e_selene, "{0:.2f}".format(earth_luna), "{0:.2f}".format(earth_selene))
```
First I ran the simulation for just the earth-moon system to ensure it was stable, and it was. Then I ran it again with all objects (Sun, Earth, Luna — the real moon, Selene — a new outer moon).
I modified the above program to find 'breakpoints' where different behavior was observed. This is what I got:
* Let m\_selene be the mass of Selene as a proportion of Luna's mass (so 0.5 means Selene is half the size of the moon).
* Let a\_selene be the semi-major axis of Selene as a proportion of Luna's semi-major axis (so 2 means twice as far from the Earth as Luna).
* Let e\_selene be the eccentricity of Selene.
Then there are four scenarios.
* Luna is ejected from the system, and Selene becomes the new moon. This occurs only in rare circumstances when Selene is large and close to Luna (m\_selene > 1.25, a\_selene < 1.75) or when Selene is medium size but with a highly eccentric orbit (m\_selene > 0.35, 1.25 < a\_selene < 2.25, e\_selene > 0.075).
* Luna and Selene are both ejected from the system. This is likely when Luna and Selene are about the same size and close to each other (m\_selene > 0.35, a\_selene < 2.25). This happens in both highly eccentric and non-eccentric orbits of Selene. It can also happen rarely for smaller masses of Selene (as low as m\_selene > .125) but not for larger orbits.
* Luna and Selene are (somehow?!?!) ejected from the **solar system**. I don't see how this is possible, but it occurs in the case of m\_selene = 0.5, a\_selene = 1.5, and the eccentricities of selene and the moon are about the same.
* The most common situation is that Selene is ejected from the system and Luna remains. This happens in every (actually all but one) case where m\_selene < 0.35 and a\_selene > 2.25, and rarely when Selene is larger or closer.
So what you do **not** notice is any situation where Selene and Luna are both stable in orbit around earth. So this is not an exhaustive numerical solution, nor is it an analytical proof, but from a grid search of a numerical solution, I cannot find any stable orbits for a second smaller moon outside the orbit of Luna.
---
**Edit:** In response to @Molot's request for orbits inside of Luna, it turns out that most orbits inside Luna's are stable for at least a short time. The grid search only integrates 10 years, so that doesn't prove long term stability, but I ran a simulation for:
* m\_selene = 0.5
* a\_selene = 0.5
* e\_selene = 0.02
and it was stable for 100,000 years. The moon moved slightly outwards over the first 1000 years so that Luna and Selene achieved a resonance, but then the two were stable for as long as the simulation was running.
I can't promise stability for billions of years, and to be truly accurate I'd have to account for Jupiter and Saturn (at least) and the early solar system planet migrations, but it seems plausible that Selene could exist in an orbit inside that of Luna.
[Answer]
(Cliff notes version for Hard-science)
Yes, the Earth could have multiple moons. Mars has two, though granted they are tiny.
The big issue you have is that the orbit determines the speed at which one body orbits another. So the farther away you are, the slower/longer the orbit. So in this case the smaller moon would be slower than the big moon, which would seem to pass it by now and then.
The other issue would be that the orbits would need to be far enough apart that their gravity doesn't mess each other up: [Epimetheus and Janus](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap051102.html) around Saturn switch orbits periodically, because their orbits are too close together.
[Answer]
The moon's orbit is about 380 thousand kilometers from the earth. The moon is about 1/100th the mass of the earth and it's diameter is about 1/3.5 that of the earth (1/3.66... but close enough). The moon is less dense than the earth. Suppose you had a second moon twice as far out as our current moon, and say 1/2 the diameter of our moon. Say that it is the same density as our moon. It's mass would be 1/8th that of our moon just by the difference in volume, which would make it 1/800 the mass of earth. When aligned with our moon, the new moon's pull on our current moon, being at the same distance, would only be about 0.125% that of the earth. It would cause a pretty good wobble on the moon's orbit, but nothing out of the realm of possibility.
Our moon is about 100 times less massive than earth, but, when aligned, would be at half the distance from this new moon. So our Moon's pull on this new moon would be about 4% that of the earth. The wobble in the orbit of the new moon would be significantly more pronounced, but again nothing that the right orbit could not account for.
This new moon would be 1/8 the mass of our moon, and twice as far, making its pull on earth 1/32 that of our moon, or about 3% that of the moon. I do not think this would yield any significant atmospheric effects, but again, I am no astrophysicist.
Mind you, this smaller moon's orbit would also change in speed near the alignment. As it approached alignment, it would speed up, and as it passed alignment it would slow back down. Overall, at twice the distance from earth, it would move about 1.4 times slower than our current moon. But it's angular speed, which is what we would "see" would be about 2.8 times slower than the moon (the square root of 8 for anyone who cares). Also, light intensity changes inversely proportional to the square of the distance, so at twice the distance, the same object would be 1/4 as bright, but this moon would be much smaller (1/4 the surface area) and possibly made of different material, so even if it was quite reflective, it would be somewhere near one tenth as bright.
Finally, as others have said, other planets in our solar system have multiple moons. I am no astrophysicist (just a physics nut) but it would seem there is nothing to preclude your scenario. So yes, this is plausible, and the orbit would be stable. At those distances, the orbits would have some interesting characteristics, but I am fairly sure it would be something for astronomers, not very visually apparent to the average earthman observer.
[Answer]
Here's an example that's weird & wonderful. Usual disclaimers about numerical integration apply, of course. Mass is ~21% of the mass of the moon, which works out to a diameter of ~60% of the moon, assuming equal densities (a probably-bad assumption).
Some thoughts:
* ~21% of the mass of the Moon.
* In an (retrograde!) 2:3 resonance with the moon. Well, sort of. It may be one of those weird resonances that's close to 2:3.
* It'll occasionally be eclipsed by the Moon, but not very regularly, due to the inclination. (Also, the eclipses will be fairly short, due to the retrograde orbit.)
* It's stable over as long as I care to run it for (~100 years with the accurate integrator, >10,000 with the fast integrator and default step size (0.001 day), >512k with the fast integrator and step size of 1/1000th of a year). On the other hand, I'm not a theory guy - this not actually be stable at longer timescales.
* I'm just simulating Earth / Moon / Selene / Sun. I'm not simulating e.g. Jupiter, which may (read: will) affect things.
+ Correction: I've tried simulating Mars + Jupiter also, at least a few years, but I haven't tried doing any long-term simulations with them. This resonance seems surprisingly robust considering how "wobbly" it is.
* Tides will be interesting.
```
import time
import rebound
from math import sqrt
sim = rebound.Simulation()
sim.integrator = 'hermes'
sim.units = ('AU', 'days', 'Msun')
sim.add("Sun")
sim.add("399")
sim.add("301")
sim.add(primary=sim.particles[1], m=0.000000037*0.21564912733016417, a=0.00257*1.8967736522524086, e=0.08825717827598856, inc=2.695021633949315, Omega=5.385750562430302, omega=0.42668650997546287, f=0.7633635278610188)
for orbit in sim.calculate_orbits():
print(orbit)
sim.move_to_com()
sim.ri_whfast.safe_mode = 0
sim.ri_whfast.corrector = 11
sim.integrate(100*365.2563)
earth_luna = sqrt((sim.particles[2].x - sim.particles[1].x)**2 + (sim.particles[2].y - sim.particles[1].y)**2)
earth_selene = sqrt((sim.particles[3].x - sim.particles[1].x)**2 + (sim.particles[3].y - sim.particles[1].y)**2)
print("{0:.8f}".format(earth_luna), "{0:.8f}".format(earth_selene))
```
(With an answer of)
```
0.00249790 0.00466839
```
I found this via a repeated random-start local search over the search space for orbits that took the longest to escape; I was unable to improve beyond this using this method because I have yet to have had this orbit escape. Perhaps I'll switch back to "minimize max distance from Earth - min distance from Earth over a set timeperiod". Though that tends to end up with "boring" orbits.
[](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ImmaculateShadowyBull-size_restricted.gif)
This is the Earth-Moon-Selene system after 1 year, sidereal coordinates centered on the barycenter of said system (hence why Earth moves slightly), coordinates are in AU. In the original, 1 frame == 1 / 10th of a day; I am unsure as to if this persists.
] |
[Question]
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---
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They often say "war's no game, son." But what if it was a game?
Consider the resources wasted in war. Resources expended are, of course, part of the nature of war. That's why we have things called "economic wars." However, what if we could work around this? What if we could put those resources to good news AND resolve the conflict?
I'm looking for ways war can be replaced. Instead of having to spend the resources on war, the resources are reallocated. If you lose, you still lose a lot of resources, but less is 'waste heat.' Instead, the victor ends up getting more resources to spend on what they wanted.
Clearly this cannot just be a normal game. The only reason one really goes to war is when all other options are exhausted. War is expensive. War is hell. War is bad for reelection campaigns (at least if you lose). If a game existed to replace war, then people wouldn't go to war so long as the game is sufficient. However, there will likely always be cases where we aren't satisfied by the rulings of the game, driving us back to war (we're a war like group after all).
Thus we come to war as a metagame. When war is about to come to a head (or is underway), I would like one party to be able to suggest a game of skill to play instead. This would be a metagame to craft a unique game worthy of settling this dispute. Think of it like the fabled medieval kings riding to the center of the battlefield to fight so that their armies do not have to.
* At least one party has given up hope on any solution besides war. No existing games will be sufficient, a "new" game must come, with just enough of a twist to give them hope that it will resolve something better than any existing game. The rules may be different from game to game. It's the metagame I'm looking for.
* It must be implementable. If you need an escrow to hold onto a large amount of value while the game is afoot, remember that you need an escrow agency that can withstand the armies. (At a minimum, they need to be able to survive long enough to scuttle all of the value they have, reducing the game back to the inefficiencies of warfare)
* The metagame must be reasonably teachable. We can't rely on a King Solomon to live for thousands of years settling disputes.
* Warring parties never have complete information, so their estimates of the odds will not always agree. Moreso, a warring party will not reveal a secret unless they are confident they have enough to gain to warrant revealing the secret.
* The transformation must transform the ability to expend large sums of resources into a game that calls for great skill. The game that gets created is going to have to identify skills each party thinks they have, and weave it into the game.
* Expect the other side to cheat. The game needs to rig itself to make cheaters not prosper.
* An ideal solution would be nestable. Maybe the whole war can't be solved in a single game, because the differences are too great. However, if a game can be used to replace a battle, at least those lives and material may be saved.
How do we write the book on how to not need war?
EDIT: I am not looking at just "fair" games, like modern day sports. I'm thinking more from a game theory/drama theory perspective. If, at each move of the game, it is advantageous for both parties to continue playing the game, they will continue playing it. It is not unreasonable for a "superior" force to demand the game be slighted in their favor before they accept the game.
[Answer]
**We are currently playing one such game.**
Nuclear brinkmanship / Nuclear Standoff with M.A.D.
Rules :
Each nation can decimate any other at anytime.
Mutually Assured destruction ensures each major player has enough weapons so that even after suffering a complete surprise attack they can still decimate a foe.
To go to war against a country with nukes you need their permission. Otherwise they nuke you and you nuke them and everyone dies. Note all players must be Nuclear countries.
The idea is that even the weakest of nuclear powers can destroy the strongest. Everyone has an incentive not to shoot because they want to protect their people much more than they want to kill the enemy.
**General Ideas**
In general you need to create incentives for both the stronger and weaker country to participate usually by finding common ground. Things like, if we fight I may get some land but we will both lose huge amounts of money from traders who won't come to an active war zone.
There can be some groups were there is no alternative to war, because you do need some common ground to make peace. If a foe values your death above their life its hard to think of a way to incentivize them to peace.
[Answer]
Imagine a nation planning to go to war. They might not **want** to fight, but they consider the situation grave enough that nothing else will do. There are solemn speeches in the legislature, reservists report to their units, citizens dig air raid shelters in the back yard.
Then one of the enemy comes and says "hey, I have an idea, instead of fighting we could solve this with a chess match. Best two out of three. Much less lethal."
The leaders would consult their staff. Who is the enemy chess champion? How good is he or she compared to our best player? And the key question: Are we more likely to win the chess tournament or the war?
If they are more likely to win the war, they'd ask themselves if the margin is great enough to risk fighting a war. Probably only the weaker military power would opt for games, the stronger military power wouldn't squander the advantage by agreeing to this form of **asymmetric warfare**.
The only way to make games replace war is if there is an overlord who enforces the rules, and makes non-compliance painful. That's different from the escrow agent suggested by the OP in that it is not a voluntary agreement by the two adversaries to submit to a referee.
In a way that's what civilization is all about. When you argue about a contract, you don't resort to force, you go to court instead. Trial by combat has gone out of fashion, so they use a complicated contest of finding precedents and laws.
[Answer]
War and our understanding of how it should go is very culturally dependent. Consider, for the sake of this answer, the Zulu, especially before and after the rise of Shaka Zulu. [Donald R. Morris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka#Shaka_as_the_creator_of_a_revolutionary_warfare_style) claims:
>
> Shaka changed the nature of warfare in Southern Africa from a ritualized exchange of taunts with minimal loss of life into a true method of subjugation by wholesale slaughter.
>
>
>
A ritualized exchange of taunts with minimal loss of life sounds really close to a game to me. Especially if you compare that to a bloody conflict like the American Civil War. So there is a solution- your "game" is now considered to be actual war. Going in and killing must be viewed as both horrific and culturally taboo. (I realize this isn't a permanent solution, but it has happened before!)
Your replacement games could be something as simple as a race or as complicated as fencing or chess. Races are better, because you can make a race such that the rules of the race are physical laws or are minimal.
If I may make a suggestion: "First one to retrieve this flag/retroreflector from a particular crater on the moon and deliver it to this neutral observatory" is a hard race to cheat. If you create a replica, anyone with a good telescope can verify that it's a fake. You must fetch it (or intercept the other side on their way home). It's in nearby space, so anyone can see what's going on.
The other solution, which I can think of, is to create a [post-scarcity economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy). This is an economy where resources are practically infinite- no one wants for any basic need. Why would you fight in such a world? Your pride is all you can lose in this world, and at the end of the day you can feed your family and live comfortably without pride. Replacing war with games makes perfect sense in such a world.
[Answer]
War is not a game, games are abstracted, simulated wars. The history of most games, especially team sports trace back to military training or hunting. The entirety of traditional track and field is taken directly from the training of classical era Greek Hoplites.
War comes in two flavors: ritualized and to the knife.
Ritualized warfare is usually fought between the elites of the same culture although sometimes different polities. It has rules. Just read a reference yesterday that noted that between IIRC 1200-1500 in Europe, the number of actual casualties in wars, among nobles at least, the only "people" actually recorded, dropped dramatically. The goal became to capture and ransom the nobles, not kill them. A similar pattern arises whenever a dominant culture is not threatened by either class rebellion or an external alien enemy. That's where you get the whole, "single combat between kings ends the war myth." I say myth because beyond the scale of a couple of Irish clans sometime, it never happened.
There's a "why so serious" class funny story about the first contact between the Japanese Heian nobles(pre-samurai) nobility and the first Mongol reconnaissance in force to land in Japan. The Heian hadn't fought anyone else in centuries if ever so they had elaborate rituals. It started when the highest statist noble advanced ahead of the lines, shouted a challenge to single combat the Mongols didn't understand and then fired a special whistling challenge arrow over the Mongol intentionally not trying to hit anyone.
The Mongols, having a more workmanlike approach to warfare, returned fire with their recurve bows, charged on foot, feigned a retreat which the Japanese fell for, then the Mongols went to work with sword and spear until they couldn't stand up from laughing so hard.
Moral: Know what kind of war you're in. At the height of the age of Chivalry, European elites would simply lie, break truces and butcher peasants that got uppity.
Also, war is only a waste in the corporate/industrial era when economic creativity, utilization of surplus to create more production, is possible. Prior to the corporate/industrial era, productivity was largely fixed and improved only imperceptibly over generations. Wealth meant control of agricultural lands (really not so much the land as the farmers on the land), if you wanted to increase your wealth, you need to steal land and peasants from someone nearby.
This is called the Malthusian-trap. If you want people to fight constantly you stick them in a Malthusian-trap.
In a static, "sustainable" world, war is, except for a tiny minority of individuals, traders, merchants and artisans, the only means of gaining wealth, which means food, and power, which means more food to feed soldiers. Even a pacifist content with their lot cannot escape because they have maintained a defensive force which gets expensive, creating an incentive for war, and an army needs to fight now and then to stay effective so sometimes wars are just bloody training exercises.
Wars were staggering common, everywhere prior to the corporate/industrial revolution. Every polity in every culture that wasn't nearly completely isolated was a garrison state, ruled by a warrior elite we did nothing since toddlerhood but train to kill.
So, if want a kind of ritualized war that's real but not to real you need
1. Pretty much a monoculture across the whole field of conflict e.g. a planet.
2. A Malthusian zero productivity economy were war is the only means of advancement or improved security.
3. A powerful institution, like the medieval Catholic church, that has the moral authority to keep things from getting too out of hand.
4. A system like captures and ransoms which lets individuals profit from fighting without having to actually slaughter everyone. Ransoms were often paid in land exchanges if movable wealth was not available.
You could create such a world out of the more extreme versions of environmentalism emerging today, especially the theological version (Gaia worship.)
1. Firstly, a world regulatory state task with "protecting the environment" is established. At first, it looks all very scientific and humane.
2. But since "the environment" is literally everything in the biosphere and everything every human being does affects "the environment" the regulatory state soon acquires the moral and legal authority to micro-control every choice of every human on the planet. (NOTE: The more real and significant the actual "environmental" problems are, the quicker the regulators gain power and more draconian they have let to act. Could even be an utterly legitimate planet-wide state of emergency requiring de facto martial law for decades.)
3. To assist control, they foster a mystic view of nature with superstitions like, "the balance of nature" or "human's rightful place in nature." This lets them establish the moral foundations for a static, "sustainable" Malthusian-trap.
4. The regulatory authority evolves into Church governing a worldwide religion. Perhaps an incorruptible AI is actually the "Pope" programmed to maintain some sort of static world order indefinitely.
5. High technology especially WMDs are first suppressed and then edited from history. Science, discovery, exploration, art or any other activity that might break the stasis is likewise suppressed and then forgotten.
6. But the Church needs enforcers and needs to keep the population distracted and controlled, plus people being people, soon Malthusian wars break out and "Oceania is always at war with Pacifica."
7. While allowing the wars, the Church overtly condemns them and maintains a hippy-nature-loving pacifist ideal to the face of the world. This allows wars to become more ritualized and less destructive.
Granted, this is probably more "Game of Thrones" than you wanted but it’s a plausible way to people fight constantly for a long period but not to destructively.
I would point out that the actual scale and destructiveness of wars has been on a long downward slide for the last 500yrs. The ways we have today are frankly pissant compared to the size of the populations involved vs casualties. In the Netherlands war of Independence, for example, the siege of Omstead(sp?) cost 300,000 live in three years. That was just one mid-sized city.
Also, terrorism is HIGHLY ritualized and exist only because we choose to let it. Terrorism relies entirely on mass media to magnify an attack which in a real war e.g. WWII wouldn't even be noticed into a world-shaking event. Everyone has known since the 1960s that you can stop terrorism cold by simply ignoring attacks and censoring any mention of them. Without media and now the internet whipping everyone into a frenzy, no nutjobs would have any incentive to die in an attack knowing they would be ignored and forgotten.
But here we are. We let the Soviet introduce the mythology of Terrorism so we're kind of stuck with it, at least until the terrorists screw up and break the narrative which I think they are close to doing. They don't understand who their friends in the West are.
So, it might be hard to justify spending many resources trying to stop "wars" when they seem to spiral down on their own.
[Answer]
## You have to have real stakes and a no-options win
Say we did take a standard game, like chess, and two sides (lets say America and Russia) that are evenly matched (lets assume, even if you don't think they are). If one side won the game what are the chances that the other side would go **"Ah, you got me, here have a couple of American states/Russian provinces."**?
Most likely the side to lose would still put up a fight and, with anything physical, this would most likely always be the case. So we need a 'no-options' win.
## Cyber warfare
In cyber warfare no lives are lost (on the whole, though you might still consider assassinating a particularly good hacker). It isn't as resource heavy as building and losing tanks but it is still aggressive. Also once you have got through the enemy can't say **"Nope, we aren't playing anymore"** and get their tanks out (well, they could but they would have to do so with their communications compromised and it would be unlikely that they would win). So once someone has lost they have no viable options but to concede whatever they were trying to hold onto.
## But what is the 'prize'
**Assuming we have current technology.**
You can't own a state or anything physical so you're most likely after information. My ideas so far:
* **Technology**: Perhaps new encryption secrets, designs for a quantum computer or some other technology that would give you the ability to counter the opposition.
* **Plans**: Perhaps you plan a mission to mars, colonizing some prime space territory could become (or already be) the next race and you want to know where your opposition is and how they plan to do it.
* **Economy**: If you could cause a crash in the opposition stock market it would hamper their ability to improve and perhaps other countries would see you as a more stable investment.
* **Science**: This is difficult because a lot of research is multi-national anyway but say one country did discover how to make a viable fusion reactor and was keeping it secret, something like that would be worth the war.
**Futuristic ideas**
We're already some of the way to these but not yet dependent:
* **Automated systems**: If a city ran on fully automated water, waste-disposal, transport, power etc then you could shut these off or hold the city hostage - giving you leverage to perhaps gain physical prizes. (Say you shut down Moscow and say you'll only turn it back on if they release control of Ukraine or something).
* **AI**: Bit of a leap but perhaps, if both countries were running AI as advisors you could hack their AI and tweak its ideas a little, make it more fond of your country, make it think buying stock from your suppliers was much more beneficial than not. (This could go unnoticed since humans may blindly follow the AI at this point). This one could get to the point where one country owns the other in all but name.
* **Space colonies**: These would most likely be automated to a higher degree than earth cities. A colony could be switching hands every week and, on the whole, not really care. The colony could give rights to land to one country or another and so make space-travel much cheaper.
(I noticed futuristic ideas pretty much all came under automated systems)
For a story you could make it such that these cyber-wars are fought in some sort of VR world just to make it more dramatic - I'm not sure a story about lines of code and Denial of service attacks would make for a particularly gripping read.
You might be thinking "But cyber warfare isn't a game!" and no, it isn't....but once the stakes get high enough nothing would be seen as a game. Cyber warfare has certain restrictions, rules, tactics and a significantly lower loss of life though...so I believe it would be the next reasonable step to fulfill your aims.
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## You Only Need Two Things...
In real human history a number of regional invasions and such were actually avoided by individual or team competition, to save the wasted lives and valuables on both sides. The reasons involved do not often scale reliably, but it is worth reviewing them briefly before going on to a more stable solution.
Some classical reasons an skirmish may have been avoided:
* Another threat was out there that would attack / destroy both if their armies were not maintained
* The individuals involved in the decision process were honorable people and followed through with the results, regardless of whether they won or lost (I'm not sure this ever really happened outside of legend)
* The army itself was well aware of the wager and agreed to it, whether the leader did or not
But again, most of those reasons are very individual- and situation-dependent, so let's look at how the situation could be stabilized with two easy steps.
## 1. Arm Neo-Switzerland
Before real-world conflicts can be resolved by game as a challenge you need someone who can enforce the rules and outcome. Enter Neo-Switzerland and the War-game Accord.
Neo-Switzerland is a neutral country with alliances to all. According to the War-game Accord, if anyone attacks Neo-Switzerland, all allies are bound to aid in defense. However, if Neo-Switzerland attempts to expand its borders or raid its neighbors a "punishment" article is activated whereby all signatories are to immediately declare war on Neo-Switzerland. Once Neo-Switzerland is subdued the parties determine appropriate punishments/reparation payments and then re-instate the previous status quo.
More on-point to the question at hand, whenever countries (or territories, cities, etc) come to the point of armed conflict they are bound by the War-game Accord to instead send representatives to Neo-Switzerland to play a War-Game. The exact game(s) and rules are decided in Neo-Switzerland and the outcomes are considered binding.
As part of the establishment of a War-Game the aggressor nation that initiated the War-Game must provide to Neo-Switzerland an amount of treasure/resources/land deeds that Neo-Switzerland feels constitutes a significant portion of their possible loss up front. The stakes for the losers will also be decided in Neo-Switzerland. If the aggressors lose, the resources will be transferred from them to the defenders. If the defenders lose they have a time limit to provide the aggressors with the land/treasure/resources/assistance outlined in the War-Game compact.
## What happens when the losers don't like the outcome?
Neo-Switzerland takes a 10% share of all War-Game proceeds, which it is bound to put entirely towards their army. Over time, Neo-Switzerland develops a first-rate army. This army is used to enforce the outcome of all War-Games.
Note that as a condition of the War-Game Accord, Neo-Switzerland's estimated army strength is never to exceed that of the most powerful nation in the accord. Any funds received that would improve their army beyond that point are sent to Neo-Switzerland's general treasury.
## 2. A Game to Play
There is no reason to materially limit the types of games that could be played. Different nations and backgrounds will have different preferences. For example, in Europe the preferred option may have classically been Chess, where in Asia people may have preferred Go. Other disputes could even be settled by a battle of champions or a coin-toss.
To use Chess as an example, it would have been a sufficient tool for a War-Game until recent history. For example, white typically has a slight advantage over black, but pieces can also be removed from the board before the game to handicap one play or another. The amount of the handicap is fairly well known. Since the 1990's however, Chess's fatal flaw is that it is not sufficiently complex to stand up to the capabilities of modern computers, which opens the doors for cheating to an unacceptable degree.
Go is a better option because players could be similarly handicapped, though computers are closing in there too.
If you do have to use a "standard" game, I would strongly suggest inventing your own game or making it a contest of physical skill. When you invent your own game you can simply state that it is a very complicated, highly strategic game which computers could not hope to beat a person at for 100 years and solve the problem.
Physical skill competitions also reduce some opportunity for cheating through knowledge sharing, though as the Olympics clearly show, even there things are not perfect. Though given Neo-Switzerland's neutral nature and significant incentive to provide a fair platform, cheating may be much less likely than we see today.
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The only way to prevent war is to get humans beyond the need to to start one. One of the biggest causes for war is one person/group has something that another person/group has. Sometimes it has to do with 'principals' and a disagreement on how things are being done.
One of the best ways to reduce the 'need' for war would be to bring everyone 'up'. Eliminate poverty around the world. The larger the middle class the better. No one wants to send their children to die at the hands of others, and the 'richer' each individual is in a group the more power they to try and find alternate solutions to outright war (such as economic wars/sanctions).
We already have a couple methods for avoiding outright war. The first is economic chess. Sanctions, taxes, tariffs, trade agreements, foreign aid. We usually prefer to influence others with non-violent means first. This IS the alternate 'game' to war.
We also have the Olympics, and it was a serious competition between the US and Russia for decades.
But when you get fanatics (such as ISIS) who believe they are right no matter what, no 'game' in the world will sway them. They might follow it, only as long as they win or think they will win. When things don't go in their favor, then they can resort to killing people. But in most rational countries no one really wants to go to war if they can come to some other kind of understanding.
If large powerful countries would also reserve their war mongering (especially against smaller states) for serious issues, such as human rights violations and such it would reduce war violence as well.
When the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, either there will be social unrest in the country or the rich will start a war to both keep the poor busy and find a new group of people to exploit to gain even more wealth. (partly by blaming the new target for why their own poor are poor!)
For any artificial game to hold sway, there would need to be an agreement across the globe with severe repercussions for those who don't abide by the outcome of the game. These repercussions would likely be a pact to act against the violator and support the violated.
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This sounds similar to that of the book series/Movie *Ender's Game* by Orson Scott Card. They used "game simulation" to train kids in war simulation knowledge with the twist at the end that it turns out that all these simulated games were actual battles deciding the fate of humanity.
Unfortunately though, there is always going to be war so long as everyone has their own special interests and beliefs to fight for. We can go to the opening line of the Sith Creed in *Star Wars* which pretty much nails my view point on war and conflict in general : "Peace is a lie, there is only passion." There will never be peace as long as someone is passionate about something that is opposite of your views which there almost always will be.
There was however, a few Animes I watched (forgive me though as I do not recall their names if maybe someone knows them after reading my description can post the name that would be great!)where in one series, everything was decided by a game. Wars, King, ruling class, bets, literally everything in their culture was on the hinge of winning or losing a game. Now, I can't remember if it was the challenger or the challenged who got to pick the game, but the person who picked the game also got to set game rules and pick any game that naturally would go into their favor. It could have been any game from a simple board game, to something more dangerous. Once the game rules were announced the other side had to agree to the rules and the stakes.
There was another anime that also had everything decided via "games" that helped determine territorial rights and kingdom influence by having simulated wars. Though this was an anime geared towards a younger audience, it still had a really interesting concept and story. Wars were still fought in a simulation but instead of people dying, they would just be turned into a giant ball with their face that would bounce off. This would be fixed once the war was done being fought as there was time limits in place. The winners got their spoils of war just as if they won it with normal means.
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Answering my own question, several years later, reality once again is stranger than fiction. I came across a [documentary on the Dani of New Guinea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BzqwOBneC4&feature=youtu.be). Their ritualized combat was as strange as anything I thought of when I asked the question. From the video's description, when any one warrior (or woman or child caught in the crossfire) was killed, the victors celebrated and the loses mourned the dead. The kind of combat we think of in the West simply never occurred.
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Why not do it "Ender's Game" style? For those of you who haven't read Ender's Game, it is a book about a brilliant child who eventually goes through a military school in which he plays "wargames." At first, the wargames are really just that: games, put in place to teach him commanding skills and tactics. But eventually, it in fact becomes him relaying orders to real armies invading an alien world.
Thus, you would have each side get such a simulator, assemble a team of x geniuses (the number x would be predetermined) and have each side assigned a certain amount of forces of each kind. The battle thus begins in the simulators, with a digital arena created to avoid giving any side an advantage, or perhaps an asymmetric arena, but still with equal chances of winning. For example, you could have one side be the defending fleet of a planet, and the other the attacking fleet, with the ultimate goal of the attacking fleet to either capture the planet, which would mean deployment of ground troops on the planet and capturing of key capital cities, or the complete destruction of enemy forces. Each side would get 1 round attacking, 1 defending, and one planet vs planet, with each side having to simultaneously defend their planet and attack the opposing planet.
Really, it would come down to this: which country has sufficient money to educate their geniuses. This would mean that certain poor countries wouldn't stand a chance; but this is the way it is already, anyway. Most countries would probably agree to this, as they would have no choice: refusing would both make them look like they are willing to throw away human life as well as effectively admitting that they are dumber as a country than their adversaries.
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There was an episode of Star Trek (TOS, I *think* my memory is rusty), where two warring planets having decided hot war was too destructive in terms of endangering the two planets ability to sustain life, that they instead held war-games in a simulation, and the simulation would then produce casualty numbers, after which the required number of citizens would then happily go off to be executed (in real life), reasoning that it was a fair sacrifice to avoid "real" war. Naturally Kirk objects. Or was it Picard. I forget.
Of course the whole thing raises more questions than it answers, such as "Why not go one step further and just play chess and drop the casualties altogether", or even "Hey why not handball this nonsense over to the diplomats. But this of course applies to real war too, the awful folly that it is.
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**Short Answer: No, this is not possible.**
I am sorry, but there is a major breakpoint in using a game to determine the issue of a wars: a lot of situations will not fit to your will.
To explain why, let's take two examples: war is supposed to be determined by two games:
* First examle: Soccer is used to determine who is the winner
* Second example: MMA is used to determine who is the winner
Example 1:
Using a team, in a sport combining physical excellence and group intelligence (like you need in war), you can decide who is the winner.
But suddendly, one player is starting to use new shoes that make him run a 10 mph faster. He helps winning the game. Is it fair?
* First answer: No. But why? If is is ok to train physically, why could you not use technology?
* Second answer: Yes. Then the other team sends a player with a knife: this is technology. The player with a knife gets a red card: he contests and attack the referee with the knife -> YOU NEED A META-PLAYER TO ENFORCE THE RULES. THIS META PLAYER COULD BE UNO, BUT IT NEEDS FORCE TO ENFORCE THE RULES
Example 2:
This one is easy. In Ukrainia in 2014, a lot of contest have occured, leading to a civil war and a rebellion. USA and Russia openly said they were supporting, respectively, the regular and the rebel sides, and they were supporting those sides (with ammos, men...).
Let's suppose USA and Russia really to solve that conflict, and they use the "WAR IS A GAME" system.
A MMA champion from the USA fights a Russian one, and the result leads (for example) to the victory of America. The Ukrainian government now wants to retake control of the East and Crimea.
But the contests do not end. The government sends police, hundreds of people are wounded and rioters start using Molotov cocktails. The governments sends the army: THIS IS WAR.
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There is a fundamental problem with replacing war with a game: games have rules. Parties go to war when one party is losing under the current societal rules and won’t lose gracefully.
Any system that allocates resources based on the game’s outcome will reduce war, but it won’t end it because someone will realize they cannot win under the rules. But by bombing the game site and killing a bunch of people, that someone comes out ahead. Designing a system where no one has a reason to kick the system seems essentially impossible to me.
Even if war becomes such a threat that it could end life entirely, someone will decide that’s acceptable trade off ... if they can’t get their way, no one gets anything.
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In Kim Stanley Robinson’s new novel *Red Moon* the first few pages describe a method of Earth-to-Moon transportation that I had not encountered before. The idea is to use a magnetically levitated and accelerated train on the surface of the Moon to catch a spaceship from Earth flying by the Moon at thousands of kilometers per hour. The advantage of this system is that the spaceship does not need to bring fuel to decelerate itself and instead is decelerated by the train.
In more detail, a ship is launched from Earth and is put on a course tangential to the surface of the Moon such that it would just brush past the surface at 8300 kilometers per hour (according to the novel). As it approaches the Moon a maglev train on a 200-kilometer long track is accelerated to match speeds with the incoming spaceship. As the ship comes closest to the surface of the Moon the train is there to catch it and hold on to it. The train then gradually decelerates with the ship using the long track. Because the train is magnetically levitated and there is practically no air resistance on the Moon the train can easily reach such fast speeds. Because the ship doesn’t have to bring its own decelerating fuel much more weight can be dedicated to cargo.
This system is very economically attractive and if practical would appear to cut costs of sending people and supplies to the moon significantly. However, I have never encountered this idea before and a cursory search doesn’t find any other references for the system. Will this scheme work or are there practical difficulties that make it unfeasible?
P.S. I'm also curious whether this is a novel idea of Kim Stanley Robinson's or if someone else has proposed this before?
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It's a clever reverse on the old railgun-up-a-mountainside launcher concept.
There are a few practical difficulties. For one, we can barely build fixed railway infrastructure capable of 400 km/h, much less 8300. Most current maglevs run *slower* than that, and it's not all due to air resistance. Turns out that a 1-2 cm error in surveying and construction and otherwise minor variations in magnet strength leads to a really bumpy ride. There is no reason to expect kinetic problems to *decrease* as the speed increases. Maintenance gets much more expensive as speeds increase, too.
Another other big practical difficulty is the same one faced by missile-interception: Two very fast masses that must meet *precisely*. 8300 km/h is 2.31 km per second (barely short of escape velocity 2.38 km/s, so a rounding error might make a big, er, impact). In order for a 1m docking grapple to catch properly, both craft must reach the same target spot less than 0.0004 seconds apart.
Let's go back to the guideway. It must contain the train-plus-grappled-spaceship forces vertically and horizontally. And sometimes that vertical force might be high-impulse, or strongly oscillating as the combined vehicle stabilizes in the seconds after grapple. Seems like a big fraction of your power must go toward simply holding the train in place vertically on the guideway against those unexpected vertical forces...lest it get torn off and dragged into space (or smashed into the guideway) by that pesky rounding error in the spaceship's vertical vector.
Finally, the biggest problem is that there's just no way to make this thing fail safely under lots of conditions. Any kind of guideway failure would be catastrophic. A power disruption while the train was in motion would be catastrophic. A tiny mistake measuring the spaceship's position or velocity would result in missed meets (and a massive waste of energy)...or a catastrophe.
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The main challenge I see is that you are accelerating a levitating object to a speed very close to the escape velocity of the Moon. This imposes two problems:
* Fail to brake and the train will leap up many kilometers high. It will take some minutes to fall on the ground again at an extremely high speed. In fact, if the ship collides and imparts momentum to the train, the train may even escape the Moon.
* To be stuck to a planet while flying this close or over its escape velociy requires an immoral amount of downwards force. Both the ship and the train must be made of an unobtanium-adamantium-uru alloy.
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Why do you need the train? The other answers make the very good point that even the smallest error would lead to disaster even if everything else could be made to work. But, unless you are aiming for an improvised Mission Impossible kind of scene (in which case anything goes), then the train is redundant.
Here's what you could do: instead of a fixed-width maglev track, build a sequence of toroidal magnets along a very elongated horizontal cone. Give the first one a one kilometer diameter and make the last one just wider than the spaceship. The ship flies through the first one, gets slowed down slightly and its course is corrected towards the central axis. The next one slows it down further and corrects the course again, and so forth. By the time you're on the last one, your ship is centered and slow enough.
Sadly, there are a bunch of reasons why this *still* wouldn't work. Just generating a magnetic field with meaningful strength over a large volume would be prohibitive. The volume energy of magnetic field is $B^2/2\mu\_0$, which works out to $10^7/8\pi\>\> J/m^3$ for 1T field. Calculating the total energy inside a $100\:km\times1\:km$ cone is left as an exercise for the reader. As is the energy that would be deposited on the spaceship during the deceleration, and the stresses on the toroids, and the outcome of an approach that is just a bit too off-axis, and just *how* the deceleration and course corrections work, and... Nope. Sorry, no.
### Edit, acknowledgement
I saw after posting that Kyle essentially proposed the same approach and even worked out the answers I was too lazy to calculate. I yield to you, sir.
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I have not read the novel and thus was unaware of it's use there, I have independently come up with the idea and my solution addresses many of the issues mentioned in other answers. My approach:
* This is part of a larger system. The track is wrapped all the way around the equator. This gives you plenty of time to get the system up to speed and match with the target spacecraft. While you need sub-millisecond accuracy you have plenty of time to match the capture train to the spacecraft--the match should not be a problem. This also removes the failure-to-stop failure mode. If you have a problem you can just keep going.
* The spacecraft is grappled with **long** connectors. The spacecraft is in an orbit with a very low periapsis but it's not going to plow into the moon if a mistake is made. Fail a grapple and you just go around again.
* Maglev trains are speed limited by being in atmosphere. You have no issue of wheels on a track, no issue of pushing the air out of the way. Going 2000 m/s instead of 100 m/s isn't going to be a big problem.
* The whole system is safer if the train is actually moving above orbital velocity. (Note that the ends of the grapples inherently must be above orbital velocity, having the train itself above orbit is no problem.) The way you keep it from flying away is that it has 4 rails rather than the usual two. This can either be actually above the train or the train can have a piece that reaches down between the rails and rides on downward-pointing rails underneath. Mechanically the latter is simpler but I don't know if the magnets could be kept from interfering.
In use, the train gets up to speed and then adjusts it's speed so that it will arrive under the spacecraft as it reaches periapsis. To be simple but wasteful you could simply keep the train directly under the spacecraft. The grapples are launched upwards. If they fail for whatever reason you just wind them back in and try again next orbit. If they grapple the spacecraft is first pulled into a circular orbit and then winched down onto the grapple car where it is more solidly connected for the deceleration phase.
Note that I said this was part of a larger system: This track is useful for a lot more than landing spacecraft. Since the train exceeds orbital velocity it can be used for launch as well as landing. Not only that, but if you build it beefy it can generate some pretty high velocities. Orbit is 1.73 km/sec (at 100 km, I'm having zero luck finding it at 0km) which generates 1.62m/s of centrifugal force (matching the lunar gravity.) Lets speed our train up so the spacecraft feels 1g outward. Now it's moving 12.2 km/sec. Release it and it leaves the moon with more than 10 km/sec of velocity (remember Oberth, don't just subtract the escape velocity.) Very few NASA craft have exceeded this--but this is nowhere near the limit of this system. Lets take it up to 5g, about as much as we want for a manned launch. Now it ejects with 54 km/sec and loses almost none of that to the moon's gravity. That gives you anything from smacking the sun to solar escape. Unmanned missions can be launched even faster.
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Yes. You can do this.
This is literally every on-orbit docking maneuver ever. The above answers cover most of the important aspects, but the consensus that this is borderline impossible is slightly silly. You'll still need a fair bit of fuel on the spacecraft as it's primarily responsible for lining up the rendezvous, the train can only speed up or slow down and as the vehicle closes in it's going to have all six degrees of freedom.
If any inclination changes were required you'd need to load up on fuel, but your particular use case addresses that. As for not seeing this anywhere, when I was looking into Launch Loops (basically using a self suspending linear accelerator - maglev train - to launch payloads directly into orbit) I discovered that on Earth this is possibly a worse idea than a space elevator. Which takes some doing. But on the Moon, you can have an accelerator on the surface and lob payloads directly into a very elliptical orbit, and just circularize at apogee. If you don't circularize, then the payload comes back and skims the surface at perigee - potentially a bad day. But that's the whole point of what you're up to, run the launch process in reverse and you're good to go.
Some of the above answers brought up some valid concerns about the rail portion of your system. However, these problems are primarily control engineering challenges that, while very difficult, are probably solvable with enough time, money, and incentive (I can think of some big programs with plenty of time and money that don’t seem to accomplish much, so #3 is important). I’d definitely recommend you consider why your people had both the reason and means to solve such a tricky problem.
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While the other posters have provided excellent answers regarding the difficulty, what we are really looking at is a reversal of the mass driver on the moon used to launch payloads. Taken this way, and not as a train, it is doable, if somewhat hair rousingly challenging. Perhaps unmanned cargo pods would be a more reasonable use of the system (which also reduces constraints due to deceleration forces on the human passengers.
Essentially, rather than trying to land a payload on a moving train platform, the pod simply is aimed at the throat of a large diameter funnel, which is the mass driver. As it passes each coil, the pod passes through a magnetic field and, much like the wire on a generator, generates electricity, which is gathered by the mass driver infrastructure and stored in giant capacitor banks, madly spinning flywheels or whatever other electrical system is in use at this time.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ml3dU.jpg)
*Illustration of a possible mass driver design. A "mass catcher" would simply work in reverse*
Since it is an unmanned pod, the system could be as short as 200m (see [here](https://www.permanent.com/space-transportation-mass-drivers.html)), while a manned pod might be tens or even 100km to reduce the deceleration or acceleration stresses.
When the pod has slowed sufficiently, it can then "land" on a track, but for the majority of the journey it will be suspended in the magnetic field and not physically touching anything.
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Your massive maglev train is, obviously, levitated and accelerated by (electro) magnets, and must be many times the mass of the spaceship.
The energy to power those magnets must come from somewhere on the planet, like a nuclear power plant, or perhaps by solar energy. There won't be any fossil fuels on Mars, and although nuclear fuel might be shipped from Earth, other forms of fuel would not be; that would defeat the purpose.
The obvious solution, to me, is to put both the nuclear power plant and the electro magnets into **space**, a few million kilometers from Mars. The same magnetic energy used to lift and accelerate this giant train can be applied to the ship itself over a very long distance in space, and you won't have to deal with the problem of tolerances on an uneven and possibly shifting (and definitely rotating) planetary surface.
In space, you don't have to deal with confounding force factors like the moving Martian atmosphere (it is thin but there is weather), terrain, Martian dust storms and compensating vectors for planetary rotation or curvature. It is a cleaner and simpler environment and for engineers, this allows much greater accuracy and closer approaches, tiny nudges from steering rockets can change course by a hundredth of a centimeter.
So your ship can navigate to the same distance from the rails, the rails are the same length as those on Mars (and could be shorter, because in space you could have six rails circle the ship at the points of a hexagon), the power applied is the same. But the rails can be perfectly straight, the path of the spaceship perfectly straight and centered. The rails themselves can be linked into a ring, to keep them aligned. They can be as massive (or much more massive) than the train; iron is very cheap in space (asteroids). With the nuclear power plant, any shift of the deceleration rig can be corrected by nuclear powered magnetic propulsion (accelerating atoms at near-light speed in the opposite direction of desired travel).
After slowing the ship enough, it lands by parachute, just like our probes have, or you could even guide it into orbit and (robotically) deploy only the supplies by parachute to the planetary surface. Then the ship could be turned around, and the exact same rail guns in space could accelerate it away from Mars back to Earth.
It may be empty, or could carry crew and products back to Earth. However those return goods get to Mars orbit, it would certainly be less energy intensive to send just them into orbit, than it would be to send them AND the ship.
By this scheme (which I invented here on the fly) the ship never leaves space, so the space ship can be ***just*** a space ship, it does not have to be engineered to work both on the ground (Earth or Mars), withstand launch stresses, have landing gear, or even be oriented for gravity, it can be, for example, a permanently rotating cylinder with centrifugal 0.25G gravity, more comfortable for human passengers (washing, sleeping, cooking, eliminating, exercising, working, etc) and more convenient for packing and storage (you don't have to net everything or tie it in place).
Of course, this cylinder ship may have a centrifugal section and a non-rotating zero-G section, if zero-G is desired for storage or is useful for some scientific or technical operations.
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[Question]
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The Valkyrie are female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live. They take the slain to Odin. In some lore, they provide alcoholic beverages to the slain (so there's that).
What politics would have them choose who lived and who died in a battle. Presumably, they don't support any one given faction, for they would simply annihilate the entirety of the opposite faction. Yet, in Norse mythology, there's no meaning to their selection (that I can find).
**What is the best motivation that a Valkyrie would have for killing a proportion of the battlers on *both* sides?**
EDIT: This is for a storyline; I must justify my Valkyrie picking off warriors both brave and cowards; this-side and that-side. In an attempt to prevent being too broad, I'll specify that the best answer is a reason that best justifies and benefits the Valkyries, Odin, and the world at large.
EDIT 2: Clarification as requested; just like the many questions about shapeshifters, vampires, and minotaurs (oh my), this is a question using popular mythology. I'm talking about Norse Valkyrie on Earth, not a distant planet or universe.
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It all depends on the needs of Odin's heavenly army.
If they need mighty swordsmen for the front line, then for earth-bound mighty swordsmen, today is a good day to die.
If however, they need a new camp cook or a couple dozen latrine diggers, the Valkyrie would choose from less courageous stock.
Watch out you WorldBuilders! When Odin needs a new scribe, the Valkyrie may be coming for you!
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Going off of the lore, the reason that they brought the slain to Valhalla was so that they could fight in Ragnarok. So it would make sense that they simply want to bring the best warriors, no matter which side they were on in a particular human conflict.
Continuing on that train of thought for a while, an argument that seems believable would be that they choose to kill those warriors who have nothing more to learn from living on Earth - the only way they could become better fighters is by training in Valhalla until the end of time.
TLDR politics don't matter that much when you're talking about building an army for the end of the world.
[Answer]
**To end suffering.**
A mortally wounded human is not going to survive and the Valkyrie can end their suffering. On the surface, this may seem like the choice has already been made, which is exactly correct. In the same way that fortune favors the bold, Death finds us all, and only the good die young; the Valkyrie make choices that are very difficult to argue with. This ensures their continued existence in mythology.
[Answer]
Actually, the Valkyries didn't just send dead to Valhalla and Odin's hall. An oft overlooked fact is that the Asatru actually has three Gods of the Dead (the rule of three is quite important and a recurring theme in Norse mythology, also exemplified by the Valknut, often representing death, and Odin). One of these is Odin, who receives half of those who die in battle to serve him at Ragnarok, another is Hel, who harvests those who die of age, sickness and other un-warriorlike causes. These will then sail on Naglafar, a ship crafted from the nails of the dead, during Ragnarok as Yggdrasil burns.
The third God of Death is, interestingly enough, Freya. She receives the other half of the Warriors that die in battle. It may therefore be that the Valkyries are operating off of two different sets of priority lists as well.
[Answer]
The Valkyries are fighting the war at the end of time itself, they aren't just preparing for it. This is the god war: the all-war.
They are picking people to die in battle both to recruit an army to take to the end of time, and to change what happens before the end of time in this world. Each thread cut is a soldier in the battle.
Have a descendant whose removal will change history in a way that might harm Odin's cause? You get harvested. Going to kill someone who will die childless, causing someone else to inherit land and not go treking, and thus not found a colony? Your number is up.
Naturally the adversary is also fighting this war of precognition. They, however, use plague and disease as their harvesting weapon of choice.
[Answer]
They want weapons and warriors and tactics, so they don't want the war to end on earth as without the war they will get no more warriors. They sometimes let ceasefires happen to replenish the breeding stock of humans but always they will trigger another war and then take the strongest warriors from the side that would be victorious until the sides are balanced once more.
[Answer]
A mysterious reason, to be revealed at the very crucial end of the story, dun dun duuuun!
Cowardly protagonist dies in a cowardly way, amazed to find himself in Valhalla, believes in himself 'cause apparently the cute Valkyrie believes in him - she'll drop some encouraging remarks along the way - finds inner strength, becomes a capable warrior, then finds out that [actual reason inscribed in ancient Nordic runes, only the worthy can read the truth, blah blah blah].
Possibly there's a chasm on the way to the battlefield. Odin's too lazy to build a bridge so they'll pile up inept warriors' bodies upon which the real heroes can stomp on. Oh and the cute Valkyrie with her high heels.
[Answer]
The gods treat the battle (or the war at large) as a game. Not simply which side wins, but *complex* rules that amount to what are essentially side bets. Killing specific combatents is a way to influence the stats being wagered on, like how sweeping the ice affects the puck in curling. Keeping that analogy, it's not about making one puck go farther, but a strategic placement of stones across multiple pitches.
The actual criteria is some five dimensional metric based on human's collective state, and completely beyond the comprehension of anyone who's not a god.
[Answer]
According to Norse Mythology, the Valkyries's decisions are based off on weather you died a noble death on the battle field. Some warriors tried incredibly hard to be chosen and (according to some historians) took drugs to assure their bravery. They were called Beserkers.
If the Valkyries chose their Einherjar (warriors) in preperation for Ragnarok (the apocolypse), warriors would be chosen that can withstand long periods of waiting, advanced combat abilities and utter fearlessness in the face of death.
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[Question]
[
Given a Medieval or Middle Ages level of technology - leather bellows, etc how close could craftsmen come to achieving a near total vacuum in an enclosed space.
In context, I'm trying to create a Medieval society capable of producing chemicals through vacuum distillation, ceramic foams through vacuum kilns and the other benefits vacuums bring to high temperature applications.
If possible - any maths on how close they could get to hard vacuum - or even an approximation of the vacuum level within Magdeburg hemispheres - would also be appreciated.
[Answer]
You can easily generate quite a high vacuum (0.1 bar or less) by driving the air out of a vessel with steam from a kettle, sealing the vessel, and then letting it cool.
No pumps necessary.
[Hero of Alexandria](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria) experimented with steam but may not have discovered this effect.
Now consider what might happen if an able researcher in the Alchemical Arts, reproducing this ancient knowledge, tried to store Hero's magical stuff in a bottle...
Edit : Interesting! the Wiki page for "[vacuum" (historical interpretation)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum#Historical_interpretation)" asserts that Hero tried to create a vacuum (but presumably not via this technique!), Islamic scientists were experimenting before AD 1000, and in the 1300s, answering the bellows suggestion, "ten horses could not pull open bellows when the port was sealed"...
Looking up "[steam tables](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_%28data_page%29#Water.2Fsteam_equilibrium_properties)" I found the vapour pressure of water is 2.5% of atmospheric pressure at 20C, and 1.2% at 10C, so there's potentially 0.012 atmospheres in the bottle on a cool day...
[Answer]
It has been done in 1654 with [Magdeburg hemispheres](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_hemispheres). They're essentially two halves of a metal ball, attached to each other. Then the air is pumped out. They used horses to show that the two halves couldn't be pulled apart afterwards.
You won't get a vacuum, but very low pressures, sure.
What you'll need is an air pump (bellows) and the two halves of metal.
I think it could have been done earlier than 1654, if people realized the ideas earlier. In 1643, [Torricelli invented the barometer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelista_Torricelli#Barometer). This is what lead to the idea of atmospheric pressure (or so I think, you'll want to ask on History.SE to be sure, I'm just researching wikipedia here).
With an air valve, I imagine one could easily pump in gases that could react after sucking the normal air out.
[Answer]
Depending on exactly what you're trying to do another approach comes to mind:
Fill your apparatus with mercury. The drain pipe extends down more than 1 meter. Chill the whole apparatus in ice. Open the drain valve, you'll have less than 1 pascal of mercury vapor in there. Close the drain valve, now you can warm it up to the desired temperature.
You could also construct a pump based on this: Open a valve between the apparatus and a chamber. Close the valve. Open a valve to the atmosphere, flood with mercury. Close the atmosphere valve, open the drain valve. Close the drain valve, repeat. Your pump cycle is very slow but you'll get a pretty good vacuum eventually. Note that this doesn't require the apparatus to be chilled, only the mercury side of things needs chilling.
I rather suspect this will produce a better vacuum than they can actually maintain anyway.
[Answer]
I remember to have read that the Magdeburg hemispheres were heated and then pressed together.
The pressure inside went down while the hemispheres cooled down.
From my chemistry practical works, I remember that a vacuum of 20% (remaining pressure is 0,2 bar) can be obtained by the Bernouilli effect: we opened a small tap, the water flowing through the hose had a lower pressure. (the container was connected by a T-shape piece).
[Answer]
"*... but nobody withstands [The Machine](http://peregrint.tumblr.com/post/41554606452).*"
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We need the pump before we can play with the spheres and for that we need to be just this side of Enlightenment and know how to machine. I don't think a bellows will work (at all?) on an industrial scale, even his toy spheres needed a legitimate vacuum pump.
**Machine tool**, History -[Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_tool)
>
> Forerunners of machine tools included bow drills and potter's wheels, which had existed in ancient Egypt prior to 2500 BC, and lathes, known to have existed in multiple regions of Europe since at least 1000 to 500 BC.[6] But it was not until the later Middle Ages and the [Age of Enlightenment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment) that the modern concept of a machine tool—a class of machines used as tools in the making of metal parts, and incorporating machine-guided toolpath—began to evolve.
>
>
> Clockmakers of the Middle Ages and renaissance men such as Leonardo da Vinci helped expand humans' technological milieu toward the preconditions for industrial machine tools. During the 18th and 19th centuries, and even in many cases in the 20th, the builders of machine tools tended to be the same people who would then use them to produce the end products (manufactured goods). However, from these roots also evolved an industry of machine tool builders as we define them today, meaning people who specialize in building machine tools for sale to others.
>
>
> Historians of machine tools often focus on a handful of major industries that most spurred machine tool development. In order of historical emergence, they have been firearms (small arms and artillery); clocks; textile machinery; steam engines (stationary, marine, rail, and otherwise)...
>
>
>
So, we need to know *how* to machine and have a reason why we *do*. You have [vacuum distilleries](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_distillation)?... NP.
*He probably owes you money, eh?... Well I'll ask 'em...*
Failing this criteria, then I'd guess we're looking for the maximum bar that a bellows can pull and whether or not that's acceptable for the process in question.
I'm having a hard time finding data, or use of bellows ->backwards. I'm guessing no one came forward and said "That's great Mr. Magdeburg Otto, but all you've done is make a metal contraption [vacuum pump] just like my (imaginary) leather bellows *thingy*".
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[Question]
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Everywhere I've looked, the way we traditionally make a civilization or society feel ancient is by applying ages or architectures from our own history, hence my term "bronzification." A similar problem occurs with Aztec or Mayan structures.
Are there more subtle ways to make your audience feel like the civilization or society is ancient? Certain art styles, colors, legends, etc?
Specifically, looking for aspects about the civilization, not how to describe it.
The setting I'm basing my question off of is very Tolkien-esque and I'm trying to work in a long-dead culture, but I'm not wanting to take from common or traditional "ancient" cultures, while still creating a civilization that feels ancient to the audience.
[Answer]
There is no universal color or art style that would indicate that something is ancient.
Old stuff would look old. There would be decay.
It would be different than what's current.
Now that you have a Medieval-type world with magic, you've narrowed the question and opened up possibilities.
1) **Their understanding of magic was different.** Some of their old spells still stand, preserving old places. There might still be a building standing, no roof, things growing everywhere inside, but a beautifully maintained fountain.
Example description: *Using detect magic, you can see that it's some kind of combined preservation and constant cleaning spell, more complex than anything you've ever seen. There are bits of the magic clinging to parts of the room, and in those places, you see gleaming bright purple tile, crumbling walls standing when they ought to have fallen many hundreds of years ago, next to foliage growing through, and even, a giant oak. The branches shadow the space, replacing the ceiling with sky and greenery. The magic is strongest at the fountain in the center of the room. The fountain looks as though it had been built yesterday, with the bright purple and white tiles and crisp, clear water.* --This description uses the setting and the things that have grown there to establish that it's old--oaks take a while to grow, and with the magic slowing the decay, the characters have no real way of knowing how old exactly it is, but it gives the impression of age. Show the decay and use magic liberally as part of the setting. Even if they can't detect magic, the old tree is a great establisher of age.
2) **Have the characters discover things that they have no idea what they are used for.** They might have all traveled by floating discs at high speed. But the characters don't know that, they just see all these now non-magical discs scattered all around the city. Essentially they were cars/transport. Don't EXPLAIN everything to the characters. Leave an air of mystery. Describe objects that you know what the civilization used them for but that any outsider coming in a hundred years later would not know. Discs are one idea, could be anything. The Egyptian example is the [weird perfume cones](https://www.fashionologiahistoriana.com/costume-history-legends-essays-in-english/perfume-cone-the-mysterious-fashion-accessory-of-ancient-egypt) they used to put atop their heads. If you saw a picture you would have no clue that's what it was unless someone told you. If you found one, it's pretty likely you would not know how it was used.
3) **Fashion.** Scrolls or wall art might also be magically maintained so that you have pieces of the culture right the heck there and in full color. As to how they dress, if that's depicted--just make it something strange to the current folk. So, like those cone hats from Medieval times, or the super curly-toed shoes--those are pretty dang weird to us, so you have the option of making up some bit of fashion frippery that isn't common to your "modern" folk. Can be anything. Painted nails, chains from the earrings to nose rings, a lack of pants, wearing only pasties, wearing the largest shoulder pads possible, jackets made only of spikes, and so on. Depends on the actual feel of your culture as to what they might do and that's up to you.
4) **Colors.** So for Egypt, we have something called [Egyptian blue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_blue). It's the signature color of Egypt, and one of the earliest pigments. Your civilization can have its own signature color or even a combination of colors. It can be any color. Or any combination of colors.
5) **Things are lost.** For a lot of old cultures that were looked at by Medieval times, they were looked at with a sense of wonder...The Romans weren't that long ago, and yet, they knew how to engineer and do things that people of Medieval times just couldn't do, especially a few hundred years in. The Dark Ages, Medieval times, whatever you want to call them, ARE in fact the inspiration for Tolkien's world, so you can echo that by a sense of wonder at older civilizations--the secret for Greek fire, lost mostly, architecturally the way the Romans built pretty much everything--lost for hundreds of years...My point is, there's the way we in the 21st century look at the Greeks and the Romans, and there's the way the Medieval culture looked back at them, and it was totally different. We've found remnants of gear-driven stuff in Greece, advanced clocks, things of that nature. And they had plumbing in the Roman towns--something that totally went out the window a few hundred years later.
6) **New can be old.** Ok. Modern day. Imagine an apocalypse. Now imagine that the society builds back up to Tolkien levels, and magic is introduced. What components of our civilization would survive 300 or 1,000 years later? It would be ancient from the perspective of the people. The thing most likely to survive might well be plastic.
7) **Legends.** I'm not going to give you legends. You have to figure out both the cultural tilt of the current society and what their own lore and modern stories are told vs. how their viewpoint might shape whatever is left of the old society. The old society might have a pantheon, or they might have believed in no god at all, or that there was one god, watching, and it was important to give that god a good show or the god would destroy the world. That's one idea. I am sure you have ideas of your own that are not mine. Greek and Roman myths survived because priests of the Christian religion wrote the pagan myths down. There's no way to know what was lost or gained in these stories.
8) **Ask: Is your civilization iconic or mostly unknown? Government, religion, fashion, and morals might not be directly on display in a way that the characters understand.** Picture a mural of senators debating from Roman times. Now, what if you didn't know they were debating? What if you didn't know they were senators? What conclusions might you draw? For us in our world, the Roman senate has culturally served as a model for some of our art. We recognize it instantly. So the question is, has any part of the culture become a cultural touchstone for the "modern Tolkien culture"? Or is it totally undiscovered? With no part of its stories and lore passed down, how it's seen will depend on this factor. We know a little something about the Greeks and Romans because of books which were written and copied. We know less about the Aztecs because their stories weren't passed down as much. Mostly, we have to guess. Decide how much and what parts of the old culture has influenced the new, and how much might be open to misinterpretation. Like Regency France was influenced by classical Greek sculpture, so you might see gowns there following some of the same lines. Therefore--put it in one of two categories a) An iconic ancient culture (ie Egypt) or b) A super mysterious culture that's known but hasn't had an appreciable cultural impact on the world (Aztecs). Now an iconic culture can still have plenty of mystery (the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians certainly do) but they might have bestowed some recognizable ideas and fashion on the world. There are some I consider in between--I think Celtic, in my eyes at least, is a good example of an ancient culture squarely in between the two. Lots of what we think we know of them is largely conjecture, but much of their iconography has had a cultural impact.
[Answer]
**Make it seem old by incorporating relics that are even older.**
May I recommend the master, H.P.Lovecraft. He does a great job in [The Shadow Out of Time](http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/sot.aspx). This suits your purposes too because both alien races are utterly inhuman.
>
> In certain places I beheld enormous dark cylindrical towers which
> climbed far above any of the other structures. These appeared to be of
> a totally unique nature, and shewed signs of prodigious age and
> dilapidation. They were built of a bizarre type of square-cut basalt
> masonry, and tapered slightly toward their rounded tops. Nowhere in
> any of them could the least traces of windows or other apertures save
> huge doors be found. I noticed also some lower buildings—all crumbling
> with the weathering of aeons—which resembled these dark cylindrical
> towers in basic architecture. Around all these aberrant piles of
> square-cut masonry there hovered an inexplicable aura of menace and
> concentrated fear, like that bred by the sealed trap-doors.
>
>
>
The city of the Great Race (in which the narrator is a guest) is very old. But within it are relics of something much older - things from the race of beings that were on the earth when the Great Race arrived from space. These old things were driven down into the earth by the newcomers, and the new cities built on the old. The presence of these ancient, ominous things in the new city is excellent in the story and also well suited to a D&D campaign. The city of the Great Race itself is very old, but within it are relics of something much older. Relics that the current inhabitants are reluctant to discuss...
[Answer]
**Let's look at what we have to work with**
* Tools (overused)
* Weapons (overused)
* Architecture (overused)
* Fabric (both material composition and weaving tech)
* Dyes & Pigments (both how they were manufactured and how they were used)
* Ceramics (both tech and aesthetic design)
* Social mores (Aztec child sacrifice to Greek burial practices to make Charon happy, lots of superstition)
* Government (generally tribal or feudal)
* Medical (remember that "barber surgeon" is a medieval concept, it was worse in the Bronze Age)
* Transport (lots of chariots, not a lot of suspension, did they have 2-axel wagons back then?)
There are a million ways to avoid using the tried-and-true metallurgy and architecture-based descriptions of bronze-age peoples. After creating this list, I'm especially fond of the dyes & pigments.
*And as a side note... a lot of this will depend on how your characters react to these things. That is off-topic here, but if your characters act like it's ancient, your reader will believe it's ancient.*
[Answer]
You are putting yourself in a bind. What does "ancient" mean? If the answer is "An ancient culture is one that's a lot like the real life ancient cultures," then there will be no way to create an "ancient culture" without making it a lot like real life ancient cultures.
If you expect your readers to use a different definition of "ancient" then we might be able to work with it. It depends on what "ancient" should mean.
One thing I associate with ancient cultures is a lack of book learning. The idea that you can learn something by going to school is relatively new. The more you look in the past, the more you see learning by doing. An "ancient" culture should have that feel.
An "ancient" culture does not have modern science. We have a particular way of viewing the world through science's lens which is taught to us from a very young age. It's what has become what we mean when we say "objective." A culture will not feel ancient if it has our modern scientific objective feel. That being said, it should be self-sufficient. One of the reasons ancient cultures had to many gods and legends and such is because they were part of a self-sufficient fabric which held people's lives together. If you need strong people to fight wars and work the field, you don't have a doctrine built around BMI and whey powders. You have the legends of great strong people which have some hints as to how to become strong wedded into the story.
Ancient governments were typically much less centralized than ours are. It's hard to manage governments the way we do today without modern communications. You'll see more decentralization as a result.
But all of these are just aspects of what *I* associate with the word "ancient." Your first job is to figure out what you mean, without using the word itself. An internet-stranger will never be able to second guess what you mean by "'ancient,' but not the way we usually think of 'anicent.'"
[Answer]
The easiest way, in my mind is to simply erode things. You have already decided certain things about the "ancient society" and what level it reached. So decide what would happen to the common materials used if not maintained over time and climate. A large concrete and steel structure in a very dry climate might suffer from wind erosion. Windows would likely break to some degree. Edges would blunt, dust would drift in. More humid areas would breakdown faster. It all depends on the materials used, of course. Stone will last a lot longer than wood. Steel can rust, Reinforced concrete will crumble.
Colors would be kind of a non issue, except for the natural breakdown of paint pigment. Yellows and pure reds fade. In addition, surfaces will get muted with dust and dirt.
Legends can be whatever you want, really. How much knowledge passed from one civilization to the next?
[Answer]
>
> Everywhere I've looked, the way we traditionally make a civilization or society feel ancient is by... "bronzification."
>
>
> Are there more subtle ways to make your audience feel like the civilization or society is ancient? Certain art styles, colors, legends, etc?
>
>
> Specifically, looking for aspects about the civilization, not how to describe it.
>
>
>
Without getting into what happens if you add in Tolkienesque races and sticking only with humans,
# **war never changes. Technology and social organization change.**
**Before the development of intensive sources of food** (for us, farming; for magicians, maybe something else), **(a)** you're not going to have the manpower for large-scale construction or supporting the development of advanced technology and **(b)** you're not going to have much of an ability to organize it, since you're not going to have any way for assholes with weapons to keep most of their slaves from running off. You could probably get *some* simple heavy things built by people following their priests.
These guys aren't going to leave much. Their homes would've been in mud, thatch, bamboo, wood, &c.: easily raised, easily infested, easily burnt, easily left, and only detectable to our society by, e.g., advanced imaging and meticulous interest in former postholes.
**You could** think of monumental astrological or religious structures they would be able to erect and then pointedly try to avoid, e.g., [Stonehenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menhir), the [Nazca lines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines), [burial mounds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumulus#East_Asia), and other things people actually made. The fantasy trope would be for them to be [Maerë Su](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Elf#The_Ugly_Side_of_Elves) [nature mages](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Druid), tending enormous groves of inhabited or sacred trees. You could have them leave their marks in stone: something like [Mt Sipylus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Sipylus) could *actually* record their faces instead of just being thought to.
If magic gave them control over metal, stone, &c. you could see great idiosyncratic or clan-based manifestations instead of
**what you get after farming**, when the assholes with weapons can commandeer the food supply necessary for almost everyone in the society. At that point, they like to erect giant monuments, tombs, and temples attesting to their complete awesomeness and *that* will almost always involve something that looks like *some* culture *somewhere*. You've got your friezes and your statues and your arches and your obelisks and your pillars and your ziggurats and your temples and your remains of temples and your palaces and your massive gardens and your menageries &c. &c. &c.
Note that if you had truly abundant food, available anywhere with no or little delay, society itself would have evolved in an entirely different way. At a high enough tech level, though, it's still going to make sense for people to specialize and use specialized tools and structures.
In either case, **you're always going to see remains of defensive works of some sort**, along with mass graves at battle sites and occasional caches of weapons, whatever they were.
**What's going to make your society feel old** is
* 1, that **people don't really have any good history for it and subscribe to multiple (and mutually exclusive) legends**; and
* 2, **that its remains have become changed, broken, or obscured with time**.
You start out there, with the Rosetta Stone of the Mighty Skywalkers of Uberia being used as a tavern countertop or outhouse toilet seat, even if your character becomes a linguist and realizes (whilst enthroned) that the Suttish on the left means he can read the repetitive decorations on the right as ideographs... that in fact the Skywalkers spoke an early form of Troglodytish and he can now read thousands upon thousands of years of their records.
This still works even if you have magic providing something utterly impossible to our historic Bronze Age cultures like leaving their mark in genetic code. If, e.g., some megalomaniacal king reshaped his entire population (male and female) to have his own face, you could show the antiquity of the civilization by noting how different they now appear, with some villages no longer bearing their age-old unibrows or harelips and being able to *finally* attract new mates from other regions, improving their appearance still more. Ditto with the devotees of the bird god Faginow now being largely beakless, their feathers having molted for the last time eons hence.
[Answer]
One of the things is the period of use of buildings and streets.
E.g. In much of England a house under 400 years old is regarded as recent. So part of being ancient is slow renovation.
In any old part of a city, the crud construction has fallen apart, and only the well built structures remain. (They didn't really build better houses 100 years ago. Only the good ones are still here...)
So part of being ancient in accumulating multiple layers of stuff that has lasted.
One of the side effects of this: The stuff that lasts tends to be stone. So the use of stone as a construction medium helps confer ancientness.
References to still earlier periods. E.g. If major families have combination museums/mausoleums that honor their ancestors for the previous N centuries; if references to some family of (distain...) 'new money' where the family has only been rich for 4 generations. The parks planning board is debating replacing the 500 year old oak on Morcraft Pond
Generalize this: The entire culture does things on a much longer time scale.
One trademark of an old culture is that it is static. There are no changes other than fashion. You could move someone a century forward and back, and he could make a living. Change is slow.
Rome at 300 AD wasn't any more of an ancient culture than is England today.
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Beware a trap: Do not conflate ancient with low tech. Since tech is new to us, we have no experience with ancient high tech cultures.
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Examples in the SF literature:
See Charles Sheffield's Transcendence series.
Look at the Bene Geseret culture in the Dune books.
Look at The State in Larry Niven's Smoke Ring, A world out of time, and the references to water empires.
Look at the galaxy wide culture of Asimov's Foundation series.
Look at the Martian culture in Heinlein's books. Red Planet and Stranger in a Strange Land.
David Brin gives a fascinating view of a clearly very old cosmopolitan culture in "The Uplift War"
See Arthur Clark's Diaspar in "Against the Fall of Night" and "The City and the Stars" as well as the novella "The Lion of Commare"
[Answer]
**History and Anthropology**
Look at the common elements across ancient civilizations. Elements that are reoccurring are likely to appear in any new civilization discovered. Therefore, they would be at home in any new civilization you create. God kings. Burial mounds. Polytheis with warring gods. Animal sacrifice. Origin myths. Taxes. Priest caste with astronomy used for religious and agricultural use.
[Answer]
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time does a great job of evoking this feeling. Throughout each of his books, multiple references are made to the "Age of Legends", over 3000 years ago by the timeline of the book. Characters in the book keep stating that in the "Age of Legends", things were possible that were only dreamed of 3000 years since.
If you want to make your civilization feel mystical and ancient, read at least some of the Wheel of Time series. It'll give you a good idea of what to do.
[Answer]
Consider what "bronzification" really means. It's essentially saying that they made a bunch of things out of bronze that modernly we'd make out of steel or plastic. That's why bronze seems old to you, because we've found better alternatives.
To make your own bronze without making your world a copy of our world, look for things that could be recently discovered. Then you can have your characters ask why they made the widget out of chipped stone rather than glazed clay, and another character can point out that they only discovered glazed clay fifty years ago. Now, that's still a historical example. It's just history that is a bit older than normal. It's the Flint Age rather than the Bronze Age.
If you want to make it non-historical, consider incorporating magic. So the modern way isn't better steel crafting. Instead, a wizard makes star metal (which might be steel). Perhaps they don't know about forges at all. Instead of smiths, wizards make all things metal. Before that, what did they use as weapons? Make up your own history of magic and show how the ancients are doing things in the old ways.
Also note how steampunk extends the Steam Age to places where it wasn't used historically. Your ancient civilization might be flintpunk. Perhaps they built a mighty castle by first finding a gigantic stone and then hollowing it out.
I don't mean to imply that flint is the only possibility. It's an example. Wood would be another example. Animal hides rather than plant fiber clothes.
Anyway, my main suggestion is to use your characters to give the impression of ancientness. Because they perceive the civilization as ancient so will your readers. Have your characters ask why they didn't just use steel, brick, or cotton. Have another character explain how new those concepts really are. Or even better for a fantasy novel, make it new versus old versions of magic.
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[Question]
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How plausible are naturally-evolved, biological, fixed-wing flying creatures? Could such a creature plausibly evolve in Earth-like conditions? If so, what method would it be most likely to use for propulsion, and how large could such a creature realistically become? If such creatures are not plausible in Earth-like conditions, how much would conditions have to change for fixed-wing creatures to become plausible?
To clarify, these creatures would have completely fixed wings. Any kind of wing that has a capability for motion does not count, even if such wings are held immobile for long periods while soaring. Propulsion cannot come from any kind of flapping motion of the wing.
[Answer]
## Non-stop flyers
As stated in other answers, these birds would be vulnerable on land. So we are looking for birds that never land. It's not totally impossible, some real birds are capable of [flying continuously for years](https://smartenings.com/3-amazing-birds-that-never-land/).
You can make it seem valid from the point of view of evolution. For instance by deciding that the planet is entirely covered in water. Or maybe because it's too dangerous to land because of predators. So the longer you stay in the air, the safer you are. Until you evolve to stay in the air forever.
You can eat other things that are flying.
## Propulsion
As they can't flap to regain altitude or speed, these birds need an alternative source of propulsion. Some ideas:
* Rely on vertical air movements, like real birds. Your world must then have plenty of these.
* Some animals/vegetables/fruits are large [gas balloons](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/113575/how-viable-is-a-creature-that-floats-through-the-air-like-a-living-hot-air-ballo), your birds could sometimes rest on them, use them as lifts to regain altitude or lay their eggs on them.
## Fixed-wing justification
If your birds stay in the air perpetually and are using these propulsion means, then they might be more efficient with fixed wings:
* Less muscle to maintain -> less weight, less energy
* Fewer articulations -> less weight, fewer risks of breaking something
That said, they will still need some moving parts to steer in the air.
### Reproduction
A comment asked about reproduction. How will the creatures give birth in the air? I propose the following mechanisms:
* Birds drop eggs in the water, or on whatever soft enough surface. When the babies are born, the wings are not yet fixed, so they can start flying. The wings rigidify at puberty.
* As stated above, they lay eggs on big gas balloons or similar buoyant organisms.
* The eggs themselves are lighter than air because they have a hydrogen pocket in them. So they float around until the birth of the baby, which can directly start flying.
[Answer]
Sure. You need:
## Jet Propulsion
These creatures below are called Skewers. They were envisioned by the writer and exobiologist Wayne D. Barlowe in his excellent book *Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV*.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3VM1F.jpg)
I remember that they were jet-propelled, but I don't remember the exact mechanisms of it. So, this is the part where I get to speculate.
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Many creatures today have symbioses with microbes in their gut. An example would be the ruminants, whose digestion is aided by microbes in a stomach called the rumen.
It is not difficult to imagine that a creature (Perhaps not a bird) could evolve a symbiotic relationship with a gut-living microbe that produces hydrogen as a metabolic waste product. If these animals could store and compress that hydrogen in organs like lungs, it could bring a lot of possibilities.
If the animals had a tube leading from the lung-like organs to their rear, the compressed hydrogen could be expelled in that direction where it is ignited by bioelectricity, and *voila*, combustion.
The skewers from *Expedition* were huge, at least *Quetzalcoatlus* size, and since it is primarily a work of science, I can assume that it is plausible that these fixed-wing birds could grow to very large sizes.
[Answer]
**I'll answer from the [reality-check](/questions/tagged/reality-check "show questions tagged 'reality-check'") point of view**
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> **How plausible** are naturally-evolved, biological, fixed-wing flying creatures?
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I find it **very difficult**, to say the least.
* Being unable to fold your wings is a huge disadvantage on land: they are necessarily frail and would be exposed to predators and crash against obstacles on the ground.
* Landing, I think, is the most difficult task for fixed wings, although, maybe, a huge moving tail could help overcome the difficulties.
* Being able to fold wings costs very little: wings are light and easy to move.
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> Could such a creature plausibly evolve in Earth-like **conditions**? how much would **conditions** have to change for fixed-wing creatures to become plausible?
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Birds with fixed wings could kind of survive in deserts with no predators nor obstacles, but would they outcompete their flexible counterparts? Flying further is usually the result of flapping. Mountains (bare, to avoid making obstacles) could help them take off, allow ascending currents to keep in the air and make landing a little less dangerous.
It's difficult to find an evolutionary pressure that could evolve motionless wings. But they could be born mobile and become fixed at adulthood: otherwise, eggs should be long.
One possibility is that evolutionary pressure stops fighting some kind of osteoarthritis-like degenerative sickness of the joints to favor some other advantageous traits (like longer, wider wings)
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> If so, what method would it use for **propulsion**? *[And **other ideas**]*
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Apart from flightless birds, like penguins or kiwis which could survive with fixed wings but are out of the scope of the question, there are birds adapted to glide and can actually survive with very little flapping.
The closest you can get to the kind of bird you're looking for with existing species is [**Andean Condors**](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andean_condor):
*I'm so majestic that all the countries in my range have chosen me as their national bird (image: Wikipedia)*
They are the biggest birds on Earth by wing *area* (spanning about 11 ft *long*). A big area helps them glide effortlessly. They are adapted to mountains, very good at finding **ascending currents** and **taking off from cliffs**. If one of them had its wings suddenly fixed, it'd be more likely to have trouble landing than taking off or flying long distances without flapping (what they actually do).
Condors are apex predators (no one trying to kill them) and live in mountains, where they happen to find fewer obstacles. Their habitat favors non-flapping flight and take-off.
**Perhaps** what you need is a big-tailed condor (i.e., with a long, wide tail), whose wings become fixed OR are very small at the time of hatching
I don't think a bird could realistically live without *any* landing. Though they could hunt (or even gather) while flying, mobile wings increase maneuverability, thus increasing the chances to hunt (which would be a strong evolutionary force for wings **not** to become fixed).
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> **how large** could such a creature realistically become?
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Apparently, birds [can grow larger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis). Paleontologists argue that there have been birds with estimated wingspans of about $7\,m$. And the good news is that the bigger the bird, 1) the better it is at gliding, 2) the less efficient flapping becomes, 3) the more fixed their wings are
[Answer]
Possibly there could be a bird-like creature that had four wings, one set of which never flapped but was rigid when flying though maybe it folded up when not flying.
And maybe the other pair of wings of the bat like creature would flap when flying.
So maybe the more rigid pair of wings was for lift, like the wings of an airplane, and the flapping pair of wings was for thrust, like propellers or jet engines on airplanes.
Or maybe the pterosaur-like creature would use its wings for lift and a little steering, and used a fan like tail for thrust, like many sea creatures swim through the water.
Or maybe the bird-like creature would have a siphon like squids do, and would use stiff wings for lift and air blown through the siphon for thrust.
[Answer]
They could evolve from **flying fish**
These fish have fixed wings whilst flying and they are driven by their tail which hangs down into the water. Over millennia this tail fin could enlarge and evolve to propel them through the air
Videos of flying fish
Record flight: <https://youtu.be/5lYnFDtFx20?t=66>
Being chased by predatory birds: <https://youtu.be/5lYnFDtFx20?t=280>
[Answer]
Well...if these creatures spent their lives on treetops, gave birth rather than laying eggs (So? Platypus is a mammalian that lays eggs!) so that the little ones clung to them like bat kits do...it could work. They'd be a strictly gliding species, their range of maneuvers would be limited, but as long as there's a good thermal they'd do just fine.
Now, eating could be a problem, since they cannot maneuver to prey. You need a world where the air itself carries an abundance of microorganism, a sort of aerial krill, these birds eat just by passing by. In a balanced ecological chain, it would be helpful because this 'windkrill' could be dangerous if it accumulated in excessive quantities on the ground or on trees.
[Answer]
Jet propulsion?
Definitely not feasible, at the very least with naturally-evolved, biological and earth-like premises. Why? It's not a fuel issue, you can pretend to find it somehow, it's a temperature issue! It's something that requires special metal alloy to survive, carbon-based bones and tendons can't stand a chance.
Moreover, there are mainly two types of jet engines: turbojet and ramjet.
Turbojets are the motors you usually see when you take a commercial flight, and the name itself suggest that it needs a turbine to compress the air. Since no flying animal developed any bone mechanism that's similar to a helicopter rotor it's really difficult to justify a turbine (for simplicity, a turbine is a rotor on steroids). The turbojets also won't work because of geometry complexity.
On the other hand, the ramjets are not complex at all, they use their own speed and geometry to compress air. The issue is that they can't operate at a standstill and they are efficient at supersonic speeds: you can't lift off, and supersonic flight requires a massive amount of additional "fuel" and involves even more heat issue because you may have to refrigerate also the wings and not only the engine.
If something like that can be part of something "natural" we can also pretend that grasshoppers can jump so high to be used as a homing pigeon to deliver messages to the moon.
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If the wings' limit is only that they can't be flapped to provide thrust, but they could still be folded (like carrier-based aircraft), it won't be a tremendous deal for a cliff based bird.
A hawk doesn't really need to flap it's wing except for lift off from the ground. If it could drop itself from a high cliff it could jump, prey another bird, and carry it to the nest only with "fixed" wing. The foldable wings are probably required because of nest dimension, cleanability, and rest (imagine trying to sleep with spread wings on a cliff that produces by default strong gust of wings).
If you really need a liftoff from the ground I can suggest you something like a
[rocket engine](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/115032/using-science-how-could-an-animal-achieve-lift-flight-by-using-pressure/115050#115050) (still difficult to justify, but way easier than jet propulsion).
[Answer]
Maybe their wings would not evolve from limbs. They might evolve from back plates like those of the Stegosaurus, and later grow very large due to sexual selection but also lighter to support their size, and then they would be repurposed for gliding. Still, it would be better if they could at least make the wings stand upright so they could move better. Or maybe the wings/plates are of a rigid but thin and flexible material, so they can bend out of shape when the creature needs to get between or under obstacles and go back to their original shape without breaking.
[Answer]
Well this already happens many times in nature, although the “wings” can both flap and articulate (because nature doesn’t like stupid designs), they can and do fly without flapping at all. So your question boils down to “can these animals still work if the wings are fixed?)
The Amazon [flying spider](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/gliding-spiders-found-falling-tropical-trees-180956320/) turns its flat body into a wing and glides from tree to tree. It’s gravity propelled flight without flapping. If it were *permanently* shaped this way, it’s aerodynamic performance would not change. However nature would need to give it new legs, and I think that can be done.
The majority of web-weaving spiders fly with no wings at all. Charles Darwin was amazed to find spiders landing on his ship hundreds of miles from shore. It’s called “ballooning,” where they simply pay out a length of silk which is [caught by the wind, combined with electrostatic forces](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/see-how-spiders-fly-with-electricity-video/), that pulls them along.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/G3lz4.jpg)
In this case your question is reduced to, “Can nature evolve spiders with fixed wings?” I think that is a viable evolutionary development.
Some answers feel the outstretched wings will become a nuisance on the ground. Nature disagrees. One extremely successful animal leaves its flight gear outstretched all the time, and can fly without flapping:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6rmIL.jpg)
So really your asking if we glued a dragonfly’s wings down (but still allowed them to pitch), would it still glide?
The answer is yes, but it’s Going to have to learn to forage for food because it won’t be the apex predator we know. It can climb a tree or cliff and glide for days on thermal currents in gravity-propelled flight.
But if you prefer propelled flight, nature has also done this. The squid uses hydraulic pressure to accumulate momentum in the water, then launches itself into the air, flattening it’s tentacles, arms, and fins into rigid wings for gliding flight.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dGw1X.jpg)
In this case your question becomes, “can nature make a squid with rigid fins?” Again, I think this is viable, but not a smart design. And if nature could evolve a very lightweight squid, it could likely glide almost indefinitely on thermal currents.
Next you asked for how large such a creature can be. Honestly this is a function of how lightweight you can make your skeletal and muscular tissues. A thin exoskeleton like the dragonfly can be scaled up fairly well, but the animal will become quite delicate as it gets larger. Hollow bones of birds may also allow pteranodon-sized gliding animals. Nearly any creature which can launch itself high enough off the surface can take advantage of thermal currents and regular winds.
For the largest possible rigid wing creature you probably want to evolve a living dirigible with fixed wings and anguilliform locomotion. In this case, your question becomes, “Can a ballon-like creature create hydrogen gas?” I think this is also reasonable. If this creature exhaled H into its own balloon, and could articulate its body, it becomes a living airship.
Sorry this isn’t as cool as jet-propelled pteranodons, but I took the word “viable” seriously. I also took the liberty of making the wings articulate so it can steer (like ailerons) , but not flap. Because we don’t even have strictly “fixed wing” aircraft.
[Answer]
This sounds like the kind of thing that you might find in the atmosphere of a gas giant. In this case, you don't need to worry about land (because there isn't any).
Lift could be provided by the swirling thermals that we can observe ourselves in our own gas giants.
If you want your creature to lay eggs then they could be like gas-filled 'mermaids purses' (shark eggs) which would be buoyant at a certain depth in the atmosphere. When the chick hatches, it enters a shallow dive to gain speed before being lifted up by the aforementioned thermals.
As mentioned above, even fixed-wing creatures would need moving control surfaces of some kind.
[Answer]
Your bird's wing could have a cross-section similar to that of a conventional plane, or a ground effect vehicle, and have the ability to flex its wing in a manner that it could switch between the two. It would spend most of its life airborne, only landing to produce offspring. It would primarily glide, using a conventional wings cross-section to maximize its gliding ability, and that of a ground effect vehicle when close to the ground.
A flexible tail would be used to steer the bird through the air.
Its beak would be long and pointed, similar to a spear. This will allow it to spear its next meal whilst gliding close to the ground or when up high. Having it spear its target from head-on would enable it to keep more momentum than twisting through the air.
The eggs would be laid in small recesses created by the bird's beak on steep cliffs, they could throw themselves off to become airborne again.
Such a bird would be easy prey when grounded, as such, they would benefit from living in a mountainous country so that if they ever did become grounded, they could launch themselves from the nearest cliff face.
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[Question]
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In a large body of liquid helium below the lambda point, what would be the best way(s) for submarine like vehicles to achieve acceleration and directional control?
I'm willing to accept an answer that invokes a way round the problem, such as intentionally heating helium over the lambda point, as long as it is reasonably justified as a practical solution.
[Answer]
## Peristaltic pumps.
Superfluid liquids aren't any more compressible than other liquids. So you can use [peristaltic pumps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristaltic_pump) to move it around. For instance, from the front of you to the back of you. Much like a propeller or jet.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zLact.gif)
A single pump will produce thrust in discrete packets, but having an array of them can provide smooth sailing. Point them in whichever direction you need to thrust away from, like maneuvering jets on a spaceship, and you're in business.
You can also use [heating elements like NASA](https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/arcade/pumps.html), but they just don't purr the same.
[Answer]
**A propeller will still function, just without frictional losses.**
Turning the propeller means the fluid mass must be accelerated backwards, pushing the blade forwards. Zero viscosity does not mean zero mass.
Propellers better in water than molasses because water has much lower frictional (and power-draining) losses. They don't work as well in air because of the much lower air density, but prop. planes prove they work well in a fluid with quite low viscosity one you speed them up to compensate for the low mass of air.
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Propellers do generate thrust in superfluids, see [google books - Superfluidity and Superconductivity](https://books.google.com/books?id=I6JtWd3J8MIC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=propellor%20in%20superfluid&source=bl&ots=lhR9ZRbu7J&sig=_N1yJ8GUcAJ5WyhhJ-0ExqjVNME&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi878vio4TSAhVKylQKHVDMB4kQ6AEIKDAB#v=onepage&q=propellor%20in%20superfluid&f=false)
The nature of the flow within the wind-tunnel is indicated by the propeller which consists of two thin mica vanes ... passage goes on the explain how these applies specifically in the case of superfluids. It also notes that this effect depends up turbulence (so that the disturbed flow does not re-impact the back side of the black to make a net momentum transfer of 0 -- In fact, if slow enough, the net-thrust would be zero, i.e., once you reach the laminar flow region)
They also include a graph of experimental results the plots the net thrust against velocity.
An enclosed screw drive would be effective at very slow speeds even in a superfluid
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For a less technical proof that propeller would work, how about a picture of a helium pump. Notice the use of an Impeller to push the helium.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1bvan.jpg)
[Answer]
The vehicle could carry reaction mass to be ejected, and thereby navigate by Newton's Third.
[Answer]
**Preamble**
I've really appreciated all the answers on this, There has been lots of excellent discussion, I'll be answering by drawing from my two favorites, peristaltic pumps, and heating helium to a gaseous state and exhausting it to generate thrust.
I will try and produce some maths for this. Where I am able I'll provide general case formulae for anyone who wants to use this idea. If commenters can produce or correct any of my formulae I will update accordingly. With that preamble over, I'll begin.
**The Basic Engine design**
Peristaltic pumps supply fluid to a chamber with a central helium fusion core and a series of metal meshes.
The helium is directed out of this chamber via multiple directional nozzles.
To travel at significantly higher speeds, the mesh is heated via direct heating from a helium fusion core within the chamber and a surge of electrical current, bringing the helium (violently) to it's vaporization point.
Importantly we can and possibly should use a material that is a superconductor at cryogenic temperatures [1]
(That source is cool, check it out)
Calculations of efficiency and thrust for both modes will be supplied in the main body of this answer.
(If anybody wants to provide an engineering drawing of this concept I would be very grateful)
**Assumptions for my simple model**
* I will assume $G$ (gravitational acceleration constant) is $10 \, \mathrm{m\ s^{-2}}$ I will assume the temperature of the helium is $1 \,\mathrm{k}$.
* I am assuming standard atmospheric pressure at surface (This assumption Requires the body of helium is sealed as I can think of no plausible element that would remain gaseous to provide pressure at $0.5 \, k$, perhaps we are in some kind of artificially created helium submarine arena at a lavish alien tournament?
* I will take the density of liquid helium as $125 \, \mathrm{Kg\ m^{-3}}$ [0]
* I will assume the submarine operates at a maximum of 100m depth (due to brittle hull materials at low temperatures).
* Given the above I have implicitly assumed the hull can withstand $1.25\times 10^5 \, \mathrm{Kg\ m^{-3}}$, using the formula Pressure $= R \times G \times H =$ Density $\times$ Gravitational constant $\times$ height of liquid above vessel.
Importantly the general Equation for the pressure is $P = R \times G \times H$.
**Efficiency and thrust in pump powered mode**
I was not able to locate a resource providing the efficiency of peristaltic pumps for liquid helium. However I am willing to make the assumption that they are very efficient, losing negligible heat to the helium. This is implied without any figures given here. [2]
I am going to be lazy and provide 90% efficiency. Given operation in a practically friction less environment, we will assume that acceleration characteristics for a general case are $$a = \frac{0.9p}{m V}$$
Where:
* $p$ is power
* $m$ is mass
* $V$ is velocity
* $0.9$ is the factor of efficiency
Because these figure may vary vastly depending on how much you want to wave your arms and say space-future-materials I have left the figures up to the reader. The primary point is that the efficiency is very high.
However this is where we run into trouble, peristaltic pumps are fairly slow, one industrial machines I sourced boasts rates of $40\, \mathrm{Lmin^{-1}}$, equivalent to $0.667 \times 10^{-3}\, \mathrm{m^3\ s^{-1}}$ Weighing in at $40\, \mathrm{Kg}$. [3]
Assuming the material can be passed through a very narrow aperture due to being a superfluid, we can impart a fairly high velocity to it.
Let us take the case of an aperture of area $0.001\, \mathrm{m^2}$.
The equation for velocity is $V = \frac{Q}{A}$
Where:
* $V$ is velocity
* $Q$ is volumetric flow rate
* $A$ is Area (that the flow passes through)
So $V = \frac{0.667 \times 10^{-3}}{0.001} = 0.667\, \mathrm{ms^{-1}}$
At that exit velocity the craft experiences a force of $0.667 \times 0.667 = 0.445\, \mathrm{N}$
Thats pretty bad for a $40\, \mathrm{Kg}$ motor. Even exploiting that our fluid is 0 viscosity.
That is to say that $1\, \mathrm{Kg}$ of motor will produce $11.1 \times 10^{-3}$ newtons of thrust :(
Pathetic.
(If my calculations or sources are wrong here, please let me know)
**Efficiency and thrust in helium vaporization jet powered mode**
It's pretty clear from the above that unless we find large hunks of metal very slowly drifting around cool then we better flip the big red switch labeled **ACTIVATE ROCKETS**
But before we do that, let's figure out what we are going to loose in efficiency, what our power draw is, and what kind of acceleration we might expect.
I didn't bother with hull or equipment weights earlier, because it was quite clear that performance was going to be lackluster no matter which way you cut it.
Let's apportion ourselves one (metric) ton to work with and divide it among hull, pumps, heating, power and control systems. Just to give us some figures to work with, your mileage may vary and I in no way take responsibility for anyone who's submarine collapses at depth in a helium lake.
I will stick $200\, \mathrm{Kg}$ in my super strong magic future material tough at at $0.5\, \mathrm{k}$ hull.
With my remaining $800\, \mathrm{kg}$, I will put $300\, \mathrm{Kg}$ into a super duper all the power you can eat space tech triple alpha helium reactor (I mean we have a lot of helium so why not use it), especially as this produces carbon, that's right, any excuse for a sooty exhaust. [4]
I will take $240\, \mathrm{kg}$ of pump, giving me an easy to calculate $\frac{240}{60} = 4\, \mathrm{L}$ or $0.5\, \mathrm{Kg}$ of helium to work with per second.
with that done, we'll add a $50\, \mathrm{kg}$ AI to control it because we aren't so irresponsible as to put organics on this deathtrap.
$160\, \mathrm{kg}$ will be allotted to physical control systems, thrust vectoring etc.
the final $50\, \mathrm{Kg}$ will be our heat dispersal and heating element.
Whilst most of that was frivolous the important factor is this, we have $0.5\, \mathrm{Kg}$ of helium per second to convert into gas and into energy. (To go slower in this mode we would lower the speed of the pumps, reducing our fuel.)
The reactions for this type of fusion are as follows (Wikipedia verbatim quote):
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> He + He → Be (−91.8 keV)
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> Be + He → C (+7.367 MeV)
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> The net energy release of the process is 7.273 MeV (1.166 pJ).
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> As a side effect of the process, some carbon nuclei fuse with additional helium to produce a stable isotope of oxygen and energy:
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> C + He → O (+7.162 MeV)
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Unfortunately it's not clear to me what quantity becomes oxygen, regardless it might be different for the case of this implausible wave-your-arms-and-hope-tech reactor.
In terms of joules,making a blind assumption of $10\%$ of carbon molecules becoming oxygen molecules, then:
31 He → 9C + O $\left( 7.237\times 10 + 7.162 = 79.532 \mathrm{MeV}\right)$
Converting to Joules yielded per gram
$1.2742436502359998\times 10^{-11} \approx 1.27\times 10^{-11}$ joules per 31 molecules (online calculator [5])
The molecular weight of helium is $4.0026$ [0] so roughly speaking one gram of helium contains Avogadros constant/4
so $\frac{1}{4}\left( 6.02214085\times 10^{23}\right) = 1.505535213×10^{23}$ atoms of helium per gram.
Multiply that by the yield per atom $1.505535213\times 10^{23} \times \left(1.2742436502359998\times 10^{-11} \times \frac{1}{31}\right)$ gives $61884473701$ Joules per gram. Let's round to $6.19\times 10^{10}$ joules.
Next we need to figure out how much heat it's going to take to vaporize our helium. I suspect if my calculations are correct we can probably manage a plasma without breaking a sweat.
$2326\, \mathrm{J\ kg^{-1}}$ is given here to vaporize helium [0]
Given that figure, 1 gram of fused helium can vaporize $2.66\times 10^7 \mathrm{kg}$ of helium.
With those orders of magnitude, we have the breathing room to pick a temperature for our exhaust gas to fit our liking. let us say we want to exhaust helium at room temperature to make for slightly easier calculations.
We are heating $0.5\, \mathrm{kg}$ of helium (more or less) which is equivalent to $\frac{500}{4} = 125\, \mathrm{mol}$
Using a scientific calculator [6] we find that the exhaust helium has a volume of of about 6200L for the pressure of $125000\, \mathrm{kg\ m^{-2}}$ at lowest operating depth.
As I understand it ( and I may need correcting ), thrust is calculated by momentum transferred to fuel. So for a given volume and mass per second, momentum transferred is affected by exhaust aperture.
For easy calculation I will assume an aperture area of $0.5\, \mathrm{m^2}$
We have room as previously discussed to produce a near arbitrary output heat.
To this end I chose the gas output temperature as $1500 \,\mathrm{C}$. This yields . Circa $14743 \,\mathrm{L}$
Plugging this new value into the thrust equation we get:
$14743\, \mathrm{l\ s^{-1}}$ must travel at $29.5\, \mathrm{m\ s^{-1}}$ through an aperture of this size $\left( 1000\, \mathrm{l} = 1\, \mathrm{m^3}\right)$. imparting $29.5\, \mathrm{m\ s^{-1}}$ to $0.5\, \mathrm{kg}$ per second produces a thrust of $14.75$ newtons for a $1000\, \mathrm{kg}$ craft. So we can expect an acceleration of $0.0148\, \mathrm{m\ s^{-2}}$
Still fairly low. Some optimisations required. Who knew jet powered superfluid submarines could be so sedate.
Since this figure is appalling I propose that as nice as the idea of peristaltic pumps and jets is, anybody sensible will heat up the fluid to a non super-fluid temperature, or perhaps if really wise, won't venture into a lake of liquid helium at all.
**Finally**
I'm really sorry I rained so thoroughly on the parade of peristaltic pumps and jets, I didn't set out to the maths just worked out that way. They were a great starting point and key to this answer.
I'm sorry this answer is currently a shambles at the end, it took a long time to write and unfortunately rocket science is where my understanding of physics wears thin.
**Sources**
[0] <http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/helium-d_1418.html>
(yes I added this one later and couldn't be bothered to renumber, I was 3 hours in dammnit)
[1] <http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2008/explain-it-in-60-seconds-magnet-quench>
[2] <http://www.barber-nichols.com/products/pumps/cryogenic-pumps/liquid-helium-pumps>
[3] <http://www.hollandapt.com/Documents/Ctrl_Hyperlink/BT_Air_Powered__Fixed_and_Pump_Adapter_Systems_uid122220091201252.pdf>
[4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple-alpha_process>
[5] <http://www.convertunits.com/from/MeV/to/J>
[6] <http://www.ajdesigner.com/idealgas/ideal_gas_law_volume_equation.php>
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You wouldn't be able to use propeller or any kind of wheel in superfluid - but you still can use jets. The problem would be how to suck up the liquid in and then expel it in desired direction, but as long as you able to implement leakproof valves, it's not going to be a real problem.
P.S. After looking into superfluidity a little more, I found that there is a way to make propellers work, even in superfluid. Superfluidity seems to be limited by a speed of sound in superfluid liquid (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfluid_helium-4>) That means that an object that moves faster than speed of sound will find itself in an ordinary liquid instead of superfluid. So, if your propeller rotates faster that speed of sound (220-240 m/s for superfluid He), you should be good.
P.P.S. In the reference shared by Gary Walker, propeller experiment was working with the speeds far lower that theoretically predicted (generating thrust at speeds as low as 6 mm/s). This fact was reflected in the paper, however, scientific explanation to this phenomenon is still pending, as I understand.
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My novel deals with a primitive society, geographically similar to ancient Egypt, based on a planet with rings. The society, known as the Motek, have a very strong sense of order -- everything has a place, very structured society, breaking out of your rightful place is sacrilege, etc.
The reason for this has to do with their origin story: in the beginning, the universe was ruled by Chaos, your usual malevolent force of destruction, and life was rough. The Motek gods came to the rescue, sacrificing their own lives by forcing Chaos off the planet and becoming the rings, which act as a shield against the ever-encroaching Chaos.
At the start of my book, the rings disappear. First, I know this is scientifically improbable, if not impossible. I don't care. Second, remember this isn't just a natural occurrence to the Motek -- the rings aren't just rings, they're actual gods protecting against Chaos.
How would society react? I'm particularly interested in research about this -- there has to be books or articles out there about primitive cultures dealing with the destruction of their beliefs and worldview.
I've imagined the basic pattern -- fear, panic, riots; rebellions; depression and suicide, etc. Any more thoughts? Or any research? I've had ZERO luck googling this!
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The closest equivalent to this in human culture would be rare astronomical events - supernovas, and to a lesser extent, comets and eclipses. Events such as these have been seen as omens, and in ancient civilizations, an omen could cause a great deal of unrest among a population.
Aside from eclipses, which civilizations had memory of and therefore knew were not *necessarily* the end of the world, most of these events are minor and only apparent to people who watch the sky on a regular basis - which in ancient civilizations, was typically the clergy. The disappearance of rings, however, would be much more noticeable to the general population.
However, a simple omen, no matter how ominous, will not by itself cause the collapse of a stable civilization. Many people have written of omens that preceded and retroactively predicted cataclysms that came after them, but there is no case of a celestial event *causing* or even triggering a major social or political event directly, because that simply doesn't happen. The most likely result would be people staring at the sky for a few minutes, walking around in fear for a few days, and the priests coming up with an explanation to calm them down, after which they will return to their daily lives. Perhaps the gods are simply off fighting the Chaos away from the planet, for instance.
People may come up with different explanations and act accordingly, and those explanations will generally be based around whatever they *want* the omen to mean. If there is already material cause for unrest, it may aggravate that unrest; a revolutionary group may decide it is a sign for them to rise up, but if people are more-or-less okay with their situation things in the sky are not going to concern them excessively.
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**First step: Explain why rings dissapear. At least to yourselves**. You do not have to uncover it anywhere in the story, but you should know why it *actually* happened. For example, I will assume it is astrophysical phenomena similar to [Solar eclipse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse)
**Second step: Explain how often it can actually happen** Continuing the example, observing solar eclipse is very rare. Especially if we are talking about relatively small society located on one place on your planet (my second assumption)
**Third step: Explain how long will it take:** Under my assumptions, this is "just" natural phenomena which is very rare and happens under specific conditions. Real solar eclipse takes just few hours to observe. Long enough to panic, short to have revolution started. However, if it takes more than day in your example, your people have real problem...
**Fourth: Inspire yourselves in existing religions** Example with ancient Egypt will work great under my assumptions. Egyptians saw the Sun as the God, so Solar eclipse observed in Egypt had to have huge impact at believers at the time. Explore ancient Egyptian religion and inspire self
## Possible reactions:
1. God has abandoned us. The Chaos is taking on us. This is the end of the world. Abandon all hope
2. God is angry. We need to make `[specific religious ritual]` in order to make up with Him/Her/It
3. Chaos is taking on the rule now. Abandon the faith and worship Chaos now.
4. Chaos is taking on rule now. We have to keep faith very tightly in order to survive Chaos rule (Lets become religious fanatics in other words)
(and so on)
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you have an historic example which might answer your question: [the Lisbon earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake)
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> The earthquake had wide-ranging effects on the lives of the populace and intelligentsia. The earthquake had struck on an important religious holiday and had destroyed almost every important church in the city, causing anxiety and confusion amongst the citizens of a staunch and devout Roman Catholic country. Theologians and philosophers focused and speculated on the religious cause and message, seeing the earthquake as a manifestation of divine judgment.
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You can easily translate it in your world: you worship Badabup, supreme ruler of the Universe, and he cast his 4 handed blessing on your race because of it. And his blessing includes this event which crumble your city to dust... well, maybe better worshipping somebody else...
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How they would react could range from one extreme to the other. For example they could go the seemingly obvious route and say "Our gods have abandoned us!" or "Chaos has taken over and we are doomed!". However, they can also go in the opposite direction as well. For example they could say "Chaos has been vanquished and the gods have moved on/sacrificed themselves".
My thought would be that the events immediately after the rings disappeared would decide how they react. What is also is important is what caused the disappearance as that will change what happens after.
**Cause - Natural Phenomenon**
**Follow up Event - Effects that natural order of the world badly**
Examples of how this might effect the world badly is perhaps certain important chemicals or whatever are rained down onto the world from the rings (I dont know the physics behind this or if its even possible or not, just a random thought), or it rains down asteroids on the planets causing widespread damage, tsunamis etc.
They will likely react in a way such that Chaos has taken over and the gods that protect them have abandoned them or are dead.
**Follow up Event - Effects that natural order of the world in a good way**
Perhaps the rings were affecting the oceans tides and now the water is all extremely calm.
They may now believe that Chaos has been extinguished and only peace reigns supreme. Why did their gods leave? perhaps because they are no longer needed, or they went to fight chaos elsewhere.
**Cause - Unnatural Phenomenon (Ex. Aliens)**
**Follow up Event - Alien Invasion**
Following the destruction of the rings which were actually a defensive weapon put in place by another alien race, the alien invasion begins raining down hellfire and absolute destruction.
They will see it as the gods of Chaos literally coming down. They're own gods failed and were destroyed.
**Follow up Event - Aliens help them prosper**
The aliens, seeing a primitive and helpless society, help them giving them medicines and teaching them how to grow crops more effeciently.
This would be seen as their gods coming down to help them (hence why the rings disappeared)
**Cause - Unknown**
**Follow up Event - Not much**
If nothing really happens then after an initial period of some fear and panic, people will go back to living their lives. They may come up with some reason as to why the rings disappeared for example the gods are off fighting elsewhere). Over time the religion would likely become mythology and atheism or a different religion would replace it.
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While I am not aware of any research (and I agree it's a challenging question to have google answer) - I can venture my own thoughts on the question you pose.
1st - I think the actual reason for the disappearance of the rings has some relevance. Reason being - if something happens to cause the material of the rings to shift from their orbit - and either fall to the surface creating some kind of insane meteor shower or escape the gravity well with some kind of visible sign this would be observed by the people.
These are their Gods - they will be watching them - and if something happens to them it will be the biggest thing that happens in their generation.
Their Shamans (or whatever you call their spiritual leaders) are extremely likely to come up with some explanation. If they are corrupt and self serving - it will present an opportunity for them to cement (or increase) their own position of power. If they are noble and genuine - they will attempt to craft a story that will cause their people to become better in some way.
2nd - you could always go with the story of the rings being the actual incarnation of the peoples Gods, and they have have decided to wake up and take a direct interest in the world around them. Perhaps because of some corrupt priest they object to or perhaps because of some threat or danger about to materialise which they need to prepare their people for.
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An alternative angle for googling : destruction of beliefs doesn't necessarily concerns events of astronomical proportion. Being faced with new, unknown cultures and populations in a sudden fashion might also challenge existing beliefs.
Think along the lines of : we were the chosen one, or there is only us on earth and all of a sudden there's others invading us (or the reverse of this, there are new people to invade).
Looking at historical events matching the above might help you model your situation in a realistic fashion.
Jews reacted to diaspora from the promised land by clinging deeply to their beliefs and maintaining their culture intact for millennia. American population went from prosperous empires to dust in no time and dissolved (and surely part of this is due to their reaction to Spaniards invasion). The flip side of this:powerful invading Christians society maintained their beliefs intact and concluded that other races where inferior once discovered.
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Less of a straight answer, but you should probably ask yourself HOW the disappeared. I don't mean like a scientific explanation, but for of how did it look when it happened? Did they up and vanish? Did they fly away? Did the burst in flames?
All of these would be interpreted differently, and would lead to different reactions. Personally, I would make them fall into the planet. The primitives would see this and interpret that the gods have "fallen", and have possibly even joined them.
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Given that the people actually saw their gods defend them, and they are now absent, I would expect the overwhelming response to be one of a continual sense of impending doom. They can clearly see that they are no longer protected, so therefore they are weak and open to be attacked.
This puts people in a "yelling fire in a crowded theater" scenario. Their panicking about possibly dying in the near future will cause their self preservation instinct to kick in, and that in turn detracts from society as it destroys mutual trust between people.
Others might focus more on the gods having forsaken them. Because human opinion is so varied, this will lead to several religious stances:
* The gods are punishing us. We must do away with [current hot topic, e.g. legalizing gay marriage as a good modern day anti-religious example] or we will all die.
* The gods are dead. We are on our own now. Anarchy reigns.
* The gods are dead. We are on our own now. We must defend ourselves.
While not everyone will see it that way, people will adamantly defend it because they believe it. Furthermore, they can actually point to tangible proof, the rings have disappeared.
Look at how zealously religious people can already preach to the world in real life, and realize that none of them have ever laid eyes on the god they worship. Having that tangible bit of proof would drastically exacerbate their zeal.
As to which of the listed opinions (or others) takes the majority of people, I can't say. I don't think even the people could say that, because it depends on some factors:
* The preacher's preaching ability can vastly influence whether people believe them or not.
* Similarly, even if a preacher is completely right, he might not be believed if he had a questionable reputation in the past.
* Coincidental events can lead people to believe a specific preacher. If someone speaks out against the preacher and a lightning bolt strikes him seconds after (through pure coincidence), everyone will believe the preacher.
* There can be established lore that makes a certain scenario more likely. If the scriptures contain earlier stories of the gods punishing humans for their transgressions, it's a lot more believeable that the same thing is happening now.
When you're dealing with religion trying to explain the (to them) unexplainable, you can't really rely on logic to know what will happen. It's much more likely to be a varied spectrum of interpretations (coloured by people's personal opinions and experiences).
As time progresses, someone will invariably appear to be "proven right" even through some stroke of luck or coincidence. If more than one theory ends up being "proven right", then it would divide the populace even more.
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I tend to think that religious beliefs are more robust than that. The event you describe *doesn't* disprove the belief, but it will be interpreted in the terms of whatever systems of belief the people have.
So, the rings (gods) have gone. People will have opinions what this means. Have the gods gone elsewhere? Have they died (I mean, even more so than they were already) or been destroyed? Have they merely changed form, and are still protecting the people but no longer visibly from the sky? Have they been reborn as the individuals they originally were, as opposed to the diffuse rings they became when they sacrificed themselves? If they have gone, does that mean the people are now in grave danger of attack from chaos, or does it rather suggest that the people now have the protection of the ordered social structures developed in the time since the gods great sacrifice, and so the gods no longer *need* to be there and have left voluntarily? No doubt other interpretations are possible. Some interpretations lead to the logical conclusion that the people should keep doing what they're doing, others lead to the logical conclusion that the people should run around in small circles screaming.
The interpretation that actually prevails might depend on whether the religion has an authority that the people actually trust to determine this kind of thing, or whether each practioner is inclined to draw their own conclusions and then argue their opinion. It will probably depend also on whether chaos is truly considered by the faithful to be a clear and present danger, or a thing of the past.
Athough not so striking as a planetary ring, there are plenty of historical and mythical examples where a community has lost a physical manifestation of the favour and/or protection of the Gods. So for example, when the Trojans lost the Palladium, the city fell to the Greeks, was destroyed, and the people killed, enslaved, and scattered. That was the mythical end of the Trojans, except in that Aeneas' line survived to rule Rome.
So if the people expect something like that to be the result of the rings disappearing then there could well be general despair and unrest. If actual prolems materialise during this time, then the unrest could easily worsen them into existential threats to the society, in which case the expectation of doom could be self-fulfilling.
Conversely, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and Moses' Ark lost, this (and surrounding events) hugely affected the material condition of Jewish society. But the fact they had lost an object believed to be the physical presence of God and proof of His covenant with their people, did not dispel their faith that the covenant still exists. At least, not for those who remain faithful.
I would say that if this event *does* cause the people to cease believing in their religion and their principles of order, then it is because the society was anyway ready to discard that system. If the faith had become largely a matter of civic tradition and going through the motions, then the event might still be very significant *politically*, since it opens the theocracy to a loss of legitimacy, but to many people the gods themselves would be no great loss. So if revolution was on the cards already, this event could be the trigger for it to happen. The consequences depend on the revolutionaries and how the revolution plays out.
Equally, though, sometimes people fear that a terrible thing will happen, it doesn't happen, and they get on with their lives. "OK, so we don't have the giant sky-shield any more, we must even more be on guard against chaos".
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**Purely materialistic explanation:**
First of all, for the most of history across the world's cultures, the concept of empirical testing of ideas and beliefs simply didn't exist. Truth came from authoritative tradition, not experimentation. It took the West centuries to come around to the idea testing ideas materially and that largely driven by practical needs such a long range navigation and the need to create new technologies. Egyptian civilization existed for longer than all civilization since combined, nearly 5,000 years and they never developed the idea of empiricism.
(*Note that empiricism and rationalism are not the same thing. Neo-platonism was highly rational yet rejected empiricism entirely.* )
*(The evolution of empiricism requires a certain level of technology, especially uniformity in the production of materials used for measuring instruments, more than any philosophical or theological shift. A careful examination of the time lines of technology and measurements reveals that improvements in empirical power generates the philosophical and theological changes that required to justify the continued use of empiricism. Form follows function, which means function preceeds form. Likewise, justification follows utility which means utility precedes justification.)*
Astronomy became the first science because its measurements depended on angles, and devices for measuring angles report the same results independent of the materials they were made of e.g. a wood divisor, a stone divisor or metal divisor, all report the same angle even though environmental conditions of heat and humidity cause each class of materials to alter in different axes and different degrees.)
Secondly, religions don't exist to provide explanations of the material world but to provide psychological mechanisms to enforce greater social cooperation and cohesion. The actual various religious stories don't actually matter to the religions survival as long those stories induce adaptive behaviors in their adherents i.e it doesn’t matter whether an individual refrains from violence because they fear the judgment of Jesus or they fear bad Karma, it merely matters whether the belief in the story makes them choose non-violent interactions with their fellows over non-violence.
As such, empirical events have little impact on faith in the immediate short-term, because their primary adaptive functions is unconnected to actual material events.
Thirdly, across the world's religions, disasters are interpreted as punishments from the "good" side of the religions instead of being the work of "bad" side, the opposite of what one might expect. But, if you view religions as mechanisms for enhancing cooperations, it makes perfect sense, as the response to a disaster would be an increase in cooperative behaviors as individuals returned to piety.
Based on historical precedent across many cultures, the sudden disappearance of some visible attribute of the divine would rapidly be re-interpreted into some form that maintains social cohesion and cooperation. Likely, there would be a short period of theological fragmentation, but natural selection would rapidly select for the theological explanations that would keep society running.
**Fictional Magic Explanation:**
All of the above presumes that in the story world, the rings don't actually keep some form of chaos i.e. loss of predictability, separation of cause and effect, from affecting the human world. But if in your story they actually are some kind of supernatural defense, then human society would apparently face a very real upsurge unpredictable and non-casual events.
But likely, they would respond to the situation just like the real world historical societies did because prior to the rise of empiricism in the West staring in the 1500s, real world human societies believed that the world was largely chaotic and unpredictable. Only after Newton created the idea of the Clockmaker god, did the West gradually adopt the idea of nature as a type of predictable mechanism which followed rules that human's could puzzle out.
So, even if the disappearance of the rings did cause real chaos, the theological response would remain the same i.e. reworking the theology so that it continued to foster cooperation and functional social cohesion.
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First of all there is no such things as destruction of their beliefs. The disappearance if part of their religion. This is from philosophy field but you always need black to describe white and so on. Without cold you would not know what warm is. You can find this trope in Goethe "Faust"
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> I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.
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Every religion/beliefs need to have "good/bad" to describe itself.
What is important to you is how well the "bad" side is incorporated into the system. If the Motek think that the chaos was and is no more ten the disappearance of the rings would shake the core of their beliefs. So you would have total society destroyed (think Revolution in Russia).
**If** they think that the war is still going outside the rings then their disappearance would enact the apocalypse scenario (think middle ages with black death or Great Famine of 1315–17).
But to point you to books you asked for I would direct to you to anything about priests in ancient Egypt and their tricks with eclipses. Or to Scientifics explanations of biblical tragedies (did you know that deaths of firstborns were probably caused by the fungus in the stored grains as firstborns were given larger portions?).
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Well ignoring the possible religious fracture you have a more important problem, your society is all about structure, in fact if you break out of the order then you are heretic (taking liberties with the term sacrilege you used), now everyone behaves as they should for fear of the gods but more importantly for fear of the reprisal of the mortals around them that will beat them bloody or kick them out of perfect society-chan.
Now the physical representation of these gods are rings that we can see in the sky everyday cementing the notion of order under the heavens, and the fact that you do have place in the universe and that brings you comfort and a sense security. Except that one day there are no rings... So either the gods abandoned you or they went to fight or they died, either way your society now has to deal with the fact that the base of its society is gone...
So they are stranded by their gods and now the backbone of their society is gone. Chaos, confusion and probably violence.
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The answer comes from simple theology based on their belief structure.
"in the beginning, the universe was ruled by Chaos, your usual malevolent force of destruction, and life was rough. The Motek gods came to the rescue, sacrificing their own lives by forcing Chaos off the planet and becoming the rings, which act as a shield against the ever-encroaching Chaos."
Irrespective of what made the rings vanish, this will be a sign Chaos has returned and the Motek gods have descended to force Chaos off the planet again. Oh, yes, the gods sacrificed their lives in doing so first time around. The Motek gods have died, but gods have this habit of resurrecting themselves when you least expect it. They were only"sleeping" until they were needed again.
The priests and priestesses will tell their congregations to be vigilant for signs of encroaching Chaos and offer more valuable donations to the priesthood.
Since in societies like this, the priestly caste are almost invariably the astronomers they will be busy making observations about the vanished planetary rings and devising explanations for what happened. Explanations that will be closer to a form of actual science but pure mythology (but not as well formed as science as we know it, is).
Riots, panic, rebellion, and so on, how likely are they? Frankly, not much. The majority of the people will go about their business unperturbed. It will be mainly the priesthood and the ruling classes who have the leisure time to worry about what is essentially a cosmological problem. It's too remote and removed from everyday life to cause much unrest.
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Well, actually you solved this for yourself already. Your Motek are set in an ancient Egyptian setting? What happened in Ancient Egypt? The pyramid building era suddenly stopped, but why? Why did they just stop and never continue?
There is much debate around this. Some say finances, some say pyramids are billboards for tombraiders. I disagree. Their tombs were their ticket to the afterlife, their way to 'godhood' of a sorts.
Their belief system in the Pyramid era was the pharaoh advocates to the gods, begs their mercy and blessing for the people of Egypt. Then the Nile didn't flood, the nutrients didn't feed their crops. Famine happened. The people starved, watched their loved ones die one day at a time in a world where they just didn't understand this is a natural occurrence.
So what do the masses believe? Their pharaohs cared more for their tombs than for their people, who --through taxes-- paid for said tomb. So the people become desperate, willing to do anything for food. The pharaoh, of course, won't starve, and the people resent him for it.
One ambitious man rallies the turbulent masses, and is installed as the new pharaoh. His pledge? I will focus on the people, not the tomb.
My point? Fear and desperation, coupled with signs of the gods' anger, would upset the masses. This breeds uncertainty, even paranoia. They need someone to blame, and the leader usually shoulders that burden. Then all you need is one charismatic person that wants change -- intentions are irrelevant. And guess what? It's anyone's game now.
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## Religions are built on social networks.
Not belief systems.
Running a social network which is formless, is hard. Most of them put a "form" around it, and that's the set of religious beliefs. The belief systems are the *form* which the bonds take, but if the form is rendered obsolete, the network will simply take a different form.
Case in point, the start of Star Trek: Into Darkness, [here](https://youtu.be/ldxE2DLZ-tA?t=8m23s).
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I think that trying to find someone to blame would be a rather likely reaction. Much like witches were blamed for all sorts of things, surely someone or some group of people would attract the anger of the masses for doing something wrong - which caused the rings to fall down. "Those pesky people from Village X kept wearing blue pants on tuesdays despite Rule #422 which clearly states that appearing similar to water on weekdays with 'u' in their name offends the gods !"
Once the scapegoats have been punished, most likely killed, the people remaining would feel relieved and united, and start going about business as usual. They know why it happened, they have sorted it out, and the gods will probably be coming back now that they all behave nicely again.
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## They would continue to believe anyway
Look at the USA... the science on global climate change is undeniable, so they just ignore it, and vote in a leader who works to supress the evidence.
The OP's people will just explain things away with Alternative Facts and go on believing whatever they want to believe.
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Since Tolkien put people riding on giant eagles in his books (or maybe even before that), the imaginarium of riding the winds on the back of magnificent birds has generated a plethora of images and other media.
[Here is one such gallery](https://www.google.com.br/search?dcr=0&biw=1366&bih=610&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=eagle+rider+-motorcycle)
But one thing I see, is that the positioning of the rider atop the bird changes a lot. Sometimes it is over the wings, sometimes it is over the neck, sometimes even behind the wing articulations.
Some of these are not ergonomic. Not for the rider, much less for the bird.
So, I have to ask:
* If we have humanoids riding eagles, where would they sit? Would it even be on top of the bird?
* What would be the saddle's designs? Where on the eagle would the straps go?
Tech level is what we have here for the early XXI century. Kevlar, Teflon, Nylon, 3D printing, carbon-fiber, plastics, whatever is required for making it work.
This is [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'"), but only for the ergonomics. The basic assumption that there are giant birds humans can ride on is presented as postulate.
Also, I'm not concerned about [using them for war](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/82223/war-eagles-feasible), so they do not have a use as cavalry. Just transportation / sport. It is a **modern setting**, people ride giant eagles for sport, not war. Versus **smart drones and supersonic ammunition**, it is no use to fly a giant bird into battle.
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They will not sit on the bird, for (at least) two reasons. First, sitting is going to create a lot of aerodynamic drag, resulting in a bird that tires quickly. Thats why jockeys and bike racers lean over their handlebars, and - to pick something closer - why people who fly hang gliders do so in a prone position: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_gliding>
Second is the matter of weight & balance. Basically, the rider's weight has to be pretty close to centered over the wings, otherwise the bird becomes unstable and crashes. (When you fly small planes, the manual has diagrams showing just how far from the CG you can put weight. If you add accessories, you need to adjust the table.)
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Eagles are already used to carrying a load during flight. It usually happens after they hunt and carry their prey to their nest. It also happens on relatively short routes.
Therefore you have two options:
1. Short routes: a light weight vessel where the passenger(s) or the load is accommodated, which is then taken by the eagle with its claws and carried to destination.
2. Long routes: the passenger(s) lay flat on the back of the eagle, where the load deals the least disturbance to the flight asset. A periscope can be used to look the path and steer the flight. No way to enjoy to panorama, though.
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One thing to consider here is the eagle's carrying capacity vs its weight. A 12lb (very large) bald eagle can carry ~4-5lbs ([source](http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=343)). Let's pretend that this carrying capacity of 1:3 scales up with size. You are pretty much forced to suspend the cargo under the eagle at this point, because you are asking it to carry nearly a third of its weight. Even with a cargo representing a much smaller fraction of the eagle's weight, placing the weight anywhere above the center of gravity will make the bird extremely unstable, no matter how carefully you balance the cargo because the eagle is not stable in one dimension like ground-based beasts of burden. That also happens to be how real eagles carry the prey they capture in their talons.
While contradicting the way eagle riders are often portrayed, being suspended under the eagle would actually have a huge advantages over riding on top for recreational applications:
1. You could see where you are going.
2. You could observe the panorama below.
3. You could hunt with ranged weapons from an eagle without much risk of killing it. Archery would almost certainly be fine in terms of not knocking your own bird from the sky. You'd have to do a bit more research to figure out if firearms would work. I certainly wouldn't recommend using a bazooka or rocket launcher, regardless of how fireproof these eagles are.
4. You could jump off with little risk to yourself or the mount. If people could ride eagles, that someone would try parachuting off an eagle is pretty much a given.
5. You could have eagle-based UFC with strictly the riders fighting each other. This would probably be much more acceptable from an animal rights perspective, as well as safer. You would not want the platform and the combatant to be one and the same when you are very high up.
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I'd say that the eagle should have a saddle or perhaps not even that, which is flush along it's back in between the wings. Here, a rider would either lay in a prone position or perhaps be sitting on their knees. In the front of the saddle, towards the eagle's head, there could be a bar or something for the rider to grip and hold on to.
The "saddle" should be attached by two straps that wrap the eagle's body, one at the base of the neck, where it meets the body. (Think; Like a collar) This piece attaches to the front-most part of the saddle. The rear strap wraps the body behind the wings. This is to me, the most efficient way that does not weight down the bird too much and doesn't restrict movement all too much either.
Additionally, straps and harnesses that attach the rider to the bird could be used for security reasons. However, if combat situations arise (not in OP's case) then attachment to the bird might be unwise if the bird is shot and the rider is attached and could introduce difficulty of getting free.
Sitting on the back of an eagle between the wings centralizes the weight and although it introduces drag, an eagle can catch fish from the water and fly away with them with relative ease, so I doubt that a human torso or head in the slipstream will cripple a giant eagles ability to fly.
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I'd have the rider lying face down on the back of the eagle with some kind of aero fairing. Look to modern Moto GP or Boardman/Obree era bicycle time trials for inspiration.
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I propose a rider lie down on the back. Maybe have straps that go around the base of the wing. The saddle could have foot/ankle sockets and "Handle bars" or leather straps by the shoulder of the bird the rider can hold onto if he goes upside down. I feel like if the rider were to ride the bird by the shoulder/neck area, he would put to much strain on that region, and could crack the bird's neck or the bird could just shove him off the shoulders.
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I'm building a fantasy world and I am building the animals that inhabit it. Now I am working on the animals that live in this world, and after building their anatomy, I wonder about their names.
I'm not talking about names like 'Chicken' or 'Red Panda' which are often made up names or come from the names I am interested in. I'm talking about scientific names, like Homo Sapiens or Canis Familiaris
So here's the question: is there some formula or rule I can follow to make scientific species' names sound similar and unique?
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### Use Binomial Nomenclature
Part of what makes scientific names sound consistent is that they're part of a formal system called [binomial nomenclature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature). If you apply the same system to the names of your fantasy creatures, they'll have a similar feel.
In binomial nomenclature, a creature's name is comprised of two words, a genus and a specie. There are other parts of the taxonomy of a creature, such as phylum or family (though this is partially dependent on what taxonomic system you're using), though these are not considered part of the creature's name. Subspecies is sometimes included, such as in *Homo sapiens sapiens* and *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*, but this should only be done for very closely related creatures.
### Start with Latin or Latin-sounding Roots
Not all names in binomial nomenclature are Latin. Many of Linnaeus's original names, like *Rhododendron*, for example, are Greek. However, most of them are tweaked to *sound* Latin. *Erythroxylum*, for example, comes from Greek roots, but has "-um" in place of its normal Greek suffix to appear more Latin.
You can take many words, especially words that are already based in other languages, and latinize them in this manner. For example, if you want a name for a medusa, you could go with *Gorgonum medusii*, referring to a creature called a medusa from the genus gorgon. Technically, "Medusii" would be used if this were a gorgon *discovered* by someone named Medusa, but most people don't know Latin well enough to tell exactly what's proper usage and what's not, so you can play fast and loose with your latinized suffixes if you want.
It's also common for words to be made up of several Latin roots that describe the creature, rather than just being a latinized word like "medusa". If we wanted a different name for our medusa, we could use something like *Gorgonum oculomortis*, (the first word is capitalized, the second is not) which means, roughly, "The gorgon with the deadly gaze." Again, you don't have to be precise. Google a few descriptive Latin words and mash 'em together.
### Cluster similar species by genus
Lastly, you probably want to cluster your species by genus. Figure out what animals are fairly similar to each other, and give them the same name. If you have an American medusa, for example, you could call it *Gorgonum americanae*, again without capitalizing the second word, even though it comes from a proper noun.
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Very good answer from ckersch - use that for your core information. But here’s a few additional ideas. This Wikipedia article has a [list of useful words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_and_Greek_words_commonly_used_in_systematic_names) for making species names.
Here are some Real World rules on [naming creatures after people or groups of people.](http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/Frank/kiss/kiss24.htm)
Traditionally, the genus part of scientific names of animals take the masculine form of the noun (ending in –us, *Ursus*, *Equus*, *Tyrannosaurus*) more often than they take the feminine form (ending in –a, *Loxodonta*, *Giraffa*, *Maiasaura*) or the neuter form (ending in –um, -e, -erum, *Eledone*). Confusingly, words ending in –is (*Canis, Felis*) are sometimes masculine sometimes feminine. If you want your world to be a bit different, then change that ratio by ‘feminising’ or ‘neutering’ the word: *Equa* instead of *Equus*, *Ursum* instead of *Ursus*.
You can use the same word for both the genus and species name. Examples include *Meles meles* (Eurasian badger), *Vulpes vulpes* (red fox) and *Gorilla gorilla* (western gorilla). This will usually be because the animal in question is the first one of its kind to be named. Sometimes simply because it was common in the land where the naming system was invented!
You can make compound names by using a common suffix which describes your animal. So, for instance *teuthis* means ‘squid’, while *myrmex* (Greek) and *formica* (Latin) both mean ‘ant’. Thus there are a whole slew of squid with names such as: *Architeuthis, Magistoteuthis, Histoteuthis*. And a whole bunch of ants called things like *Teratomyrmex, Brachymyrmex, Iberoformica, Proformica* and so on. This means that is if you have a group of animals in your world which are of one type – dragons, for instance – you can use one word to make your species more diverse. *Draco* = Latin for dragon, so...
*Basilodraco volans* – the king dragon which flies
*Teratodraco siluriensis* – the monster dragon from the land of the Silures (a bit of Wales)
Place names can end in –ensis or –iensis (*Draco madagascariensis*, *Draco senegalensis*, *Draco canadensis*) as well as the traditional –us or –a endings (*Draco tibetanus*, *Draco americana*).
If you want to name bigger groups of creatures you can use family names. A family is a higher taxonomic grouping which includes all the species of that sort. Animal family names end in –idae and plant family names end in –aceae. For instance, Canidae (the canine family - dogs, foxes and wolves), Felidae (cats), Formicidae (ants), Rosaceae (rose family), Brassicaceae (cabbage family). You do not italicise family names.
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ckersch missed a good point. There are lots of animals named after people, it is sometimes discoverer or some famous people or even fictional characters. They generally have -i at the end. There is a [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_named_after_famous_people) page if you are interested. Couple of examples:
* Agra schwarzeneggeri
* Bagheera kiplingi
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If it's a fantasy world, why pattern it after how species are named in this world? That makes for some of the laziest sci-fi.
Instead, briefly imagine an alternative way of naming species. Perhaps your fantasy society uses numbers, and species are named like Social Security numbers (or an equivalent numbering scheme, such as driver license's numbers). Even with those, you can parse the details-of-interest. For example, the first three digits of SS numbers can reveal the state of origin.
What if numbers seem too tough for your average citizens? Perhaps they have disassociated themselves from common science, and simply leave the work to automatons - in which case, the numbering scheme makes perfect sense. This raises an interesting question - what kind of science would be produced just by robots? Would it be kind to non-robots? Cruel? In turn, this story could point out the outcome of a society where science is no longer engaging society in a broader sense.
That's sci-fi - to depart from our reality, explore others, and sometimes reflect back onto the original.
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**Background:**
In this modern day we live in, a use and throw away society, production is getting so cheap and complex that in most cases a repair of an item is close to impossible.
**Casestudy:**
Let's say we got a cooking pot (though it could be anything), and the cooking pot gets more and more experience in cooking food the more food you cook. It gets memory or experience in how to cook food. If the pot breaks, and it is an experienced pot, it would be important to fix the pot, to keep the memory, rather than throw it away and buy new.
**Question**
1. What effect would it have on economics, would better items be produced more expensive in better quality? Would some of the economics be moved on fore repairs, and repairs be more qualified work than otherwise?
2. How would it affect production, would eg. electronics be produced with larger components that could easily be replaced, or would repair facilities have better capabilities to replace broke components.
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One outcome might be that new goods would be relatively cheap or- and this is quite plausible to me - they might be provided for free to people who could use them well and "teach" them how to work so they could be sold as "experienced" equipment to more discerning users.
This might mean that people living in relative poverty might often have new and good quality cooking gear, for example, it would certainly become an essential part of the restaurant trade.
The economics might become a little like animal training- if someone was to send me a young horse to train, I would charge them a certain amount per week with the anticipation that after six weeks (typically) of steady work the horse would be ready to ride in various situations and in different gaits. Experts in any given field where "learning" equipment was used would potentially be able to find work as trainers of that equipment.
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The affect is many things would become more valuable the older it gets. But unlike antiques, it would not be because of the age, but the ***experience***. It would also be affected by the user of the item. A fry pan that cooked 10,000 fried eggs has a lot of experience, but if it burned them all, it should be melted down and recast into something else.
A violin that was played by a virtuoso for a couple decades would be much more valuable than one used by students in a middle school for 100 years. So it wouldn't be just how much experience it had but what ***kind*** of experience. It would also change who will get to use a well tuned tool. You won't want to hand DaVinci's paintbrush to your 3 year old (unless you are rich and hope it will leave it's talent on your child). It could also be used to disguise a poorer talent, maybe helping a mediocre author write something closer to the Bard.
Another kind of experience, that would attracted a different kind of collector would be on the darker side of things. Knives used for slaughtering, guns of military marksmen, tools used by serial killers etc.
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Similar/related idea: *The Practice Effect*
Depends how much your "memory" adds value to functions - which you've not even specifically laid out in your question, but that I am inferring.
For complex and expensive items, and for items which are used in important ways - it would become important to design them for ease of repair (one of the "hidden" reasons we don't repair things), and for longevity.
I'm betting, assuming the memory isn't over-arcingly important, that some things would still be made cheap and dirty, and throw-away. So you'd have two classes of items: some to be kept/repaired, and some which are cheap.
Btw, we have that **now**, if you're willing to go searching for them. But they're often on the order of 10x as expensive as the cheaper versions, and no way to know how durable/good they are. Example: shoes/boots which can be resoled. (Of course, finding someone who'll resole them is a... challenge).
In addition, some things are made to be throw-away, one-use items. We don't reuse toilet paper, bandaids, and (often) grease-rags.
Basically, it'll be a cost-benefit analysis. How much money would it save a customer (lower fuel bills for your cooking pot? or just a more savory, better dish of food (ie: not worth very much)), and would they be willing to put that money up-front to pay for a better item?
Of course, this would completely destroy the used-goods / thrift-store experience :D
Can items get bad memories? If a cooking-pot is only used by someone who can burn water, does it learn all the worst things?
edit:
Theft and customization are also going to be bigger deals in your world. You'd have more custom-made items, maybe with family crests / seals on them, so items can be more easily identified - to protect against theft of high-value, hard-to-replace items.
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**Straight up leveling would result in boring behavior, but specialization could be interesting.**
If all we had was a leveling up XP system, so we could have a Cooking Pot (lvl. 4). This would cost more than a Cooking Pot (lvl. 2) but make better product. We have this already. I can buy the \$15 store-brand non-stick pot, or the \$50 name-brand pot, or the \$80 three-ply pot, or the \$150 five-ply stainless steel pot. I'm pretty sure that if I Googled hard enough, I could find a 10 ply stainless steel pot made with steel smuggled from Japan destined for Katanas and other fine swords, tempered in a bath of Martha Stewarts tears.
However, if items retain memory more like people do, it could get interesting. At the simplest, if you make eggs a lot, you could get a +3 Cooking Pot of yolkslaying. Now the items are getting more customized, so its harder for the vendors to produce all of the customized variants. You really have to take the time to level your own pot to your specifications, though you might be able to get away with sending it off to China to have a powerleveler cook a few thousand eggs for you!
Taken a step further, what if they got personalities? What if the process of collecting memories behaves more like how we build memories ourselves? Now you really do have to treat your pan nice, because it will remember how it was treated. Now they could pick up really specialized effects. An Italian grandmother's favorite pot might help you with getting the mix of seasoning just right. A master chef's grocery bag might help you pick the ripest fruit. *Your* mother's casserole pan would help you make *your* mother's stuffing for Thanksgiving.
If pots had personality like that, they would start to encroach on "pet" status. They would have moods, and favorite playtoys. You might make sure to cook the pot's favorite hollandaise sauce the morning before a big Thanksgiving preparation, not because the sauce is needed that night, but just to get the pot loosened up. Once they reach pet status, you will see people treating them like pets. They will be nice to them. They'll take care of them. You'll see specialized pot veterinarians which know how to mend a pot without scarring its personality. You'd still have use for normal cookware, but you would pride yourself on your emotionally attached cookware. At the very least, you'd need something to experiment in: I'd never be caught dead burning caramel in my mom's favorite pots. That stuff can stink!
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I am firmly convinced that machines respond to kindness. So if you burn your toast and swear at the toaster, it'll just burn the toast more next time, and probably jam itself at the same time, taunting you toface it with a knife. But a kind word and a delicate touch to the control and it'll do better...
Cast iron saucepans definitely respond to care, and the memory of good meals lives on in the flavour of new meals.
If you are to build a relationship with your pan - or toaster, or car or watch, you'll want a good pan to start with. Now how much of its character comes from its maker, and how much comes from the honesty and integrity of its materials - I don't know, probably both are important. Cast iron and carefully chosen hardwood handle, or cheap plating that flakes off? We've probably all seen relationships like that, and I'm not just talking about pans.
Anyway, we'd certainly go back to an economy based on fewer, but fundamentally better, goods, and on taking care of them.
Once I saw a TV program where some anthropologist was up a tributary of the Amazon, studying the ways of the tribe's shaman, and the spirits in the plants and trees. He was totally unprepared for the elder to tell him one day "Today we work with spirit of ... outboard motor".
Having occasionally trusted my safety in the North Atlantic to a [Seagull](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Seagull) I suddenly gained a new respect for the shaman...
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The mechanics of how the items gain experience and what that experience provides will have a big effect on how they affect economics and production. I'll walk through an example to show some of the ways you can determine how the particular mechanics you choose will affect things.
**RPG character style experience**
Suppose they gain experience as if they were RPG characters - no matter what they are used to do, they'll gain some experience. Higher levels of experience give the person using the item a better chance of doing what they were trying to do and with a higher level of quality, and the item itself will become more durable. Repairing a higher-level item to perfect condition is as easy as repairing one of lower level to perfect condition.
This probably requires a magical explanation for how they gain experience, such as being crafted by wizards. That implies that only skilled crafters can make such items, so they would be more rare and valuable right off the bat. Repairs would have to be done by someone of similar (though perhaps distinct) skill, so repairing would also be expensive.
Because in this scenario only the experience matters and not how they obtained that experience, items will be priced based mostly on their experience, with the current condition of the item only playing a secondary role. Since repairing a low-level item is expensive, most people would opt for normal, non-magical items - at low levels the non-magical items are almost as good, and you can get many of them for the price of a single magical one. Anyone buying a low-level magical item would expect to end up putting quite a lot of time and money into making the item better.
There would be quite the market for high-level items. Due to the significant investment required to get them to that level they would be very expensive, but as you would be able to get significantly better products using the items the elite would get them whenever possible. This would also result in the elite owning the tools that the craftsmen doing jobs for them would use.
There would also be a market for mid-level items. These items could come from the people who repair items for a living - they would buy low-level items for practice, whether for themselves or for training apprentices. This way it's less of a loss if the repair goes wrong and the item breaks permanently. Then after a while of using it and repairing it, the items will be valuable enough that they will want to sell it.
This also encourages the development of agreements between different tradesmen - for example, with cooking pots they'd make an arrangement with the local restaurant to have them use it for their trainees to practice on so that it could get experience between repairs. When it comes time to sell the item they would share the profit, either by the repair shop selling the item or the restaurant keeping it to begin using for food that they'll actually sell.
Other than that, there wouldn't be many ways that low-leveled items would be used enough to get more experience. You'd get the occasional person from the upper class who wants an item and can't find one that's a higher level, but other than that the cost of getting them to higher levels would be prohibitive. This lack of demand for low-level items would lead to fewer creators being interested in creating them, further increasing their rarity.
All in all, this leads to a fairly small impact on the normal economy. Thanks to their scarcity and cost, you could think of it being similar to expensive art in our world. The upper class would buy as many magical items as they can, but they would be prohibitively expensive for the lower class. The middle class might be able to afford one or two mid-level items. Restaurants and other businesses would be similar - the expensive, fancy restaurants would exclusively use magical items, nice but reasonably priced places would have some mid-leveled magical items (thanks to their arrangement with the repair shops), and cheaper places would not have any.
Small changes to these parameters could have huge changes. For example, if repairs were easy to make then there would be more demand for low-level items, leading to them being even more expensive to buy. It would be much more viable for people to make a profession out of leveling up items and then reselling them - there is the significant initial cost, but after that it's mostly time that they have to spend. With people willing to buy them, more creators would be interested in making the items, leading them to be more common. With them being more common, more of the economy will revolve around acquiring and using them. You wouldn't find magical scissors in my original scenario (not much use for how expensive they would be), but in this scenario they might show up.
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The first thing companies would make would probably tools that use other tools. These tools could rapidly get newly made user-tools up to proper skill, much quicker than humans could. The longer the tool would be used by the machine, the more expensive it would get.
The second thing would be the realisation that these tools that used the user-tools would *also* be able to learn and they would get *even better* at getting new tools ready for their users. But they would also be able to break down, and need to be fixed. Or at least, their experience would have to be saved.
So they would build tools that could teach tool-using-tools to use tools better and faster, to get more mileage out of them. These tool-using-tools-teaching-tools would then also be able to teach each other, since a tool-using-tools-teaching-tool is, itself, both a tool and a tool-using-tool.
This would probably start spiralling out of control pretty quickly if the base tools are durable enough and can learn quickly enough.
Ultimately it would start looking a bit like a robotic society, full of teachers, students, employees, etc, except all of them are machines with more or less sophisticated purposes.
Once you start building learning tools that can design tools, you basically usher in the Artificial Intelligence Era and replace humans.
(Ultimately, human beings match your description quite well. We learn, and we can break, and we can be worth fixing, depending on what we do. Learn from human history about the value of a learning tool; it really depends on the job. We both have members who need to learn for decades and are then considered a valuable commodity to a country/company and people who are used as a disposable resource; discarded as soon as a cheaper model becomes available or as soon as their work-stream runs out.)
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Computers already have this quality of becoming more useful as they gain more programs in their memory. It seems that if memories made objects more people would try to preserve these high memory items like they do computers now.
We usually try to save or computers when they are damaged because we recognize the value of the memories they hold but we also acknowledge that we sometimes just want the memories and actually want to put those memories in a new more advanced object.
I would imagine that this would be much like the advent of computers where we found various ways to store the memories the object created externally so that they could uploaded into different objects we want.
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In considering this, two things came to mind.
First, if objects had memory, personally, I would probably assume that they can make sense of those memories. I would end up thinking of objects as beings with life, and develop affection, or at least some form of relationship with objects I liked, or felt intimate with (clothes, bed sheets, etc). This may not be as relevant if objects have always been able to remember.
Second, how would humanity have discovered that objects can remember? If we assume that it was through the actions of objects (a primitive axe which has been used for many years works better than a new one), than that would imply that objects can store, recall, and use memories.
If only human-made objects show this trait, then maybe humans have some kind of power to transfer parts of their being into other objects, which would create a need learned people to become craftsmen.
Assuming that all objects are able to remember, and act upon their memories, I wonder on what level this ability is displayed. Are only "completed" objects able to store memories? If, instead, the faculty to remember is imbued to the smallest particles which make up an object, the implications would be rather interesting. Perhaps those smallest components are actually the "beings", and everything they make up is merely a reflection of the background and desires of an external object looking at the society of smallest particles as a whole?
I don't think this is a good answer to your question, but I found it interesting to consider, so thank you for the compelling question.
Michael
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Society would collapse.
The effects of this?
1) The rich would get richer. So much richer.
2) Consumption would dramatically decrease.
3) MAD or Skynet.
Paraphrasing Terry Pratchet, only the rich can afford to buy cheap things. Someone who is rich might pay a lot for a pair of boots that will last 20+ years, making them cheap per use. The poor don't have that much money lying around to buy these cost effective items, so they have to buy items that are cheap to buy, but don't last, and are thus expensive per use.
So the rich will buy good quality items, including good quality tools for repairing things. Over time, these will become so good that people with new items just can't compete - the rich can create Michelin Star quality food with little skill, effort or cost. And if their equipment breaks, they can easily repair it themselves with their high level hammer, without the need to pay for these repairs.
This would lead to rich people being removed as consumers completely.
What can someone without rich parents do in this world to earn a living wage? Pretty much nothing. Skilled Labor is unnecessary, the equipment will be so skilled as to make great quality equipment anyway. How could a taxi driver compete with a Google self driving car that has leveled up significantly? Becoming a doctor would be classed as unskilled Labor, as the scalpel would do all the hard work for you. Child Labor laws would be relaxed due to intensive lobby pressure "what's the point of educating our children, we already have high level items so they're going to be in unskilled labor their whole lives, lets just start them working at 10"
This means that the poor/middle class get much poorer. They are forced to buy items even cheaper than they currently do, which break before reaching level 2.
So we don't really have any consumers. This leads to a massive collapse for pretty much all industries, which can't survive without customers.
So we are pretty much down to some tiny communities of people who have wealth (mostly in the form of items), but no income, living a net neutral lifestyle - basically no income, but they can have a comfortable lifestyle without it, producing what they need with their efficient machinery, but without a large audience to sell it to.
Everyone else is pretty much living in poverty.
So, now the only question that remains is which end state happens quicker.
1) Weapons level up to the point where individual wealthy people are capable of annihilating the planet. One of them will go crazy, or get drunk, or suicidal. It nearly happened in the Codl War when only a few people had the keys, now, thousands will.
2) A computer levels up to the point that skynet can happen. Robots level up to the become terminators.
There are of course a couple of branches you could introduce. Perhaps a communist revolution early on would shift things off track.
Or perhaps a Warhmmaer 40k/Dune/Battlestar Galactica style techonphobia would develop?
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In a future world, where there is almost no fresh water resources left, a radical scientist comes up with an idea to turn all the oceans into fresh water.
The general idea is to be able to precipitate the salt, so that it sinks to the ocean bed. Whatever sediment and salt get added through rivers (of which, there are very few) and drains, immediately precipitate to the bed, leaving the sea water fresh.
Now, with fresh water in the seas, what things should be considered to maintain the ecological balance as much as possible? We've already lost a lot of animals and ecosystems, we wouldn't want to lose more. Whether or not there are solutions, what are the problems to be considered? (Solutions are welcome!)
One thing I can think of, is the salt water fish. As a solution, the scientist could probably genetically alter them to adapt to fresh water. What else?
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Most of the life forms, plant and animal, are dependent on salt water for their biology. Precipitating all the salt out would cause an ecological disaster.
Much of the life in the oceans would die very shortly after. On top of that our weather will be affected. salt water has a much lower freezing temperature and without salt more of the oceans would freeze during winter, the couple degrees difference can change the 'coastline' by miles and miles. I'm also sure it would mess with the ocean currents, possibly stopping them. and alter the evaporation rate, making it easier which would allow for more and greater storms.
Since most of the water would still need to be transported to people (unless everyone moved to the coast), there would be no reason to treat the whole ocean only what is going to be removed and transported to those in need.
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Climate on your globe will be forever altered, though it's difficult to fully describe how as we really aren't sure what currently drives the process. You risk messing around with thermohaline circulation (also known as the great oceanic heat conveyor belt). One part we do know is this system is dependant on salt water concentrations to run. Water warms in the tropics and moves along the surface of the ocean towards land. In the atlantic, this current keeps England relatively warm and in the pacific it brings wet and warmer weather to the pacific northwest. The water then cools, sinks into the ocean, and returns towards the tropics in a giant loop.
It's actually thought that metling ice could adjust the oceans salt concentrations enough to disrupt this cycle, let alone all salt being removed from it...and the end result is a bit of a 'day after tomorrow' style story, without the silly storms. England, Scotland, and Ireland all enter a freezing cycle where they take on the climate closer to what a land that far north should see (average around -10C colder as a minimum). We would also see the tropics water warm further and surface temperatures would start to reach record highs relatively quickly. Hurricanes use the surface heat of the ocean to fuel itself (a large hurrican actually drags cold water up from the depths and kills its own fuel source)...with a larger fuel source it stands to reason these systems could become significantly stronger and we could see some monster storms.
We would get frozen icecaps pretty quickly as well...saltwater affects the temperature at which water freezes, lowering it significantly and allowing for cold ocean water not to freeze right away. Funny enough, this would actually have quite the warming effect on the globe as water mass transitions to ice and releases the energy involved with it's freezing. Speculative, but you might see a 2-5 degree temperature increase on world wide averages pretty quickly too. This would be temporary as I suspect the ice formed would begin reflecting large amounts of sunlight reaching earth and start a cooling trend.
The tropical areas of your globe will become much more humid (especially near these oceans) and I suspect you'll see a significantly larger amount of rain. If nothing makes up for the thermohaline circulation, you'll also see the equator gain a tremendous amount of heat and keep it. So warm wet tropics with tons of rain and potentially the most fierce hurricanes we've witnessed.
There's no possible way of resolving the impact to the ecosystem either...very few species are capable of crossing salt water into fresh water and this salt precipitation event would likely become a mass extinction event that would rival the meteor impact that ended the dinosaurs as far as number extinct species is concerned. We're not talking a few salt water fish either, we're talking every last living creature in the ocean, including many that we're not even aware of yet. I'm not sure if there is a single fresh water Cephalopod for example. Good chance you'd cause a massive plankton die off with this as well.
I'm actually thinking you could post an answer to the question 'how to I end life on earth' with 'remove salt from the oceans' and be somewhat correct.
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The consequences would be drastic and gobal.
Sea life is adapted to salt water, there's a reason that most fish and plant life is adapted to either the sea or fresh waters and not to both.
Most marine life at the bottom of the ocean will be killed by the massive amounts of salt. Most marine life in the top will be killed by the lack of it.
Freshwater species would start to move out to colonize the ocean but most of them are adapted to smaller rivers and lakes, it would take them considerable time to evolve into the new niches - we're talking thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.
In the meantime weather patterns are going to be disrupted in unpredictable ways. Ocean currents will shut down or change, arctic ice may well recover for a while as the water becomes easier to freeze but that's going to be a small consolation compared to the amount of devastation caused everywhere else!
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I don't know if having freshwater oceans is important to your world, but if he has a way to easily desalinate the water, why not just pump and treat what you're actually going to use?
For instance, if California goes through another drought, they'd just have to run some high capacity pipes out into the ocean, run the water through the process to remove the salt, and then place it into aquifers and other places it can be used.
Treating the entire ocean is overkill, and would cause more problems than it would solve.
The process could also be mobile. Put the equipment onto trucks and drive it to the places that need it, but where treatment plants haven't been built yet.
The trucks could pump the water, treat it, and then put it into tanker trucks to transport inland to help people that need it. Thinking central Africa, etc.
There are ways to desalinate water, but they are difficult and expensive. A fast/cheap way would solve a lot of water problems without having to destroy marine ecology.
Where this could be useful on a large scale is when there is no existing ecosystem, like say Mars. Mars has a lot of salts in it's soil. If we someday teraform Mars and give it oceans, they will be very salty. By starting out with a clean slate, you could maybe begin the process from the ground up with freshwater animals instead. It would be mostly ice unless we figured out a way to warm the place up...
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[**Ligers**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger) tend to grow to near 1200 lbs (550 kg). As if that weren't bad enough, that mad tree-hugger xenobiologist, Deirdre Skye, grafted just enough human-derived genetic material to make them a heck of a lot smarter.
They live in the [**Wold**](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10669/how-would-an-intelligent-forest-control-and-direct-its-animal-minions), a large and frighteningly sapient forest, and act as the main hired muscle, quiet and agile as only a felide can be, even at that size. So these are not tame little ragdoll cats. They have never been captured alive, never mind tamed.
The worst thing that could happen to my ligers is if they accidentally turned into [**rubber headed aliens**](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberForeheadAliens). So my ask here is for you to **help me make the ligers sufficiently and felide-stylishly alien.**
I've thought of a few felide characteristics that make them different from humans. I used [**this post**](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/15611/creating-truly-alien-intelligent-npc-races/15616#15616) as a starting point, but *I want more*, *I want **much** more*:
* Social vs Semi-social -- While they may very well communicate when it suits them, the ligers do not Talk, *especially* not about the weather;
* Brainy prey vs. Top-of-the-food-chain Cool-Cat -- Ligers are naturally and effortlessly cool and dominant, they find the very idea that one can be afraid of the dark endlessly amusing;
* Physically weak vs Physically imposing -- If a metal-reinforced door were just a minor inconvenience, you'd probably feel the same;
* Opposable thumbs and lack thereof -- but I don't think anyone would make fun of them about that deficit to their face.
**So, please help me make these intelligent cats feel truly foreign! More specifically, I'm looking for ways in which they would they be different from humans.**
**EDIT:** Since ligers have never been successfully *observed* over any significant period, we don't know if they're actually fertile or not. If you wish to go and ask them about their virility/fecundity, go ahead, feel free. It is a fact that their numbers seem stable, insofar as we can tell.
*@Would-be-closers edit: I would love it if those thinking of voting to close would first leave a comment to clarify their concern. From my perspective, asking about the specifics of the most dramatic psychological differences between humans and a feli**d**e predatory sapience is a pretty narrow question. Also, the thousands of views and the votes suggest that lots of people think it an interesting and upvoteworthy question. But I'm more than happy to edit to take fellow worldbuilder concerns into account. I suggested some differences and opened those for criticism (so I'm not asking for new ideas whole cloth) and also invited worldbuilders to contribute others that I might not have thought about. Since we are all familiar with cats I assumed that the criteria for judging (can I imagine a smarter cat acting that way?) would be obvious.*
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So, we have genetically engineered big cats with genetically inflated brains. However, these are *cat* brains, and not *ape* brains. Now, Ligers are crosses between lions and tigers, so while tigers are pretty much solitary, lions, or at least lion*esses* are quite social (the males are sociable to a lesser degree), so we can expect at least some of that sociability. I am presuming that Ligers' brains are simply scaled up big cat brains without any geneticist-imposed imperatives.
**Communication**
Cats *do* communicate with each other, despite being largely solitary, except for lions, and, we can presume, ligers. They would share the basic language of the cats from which they descended, of sounds and body language. However, with inflated brains would come inflated language centres, and additional complexity in communication is a certainty. That their communication would be quite unlike ape communication is also pretty much a certainty. While apes vocal communication takes the form of a variety of hoots and screeches, and this is modified to more modulated vocal communication, cats communicate vocally with more limited growls and roars. While this *could* be modulated to a human-intelligible voice, there is no reason for it to be so convenient for *us*.
Some bird calls sound like a fairly bland raucous squawk, but examine them using modern sound processing equipment, and you'll find that there are subtle, rapid frequency shifts. So might our Ligers have particularly resonant roars that are carriers for subtle frequency shifts and harmonics in which information can be conveyed. As cats are known for their particularly good hearing, they would have no problem receiving such communication.
So, we have communication that to a human ear still sounds like a roar, perhaps modulated a bit, but if a human tried to emulate that, it would sound to the Ligers like a monkey trying to emulate a human voice would sound to humans - amusing or infantile at best.
As for the *particulars* of their language(s)... that could be a whole other question in itself. However, we can state that for complex communication to occur, there should be distinct words, however the [linguistic typology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_typology) will most likely differ from that of humans, and the content would differ due to the different life experiences.
As for communicating with humans, we may well find that the ligers are better able to understand human language than humans could understand their speech, due to their neurology. We can still not understand dolphins or elephants, but *they* are quite able to understand *us* in a limited way.
**Sociability**
With sociability comes the *necessity* for social interaction. You can't get away from it without having the blood and corpses of your former pride-mates everywhere. So, we can expect that our ligers would talk amongst each other, and engage in both verbal and physical social grooming. However, due to the lower pitch of their voices, their communication would carry far further than would a human voice in the same circumstances, we could expect that a greater degree of physical separation between members of a pride would be comfortable than would be the case for humans, but they could also be comfortable with sleeping in very close proximity.
As to what would constitute verbal social grooming, for humans it is the weather - we don't like getting rained on much. For ligers, it may be something else of common interest, such as "How's the prey running today?" or "Have you smelled the wind today?"
**Mindset**
Humans are highly social omnivorous apes with concealed [estrous](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrous_cycle), and that colours our mindset very strongly. However, Ligers are mildly social carnivorous cats, probably still with overt estrous.
As a top predator throughout their evolutionary history (as opposed to humans who have become top predators relatively recently), we can expect a certain degree of confidence that humans lack. However, even a pride of lions must be wary of other predator species. On the other hand, predators are to a degree cowardly by human standards. A solitary predator cannot afford to take an injury when hunting, so they take as few risks as possible. However, social hunters such as lions can afford to take more risks as they have family to fall back on in case of injury. Ligers would fall between these extremes.
Big cats have been observed to catch the young of prey species alive to give to their own offspring as toys to practice hunting upon. There is no reason why Ligers would be any different. Quite obviously Ligers would see any species incapable of proactively fighting back as being potential prey, but like most predators, they would not be averse to reducing the numbers of other, competing, predatory species if the opportunity presented itself. They would be smart enough to recognise humans as being a predatory species highly inclined to retaliate for the obvious loss of members to predator species, but if the opportunity presented itself for the quiet "disappearance" of a solitary human, they'd jump at it (pun intended).
As predators descending from a species with fewer or more specific [mirror neurons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron), Ligers would have some empathy for their own kind, and to other cats to a lesser degree than humans have for monkeys, but would have pretty much none for other species. Any pain or inconvenience that they may inflict on other species would be either a matter of indifference or utility - if by deliberately causing a non-fatal injury, they could gain some advantage, they wouldn't hesitate. No animal protection society for them.
On the other hand, Ligers may feel quite a degree of like toward other species, much as human farmers tend to like their livestock. That Ligers can like the species that they prey on, and then go on to terrorise and kill members of those species would not be perceived as anything unusual by the ligers.
Ligers, probably having an overt oestrous cycle like other cats, would be unlike humans in their sexual behaviour. Humans use sex as an intimate bonding activity, whereas for Ligers, sex would be an occasional enjoyable diversion and other activities - such as mutual grooming and conversation - would be used for social bonding. Since, like lions, the main social bonds would likely between members of like gender, and mainly between the females of a pride, it is likely that despite any difference in size favouring the males, males would be viewed as the second-class gender, that the females keep around to fight other males and to have fun with when estrus occurs, and the rest of the time, they are considered a bit useless.
Male lions have a tendency to kill the offspring of other males, unless they are closely related, however Liger females may be highly protective of their own offspring, and are unlikely to allow this to happen if they can help it. Infanticide by males would likely be one of those nasty little throwbacks to primitive behaviour that occurs now and then in any species, and the culprit would be unlikely to be allowed to profit from such a crime as may be the case with less intelligent species of cat. Male Ligers would struggle against their instinctive dislike of unrelated cubs and oppose it with the need to be near the female ligers in order to engender their own offspring.
As creatures with some intelligence, however, the female Ligers may allow a degree of infanticide as a means of population control and fitness selection. Very young cubs would be protected as long as they were healthy (and not if they were otherwise) and conditions permit (Lions will abandon their cubs if times are hard), but older cubs may be subjected to tests involving a high degree of risk of death. This could be in some form of military training led by adult males (who would be the primary fighters, as opposed to the females who would be the primary hunters), and it is possible that any significant training injuries or other major failures for cubs would be punishable by death, providing incentive for the others, and strengthening the bloodline by removing defective genetic material.
As a predatory species, Ligers would likely have little sympathy with any members who did not have the potential of being useful members of a pride. Certainly they would look after injured individuals who had the potential for recovery, but crippling injuries, illnesses or birth defects would earn the sufferer only contempt, regardless of that individual's previous strengths.
**Tool Use**
This section pre-supposes that Ligers do not have genetically-modified opposable thumbs.
With greatly enhanced intelligence comes the ability to manipulate the environment. Cats are not the least dextrous species, despite having thumbs of only limited opposability, as they use their paws to grasp their prey. The structure of the cat paw allows for some limited ability to grasp objects between the pad of the hand and the digits. However, for Ligers, the manipulation of objects is more likely to be a calculated or learned ability, rather than the instinctive activity it is for humans. A Liger wouldn't instinctively think of throwing something, but with the power of observation and reason, they could quickly learn from the example provided by other animals (such as humans). They are unlikely to ever be as good at it as humans, as in comparison their paws are large and clumsy, but what they may lack in finesse, they would make up in power.
A Liger would not see most human doors as much of an obstacle, when they have the size and strength to crash through them, though if they were being stealthy they could use a human door handle and maybe even a round knob (Humans: Recess those circular doorknobs!)
It is possible that after observing humans that Ligers may be able to make simple flint tools, shaped to fit the feline paw. These, in turn, could be used to assist in the production of simple traps, such as covered pits or deadfalls, though a Liger's sharp teeth and claws would be additional tools readily available for most purposes.
**Relations with Humans**
Ligers would see Humans as inherently weak, making up for serious deficiencies in strength, toughness, claws and dentition with some clever feats of dexterity. On the other hand, a Liger is strong, tough and smart, strong enough that they can make mincemeat of a number of humans in a stand-up fight, and smart and stealthy enough to avoid being shot by those humans' pesky projectiles.
Even if some humans managed to capture a Liger cub - *and* managed to communicate with it - the cub would inevitably grow to see its human captors as weak and contemptible, regardless of how successfully they might restrain their captive for a while.
For the most part, Humans would be considered as an Other Predatory Species, and no true peace could exist between the two species. Ligers may pretend to compromise with humans, but they would always be looking for an opportunity to rid their range of these competitors. Given the potential danger that a human community poses, any action is likely to be a swift, decisive elimination of that human community in it's entirety rather than a piecemeal reduction in human numbers that would allow and even encourage retaliation.
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In my experience reading Science Fiction, I've found the most "alien" aliens - to me - are those with a **modified morality axis**. Very little else matters - there's such a variety of human cultures that you can do a ton with culture and language and yet they still feel human. But do something radical with morals, and explore that concept to it's logical conclusion, and it feels alien.
One of the best examples I've read was an alien race that had no moral stigma against betrayal. They would think nothing of turning against current allies if they saw advantage in it (whether they care about long or short term was up to the individuals in question). Now the above in itself isn't sufficient - lots of human cultures have very little loyalty to groups, and betrayal is common. What made them feel alien is that betrayal as "bad" wasn't on their radar - it wasn't something they could even comprehend. Human cultures with betrayal, even when common, generally consider it negative in at least some aspects (within family, for example). But these aliens didn't have that - it just didn't compute with them - and that really made them feel foreign to me.
Now I don't think the above (betrayal) works for Ligers. I would consider the following possibilities:
1. Killing - I don't think your Ligers would be pure unremittent murderbeasts, but as killing carnivores they'd likely have a much more relaxed view of killing than humans.
2. Torture/playing with food - might not even compute as even *potentially* wrong to a big cat.
Alternatively, you can go the other direction and make certain things humans do as immoral to Ligers. For example, maybe they feel that land ownership is wrong on the order of murder/rape, or obscene. Or since they were created by a tree hugger, they might have inhumanly strong feelings on pollution/environmental damage.
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They would be super-strong, agile, and fast, obviously. Less obviously, they'd sleep 16 to 20 hours a day and have a lifespan of 25 years or less (tigers being somewhat longer-lived than lions on average). They'd have less stamina than humans -- I imagine their movements in battle would be quick, vicious, and have an exit strategy. Being less dexterous than humans, I think they'd be hard-pressed to develop the bow and arrow. Some craftier, more patient individuals might trade for human weapons or other technology. They may rely less on color (feline color vision not being quite as good as ours) and more on scent and hearing. Someone's great grand-damn may have claimed she could smell into the future or such. Their vocal apparatus may not be as flexible as ours, so language might be slower and/or depend more on body language. Writing would be difficult, though simple messages might be scratched into rock or bark, but if you combine limited writing with their shorter lifespans, knowledge may be lost more easily. Or teaching could become a very prized profession.
Eventually, arms limitation treating with humans would forbid the use of laser pointers in combat.
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Cats are notoriously curious and love to "play". Those they play with often don't appreciate the attention they are receiving.
The cats are capable killing machines and they don't have much to be afraid of. Especially in their home forest.
Ideas to use:
The Sphinx: Enigmatic, intelligent and can't be bothered to speak clearly. Plays with words and ideas.
The Cheshire Cat: Crazy, loves mind games, always has multiple meanings to what it says.
Garfield: Egocentric to the extreme, only cares about his cares and food
Vain, most cats show a level of vanity that would likely be their Achilles heel. Fickle. If you live or die, it is mostly based on how they are feeling. Are they hungry? Feeling tired and lazy in the sun? Been bored? Maybe they give you a sporting chance.
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A couple of random thoughts:
1. All cats that we know of sleep 75-80% of the time; it's not just your housecat. That could be something that would either has to be dealt with by the ligers themselves in order for them to remain effective longer during a given day (either personally or as part of their social structure), or perhaps that trait was modified or ameliorated genetically during engineering. Maybe a semi-conscious trance-like state for part of that time (in which they are aware of their environment and are able to rouse themselves nearly instantly) and real sleep on a more human-useful time period?
2. A large component of cats' communication is scent-based; perhaps your ligers have a whole other dimension to their communication. I can imagine a system whereby a particular scent or pheromone vs another can give an entirely different meaning to vocalizations that would otherwise be identical aurally. And it could also be used for fully non-verbal communication: "M'rama silently exuded disapproval-anger, which smelled a bit like sage and cinnamon to Col. Jessup." Sarcasm pheromone?
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I would expect them to be able to psychically communicate images and impressions at least with those they are connected with, and to have developed deep symbiotic relationships with the sentient forest.
I would expect their concept of well-being to be founded in a reliable source of food (which I'd expect them to consume a lot of), and territory, though the territory part might become something else if they have
I would expect them to be very attentive to territory intrusions, dangers, and prey/food.
I would expect them to habitually explore and map out (memorize) their surroundings so as to know all the paths (including climbing options), hiding places, and sources of food, water, etc.
I would expect them to avoid direct immediate contact with threat creatures by acute senses, psychic radar, and having memorized all their surroundings. I'd expect them to avoid detection by remaining still and silent in concealment, and/or quickly and silently retreating and observing until they had assessed the threat, and only to confront or attack threats when they are very sure they have a solid advantage, by waiting for ambush opportunities and/or gathering neighbour ligers for reinforcements. I would expect a group of intelligent ligers to be capable of coordinating some terrible concentric ambush attacks.
I would expect that they would tend to relate to members of other species as either agreeable/tolerable/unappetizing, or as target/prey/food, and to be fairly unwilling to accept unfavorable compromise unless/while they thought that they had little choice.
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In the real world (Earth) Ligers DO breed. Several such cubs, a product of liger and liger do exist. I am not terribly sure I would enjoy living near Ligers with enhanced intelligence. Normal things like fences and closed windows may not deter them for long. I have seen photos of a real world liger casually rocking a double decker bus from the outside. Well if I wanted to make them way scarier (and unlike any Earthly feline) I would give them opposable thumbs. Any anthropologist can tell you what that means. Tools, with writing to follow. I would also consider extending their range of vision, further into the far red and perhaps a blue shift capability too.
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As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the Cyclops. One of the most similar creatures to man but with 'one' noticeable difference, one eye. It seems that land animals love their two theme; two eyes, two ears, two sets of limbs, etc. Having two eyes helps with depth perception and a backup in case one fails. So it begs the question why would a cyclops ever evolve. All that is needed for an accepted answer is a primate (or primate-like creature) that has evolved one eye. Is there a realistic way that a [cyclops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclops) can evolve? Using Earth or near-Earth biology, how close could I get to the cyclops design?
A list of all of the Anatomically Correct questions can be found here
[Anatomically Correct Series](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2797/anatomically-correct-series/2798#2798)
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There are some small crustaceans known as copepods that possess a single unpaired eye in the center of their heads. This eye is known as the *naupliar eye*, which is sometimes retained and sometimes lost depending on the species.
In the species *Pontella spinipes*, the naupliar eye contains three lenses with six photoreceptors behind them. The photoreceptors in the male naupliar eye are arranged in a way that suggests that it's used to detect the colour pattern of females, which are blue and yellow.
They have this singular eye even though they still contain bilateral symmetry (antennae/antennules.)
So since we have a species that does have a single eye, we have to figure out why a primate would have one. Primates have forward-looking eyes with stereoscopic vision to give them depth perception, along with strong manipulators and prehensile feet.
It uses its digits to manipulate and hunt on the land. It doesn't have the benefit of floating in dark waves, eating phytoplankton and not requiring a lot of complexity.
In order for a primate to have a single unpaired eye, it seems that you would have to drastically change its environment. Perhaps if it lived in darkness and perceived things differently, such as sensitivity to sound, vibrations, etc. You have to remove its need to have forward looking stereostopic vision and its need to manipulate or move in the way it does.
Give it a (maybe) dark environment, filled with plenty of food sources that it doesn't have to expend the energy and tactics to hunt. It might even need to abandon the trees, because it's rather difficult to leap from branch to branch without depth perception. The ocean has tons of phytoplankton, reefs, and algae. Land has plants and insects. If the primate can conceivably live off of a plentiful terrestrial alternative without threat from predators where the stereoscopic vision would enable its survival, it might retain an unpaired eye if there's no biological reason to give it another one.
This is all conjecture, though. It seems to me that even if it were possible, with all of these necessary changes to the environment and how it might affect the rest of the primate's biology, you probably won't be able to call it a primate anymore.
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## It's not just one eye - it's one BIG eye.
The Cyclops is a large hominid species that has evolved as a specialized nomadic shepherd. In order to decide where to lead its flock next, being able to see long distances - and as such, where it might find the best pastures and smallest amount of competition from other cyclopes or wild flocks - is more important than depth perception, since it doesn't need to hunt anyway. Large eyes are also good for night vision, which a shepherd will need to keep watch for nocturnal predators.
The animal with the most comparable adaptation is the ostrich, a bird famous for having eyes larger than its brain. The cyclops, however, is an intelligent species. There is a lot of intraspecific competition between them - when deciding where to lead their flock, they also have to anticipate where other cyclopes are likely to lead *their* flocks, in order to avoid unwanted competition. As such, they need to be capable of long-term planning coupled with a strong theory of mind. They may also have to keep track of agreements or truces regarding particular areas of land. As such, it needs at least one big, long-distance eye, and a big brain.
There isn't enough room in its head for two oversized eyes and a big brain. So the best trade-off is to lose one eye.
One might think that losing one eye is problematic for a shepherd because it reduces peripheral vision and therefore could miss sight of a predator, but remember that grazing animals normally keep their heads low to the ground in order to graze, and as such need the ability to spot predators out of the corner of their eyes quickly. A cyclops, by contrast, can stand guard on a nearby hill and slowly rotate to get a clear view of the landscape, including all potential predators, for miles around - it has nothing better to do. Also, if a predator gets through, the cyclops doesn't have to be concerned about its own life, the worst that could happen is that it will lose a few sheep. So good distance vision and intelligence trump peripheral vision in this case.
The early cyclopes were likely binocular hominid shepherds that started to develop one of their eyes to be bigger than the other, using their larger eye to see further away. Over time, the smaller, less-used eye atrophied and eventually disappeared, and the main eye became more centralized.
This lifestyle also explains the cyclops' large size - height for seeing farther, strength for fighting off predators and wrangling its flock, and as a shepherd they have easy access to meat and protein. Of course the colossal size they are typically depicted with is an exaggeration, but maybe nine or ten feet tall with a wide, squat shape could be fairly realistic.
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Not a primate, but [Cyclops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclops_%28genus%29) is the appropriately named genus that features a single eye.
A single eye birth defect [cyclopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopia) found in any number of species, including humans. From evolutionary theory, nothing would prevent such a birth defect from becoming isolated and forming a separate species. This particular birth defect often results in miscarriage and usually associated with a defective nose and results in suffocation. So, this particular form of birth defect is very unlikely to result in a separate breeding population. A different defect that results in a single eye without the other health issues would be more likely to breed effectively.
Even if a trait is a disadvantage, if it breeds true, it can be the basis of a new species. For example, one-eyed are considered unfit mates, so they don't interbreed with the two eyes population. Genetic isolation is essentially the definition of a new species. Further genetic drift would be expected over time.
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If a species needs vision but **not two eyes** you can assume that one eye will be dominant, then start to atrophy while the remaining, dominant eye moves towards the center. So what you need is a list of reasons to have two eyes and explanation why they do not apply to the Cyclops.
**Wider field of vision and having a spare.**
Many prey animals need two eyes to observe their surroundings for predators. Many animals need two eyes not to be blinded when something happens to one of them.
The Cyclops has no predators that we know of and displayed ability to act even after losing its one eye based on its hearing and scent. This actually makes sense since it supposedly lived in a cave where relying on light would be impractical. We can assume its primary sense is hearing with ability to echo-locate objects in caves and close range with high accuracy. While catching insects or small fish requires ultrasound, a Cyclops probably could get away using lower frequencies, maybe the sounds of its breathing and movement would be sufficient.
And for all we know the breathing of a Cyclops produces **loud but inaudible to humans** ultrasonic whine. Or the Cyclops can rely on passive hearing to detect changes and the sounds of its movement to first detect static shapes. Since the Cyclops could not locate humans by their breathing despite otherwise being able to act fairly effectively, I'd say ultrasound based solution is most reasonable. Although without the sheep to mask both sounds and scent it would probably have been a different story.
**Depth perception**
Instead of stereoscopic vision the Cyclops could simply rely on its echo-location ability for depth perception at close range. At longer ranges phase or contrast detection could be used. Or a hybrid of the two. If the Cyclops start from close distance (which is in echo-location range) and then focuses farther until the target image is sharp, its depth perception would be good enough with one eye. (Because you usually only need accuracy up close.) And the eye would give valuable information from beyond echo-location range so the one eye would be retained and probably have excellent vision. Since a Cyclops lives by hunting and pastoralism in a mountainous region seeing moving things at a large distance would be useful.
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I can think of two ways that an animal only needs one eye. The first is that it is not a primary sensor. Say they evolved mostly in caves and so touch and sound would be much more important senses. Sight would be a back up for the 'border' lands. It might have started evolving eyes, and then moved into the twilight area, and other senses became much more important.
The other is an idea I'm stealing from David Brin. He had an arboreal humanoid that had one eye. How the species evolved was it's eye worked like bat's ears. Sonar, but instead of sound, it produced a laser for distance. Kind of like [hunting range finders](http://www.cabelas.com/category/Rangefinders/104525280.uts), Not only could this work, but it could be a weapon if developed far enough (not likely). Most likely it would be in the infra-red range, so if you really made one mad, and it stared at you, you might start feeling a little warm! New meaning to a 'burning gaze'.
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[Compound eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye#Compound_eyes) don't need to come in two, so if your primate developed two and they merged together (like your rear skull bones) or developed as one (as your frontal skull bone) it could be a primate with only one eye.
Other then our [Spherical lensed eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye#Spherical_lensed_eye) compound eyes can work perfectly well as a single eye if its large enough. It doesn't even need to be spherical but could be oval and still work fine. As the various [Ommatidia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ommatidium) feed their information directly to the brain its not required to be two separate entities.
A Compound eye can produce depth perception all on its own. If your species is (or was in its evolutionary past) a fast reproducer, its not overly important that individuals die when their only eye breaks. Redundancy here is in numbers of individuals anyway.
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It is often suggested that if a an imminent crisis was about to occur such as a huge comet strike or Yellowstone erupting, that all the rich people could buy their way into special bunkers to protect them from the fallout etc. Or if it was far in the future, rockets to take them to the next planet.
I would like to discuss the plausibility of this considering money will be worth absolutely nothing after such a crisis. Now that I think about it, even the clever people who are valued for their skills may be pretty redundant in a post-apocalyptic situation.
My question is, how can you buy your way out of the Apocalypse? What assets can you provide (apart from the fallout bunkers / rockets themselves) that will:
* make people want to protect you despite not being related to them
* make people happy to die for you to go in their place
* allow you to maintain your social status and importantly, wealth post-apocalypse
Bonus points for anyone who can think of a way to make your money still worth something after the apocalypse.
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**Money as a Delusion**
In a way, those little pieces of paper with numbers on them, or plastic cards to access bits and bytes, have value because everybody who counts has agreed to use them as a common benchmark for barter trades. You swap your work for money, and then you swap your money for goods and services. Market mechanisms and/or government intervention set the rates for the swaps.
So even if there is an incoming apocalypse, money will retain value as long as people have **hope** that things will return to normal and that the old economy gets restored. Depending on how things get going again, they might even be right. Or [keep the lawyers busy for a long time](http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/12-2143P-01A.pdf).
**Leadership Skills**
You won't find the best engineers and scientists running a company. Talking to stakeholders, balancing ressources, etc. is an important skill for self-made rich. It could remain an important skill during and after the apocalypse.
This doesn't apply to heirs, of course.
**Nobody hoards Cash**
Rich people will not just have money, they have things which *might* retain value. Houses. Cars. A full pantry and wine cellar. If the apocalypse does not lead to looting, people might be willing to trade for them.
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We don't have to indulge in wild speculation. While there haven't been any crises that wiped out the entire world since the Flood, there have been plenty of lesser crises that wiped out a nation, like invading armies or particularly large natural disasters.
And what happens? There's no reason for money to still have value, as the government that backs it is going down. But in practice it doesn't become worthless, but prices skyrocket. Some number of people will still accept money in exchange for something that will actually help you escape, but they demand huge amounts of money. I guess this makes sense if you assume that the probability that the nation will be destroyed is not 100%. If you think there's some small chance that the nation will survive and money will still have value, then it makes sense to still accept money, but the smaller you think the chance of the government surviving, the less the money would be worth.
Rich people have not just cash in the bank but things: cars, planes, or boats that can be used to escape, large tracts of land to hide, shelters, etc. Sure, a mob could attack and steal these things, but the rich person has the advantage that he's holding them now. For someone to steal it, they have to know that he has, and they have to know where it is, and they have to overcome whatever effort he makes to defend it.
If I was rich and I saw a global disaster coming, I'd start immediately on building a shelter or escape rocket or whatever. As long as the disaster is far enough away that people still have lives to lead in the meantime, money will still be of value to them. And as long as there is some question about whether the disaster will really happen, people who doubt it will gladly accept money to help build your shelter. After all, there have been many predictions of apocalypse over the centuries, and to date the world is still here, they've all proven false. So depending on the nature of the disaster, there may well be plenty of people who will doubt that it will really happen. In the movies, of course the disaster really does come, and the doubters are all shown up as fools for failing to listen to the warnings while they had the chance. But in real life, usually the disaster does NOT come, and the people who sold everything they owned and fled to a shelter in the wilderness are laughed at. As long as there's doubt, money will still have value.
Oh, rich people often have one other asset: leadership skills. When everyone is in a panic, someone can often walk in and take charge. If you can put on an air of authority, act confidently, and have the competence to do it, people will listen to you. Lots of people throughout history have managed to convince armies of people -- and literal armies -- to follow them using the shear force of their personality.
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**"If you want to get rich, start a religion."
- L. Ron Hubbard**
It is true that after the nukes drop/the space locusts attack/zombies eat all the brains/the new Ice Age hits/the Velocirapture happens/(insert your favorite apocalypse here), your money is worth next to zilch. So, you need something else to give to people. Something that makes them trust you, want to do things for you, makes them like you and look up to you...
So in short, either start a religion or continue one. This can be done in a number of ways:
* Convince them it was God's will that all other humans were eaten/vaporized/nuked/kidnapped/turned to custard, and that you know how to keep your followers from suffering the same fate.
* Tell them that you received visions of the impeding apocalypse and that while you could not save all of humanity, you hand-picked a few chosen ones who would and inherit the earth.
You see, the problem with apocalypse cults is that the leader has to eventually deliver with the world's end or look like a tosser. But when you preach the apocalypse, and it actually takes place and you help people survive? Well, that's some massive kudos to you. It makes people believe and trust you, and by leading them you can help them grow and become the chosen ones. And you know what's one of the bonuses of being a cult leader? You can get your followers to make money and gather resources for you. So why on post-apocalyptic Earth would you *spend* money to survive the apocalypse when you can *make* money during it?
As for using your existing money... well, you could use it as kindle, or if it turns out the aliens are actually communists and they're allergic to the ink used in paper money. Hit them with a hand full of bountiful Benjamins and they keel over dead. Capitalism, ho!
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People will believe anything they want to believe. If you convince them that by helping you they get a possibility to survive, they will help you.
An example could be setting a lottery between your underlings, those who win a ticket (and their more close family) get a place inside the refugy (after all, someone will have to scrub the toilets, won't they?). A few points to note:
* Get a way to become indispensable, so **you** do not have to get to the lottery. For example, as owner of the tools / truck / terrain needed for the site, direction of the project, witholding supplies / access key.
* Get a few people with big guns to keep order. Of course, they are granted a place inside too.
* Try to avoid your subordinates to cooperate. Avoid hiring all the people from a small town; hire people who do not know each other and so, even if they have an incentive to cooperate against you, they do not trust each other enough to proceed. If you can stage construction so not many people is in the building site at once, better yet.
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An even more cynical politic would be making public overoptimistic plans, so you convince them that you are not building a shelter for yourself but a lot of shelters for everyone of the people building them. Of course, you only care about the finalization of the first shelter, to which you have the only access keys.
As doomsday approachs and it becomes clear that time will not be enough for all of the shelter, you bid for your time and hole in. Make sure to sabotage all heavy equipment that the people outside could use to oust you from your new, cozy home. Even better if you can demolish a bridge or something so they cannot even reach the site.
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Of course, those are not exclusive. A winner combination would have you begin with strategy 2 (is more atractive to people) and, when delays become evident, use the lottery system to win a little more time. Then, when the time is right, you just hole in with only the people you can made use of (a physician, a cook, some handyman, a couple of hot bunnies...).
Just made clear to them that there is a "dead man switch" that will cause a catastrophic failure if something bad happens to you (of course, it will sound better if you blame some "bad design decision" for it).
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Money is a transaction in trust. I trust the issuer that the money is worth what they say it is worth. As long as everyone trusts a dollar is worth a dollar, this works as a means of exchange.
When this doesn't happen, money ... rapidly becomes worthless. Because it is, pretty fundamentally, just a piece of paper (or piece of metal). Even the ones backed by 'rare stuff' - back when we had a gold standard - gold isn't particularly useful in the grand scheme of things. (The irony of it being really useful for computer components and space age stuff isn't lost - but that's a moot point when the apocalypse comes).
So I believe it would depend on how inevitable the apocalypse looks. If it's obvious to everyone that it's coming - you couldn't, because there's nothing you can offer that isn't survival.
If however, you use your wealth to prepare *before* that point, then it's viable. You could build yourself a bunker, and stock it up - much like survivalists do today. You would then actually have a fairly good incentive to offer for assistance - a place in your *already built* bunker.
If you have any brains at all when you do this, then you also stock up on things that are worth having during/post apocalypse. Guns, ammunition, fuel, food, medicine, tools, equipment (like generators, water purifiers), solar panels, blankets, etc.
These too might be currency for apocalypse day, but you need to be a bit careful, because your hoard risks becoming a target for looters.
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You want to ensure your assets survive the apocalypse and are tangible, useful things, that will give you power over any other survivors.
Obviously, surviving yourself is paramount; by the virtue of being one of few survivors, you get to control large portions of the planet.
You want to have provisions - food, medicine, and above all long lasting, reliable energy source. Any high tech that can be used - radios, transports (ground, air, etc), arms, medical equipment, manufacturing capacity.
If you have all that, with a small number of supporters you can lord over the whole planet.
So how do you do it?
If the apocalypse is not widely known, people do not believe it will happen or believe it will be averted, or is just too far off in the future, you can just restructure your investments - get rid of any cash or paper investments, real estate etc and start a high tech company. You can imagine something along the lines of the Google campus, with high tech manufacturing, research, but fortified and well stocked.
If you are well liked, once the doom is near, you can pick your hand groomed employees (and maybe their families?) and offer them sanctuary.
That way, if you survive, you are set to rule the word.
If the doom is near, it's effects are readily visible to everyone and it's widely accepted that this will be the end of the civilization kind of event, the best strategy is to start a religious cult.
People who are scared and desperate will look for some hope, so it should be fairly easy to get a good amount of followers.
You can preach on TV, give out money (which soon will not be worth anything), and just give people hope in general.
By virtue of your influence and prominence you'll probably be able to secure your own survival if there is some sort of government program. If not, you can probably use the crowd to muscle your way in - people who are sure will soon die, might not value their lives very much and might be willing to give them for the greater good, out of devotion, or simply as appreciation for the kindness you gave them.
I can easily forsee a scenario where a religious leader leads a riot, overthrows the government and takes control of what's left. That way, you can save some of your followers and use them to rule the post apocalyptic world.
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How can you buy your way out of the Apocalypse?
Preparation.
Once the apocalypse has happened, you are right, before long money will be useless, and in a post-apocalyptic world being a rocket scientist wont mean much if there are no more working rockets.
However, if you know the apocalypse is on its way, then being stupidly rich and powerful will give you an edge.
So technically, you can't buy your way out of an apocalypse, but you can buy you way out of an impending apocalypse.
You mentioned at the beginning of your question "It is often suggested that if a an imminent crisis was about to occur such as a huge comet strike or yellowstone erupting that all the rich people could buy their way into special bunkers to protect them from the fallout etc. Or if it was far in the future, rockets to take them to the next planet."
I am trying to think of a scenario where one of these rich people tried to buy their way to safety *after* the apocalypse. Every scenario I can think of works on a premise of preparation - building the bunker/spaceships etc before the crisis, while their money and power still has value.
Am I missing something? Are you referring to a scenario where rich people try to build a bunker/spaceship after the crisis has happened?
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I think you can buy your way towards *preparing* for the apocalypse. But like you say, once it comes, money isn't worth much. So the entire 'buying' part has to happen pre-apocalypse.
Once it happens, money will likely be less useful than brute strength...weapons, bunkers, etc.
That said, there would likely still be valuable commodities (such as fuel ala Mad Max). So perhaps part of the preparation is to transfer one's monetary wealth into commodity wealth for post apocalyptic trade economies.
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What about evolving ?
They are many things that suggest that we are living in a fake reality. I'll take the Matrix as an exemple. What if surviving to apocalypse, is just easy as waking up from a dream.
It's been prove in quantum physic that the material reality is created by the consciousness. Maybe the apocalypse is just a way for you to take awarness of this reality and make a step further. Everything is just a question of perspective.
They made an experience in genetic where a bacterie die by eating milk protein. They submurge the bacterie in a environment where they where only this protein to eat and were expecting the bacterie to die. But something else happen. The bacterie mutate to accept the milk protein and survive.
Humans never do something unless he's force to. We are to afraid or lazy to do so while it's not absolutely necessary.
So, i think that the one's who are really aware can make the step further and the other one will try to survive with the plan you mention above. The real question is : Do you want to live or survive ?
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I'm sure we can all agree that raptors are pretty cool (most dinosaurs are). But what I think would be really, *really* cool would be a rideable raptor. However, I don't know if this is possible. While I assume that raptors had pretty strong hind legs, I'm doubting whether they have the power to even stand with a human on their back, let alone run or jump.
So, based on what we know about raptors, assuming we got one and a human in a room together, alive, and the raptor was trained, could this be done? If not, could they at least make a fun kid's ride at the fair?
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Oryginal question was about velociraptor. Then, strictly speaking, no. But raptor, probably.
### What's a velociraptor?
Thanks largely to Jurassic Park, "Velociraptor" has come into common use to represent smart, human-killing pack hunters. Sadly, Velociraptor proper is about the size of a turkey, so you could never ride one. The name was used to refer to a different, much larger [Dromeosaur](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae), [*Deinonychus*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus). Reportedly the studio felt that "Deinonychus" would be too hard for audiences to read and correctly pronounce. (Opinion: They were probably right about that.)
### Raptor-ish saurids size
Even the Deinonychus was nowhere near big enough for a human to ride. However, there were other dinosaurs that might serve your purpose:
*Source: Reduced from "[Dromie scale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dromie_scale.png)" by Matt Martyniuk - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons*
**[Utahraptor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utahraptor)**, which is also shown in the above graphic, is clearly large enough. Whether it's got the bone and muscle structure to carry a human is an open question.
**[Achillobator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achillobator)**: only slightly smaller than the Utahraptor shown in the graphic. Not out of the question that a large Achillobatus could carry a smallish human.
*Source: Reduced from "[Achillobator scale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Achillobator_scale.png)" by Matt Martyniuk - Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons*
So, **yes, in general, velociraptor-like big enough to ride did exist.** But size isn't the only consideration.
### Humans riding birds: can it be done?
Horses are big and strong, and we ride them a lot, and it doesn't seem strange. But birds? Could even a big strong bird carry a human?
It seems weird, but humans have been riding ostriches for centuries. Large flightless birds such as ostriches and emus have extremely efficient musculature, and bones strong enough to deliver killing kicks to humans.
Bear in mind that ostrich riding is [usually a moderately daffy sport](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich#Racing), and not a practical means of transportation. Still, it does suggest that a birdlike animal of ostrich-size or better could carry humans around pretty neatly.
As a bonus, I found the following graphic. Note that **it's not the same scale** as the two previous, and didn't have creator information. But it does show very clearly the comparison between *Struthio camelus*, today's ostrich, and the Utahraptor discussed above.
*Source: [Another Head Full Of Fantasy](https://redamnesia.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/inspire-birds-part-2/), blog of author Jesse Rebcock. (This is not an endorsement: I've never read any of his work.)*
## Finally: your question is cool because:
**All of the prehistoric raptors had feathers,** not scales as depicted in *Jurassic Park*).
These beasts are more wild and beautiful than you thought. :-)
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According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor) the velociraptor was about 15kg or 30lb, so that pretty much eliminates any kind of riding. However, there are many other dinosaurs which would be large enough. Training one would be quite the task however... (perhaps like training an ostrich today.)
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You can NOT ride velociraptor. Way too small.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NHOMt.png)
*By Matt Martyniuk - self-made, CC BY 2.5, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=917946>*
Dakotaraptor, maybe a little too small. Utahraptor, I guess the same.
But, Gigantorapter, OH YEAH BABY, YOU COULD RIDE THAT!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/me3uE.png)
*By I, Dinoguy2, CC BY-SA 3.0, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2292377>*
**BONUS:** Megaraptor is not a raptor, but you could ride that.
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You could easily ride a [Utahraptor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utahraptor). However, I would advise against such an attempt unless absolutely necessary. You (or the trainer) are just as likely to be thrown off the animal as to successfully ride it. They were most likely semi-intelligent. My reasoning is that an animal that hunts its prey has 2 options
1. Let instincts do everything (like a shark)
2. Be intelligent and hunt in packs
Evolution has promoted the former in ocean animals and insects, but most animals larger than a mole have intelligence. They might even be able to plot/conspire against their human captors.
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Have any of you thought of Jurassic World/Park? Technically it's possible to create our own form of raptor. Take the Megaraptor, for example, it's large enough, however to tall to mount, so we take the Megaraptor DNA and give a different "height" gene. Or we could make something similar to the Indo Raptor as seen in the film, and take away its killer instinct, and replace it with empathy and the ability to ignore instinct and become a large, lethal looking dog with teeth/a massive deadly horse.
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If we could clone them like in Jurassic World, using foreign DNA, then we could possibly make them bigger, possibly big enough for riding. BUT, you would have to tame one first, and even if you could tame one, they probably would outsmart any attempt to cage them. Now if you could "edit" their brains to make them dependent on instinct once we tame them they probably would be like a horse, just on two legs and with all the problems that ensues.
After you tame them you would need to think about how you will ride it, with a saddle or bareback. Now if you wanted a saddle, you would have to come up with a design that would fit both rider and animal, and not be too overly uncomfortable to both. You would also have to think about the way the animal moves and how the rider would have to move to stay on.
The best possible saddle for a raptor would probably be the ARK: Survival Evolved raptor saddle, found via Google [here](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=667&q=ark%20survival%20evolved%20raptor%20saddle&oq=ark%20survival%20evolved%20raptor%20saddle&gs_l=img.3..0i30k1j0i24k1l2.1143.12758.0.12943.34.14.0.20.20.0.231.1535.9j0j4.13.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..1.33.1549...0.SdrGJCS2jhQ#imgrc=SPdQLWAKhWf8tM%3A):
Now, how the rider moves is crucial to not getting thrown off. The most efficient way to ride a raptor at full run (In my opinion) would be to jockey it like a racehorse. For riding at a walking pace, the most efficient way would be to flex the lower half of your body to match the movements of the raptor, like flexing your body when jumping with a horse.
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In a world big enough for human civilizations as knowledgeable about medicine as ours to develop without contacting each other, how could they initiate that contact without exposing each other to potentially deadly diseases?
For example, say a contact team from civilization A reaches the borders of a new civilization, B. If I have my facts straight, they could potentially inoculate themselves using the blood of a volunteer from B, but could there be a way for them to interact with regular society without all of Civilisation B getting shots?
Or am I overestimating the danger of this, and the likelihood of the contact team from A being asymptomatic carriers of some disease deadly to B is actually very small?
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Quarantined rendezvous island
The main problem here is that two civilizations are meeting for the first time. Each of them has no knowledge of which diseases they should be afraid of. To solve this problem, these civilizations should designate an isolated area, like an island, where all communication between the parties will take place. This island should be well-staffed by the medics, and quarantined, meaning that sick people are not allowed to leave. Healthy people leaving the island will be under surveillance for a period of time, after which they would be allowed to join back with their respective civilizations.
Without doubts, this rendezvous island will become a place of ravaging epidemics, and some people will die, but the main lands will be protected. Doctors from both worlds can observe the symptoms and suggest optimal cures.
After a while, every dangerous disease will be identified, and adequate amounts of vaccines will be prepared. At that point, rendezvous island can stop being the only point of contact and broader interaction can take place.
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In the same way as we currently handle this: through quarantine and sanitation practices.
Back in the colonial and post-colonial era, ships coming from foreign lands had to sit in harbor for a health inspector to check the passengers and crew. If even a single person was found sick, the ship was flagged with the Yellow Jack and everyone on board had to remain in a quarantine hospital until they were cleared as healthy.
Here is a [link](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/infamous-quarantine-hospital-burned-19th-century-article-1.1483012) about one such quarantine in Staten Island.
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There exist organizations whose purpose is exactly as you state: protect persons who are visiting an unfamiliar area against diseases in that area.
**Travellers medicine clinic** can prepare travelers with medicines, vaccinations etc. There are standardized recommendations depending on your pre-existing conditions and where you are going. For example, [here](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/chronic/bangladesh?s_cid=ncezid-dgmq-travel-single-001) the Centers for Disease Control recommends for people with chronic diseases traveling to Bangladesh that they get vaccinated for hepatitis A and B, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis (what is that??) and rabies (noting children might carry rabies!). Also noted is a requirement that certain individuals prove they have been vaccinated against Yellow Fever (so that disease does not get established to Bangladesh) and there are suggestions for avoiding malaria and cholera.
So too your people who go to the new society. They would get appropriate vaccines for that area and counseling about how to minimize the chance for contracting others for which there are not vaccines.
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You will not prevent disease by inoculating yourself with blood from an individual you find in the new civilization or anywhere else. You may instead contract the disease or others in short order. Injecting yourself with the blood of a rabid child is a bad idea in at least 2 different ways. Leave those individuals alone. Vaccines are made of crippled up organisms that can barely infect, or antigenic parts of organism. In some cases high doses of immunoglobulin (ok - derived from the blood of immune individuals) might be given to give a temporary immune boost; for example after you have been bitten by a rabid animal. This borrowed immunity is temporary only.
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The issue isn't about diseases at all. If the two species evolved separate of each other in different solar systems, let alone galaxies, than the chance of them both having large enough shared DNA (if they both have DNA in the first place) is low enough for us to not care about it all. It's very rare to have a disease from one species jump to another.
What I'd consider as the more likely problem to occur would be incompatible environments. Here on earth we have organisms that use H2S instead of H2O, and would get immediately killed by oxygen and vice versa. Same with organisms using silicon instead of carbon. Thus the wise thing for a first contact would be in the space out of the atmosphere, each in their space suits, separated completely. For a second contact, I'd recommend giving the other civilization some lab mice, to see how they'd interact in with a different atmosphere. However, the chance of one civilization being infectious to the other could be considered null.
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Group of volunteers or representatives selected by some other means from both parties would meet in isolated environment (Staten Island will do, but location could preferably be even further from mainland). Both societies know their diseases and biotech experts in pressure suits will accompany. The test period needs to be long enough to detect infectious diseases that manifest symptoms slowly.
Results of the test may be different, not just one single outcome. Harmless skin rash virus from group A causes kidney failure in 10% of people in group B. Deadly antibiotics resistant bacteria from B have no ill effect on A. At the same time, it raises questions why person infected with this bacteria was included in the group in first place. There will be drama. Scientists will develop vaccine for skin rash. Cosmetics company from group A homeland goes bankrupt as everyone has perfect skin now.
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I would imagine if they are industrialized the are both relatively intelligent species. Perhaps one species would use a remotely controlled vehicle, with a display screen of sorts the broadcasts imagery, and sound both ways.After sterilizing it the organisms controlling the R.C. vehicle could send it to the others planet so they could try to safely interact.
Of course they could also meet in some sterilized, quarantine area. Both parties could wear protective suits of some sort.
There are likely hundreds of ways to deal with a situation such as this.
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I'm actually going to suggest the question: Do your societies have plagues in the first place? Here's a [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk) to a video that describes why European colonizers gave native Americans plagues like Smallpox, etc, while the Europeans didn't get any deadly diseases in return. If neither of your civilizations had extremely unhygienic periods (which is entire possible, as the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs all had great, industrialized civilizations without this) then you don't even have to worry! If one of these civilizations does already have plagues, then mostly what other people have answered, quarantine and hopefully, vaccinations for those traveling.
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If your civilisations are at the same technological level as developed countries of our time it would be wise to avoid direct contact at first. No travel, no face-to-face meetings, no trade unless goods can be sterilised. You should **start with medical knowledge exchange**.
Nowadays distant communications are not hard. You can use drones or satellites to establish the contact. Medical information is digitised, so it can be transferred easily without any need for personal contact. DNA samples might be needed in some cases for medical trials. However, preliminary research can be done using digital DNA sequences.
Once both civilisations identify the most potentially harmful pathogens trials can be started. However, since some pathogens are specific to a location a remote island would not be ideal. It might be a better idea to create quarantine areas in medical research centres in the target locations (trade, political meetings, etc.).
I would also assume that we are talking about two civilisations developed by the same species. In this case, medical knowledge exchange will be useful for speeding up treatment development.
In case of interspecies contact, risks of disease outbreaks become very low as pathogens are usually very specific and interspecies infections are extremely rare. However, there is still some risk. So, it would be wise to exchange medical research teams to do surveys of potential pathogens.
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My world is science-based with an earth-like biology. The dragons fly when they're young and then grow too heavy and can only glide if at all. They breathe fire by expelling gas and igniting it. They are carnivores. See [How could dragons be explained without magic?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/313/90) for more.
Knowing that dragons look like big lizards, we could assume they are cold blooded. But dinosaurs were [neither cold nor warm blooded](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6189/1216.short). And finally, they do breathe out fire (probably from exhaling a gas or a combination of gases that then ignite) so they must be able to withstand some relatively high temperatures...
So what makes the most sense? Hot, cold, or neither?
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Dragons as stated with the ability to fly when young and with the ability to produce flammable gas are leading a quite high-energy lifestyle, which would require a large energy input. As they are carnivores, this dictates a certain lifestyle.
Cold-blooded carnivores are ambush predators. They excel at sitting still for long periods waiting for something unwary to happen by that they can catch and eat. Since they don't generate their own body heat, their baseline metabolic requirements are quite low.
Warm blooded carnivores have a higher energy requirement simply due to the fact that they must maintain their body temperature, typically above the ambient air temperature. This means that they must be more proactive in finding food, to the point where they actively hunt for their prey.
For a creature that must expend large amounts of energy flying and generating flammable gas, it seems unlikely that a cold-blooded metabolism could provide the capability to obtain sufficient energy input for their lifestyle.
This means that dragons must be - to some degree - able to regulate their own body temperature independent of the environment so as to be able to hunt in weather conditions that would not favor a cold-blooded animal.
All animals, whether homoeothermic or poikilothermic, require more energy input per unit mass when small than when they are large, and the gradients are identical, i.e. by increasing mass a certain amount, the energy requirement per unit mass goes down proportionally, regardless of whether the creature is homoeothermic or poikilothermic.
In addition, marsupials have lower energy requirements per unit mass than placental mammals of the same mass, but not as little as a poikilothermic creature, so it is not beyond the bounds of possibility for dragons (or dinosaurs) to be homeotherms and still have a lower energy requirement than a placental mammal.
Other strategies employed by mammals to reduce energy expenditure are sleep (practiced by cats) and [hibernation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation) (practiced by bears and rodents). The ability to spend long periods sleeping or hibernation would fit well with some popular representations of dragons.
In conclusion, I would suggest that dragons are most likely to be lower-metabolism homeotherms (i.e. warm blooded) than placental mammals with a propensity to long periods of sleep and hibernation.
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They could be either, especially if you choose different biology to explain their existence.
Dragons are often found in a variety of temperatures, from high above the surface of the earth, to arid deserts. If they were warm blooded, they could easily withstand these temperature differences, at the cost of eating *tons* of food for a large dragon, especially to keep warm.
However, if they were cold-blooded then they would naturally enjoy the heat, but if they had some type fuel source it's perfectly reasonable to suggest they can use that heat source to regulate their temperature. Also apparently cold-blooded creatures need to eat much less.
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I think an interesting option could also be that dragons can switch between cold-blooded and warm-blooded metabolism. For example, they could be warm-blooded when young (providing them the needed energy to fly), but then convert to cold-blooded (or in-between) when they get old (so they can grow without having to grow their food intake at the same rate; at old age, they are no more able to fly anyway, according to your assumption).
The conversion might be a continuous process (they start warm-blooded, but their metabolism gradually goes down as they grow), or it could be a specific transition phase at a certain age (not too different from puberty or menopause for humans, except of course humans don't change their warm-bloodedness in that process). Such a transition phase would then also go with specific noticeable behaviour changes.
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Some dinosaurs are certainly warm blooded, as many scientists now consider [birds to be dinosaurs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds). But you might want to put feathers on the dragons, as these both are useful for heat conservation AND flight. Or you could make them some sort of fire breathing [Pterosaur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur).
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Personally, I would go with **warm blooded** since higher metabolism would allow for more active, hunting dragons which could help justify their large size. Also, a higher metabolism could support more brain-power ([if that's something you care about](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3961153/)).
I can see how you could make **cold blooded** dragons work though. They would likely be opportunistic hunters that hibernate through cold temperatures. The catch here is that large dragons will need creative hiding methods. They have to surprise their prey, but they can also go months without food, so... I guess you could have dragons covered in fauna disguised as small hills?
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You could go either way.
1. There is some evidence that **some** dinosaurs were warm-blooded, as there is plant-based evidence they lived in cooler climates.
1. [Here's one theory](http://www.livescience.com/51162-dinosaurs-warm-blooded-growth-rates.html) based on their growth rate.
2. [Here's a new term 'mesothermic'](http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-dinosaurs-warm-blooded-02857.html) to indicate some dinosaurs had a physiology between warm- and cold-blooded.
2. There have been thermal cameras pointing at bees showing they generate their own heat. I have personally seen bumble bees buzzing around when it's 50F outside, *but only in the past few years.* This is a first for me.
1. [Insect thermoregulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_thermoregulation).
2. [Study: Bees shiver to produce heat in winter clusters](http://jeb.biologists.org/content/206/2/353).
3. Vertebrate carnivores have a tendency to be warm-blooded, because they need the extra calories meat provides to generate their own heat.
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Let's say that at an asteroid mining site, the workers live in a rotating wheel space station that can produce 1g. They use Earth's 24 hour day, and for 8 hours a day, people go to the asteroid to work, which means they experience 8 hours of microgravity. When they're not working, people live in the rotating station.
My question is, can the people in the space station stay healthy by just being in the space station, assuming their level of activity is about the same as most people on Earth? Or would they need special exercises like astronauts in the ISS?
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## Short term, sure. Long term, unknown.
We have astronauts who have spent very long continuous periods in microgravity. The effects are known or at least hinted at. Modern science has no data whatever on rapidly alternating periods of normal and microgravity. The effects will probably take years to develop and can't be predicted in advance. Exercise in 1g would certainly help with mitigating the effects of time spent in microgravity.
**However,** there are many examples where science enables some new thing then discovers years or decades later that really bad things happen as a result. Examples include but are certainly not limited to cures for [morning sickness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide), [mosquito suppression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT), [plastic liners in bottles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A), [microbeads in lotion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbead), [burning coal for energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker%27s_pneumoconiosis), [fixes for engine knock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Tetraethyllead).
**This isn't all bad though** since this gives the Author an opportunity to create a disease of their choosing to move the story forward. The disease will of necessity be subtle and not what the miners or the doctors are expecting. It should take a long time to develop because if the onset of the disease were fast, it would be easy to track down the source.
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### Yes, we could stay healthy
To my understanding the reason behind the weakening of a mars colonists bone structure is that they are permanently experiencing low gravity and their body is "overequipped" for that. So over an extended period of time the body will build less bone support. (People born on Mars would never even have a bone structure as strong as ours)
In my opinion the bone structure would not decay as it is still required daily. They would severely struggle for 16 hours a day if the structure was weakened. There is still a need for that, just as there is on earth.
So there would be no or barely any decay in the structure and thus no impedance of ones health.
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The weightlessness experienced by astronauts is fun, but it is not without consequence.
The human body was designed for lazyness. That is why it takes so little effort to be overweight, but it takes effort to stay slim. When you don't exercise, muscle is replaced with fat, and bones grow thinner.
A regular person living in 1g will at least put their legs' bones and muscles to work a little whenever walking around, and their arms muscles and bones when doing things like using forks, knives or hashi for eating. In space, the lack of weight makes these activities so much easier, so the muscles and bones get less stress. In response, they grow weaker. And it's not just the limbs. The heart and lungs start getting lazy too.
From the [ESA site for kids](https://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMSC6XDE2E_LifeinSpace_0.html), on bone loss:
>
> Space research is helping scientists to understand what happens and to find a way to combat the problem.
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> One method is to use volunteers who stay in bed for many weeks. These bed rest studies show how bones change when no weight is being put on them.
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>
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I've been emailing them for years now, volunteering myself. I could to that in a home-office setting even.
Anyway, exercising in space helps the body stay in shape, and helps avoiding osteoporosis. If your miners do go under 1g for most of the day, then they should be getting more stress on their muscles and bones than an astronaut at ISS would. They should not need to exercise in order to avoid weightlessness related problems. They should exercise, anyway, because it takes more than just an apple a day to keep the doctor away.
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**Your astronauts are going to be the healthiest and most jacked humans ever.**
Why?
The body can adapt to nearly any stress, but it needs to cycle between high stress and low stress moments.
If there is only stress or only relax you see a decline in health and eventually shorter lifespan.
If your astronauts experience 16 hours of normal gravity and 8 hours of 0 gravity, it's fine and nothing would change much. But if they do any form of gymnastic activity 2-3 times a weak they will be automatically jacked and incredibly strong because their bodies have 8 hours of 0 muscular and bone stress every single day, they would probably be compared to steroid users in therms of strength and level of fitness while also retaining normal health.
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As far as I know there are no studies on this kind of regime, probably because sending people on a 8 hours commute to space is really expensive.
Nevertheless there are evidence that constant physical activity helps in reducing part of the collateral damages induced by microgravity.
Being in a normal gravity environment for 2/3 of a day is also a way of removing the body from microgravity. So I think in the worst case scenario it would simply spread the damage over a longer time span, but it would still be beneficial.
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Heads up—this is a pretty gross question.
The dragons in this world are not reptilian, but rather resemble huge [borzois.](https://www.google.com/search?q=borzoi&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIju3-9LjdxgIVgzc-Ch16OQUD&biw=1280&bih=679) I've not sure how large I want them to be yet, but they are capable of mining/retrieving raw crystals themselves, so I imagine they must have paws like steam shovels.
So what I'm asking is:
1. What would these things excrete, if anything?
2. What kind of mechanism would they need to digest minerals or convert them into energy?
3. How much excreta would they generate, if any?
Many human villages in this world are built near dragon habitations, so I feel their bodily functions would probably affect people's lives just a little bit. That's why I'm asking.
Answers/suggestions don't have to be scientifically rigorous. I will accept ideas that boil down to "magic." Thanks!
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Gemstones are crystalline minerals. A diamond is made of 'plain ordinary carbon'. The atoms are just arranged in a particular way to create a crystalline lattice. Other crystals are different elements, but there's nothing particularly special there. Looking at the chemicals involved:
Emerald: $Be\_{3}Al\_{2}(SiO\_{3})\_{6}$
Ruby: $Al\_{2}O\_{3}Cr$
Diamond: $C$
Quartz: $SiO\_{2}$
Given enough time (millennia) diamonds can naturally turn back into graphite.
This is largely true of all crystalline materials - they're not actually particularly special chemically speaking. So I'd suggest the 'excreta' would be 'mineral dust'. Think 'coalmine slag' - where the 'useful' coal is gone, and all that's left is black dust.
For digesting and using the minerals - that's actually quite tough. Not many creatures eat inorganic compounds. Some do because it assists digestion (food grinding) or minerals that aren't readily available (iron supplements).
Neither of these particularly would require crystals though - probably more the opposite - the things that formed them into crystals make them harder to digest. You'd need some serious pressure or heat to cause them to decompose enough to 'break down'.
But maybe that's why they need the minerals? If they're dragons, that implies some pretty strange biological processes in the first place, so maybe 'normal' minerals get used up too early?
One possiblity though is that used by e.g. Anne McCaffery in Dragonriders - the firestone is eaten not for nutrition, but because it contains the essential ingredients for breathing fire.
A somewhat tenuous thought though - carbohydrates are basically carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. What if your dragon 'lived' by a synthesis mechanism, where it breathed in some of the minerals it needed (hydrogen, maybe oxygen?) but couldn't get at a ready source of airborne carbon? Carbon dioxide is readily available in the air, but free carbon isn't.
So perhaps - it 'eats' minerals to combine and 'make food' a bit like plants do. It'd be the carbon and oxygen that was 'of interest' there primarily. These might even be naturally occurring as e.g. coal, but diamonds might be denser or 'taste better' or metabolise slower.
And as for excreta - by volume, whatever isn't 'used' has to be displaced. Maybe you'd have less for 'pure' carbon (diamonds) but might have a silica residue if the dragon had been eating quartz recently.
(This is somewhat speculative of course - this isn't 'real' chemistry by any means. Some degree of 'handwavium' will be required therefore to stretch this into a plausible shape).
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Complely non-science based answer (due to a lack of being able to come up with a science-based way anything could draw nutrients of gems):
Make your dragons a silicon-based life-form. Biological creatures need organic matter, a mineral based creature would eat minerals (note: this is not how actual, exobiological silicon-based life would work!)
They extract crystalline molecules from gems to create their "flesh" and "bones"; they consume coal, oil, and wood to fuel the fires which are an important part of their digestive furnace, in addition to allowing them to breath flame. Probably will also use rocks as "grist", if the digestive system both grinds and heats.
They could excrete a crumbly mixture of sand and ash, all that's left after they've absorbed everything they need from the minerals.
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Have you considered something like existing dirt-eating worms? The tailings move out as it goes, the animal essentially filtering the dirt in-place. Worm castings are valuable to gardeners, whether locally produced or introduced as a fertilizer.
Bird and bat guano is quarried and sold, as fertilizer.
I'm thinking thag (1) the excrement could be a valuable resource, and (2) it could be rather different from what we normally think of.
It would be a more interesting story if it wasn't a mundane solid blob of waste remaining from what was eaten. What if it was *all* magicly transformed, but not all kept for use? The excrement could be gems made by the digestive system from base rock, or it could be expanding foam that makes a good building material, or something like volcanic pumice only with residual magical properies as well.
Let me run with that: after consuming several tons of rock that is magicly stored in the digestive system without taking up much space or adding weight to the animal, he moves to the edge of his territory and excretes a blob that is initially the size you expect from an animal that size, but is the color of magic and potently magical: touching it causes awful death from uncontrolled magic applied to the body in random ways, and the fumes can cause magical effects too.
The material quickly developes a stable coporial form that's like tar or melted glass, but is only mildly hot, and no longer deadly with uncontrolled magic. Then, gas produced inside the mass makes it expand into a huge quantity of mukti-colored foam, and after a day or so the material hardens and is like foamed rock or glass, exactly what depending on what was eaten (both base minerals and magical gems). It is like pumice or slag, but *also* has some residual magic, and a skilled practitioner can guide it to various useful magical properties as it cures. This can be enchanted building material, with other uses developed over time.
The dragons use it to make lairs and nests like termites, and can control the magic cureing process to that end.
The dragon guano craftsmanship is very dangerous, as working with it early in its wild state gives more potential, and accidents happen. Occasionally random magic has some strange effect nearby. So, the craftsmen also arrange various items around the work arena: staues of dieities, amulets, totems, and blank paper. Once or twice a year an anomolous discharge enchants one of thes objects which acts as a lightning rod: the wild formless magic is guided by the nature of the magical item it is to produce, rather than doing something completely random. And, the charmed item, if identified, can be a valuable by-product.
Just as ancient dye makers (strong bases), felt makers (mercury), and even washer-women (lye vapors) had characteristic occupational hazards, so do the scatmorphers.
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### Magic physics imbues materials with the same energy that created them
From a certain point of view, it makes sense. Plants contain energy because they capture the power of the sun and turn it into carbohydrates; animals gain energy by eating those plants.
Using the same logic, many gems are created from heat and pressure deep beneath the surface of the earth and therefore "contain" the power and energy of the plutonic depths, which can be extracted by certain magical processes. The most valuable gems (diamonds, rubies, and sapphires) are typically formed from extreme heat and pressure.
Some gemstones, such as quartz crystals, do not require extreme heat to grow, but they do require extensive amounts of time. These crystals can act as reserves for the latent magical energies that were around over the time it took for them to form.
Almost all valuable crystals are formed from heat, pressure, or time, which is what differentiates them from mundane rock.
To be fair, some kinds of non-gemstone rock (such as marble) also forms from extreme heat and pressure. Perhaps this form of magic tends to "leach out" of large layers of stone, only small, concentrated crystals can contain the energy properly. Maybe a high surface area to volume ratio is good for magic storage, for whatever reason.
Mages in this world may use gemstones to power their magic, but dragons utilize the same energies in a more direct manner. When a dragon breathes fire, this fire is powered by the same energy that was used to create the gems they consumed. This can even be used as a sort of dichotomy - most living beings get their energy from the "upper fire", the sun, while dragons and mages draw their energy from the "lower fire" within the earth.
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**Requirement:** Your creature digs for Geodes to eat. Geodes contain iron, magnesium, sulfur, amongst other elements that your creature needs to digest to survive.
**1) What would these things excrete, if anything?**
Your creature would excrete dusty dung filled with crystals. Dusty because of the extra stone dust that is not processable. Geodes often contain crystals such as Amethyst, Quartz, or Pyrite. These excretions could be farmed by your villages to obtain these valuable stones, and used for trade/crafts.
**2) What kind of mechanism would they need to digest minerals or convert them into energy?**
This part is magic. As far as I know, there is no way to actually turn rock into nutrients. Give your creature a magical stomach to draw out the nutrients required from the Geodes. This process just so happens to leave any fully formed crystalline structures intact, so that your creature can poop out gems.
**3) How much excreta would they generate, if any?**
This really depends on your creature. The average Geode doesn't contain nearly enough nutrients to sustain your creature, unless your creature hibernates for most of the year - if this is the case, then there would be poop during certain seasons (a lot of it while it stores up nutrients, since there are usually a lot more crystals in a Geode than there are nutrients). However, if your creature eats year round, then your creature may need to be smaller so that it can sustain itself on Geodes in the area. In this case, there would still be poop, just smaller batches of it found more frequently.
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Diamonds, rubies and possibly emeralds will burn rather energetically. That means there is rather a lot of energy in them. The dragons would need some kind enzymatic process to unlock that energy.
Probably, they would be ground by rubbing them against each other in some kind of gizzard. The walls of the gizzard might be coated in stones.
Once pulverized, the gem dust would be moved into a stomach that would have a mild electrolytic solution. The movement of ions would assist the enzymes in attacking the energy rich bonds of the gems. Some of the energy could be recovered from the electrolyte. The carbon could be utilized in a modified Kregs cycle. The various metal ion could be used in a modified mitochondria.
The carbon would be exhaled as CO2, the SiO3 and perhaps the Al and Be could be integrated into bones. The excretion would likely be something that looked like sand although the metals might possible be excreted as pure metal modules.
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**I'm rather sure the actual digestion part is going to have to be summed up as 'magic'. Since that's the case, why does a magical creature necessarily have to excrete anything?**
So your creatures eat rocks - especially shiny rocks - to generate energy. We're already in the realm of the fantastic at this point. Give them a place they *can* excrete from in the case they eat something that they can't magically digest - a magic sword, a unobtainium time capsule, whatever - but they're far too mighty, majestic, and above all perfect to lower themselves to leaving piles of stinking dung everywhere. Their metabolism consumes rocks, gems, metal ores, small animals, large animals, animals that like to think they're not animals, the weapons and equipment of the aforementioned non-animal animals, and the hopes and futures of many a would-be dragonslayer; and it converts it ALL into energy.
(Note that most things we'd consider dragons shouldn't be able to fly under their own power without magical help anyway, I'm assuming that's what the gems are for. A magic metabolism isn't a stretch. 2e AD&D dragons could already eat rocks if they couldn't find anything else. One of my players played a "vegetarian" gold dragon once that only ate rocks unless they actually needed help clearing overgrowth or jungle or something.)
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Do you want your dragons to *eat* the crystals for energy? An alternative would be that they *eat* them as a way to accumulate building material they can not synthesize otherwise. Maybe they need the crystals to lay *eggs* ? Or they build a hide-out like a bee-hive ? It would surely be an interesting place for adventurers to seek out such "crystal-hives" or nests with crystal-eggs.
One way or another, crystals are generally *rare*, so any digger would have a lot of excrements which are just 'filtered/homogenized' dirt. Maybe these dragons "drill" tunnels which (from their backside) are then filled by sand? Such sand-tunnels could be potentially harmful if drilled vertically, but creative humans might find some usage...
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I read again the Harry Potter novels and thought how much Quidditch has a broken gameplay system (Seekers are way way overpowered compared to other players and can basically carry their own team to the win regardless of the opposite team. It is because they have close to no mechanics related to their teammates, except dodging bludgers and that catching the golden snitch give you 150 points while most game have less than a 150 points difference). A very realistic thing about Quidditch though is that it can be played by wizards in their garden, and as such would be a good hobby for young wizards, in the same way than football can be played in the street or in your garden. I remembered that every sport I read about in sci-fi books were flawed in a way or another.
The important thing to consider for designing a realistic (and popular) sport is not how much fun it is to play the game, but also how much fun it is to watch it played, for example tennis is fun to play and to watch, squash is funnier to play (imo) but is extremely hard to watch.
I understand that most of the fictional sports are there for their narrative value, but I suppose we could do better.
So here are my questions, keep in mind that I'm not looking for ideas for fictional sports:
* **How can I create well-designed sports?**
* What are good rules of thumbs?
* What are some examples of fictional team sports that are realistic?
* What are commonly made mistakes?
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(Clarification - when I say football I mean soccer unless otherwise specified.)
Hey, great question.
Here's some thoughts on basic rules and questions which might help you design an interesting game.
**What are the unique rules of the world?**
Any game inherent to the world you're building should ideally seek to incorporate the rules of the world. The idea (if your story is set in a different world from ours) is that there is something unique in *your world* that led to the development of this sport. The beauty of quidditch is not that it is a magical game loved by the wizards, the beauty of the game lies in the fact that it is a *normal game* which makes complete sense for the rules that govern the world of wizards, yet it remains fascinating to us muggles.
Any game would be far more thrilling (to write and read) if it had flying broomsticks. Find the flying broomsticks of your world and incorporate them into the sport.
**Identifying *Thrill-Moments***
Watch a full length football match. There are moments where you're excited and there are moments where you're not. When do people get excited in a football match?
When the ball nears the goal post? Will they score? Will Messi slide one in? Feel that thrill. When a player pulls off a ridiculous move? Notice the awe.
Sport is popular because it creates moments of excitement and conflict. But how those moments are created depends on the sport. Some observations in this behalf:
1. Football relies on fleeting moments, but man when things happen its crazy. You wait and wait and wait and then someone comes close or scores and its all madness.
2. Basketball has these moments occuring more frequently, but with lesser payoff unless something absolutely spectacular happens.
3. An interesting sport in terms of Thrill creation is Cricket (not unlike baseball in some structural terms). The game is broken into segments called overs, where a small red ball is hurled six times by a bowler to a man holding a wooden bat, trying to ensure he doesn't get out and score the most amount of runs possible in those six turns (a \*very\*\* general idea of the game). There are eleven members in a team but there is always a bowler vs. batsman situation happening. The game can be tediously slow, but there are times when the very nature of the contest within a contest (individual battle nested in a team battle) is riveting stuff.
What kind of thrill do you want to create? Slowly built up tension like cricket? Random but exhilarating adrenaline like football? Or steady but rewarding fun like basketball?
**When you say Physical sport, how *physical* do you mean?**
Usually - *usually* - the more intimate and physical a sport is, the more exciting it is to watch. A more physical sport will also make you wince more, may hurt your sensitivities, and may not be for everyone. Then again look at American football or ice hockey. They are very physical and aggressive by design, and the prospect of physical injury adds a layer of tension to proceedings.
With the advantage of the sport being fictional, it can range from being gladiatorial combat based - where one might die, to just knocking around a weightless shuttlecock like in badminton - where changes of a brutal injury are not as high. A general rule appears to be - higher the physical danger, the more tension it'll create, leading to more fun reading and writing.
Some things to ponder in this regard are:
Is your sport going to hurt? How much and how often? Is death possible?
**Some examples of Great Fictional and Real Sports worth your Attention**
The bending tournament in Avatar: Legend of Korra is without contest my favorite fictional sport. It blends action, tension and worldbuilding perfectly.
It is a two team sport. There are three participants in every team with a demarcated area that is their own. Each team must use martial arts and bending (air/water/earth/fire) to push out the other team from their zone while dodging the oppositions attacks.
Quidditch is something already addressed in the question, and is fantastic. Real danger, high speed, major thrill moments.
A real sport I think you should check out is Pro Kabaddi League. It is a smaller version of kabaddi, with limited room, and makes for some awesome moments of raw physicality, cleverness and fun. A lot of inspiration for creation of new alternatives there.
**BONUS FOOD FOR THOUGHT FOR THE WRITING PART**
**How inherent to the plot is the sport? (or how complex can you make it?)**
If your story is a sports underdog story in a secondary fantasy world, well firstly, awesome idea! Secondly, you have open license to complicate the sport and make it as interesting and intriguing as possible. Put another way, if the sport itself is inherent to the plot, you can *reveal* all the nuances of the game at leisure to the reader.
If it is just throw-away worldbuilding which you may or may not utilize at a later point in the story, well, don't spend too much time explaining it just yet. A good example of this is Nine Kings from the Lightbringer trilogy by Brent Weeks. In the Black Prism (the first book) he merely references the game because it is practically of no relevance to the book. By the second book, its slightly (but not yet enormously) important to the plot so he slowly starts weaving in references and rules. In the second book, we see plenty of games of Nine Kings but the rules are only explained towards the end and even then partially. By the third book, this game (and the cards involved) become essential to the plot and suddenly, we know a lot more about the nature of the game, the cards, the rules etc. I get that Nine-kings is not a physical team sport, but the lesson for exposition remains the same IMO.
In conclusion, know if you're writing a magical Mighty Ducks story or something more akin to the Lightbringer trilogy.
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It's going to be different depending on your Genre, for example a high-fantasy sport is going to be different to modern day and futuristic sports. The thing with sports though is they evolve. Association football (soccer) has been around for hundreds of years, but in its modern format has only been around for about 160 years. The game evolved, and not only in one way but many. Rugby football is a good example of how football evolved in another way.
What I'm getting at is one way to make a good sport is to devolve (for fantasy) or evolve (for futuristic) an existing sport. An example of an evolved sport is American Football in Starship Troopers.
Even if you're going to start your own sport from scratch you can still take influences from across existing sports. Many sports have come from other sports, altering the rules to suit the creators ideas.
Other sports came about from boredom or a lack of access to other activities. The general public would use items available daily in sporting activities that they weren't originally designed for. Take ice hockey, where late 18th - early 19th century workers would take sticks with a curved end and a "bung" (a large cork stopper used to stopper barrels) and knocked it about on the ice.
If you have an idea for a sport and you want to make it realistic, think about how it would have started, what's its origins? How did it become more official? Any sport that goes on to be as popular as football or quidich will have an official body. And what makes it fun to watch? Some people prefer feats of great athleticism, others great skill. What makes the beautiful game beautiful is those with great skill can make the ball do amazing things that the average person couldn't.
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The most important thing I have found in a good sport is to minimize the number of "winning" approaches. Ensure everything you could want to do is exploitable. Assume that, if there is a "winning" approach, 100% of teams will do it instantly (this is the issue with Seekers... we didn't see teams abusing the 100% win solutions in Quiddich)
Starcraft 2 may be the ultimate example of "inventing" a sport. It was designed by Blizzard Entertainment from day 1 to be "the next eSport," and a great deal of effort went into making a sport that was fun to play and watch (they were even kind enough to talk about how they did it, so you can get some pointers from them if you look). In that game, you build up armies to fight. Each type of unit in those armies has a weakness to another unit. These usually formed cycles. Zerglings are weak to marines which are weak to roaches which are weak to marauders which are weak to zerglings. If you stick to one approach, they simply change to defeat you. Mixed armies are harder to field, requiring more skill and more commitment of resources. In many cases, a mixed army wins over a monoloithic army. However, the monolithic army can get built ever so slightly faster, possibly disrupting the creation of the opponent's mixed army.
This is the other key: there should always be a balance between strategy and tactics, no matter your skill level. If your opponent is planning too much, one fluid tactical strike should upset their plans. If they are striking too tactically without an overarching plan, you should be able to wear them down. Each team should have to define their personal balance between strategy and tactics, based on how their players like to work together. Some of the joy of watching professional and college sports is watching how the different approaches to the game play out.
The last key I will mention is a hard one to explain, but its the balance between the opening and the end game. The opening of the game *should* matter, all the way to the end, but the game shouldn't play out as "well, team A got the opening point, so team B basically can't do anything." Likewise, it should be remarkably hard to pull off an "upset" right at the end of a game. It upsets the crowd, of course. Quite often I find this aspect is not written into the game at all, but shows up in the psychology of the game. A basketball team that nails 3 3-poitners right in the beginning is only ahead by a few points. However, the psychology of watching them effortlessly work around your defenses can be spirit breaking.
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In the novel I am writing, I came up with the sport of "fan-fly". Two lines of dragons use their wings to fan an insect called an "utter-fly" away from their side in hopes of making the utter-fly touch one of the opposing players. Each touch is worth a point, and contact with the head is worth ten. Allowing the utter-fly to escape costs points and flying more than a few feet off the ground is a foul. The fun is when a dragon takes it on the head. The utter-fly is telepathic and makes the dragon do silly things, depending on what the trainer "uttered" to the bug while it was in its chrysalis.
My goal for this sport was humor. Huge, fire-breathing dragons terrified of touching a tiny insect would be a sight to see. As mentioned by the other posters, it uses novel features of my world - dragons and utter-flies - and the special abilities of the dragons - flapping wings, low-level flying. The "ball" is as unpredictable as the snitch in quidditch. And the price of losing is not pain or physical wounds or loss of money - it is loss of pride, which means a lot to dragons.
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Good question, and some good answers so far.
I will confine my remarks to what are sometimes called invasion games: the sort of sports that have a pitch, two teams, and a ball (or a non-ball like a puck or frisbee). Yes there are other good sports like archery or combat sports or rounders, but I won't talk about them.
## Think about possessions, chances/shots, and goals
1. In the short term, you want to have possession.
2. Once you've got possession, you want to build up to a shot. You try to move the ball into a [threatening position](https://karun.in/blog/expected-threat.html) by passing (which is vulnerable to interception) and dribbling (vulnerable to tackling).
3. Once you take a shot, you want it to score
All of these should be very error-prone. None should succeed anything close to 100% of the time.
Point 1 relates to dribbling versus tackling (and passing versus intercepting); possession should be precarious.
Point 2 relates to territory; you should need to fight to win territory.
Point 3 is commonly seen in any sport: players miss some shots, get some.
## Balance dribbling and tackling
Dribbling and tackling are universal: one team possesses the ball; the other tries to take it from them. These need to be in balance.
When in possession of the ball, you should have it under control, BUT not too much control; the opposition should have a chance to take it from you. Any well-designed sport will have this.
Soccer is brilliant because it has one main rule (it has lots of rules, but one main rule) and that's don't use your hands. Once you have this rule, it follows that the ball will never be under ABSOLUTE control (except when it's in the goalkeeper's gloves) and the tackling and dribbling methods are obvious. Basketball also has a simple rule (you gotsta bounce it) to limit the amount of ball-control and give tacklers an opportunity. Field hockey too: the nature of the game means the ball is under control, but not too much control, and the tackler can get it.
If you DO allow a player to hug and hold the ball and run with it, THEN you must allow the most intense form of tackle: this is what rugby does. (Rugby doesn't use the word 'dribbling' for running with the ball, but it's the same thing.)
At the risk of making lacrosse fans angry, a flaw in that sport is that a player with the ball can run anywhere and it's hard to tackle them.
## Balance the importance of territory
Gaining territory should be important, but not all-important.
In soccer, you could in theory score from far away, but in practice you're not gonna, so you've got to get close to score. When footballers do score from far away, it's spectacular because they accomplished the feat of a goal without the important asset of territory. (87% of goals are from inside the box according to the paper with DOI 10.1080/24748668.2011.11868563)
Rugby and American football have field goals (score from a distance) and tries/touchdowns (score by winning territory) and balance between them. (Awarding points for a try/touchdown is awarding points for territory alone, unlike soccer where only territory+shooting gets awarded.)
In 2020-2023, there is a bit of [kerfuffle](https://www.rte.ie/sport/hurling/2023/0505/1380975-trial-four-points-for-a-goal-in-hurling-tyrell/) in the hurling community because territory is too unimportant: it is too easy to score from far out, and this makes creating attacks and winning ground unnecessary and sucks a lot of the fun out of the sport. Some want a rule-change to incentivise the "[team to push on and keep going for goals and keep trying to create goal chances](https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2021/0923/1248643-hurling-should-trial-four-point-goals-anthony-daly/)"
## Balance bunching with spaciousness
In soccer, you often run away from the ball into space, then call for the pass.
Consider rugby: the forwards generally run towards the ball and bind together. The backs generally run away into space BUT they are restricted on how much space they can use by the no-forward-pass rule. The no-forward-pass rule essentially means they can only exploit space in one dimension (laterally). In American football (rugby without the no-forward-pass rule) they can run forwards and exploit forward space.
A very spacious sport will move by passing, and dispute possession by intercepting passes. A very bunched-up sport will move by running/dribbling, and dispute possession by tackling.
The size of the pitch affects this (and ratio of the number of players to size of pitch). Aussie Rules has a huge pitch, and as a result possession changes very often by interception. The pitch is too big to run; you must pass. Basketball is about passing, but balanced by having a small pitch with (let me check...) 84m² of court per player, compared to about 971m² per player in Aussie Rules.
## Balance shooting with missing
Some sports have a goalkeeper (hockey, soccer, etc.), reducing the success-rate of shooting, and some don't (basketball, rugby, Aussie rules). (To point out an obvious correlation: games with rectangular goals on the ground tend to have keepers; games with aerial goals tend not to. This might change if your players could fly.)
There might be ways of increasing the goalkeeper's power relative to the shooter, e.g. by equipping him with some sort of shield. In ice-hockey, lacrosse, and hurling, the goalkeeper has a bigger stick for this reason. Tweaking the size would tweak the success-rate of shooting.
Basketball makes shooting hard in a very simple way: making the goal small.
[Beach handball rules](https://gamerules.com/rules/beach-handball-sport-rules/) specify that the attacker can't be within 6m of the end.
Aussie Rules has an interesting balance where missing generally is rewarded. A missed kicked (unless massively missed) is awarded ⅙ as much as a good kick. This is small enough they look sad after it; if a bad kick got ½ the points of a good kick, the incentive to kick well would be too small.
## Balance stopping and going
The game should flow, the players should play on without the referee's whistle going too often. American football has far too much stopping.
I'd say a flaw in soccer, wonderful as soccer is, is that the offside rule is a bit annoying because it stops the fun. Yes it's there for a good reason, but it's a bit annoying; it's a trade-off.
On the other hand, sometimes you want some stopping to slow down the pace. An exciting sport, like exciting music or exciting sex, will have fast/frenetic spells and slow spells. This is also required by the nature of the human body: we sprint, get tired, rest again, sprint again. Aussie rules is a great example of this: sometimes teams play for marks to make things slow and methodical, and sometimes they run with the ball and handball it and it's fast and chaotic.
I've said above that the aims are to get possession, get it into the danger zone, and create shots. Think about how infringements are punished in all invasion games: play is stopped and the opposition is given those things: possession and sometimes a shot on goal.
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My two cents: Unless the details of the game a key to the plot, just imply the rules of the game while its being played or better yet watched. That lets the reader exercise their imagination and they will fill in the blanks.
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If a spacecraft is in low earth orbit ~400 Kilometres above earth.
How big does it need to be visible from earth with the human eye without telescopes, with enough of its details to clearly distinguish the craft from stars.
// EDIT:
The ISS is visible to the human eye as a fast moving object, but its features cannot be distinguished clearly.
I would like some information on what size the craft would have to be at 400km above earth so that it's big enough for humans to recognise as a craft.
Just to give an example, if the craft was something akin to the USS Enterprise. What size would it have to be for a human on earth to see the clear outline of its shape.
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[The angular resolution of the naked human eye is approximately one arc minute, or 1/60th of a degree.](https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/95202/14091) (Also [a nice illustration of what this means in practice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_angular_diameter_solar_system.svg), which just so it happens also shows the ISS for scale.) This is going to be different for different people, but should serve as a baseline (and it is also a convenient number to work with).
Given an angular size $a$ (in seconds of arc), object diameter $d$ and distance $D$, [we know that](http://m.teachastronomy.com/astropedia/article/Angular-Size-and-Linear-Size) $$ \frac{a}{206265} = \frac{d}{D} $$ where 206,265 is the number of arc seconds in one radian ($ 206265 = 60 \times 60 \times \frac{360°}{2\pi} $) and $d$ and $D$ are in the same units. We know that $ a = 60 $ (arc seconds) and $ D = 400 \text{ km} $, and if we plug these in and use the here more useful unit of meter then we get $$ \frac{60}{206265} = \frac{d}{400000 \text{ m}} $$
Solving for $d$ gives us $$ d = 400000 \text{ m} \times \frac{60}{206265} \approx 116 \text{ m} $$ which tells us that the smallest resolvable size for the human eye at distance 400 km is approximately 116 m. This is, in a manner of speaking, the "pixel size" of the human eye at that particular distance.
Hence, any spacecraft features must be **at least 100 meters or so large for them to be discernable by the naked eye at a distance of 400 km.** For comparison, [the International Space Station measures 109 meters truss length by 73 meters solar array length](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/onthestation/facts_and_figures.html) and [nominally orbits at 418 to 423 km altitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Orbit). While the ISS is visible, [its shape is not discernable](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/4313/415).
Note that the size figures you get for this assumes that $D$ is the *distance* to the object. If the spacecraft is directly above the ground-based observer, the distance will be equal to the altitude, but if the spacecraft is not directly overhead then the distance to it from the observer will be larger. (Trigonometry is your friend here.)
Also note that **the brightness of the object makes a potentially very large difference.** Many objects smaller than this theoretical value are visible to the naked eye because they put out, or reflect, enough light to be registered by the rods or cones of the eye; however, those appear as point light sources without any discernable features, just like remote stars. A spacecraft is likely to be made of reflective material, which will be reflecting sunlight making it much easier to spot.
Atmospheric conditions, light pollution and other factors will also contribute to whether an object is visible. Clear wilderness skies are obviously better for this purpose than light- and smog-polluted city landscapes, for instance.
Any individually discernable features will need to be *at least* this minimum size however to be clearly visible. Note that sunlight reflecting off the spacecraft may make individual features *more* difficult to make out even if they nominally might be large enough, so you may need to make them even larger to be readily visible.
A spacecraft in low Earth orbit will move very differently compared to a star, so assuming that it is visible in the first place, it will be easy to tell that it is not a star. Primarily, it will be moving *much* faster across the observer's field of vision than any star would.
For the grand finale, borrowing from [TildalWave's answer on the ISS over on Space Exploration](https://space.stackexchange.com/a/4313/415) also linked to earlier:
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> According to [Human Photoreceptor Topography](http://www.cis.uab.edu/sloan/PRtopo/Curcio_JCompNeurol1990_PRtopo_searchable.pdf), Curcio et al., 1990 (PDF) that lists several sources as well as own measurements of the spatial density of cones and rods in whole-mounted human retinas, the greatest cone density recorded was 324,100 cones/mm2. That gives us acuity (or row-to-row spacing we need to discern at least two individual features) of 86.3 cycles/°. So for our best case, with a *great eye*, neglecting any atmospheric effects, the ISS right above us when it's closest, and optimal contrast with the background sky, we get minimum separation of objects of 74.83 m. If there was no air between the observer and the station!
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Do note that TildalWave uses 370 km as the ISS' orbital altitude, which is less (though not significantly less) than the 400 km used in this question. Said differently, the two are in close enough agreement for our purposes: at 400 km distance, ignoring such pesky details as air, you need features to be at least about 100 meters in size in order to be visible to the naked eye (and that is an absolute minimum). Allowing for the obscuring effects of air, and quite possibly for the problem of making things out near a bright point light source such as the surface of a spacecraft in sunlight, you need to make them larger than that.
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Taking Michael Kjorling's great answer, I'll expand it. As was noted the space station is about as small as is likely visible, a pixel as Michael said, so to have something to see you will likely a few pixels worth. A ship about about 10 x 10 pixels would be a square kilometer. This would be large enough to begin to identify what it is, not just guessing by its location and movement.
It also means the ships coming in around the Earth in ID4 would have been big enough to identify before they even entered the Earth's atmosphere.
Just looked it up. The City Destroyers in ID4 were 25km/15miles across.
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In my world I have a town seaside where merfolk and humans work side by side. I'm very keen to see actual interaction, not just humans on the land and fish in the sea. I want the merfolk to feel at home and not be stuck like "a fish out of water" (sorry, couldn't resist).
These merfolk can breath with both lungs and gills so they will not suffocate if they stay out of the sea for too long but obviously travelling around could be difficult. What would be different in a town where a significant proportion of the population have tails instead of legs?
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Such a city would need to built with a significant portion on water. This could be done like Venice, as [Tim B](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/1269/81) has said, or it could be done in a way like described as in this [question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/93/what-considerations-does-a-city-built-on-an-oceanic-platform-have-to-make). This question asks about how a completely floating city could be created. The question focuses on engineering hurtles, but I liked the idea. For this answer I will be focusing on the second method.
If the whole town was built entirely on water, mer-people would likely have houses built on the underside or side of the city platform. Likely more expensive houses would built on the side, with the cheapest houses being in the center, because the houses on the edge would get more sunlight. If part of the city were submerged, the same would be largely true, with the buildings stuck to the outside of the city for the mer-people.
On the bottom of the floating city their would be stairways that opened up into the ocean. These stairways would go down a little ways into the water, allowing mer-people to get a handle on them before leaving the water. Humans would also have a place to push off if they ever visited the mer-folk. I expect humans in this kind of city would be significantly better at swimming, because their neighbors would live underwater.
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The city could also be merely built on the edge of the sea as well, possibly coming closer to the ocean than a normal city would. The merfolk's houses would be in the sea, while the human's homes would be on land. The beach between would be a common place, like a large park. The key to having this land-sea city work would be a special system of sidewalks. Along side the sidewalks would be a series of slides (made out of metal or a slippery plastic), and large water-filled tubes. Mer-people could slide down the slides (occasionally pushing themselves along with their arms), and swim up the tubes. This would allow merfolk to travel around in the city. The tubes would be more effective if they were filled with water, like a water slide, but this would be expensive and prevent two way travel on flat ground.
Likely there would be a public transport system, either from the government or used commercially, that would take merfolk and people to and from the beach, as each group would likely only own motorized transport in their own "home" area.
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Socially there would likely be tension between the merfolk and the humans, like we have racial tension now. It is likely that the city would be ruled by a joint council of mer-people and humans. Laws would have to be made to protect both groups from the other, and officials would need to be watched for corruption.
Technologically the humans would probably have a higher focus on the water than we do now. More energy would be put into make humans be able to easily breathe/live in the water. Scientists might also focus on make the mer-people's transition to land easier too, though as the merfolk have lungs, this isn't as much of a problem.
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Think Venice (but with the water kept clean and non-polluted). The city could actually be built out over the sea so regular currents go through the canals to keep them clean. Alternatively if the merfolk can breath and survive in fresh water then rivers could be channeled through the city to help keep it clean.
The lower parts of the buildings would actually be underwater and have structures, rooms, etc inside them. They would be used by the merfolk while the upper parts would be above the water and used by the humans.
The merfolk would travel on the canals or use carts/palanquins to travel the roads. Humans would travel on the roads and use gondolas to travel the canals. Markets and shared common areas would be similar but on a smaller scale, with ornamental streams or channels sized for merfolk while paths and small bridges sized for humans go above.
Split property ownership could well be common, with merfolk owning the underwater section and humans owning the dry land section.
Children could play together with shallow water areas being popular, deep enough for merchildren to swim but shallow enough for human children to stand. They could well even develop their own custom games that need a mix of both human and merfolk on both teams.
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"Forget you, Ursula. I'm going with Quickie."
Bette Midler and Lady Gaga already illustrated how integrating merpeople into a land town might work: [mermaids in wheelchairs](http://www.vulture.com/2011/07/lady_gaga_bette_midler_mermaid.html). So long as the land culture has invented the wheel, and the town is accessible to wheelchair users, merpeople would have little trouble getting around. (See [accessibility on Travel SE](https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/accessibility) for how this might be accomplished.) And if merpeople are integrated into the town's culture from day one, it'd be even smoother than the wheelchair access retrofitting you commonly see in the real world. Transfers in and out of the water could be done with canals leading into wheelchair garages. A quick Google search even turns up wheelchairs designed for beach use. Tubes for swimming up and down floors of a building would need airlocks, and I'm not sure how practical those would be, but water slides could still be used as fire exits for both humans and merpeople.
But just as parts of the town can be inaccessible to merpeople by using stairs, parts of the town can be inaccessible to humans by being underwater. It might for equity's sake have laws prohibiting public buildings from having substantial underwater areas on accessibility grounds, just as it has laws against relying exclusively on stairs. (This has precedent: the [Visitability movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visitability) proposes extending accessibility laws even to private residences, and the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 applies accessibility standards to multi-family housing in the United States.) So don't put rooms below sea level unless there are reasons to have rooms specific to merpeople, such as restrooms, or unless excluding humans serves your plot better.
In the real world, many public swimming areas prohibit use of fins. But in a town with substantial minority of merpeople, humans would normally be more likely to wear a monofin while swimming, and public swimming areas would have to allow that.
And as DonyorM alluded, assaults on wheelchair users would invoke racial overtones.
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The town would probably be built really close to the ocean, or near a river. Houses would be both underwater and above-water. The Romans made a special type of concrete that hardened underwater; this could be used in the town.
Stores would be close to the river, and restaurant menus would have to be waterproof. Many stores might have a lower floor that was underwater, with a hole in the ceiling that led to the abovewater floor.
But what about merfolk stores? While the merfolk may be able to breathe above water, humans can't breathe underwater and I doubt most of them would be willing to jump in for some fresh fish or a shell necklace. So the merfolk would have a sign put above water advertising their shop and what they sell, and if someone rung a bell (or a similar method to alert the shopkeeper) the merfolk would surface and sell things that way.
There would be stations close to the water where merfolk could rent a specialized wheelchair and travel the surface more easily. I'm guessing their tails are fairly long, so the wheelchair would have to keep them above the ground so they aren't driving over their own tails.
Most houses would have a space above water and below it. In the majority of these spaces, the two areas would be separate, this method is just to conserve space. However, some merfolk and humans might want to live together (they could be married, dating, best friends, or roommates), and so the levels of the house would be connected, usually through a large hole in the living room floor of the abovewater section.
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An example only because it exists, you might not be familiar, and it is quite recent:
If you watch the Fishman Island Arc of the show One Piece or read the manga you can see one artist's (Oda's) depiction. The species contains both fishmen (humanoid's with ugly fishlike characteristics) and merfolk (yeah, male and female mermaids). The city is still largely dependant on some kind of resin which lets them make bubbles that separate aquatic and air filled areas which can easily be passed through. There are vehicles for humans and devilfruit eaters to ride in. A large portion of the city consists of these air filled bubble regions separated by water (10,000 feet underwater if i remember right).
A lot of the mermaids spend time riding on lighter than air bubbles made from that resin. This makes little to know physical sense as the bubble would need to be much larger than they are but it is a anime-fantasy setting.
Above, for fun, is a shark, mermaid, and freaking giant merman riding a whale using this method to fly in the air. Notice the thin insubstanial innertube-like bubble they are using to fly.
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One thing to keep in mind is that humans will likely prefer to be dry, and mer-people will likely prefer being in the water. I doubt mer-people would appreciate being forced onto land, as much as humans would hate having to use scuba-gear to go to the mer side of things. Each would have corresponding buildings in their own habitat for most things, but especially for their housing and local community stuff. Another reason is that disabled persons of both races would likely not be fit enough to get anywhere using the other's environment.
There may be some shared public areas, parks, and government buildings (*if they share the same government*) I imagine these areas would be about waist-high full of water, which is both inconvenient and possible for both species to navigate. Also, it may be poor form to invite a mer family to your human house, there may be shared "get-together" areas for meals and entertainment in a equally-enjoyable environment.
The moment humans start adding totally dry walkway areas, the mer people would like to have deeper ..swim-way.. areas - so it could end up being segregated anyway. Perhaps these areas are limited and kept open only to disabled members.
For those adventurous mer people who go on vacation to see the human side of things, I'm sure there could be some form of [Walkers](http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/medical-lab/wheelchairs-1/medical-walkers-rollators/deluxe-two-button-folding-universal-walker-with-5-inch-wheels?infoParam.campaignId=T9F&gclid=CLGi1tujsMQCFQ-saQoduC0AlQ) specifically designed for mer people to push themselves with tail and hands, or maybe even some type of bicycle or tricycle which uses their natural swimming motions to move.
Humans would continue using scuba gear.
You also need to put in some thought about what the mer-people are physically like. For instance, if they are similar to fish, their vertebrae move side to side and you likely would never find them being "upright" (*consider that fish can only look forward and don't really bend in a way for their head to look up or down*). This would affect how they have to approach and use things and therefore, the design of the shared areas. If they are similar to water-mammals such as whales then they would have an easier time making use of human chairs/stuff and could swim in less water due to their horizontal tails.
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As a side-note, we'd have to do something better with some of our waste which ends up in the rivers, lakes, and oceans.
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[Question]
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What's the biggest medieval city, in terms of population, that we can feasibly make? That is, take all factors that affect population, and tilt them all in favour of a large population, without exceeding the technological constraints of the middle ages. Somewhat similar to [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/3410/77), but we're going for gangbusters.
For example, we could have a city that is:
* the capital of a big empire; bureaucrats, merchants and anybody who's anybody wants to be here
* in the heartland of said empire, safe from war
* situated on major global trade routes, so the population includes substantial foreign-born or temporary residents, as well as businesses and industries related to such trade activities
* fed by a large system of rivers, canals and/or seas that import food to feed the massive population
* the hub of many high-value industries that are labour-intensive but do not require substantial land, say textiles or pottery
The [largest medieval cities in real life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history) shared many of these features, and reached up to 1 million inhabitants. Impressively, Rome had this many inhabitants but 1000 years earlier.
Could we do better than real life cities like Chang'an or Baghdad? What were the factors limiting the sizes of these cities, and could they be realistically overcome? Or if we look at this as an alternate history exercise, how large could Rome have become if the empire never collapsed, or alternately Hangzhou if the Mongols never took over?
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So actually the largest limiting factor for big cities prior to industrialization (and even then) is illness. Most of the large cities of the past were cesspools where people would move to from elsewhere in search of their fortune, many would die from illness, and some would manage to move back to the countryside to retire. Very much the case with Rome, London, Baghdad, even when they had good sanitation.
With aqueducts and sewage disposal to limit cholera outbreaks about 1 million people is still the maximum that can be handled given the knowledge and sanitation that was available. If you could get everyone to boil their water and drink something that promoted health such as, I don't know, *tea*, as happened with both China and England then the population can rise to something above a million.
Rome reached the size that it did because that was what could be handled both in terms of people dying from the city itself vs. those moving to the city and the surplus food that the countryside could produce and ship to Rome (after passing through Alexandria (of equal size to Rome roughly)).
Which points to two other problems limiting city size: food production and infant/childhood mortality rates in the countryside that supply the city with population; I don't have good suggestions about the childhood mortality rates.
Rome actually had quite a lot that they could have done with the first problem, assuming making wealthy people upset was an acceptable side effect of producing more grain; there were a few people that actually attempted reforms on that front and things ended badly for them, this should be surprising to exactly no one. That though does point to something that even (or perhaps especially) in medieval times would have to be dealt with for all transportation methods and all grains there is a radius at which that grain can be grown and shipped to the city as usable food. Outside of that radius, it has to be turned into alcohol to reach market basically. To have the the largest city possible you want to figure out that radius, drain all the swamps and convert everything possible to farming food. The problem there is that likely the city already exists and quite likely there are going to be rich people who have estates and farms producing luxury food products that are not going to be pleased with your plan, and being rich, have the ability to do something about that.
Of course, another option is to change what type of transportation that is being used. The cheapest thing is to improve the road system, that will let wagons carry more and go quicker. The best thing is building a canal system. That is actually what [China had](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_%28China%29).
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>
> Wrote a little novel by accident, hope it's some kind of helpful.
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Answering your question, I will follow these steps:
1. Which cities have been the largest between 1000-1500 a.D.
2. How have they become so large?
3. What have been their main problems which impeded further grow?
**The largest medieval cities per population.**
1.) [Baghdad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad)
Baghdad is often declared as one of or even "the" largest medieval city in the world. Between 900 and 1400 the population often raised and dropped between 150.000 and (according to some sources) 1.200.000 citizens.
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> **1.000.000:**
> George Modelski, World Cities: –3000 to 2000, Washington DC: FAROS
> 2000, 2003. ISBN 0-9676230-1-4
>
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> **150.000:** Tertius Chandler. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical
> Census (1987), St. David's University Press (etext.org). ISBN
> 0-88946-207-0.
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> **1.200.000:**
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_urban_community_sizes#cite_note-Chandler-79>
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2.) [Hangzhou](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangzhou)
Compared with Baghdad, Hangzhou steals the show.
According to the [Encyclopedia Britannica](http://www.britannica.com/), Hangzhou had a population of over 2 Million people in the year 1276. This number is a rough estimate and not proven. Local authorities numbered 186.330 families ( with 5-10 people per family ). Thing here is, that they probably failed to count non-residents and soldiers living in the city too. Only registered citizens were counted.
However, Hangzhou was surely the largest city of its time with 1-2 Million people.
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> "Largest Cities Through History". Geography.about.com. 2011-03-02. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
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> Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350, "All the Silks of China" (Oxford University Press US) 1991, p. 337
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**How have they become so large?**
***Baghdad***
Baghdad has an excellent location. Controlling strategic and trading routes at the Tigris, as well as superior water supply.
Looking at a map from ~900 a.D., water is not an issue at this location.
Baghdad was built in just 4 years by roughly 100.000 people from all over the (known) world (Europe, Africa, Asia), with such an effort and budget, that it soon got the reference to the Qur'an's paradise. The fast growing young religion Islam supported the city's growth, as people want to get their place in any kind of paradise.
Due to this role in the Islamic world, Baghdad had to handle massive immigration and this grew fast. Soon it had evolved to one of the largest centers of trading, religion and knowledge.
Baghdad was what Rome had been 1000 years ago, just more modern.
***Hangzhou***
Is another piece of paper. Founded in 328 b.C., it grew slowly but steadily. While Baghdad was planned with a massive wall, Hangzhou got it's city wall 900 years in existence. At this time, it started to grow more rapidly.
The grand canal was built from Bejjing to Hangzhou which established Hangzhou's critical role in Chinese trading culture. In the 10th century, Hangzhou had an explosion of culture, after it became the capital of the Wuyue Kingdom.
But the REAL flush of population began in the first years of 13th century, when mongols conquered large parts of china. Millions of refugees were searching for safe places and Hangzhou, with his massive walls, seemed capable for many people. In 1275, several decades after the first mongol attacks, the population had been ca 1.750.000 people. In 1276, when the mongols conquered the city, the population dropped immediately.
>
> Monica Cable (1996), "Hangzhou", in Schellinger and Salkin, International
> Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania, Routledge, ISBN 9781884964046
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**What have been their main problems which impeded further growth?**
You might accept an excessive answer, but there's none.
Sure, both cities struggled with the same problems as any other megacity of this time, but the real issue was war/politics.
1276, Mongols conquered the Chinese megacity. The story of successful growth has gone in another row after they left. Today, Hangzhou is one of the largest cities in the world, with ~21Mio people 2011, according to the Chinese census.
Baghdad on the other hand, struggled with the raising [Caliphate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate)s power. 1058 it had been conquered by the Turkish general Abu'l-Ḥārith Arslān al-Basasiri and since then, it seems like Baghdad has become a playball for every warlord in this area.
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The strongest limiting factor is food. There is no way whatsoever to have a city harboring more people than can be fed by the surrounding countryside. Since your food supply will have to travel by barge and oxcart mostly, and neither modern agriculture nor means of food preservation (like cooling, for example) is available, i doubt you could greatly exceed that which was actually achieved, because the food would have to travel too far. (You need to expand the countryside that feeds your city, resulting in longer routes. You also need to feed the oxen and the barge crews, etc).
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Many many things to consider here...
**Location will be crucial.** There are reasons why large cities only showed up in certain places around the globe prior to industrialization. Location plays an even larger role in the case of a city that is not part of an empire...though I would argue that to be this large in the middle ages you simply have to be a part of an empire, its the only social structure of the era that could support that population for an significant period of time.
* Access to water, preferably a sea or ocean with the addition of access to inland rivers. River deltas supported civilization early on for a reason.
* Access to arable land, you need food after all, you can't import everything.
* Not too cold not too hot. latitude/elevation are important. Its much easier to take care of a million people that don't constantly need fuel for heat. How could you have fed Rome if it were far enough north that the sea froze?
* Centrally located in relation to population density. To be big you have to attract people from all directions.
**Question:** How big can we get?
**Answer:** Well I would have to say the answer to that is...about as big as things actually got.
Looking at historic scenarios with modern knowledge is tricky. We know things (even untrained, just from basic education) that could have made cities much larger:
* Basic hygiene
* Modern organization management
* Transportation and storage knowledge
* Literacy
Not having these things leads to problems. For hygiene the obvious problem becomes disease. Disease is still a limiting factor today (less so in the first world perhaps). Medieval medicine could not cope with an epidemic beyond isolating the infected parties.
Organizational inefficiency. The Romans, particularly early on, were crazy well organized and it served them very very well...that sort of trailed off but I am not sure whether that was a cause or symptom of the decline of Rome. When organizations get to the empire size, particularly in medieval times things will be disorganized and efficiency and responsiveness to problems suffer drastically.
No refrigeration, no long distance food shipments...at least not on the scale you would need to get much larger.
Literacy...this sorta goes with organizational efficiency. Literacy makes people more efficient, it improves the flow of information drastically. And *accurate* information is priceless when trying to manage a large group/organization/empire.
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I think the main problem would be to attract people. Past a certain point, the grow of the city would stagnate. You have food but people need to do something as a living. There is possibly a few farmers in the city but most people are either: bureaucrats, soldiers, aristocrats/politician, artisans, merchants, member of the clergy. Most would fall into one of these categories.
Why is it a big city in the first place? Mostly because city will trade with far away merchants, other cities from the Empire and locally. Large cities attract merchant because it's a large market with many opportunities. Large cities might attract artisan seeking work, but these artisans need to sell their product to someone and that is where it gets problematic. The local market become saturated very quickly, so you want to export the goods but other cities are also producing stuff and there is a limit to what they can import. The capacity for exportation is limited by the reach of the merchants. Example: It's good for a coastal city like London to be able to trade with other European cities but it's even better if they can reach the markets of Asia or develop trading companies in America. This opens up a lot of opportunities.
The other problem facing a city like London is that foreign markets already produce goods, they won't buy everything we produce unless we could:
1. specialize our economy. Either to produce something the others can't produce or we should try to focus on something in order to increase the profitability of a specific industry by putting our best resources. This is a summary of David Ricardo's idea on economic specialization. It says that buy investing the best resource in one industry, we can use the best workers, best land, equipment and so forth. We will develop more efficient tools and techniques and we will gain a competitive advantage over the others that could allow us to sell at a better price or increase of profit margin.
2. You can conquer oversea markets and force them to buy your products. One way to do this would be to abolish trade tariff with them but increase taxes on importations. This makes importations too costly and almost force them to buy from you. This will impoverish the foreigners but will increase your sales potential, allowing for more artisan to work in the city.
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All major medieval cities are port cities on trade routes. The best, like London and Paris, are at the tops of estuaries, protected from storms and pirates, often originating as a fording place.
Inland cities on caravan routes don't have as much growth potential.
Food does not come just from the immediate countryside. Being on water trade routes means titanic amounts can be shipped of grain, dried beans, salt fish in barrels, corned meat, salt meat, &c.
The limits of cities may include...
Defensible walls. You build walls. People who can't get in cluster right outside in fauborgs. Eventually, you enclose them in the new city walls. At what point are the walls too stretched or the fauborgs an indefensible shape? Give up walls early like London did and you don't have to worry.
Potable water. Barely potable. Even with a major river coming through and little feeder streams, they are often open sewers. I would say 90% of your problem will be solved by aggressive city water and sanitation measures such as no one could be annoyed with in actual history.
Human and industrial waste. Because it affects water supply and spread of disease. Raw human & animal waste being stored until the "honey wagons" come for it is just as bad as the outhouses and latrines and skips and manure piles. Then it gets carried barely outside of town and spread on the fields, and the flies happily swarm it, then fly back to town, and land on your lunch. Black death was a major plague, but there was constant attrition of typhoid, typhus, cholera, and the other lesser plagues brought on by flies and dung. The wastewater from tanneries and abbatoirs fouls the river.
Fire. Lack of piped water means most districts have little hope once a blaze starts. The lack of public firefighters was a major problem, too. This requires another increase in city services.
There may be unknown factors, like only x% of the population can stand city life, so the city will increase only as overall population does. But pretty much everyone needs a chance at work, or they turn to begging and stealing to live. Some, of course, prefer a life of crime, and cities provide anonymity and plenty of victims!
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While all other answers consider the problems with food and self sustainability, I will focus on the actual problem of all governments, People. If your city is large there will be more people, which means more crime, which in turn means more government influence. You might ask, why does more people mean more crime? That's because people are greedy, wild, panicy animals. With more government influence comes more rules and stricter laws. This makes people unhappy, get enough unhappy people and you get rebellions and riots. To solve this you need to give your peasants power(unless you are going for a military dictatorship). If you give your peasants power then they are no longer peasants and it is no longer a true medieval city. To solve this(and still have a large city) you have two options. One, you can create an atmosphere of fear, so that the peasants are too afraid to revolt, you can do this using public torture, executions and having little mercy. Two, you can not become stricter, simply taking care of the law breakers as they appear silently and without others noticing.
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I've read that the atmosphere about 60 km from the surface of Venus is very similar to the atmosphere on earth (the oxygen/nitrogen/CO2 levels and pressures are about the same). If there was a way, to say, create a floating city at that elevation, what would it be like?
I understand that the surface of Venus is extremely hot due to it's thick atmosphere and it's crazy greenhouse effects, but how would the temperature and effects of UV rays be at this altitude? I'm also interested in how the gravity at this level would compare to the gravity on Earth. Are there any other issues that might arise from living there?
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# Feasible, but with many engineering challenges
First, the background reading. Here is [Wikipedia's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus) writeup on the subject, and some more from [space.com](http://www.space.com/29140-venus-airship-cloud-cities-incredible-technology.html) and [The Atlantic](http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/07/the-surprisingly-strong-case-for-colonizing-venus/373560/). Most importantly, here is a [2003 paper](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022668.pdf) from NASA.
**Advantages of a cloud colony**:
* A cloud colony could maintain breathable air at the same pressure as
outside atmosphere. At a height of 50-55km, the air pressure ranges
from 1 to 0.5 atm. Humans commonly live from 0-3,000m with air
pressures from about 1 to 0.7 atm, so there is a several km window of
acceptable pressures.
* Breathable nitrogen-oxygen air would be a lifting gas in Venus's dense atmosphere. That means that a 0.5km radius sphere would be able to lift 700,000 tons; equivalent to two empire state buildings or 7 aircraft carriers. The empire state building has 20,000 people working in it every day, and an aircraft carrier has 5,000 living and working, so a colony of up to 40,000 could be feasible; though 10,000 might be more comfortable.
* Due to the air pressure being the same both within and without, any leaks or ruptures in the containment material would not be catastrophic. Instead, the oxygen-nitrogen would slowly ooze out, while carbon dioxide (and sulfuric acid) slowly oozed in. While this would not be good, it would allow time for repair teams to fix the problem before everyone suffocate, was melted by acid, or plummeted out of the sky into literal hell.
* Gravity is about 0.9g and people won't have to worry about microgravity debilitation.
* The sulfuric acid haze below 50km in the atmosphere is sufficiently reflective that you can get almost as much energy from a solar panel pointing downwards as you can pointing it upwards.
* The atmosphere is sufficiently thick that even at 50km a person gets equivalent UV protection to when they have on Earth.
**Disadvantages of a cloud colony**
* Temperatures at the 50-55km level of the atmosphere range from 75C to 27C. This is a little too warm. If we pushed higher in the atmosphere to the edge of the lowest allowable pressure for comfortable breathing, we'd still have to spend a lot of energy on air conditioning. **EDIT** As MolbOrg points out, separating the breathable air lift gas into two sections will allow you to partially mitigate this problem by saving energy on cooling the lower section, while getting extra lift from the hotter upper section.
* Sulfuric acid clouds above the cloud city would produce rain on the city. All exterior surfaces would have to make a material that does not react with sulfuric acid. In particular, whatever is used to contain the 'balloon' of breathable gasses would have to be acid-proof.
**Conclusion**
While there are engineering, cost, and return on investment problems to be sorted out, floating cloud cities on Venus are feasible.
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Looking at [Atmosphere of Venus on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus) we can see how the atmosphere of Venus looks at 60km altitude:
* temp. of -10°C
* pressure of 0.2357 atm.
This would still not be survivable for human beings. If at all, go to around 55km height: here the temperature and pressure won't kill you and you could be fine with an oxygen mask.
In any case, both heights are still beneath the cloud layer on venus - which consists of sulfur dioxide and droplets of sulfuric acid. Whithout being an expert, that doesn't sound particularly healthy.
Last but not least, this is not looking at how you'd actually *build* your city on Venus and *make it float* at such such a high altitude.
--> Bottom line: you have to create your own atmosphere anyway where you regulate composition, pressure and temperature. Might as well do it in a place where you can at least build on solid ground.
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Suppose a planetary system works in such a way that there is a rotating planet in the direct centre of a binary star (the star system's centre of gravity, also known as barycenter), such that the two stars appear to be orbiting around the stationary planet. If the stars are small, and the planet is an acceptable distance away, the temperature should be livable on the main planet.
What other physical issues (e.g. radiation, stellar winds) or social issues (e.g. religions) could arise from this planetary setup?
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The most obvious point is that there would be very little darkness on the surface of the world, at best you would get twilight twice a "day" unless there was a large axial tilt that would give a true day/night cycle at the poles. If the stars were sufficiently alike, they could well be indistinguishable from one-another, or if they are different, there could be periods of alternating colour i.e. blue days and red days, and/or bright days and dim days.
The world would have to be a sufficient distance away that radiated heat would pretty much equal radiant influx, so the suns would appear rather smaller than is the case with Earth and Sol. This would mean that in sunny weather, shadows would be hard-edged except at twilight, when there would be hardly any shadows at all, just dim light. With any sort of atmospheric scattering of light, the stars would never be seen except at the poles if there was sufficient axial tilt, so the sky would most likely vary only between blue and bright and pink/red and dull. Since the stars would not be visible from most of the world, this would place a more inward-oriented bias to the beliefs of sentient inhabitants.
Caves, being the only place that true darkness would ever be seen in most regions, are likely to be a source of wonder and terror to sentient surface-dwellers, and cave dwellers would hardly ever venture out into the sunlit areas where they could be seen. Life-forms would probably not evolve cyclic sleep-wake patterns, as dim periods would be relatively brief, so if any creature needed to sleep, it would have to do so in a safe place, guarded by wakeful friends or family, or be able to defend itself despite being asleep. It is likely that sleep would be something more like hibernation, if it occurred at all.
This is, of course, ignoring the fact that the barycenter of a binary pair of stars is an unstable place for a planet to be. It would be all to easy for the planet to slide out of the barycenter and fall into one or other of the stars, or at the very least end up in a close orbit around one where things would quickly get much, much hotter... At least, the world itself would not be able to have a moon, given the additional instability this would cause. However, the forces required to keep a world within the barycenter of a binary star system would be relatively small, so it is not impossible if there is some form of intervention, presumably of sentient origin.
Since light would be more-or-less omnipresent, I disagree with Beta Decays now-deleted answer that there would be one religion worshipping each star, unless the stars were very different in colour and/or size. A more likely focus of religion would be the darkness within caves (or the light outside them) - light-dwellers would be likely to have practically no night-vision at all, and cave dwellers would most likely not have very good sight and would be vulnerable to light-dwelling predators with good vision. From either direction, the opposite environment would be a mystery.
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**Physical**
* *Different sleeping patterns*: humans go in deep sleep primarily because we are not adapted to dark environments, and so we can use that time to restore energies etc. Other species have different sleep patterns; some species of sharks, for instance, [alternate between "active" and "less active"](http://marinelife.about.com/od/fish/f/howdosharkssleep.htm) periods: they are always aware, but they are less active and restore energy that way. In a world without darkness, it's possible that we would develop a less drastic different between awake state and resting state. Polyphasic sleep could be another alternative, I suggest you read [Pavlina's experiment](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/) on the subject.
* *Different physical features*: all this depends on the intensity of the light. Stronger irradiation from the sun could lead to darker skin tones, increased vascularization or hairless bodies to increase heat dissipation, smaller eyes, increased reuse of water inside the body if the planet is arid...planets are very complex, and life is possibly even worse in this aspect, a relatively small change can have radical consequences. Keep in mind I'm not an expert though, so maybe you'd like other, more knowledgeable people to expand on all these things.
* *Different physiology*: a huge part of our biology is based on the day/night cycle: sunlight helps control our melatonin levels (which in turn influences our sleep), the absorption of vitamin D (with a variety of positive effects) and serotonin (makes you happier). Night and deep sleep too have positive effects on our bodies: our heart rate goes way down during the night, having way more active time could actually make heart problem rates rise, and you could imagine a whole spectrum of problems on this basis. I believe that if you're going for hard sci-fi as a standard, you should consider the importance of the day/night cycle and circadian rhythm to our biological makeup.
**Cultural**
* *Duality*: in a way, one could infer that the easiness with which thoughts about duality come to us is also influenced by the stark contrast between night and day (think about how we insinctively think something is either good or bad, or how we tend to neatly categorize things). I personally believe this to be a consequence of instincts and evolution (you need to know where everything stands to survive, lack of knowledge creates uneasiness), but the lack of darkness could have an impact on how things are seen: maybe there is no difference between the two suns, and so philosophers etc. are more prone to consider different things to be, on a fundamental level, equal or similar (they could express love and hate with the same word, for instance, recognising the strength and nature of the emotion as the same over the superficially different effects).
Maybe, like another answer suggested, the suns could have different lights (red and blue), and the change could be very gradual (also depends on how quickly the stars are orbiting). This could encourage cultural and social fluidity, and a "grayer" way to view the world: maybe love and hate really are different, but it's very easy to go from one to the other, and not at all unexpected; maybe change in such a planet would be welcomed with little to no resistance, unlike our own world. Maybe positions of authority would change way more frequently, and opinion could be easily swayed (and no stigma would be attached to changing one's opinion frequently). There could also be less restrictive social norms (marriage and other long-standing traditions could possibly not exist. Maybe the whole concept of tradition would be alien to such a culture).
* *Cultural makeup*: you have to think about the extent to which the suns could homogenize culture, and to this extent I would address you to questions relating to ["planets of hats"](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/94/are-planet-of-hats-realistic) (planets with a single cultural makeup). The basic idea is that for a culture to be very similar, you need similar circumstances: same basic terrain, same resources, same weather, same everything; if there are different circumstances, some form of different culture will naturally arise. And you also have to keep in mind the influence of government: if you have a single government ([possible, but difficulty varies depending on the extension of the planet](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/103/how-far-apart-can-towns-cities-be-under-a-monarchy-while-still-having-order-main)) either the problem doesn't exist already or the government would probably exert some sort of control over culture to keep the political situation manageable without splitting into local factions; if you hve multiple governments, well...why would they arise if the culture is homogenous and the needs of the various settlements are the same?
* *Religious*: my understanding of religion-building is that you can really go crazy, as long as enough time has passed from the religion's foundation and said foundation is consistent with the world they're in. You could have two creator deities that become united in a single, supremely powerful being. Or, depending on the effects of the two suns on the land itself you could have two warring deities, or if for instance one sun is blue and the other is red, one of the deities could be killed every day and resurrect during the other's reign (which would explain the red sky, provided blood is still red). If the planet's inhabitants cannot see the suns they may come to worship the earth, or maybe there could be a sort of love triangle between the two suns and the earth. As long as you take the major "players" into consideration, the possibilities are limitless.
**Technological**
* *Progress*: in the case of a fluid society, there would be no resistance to paradigm shifts in science, and progress could happen much more quickly.
* *Energy production*: progress in solar power would be pretty much a given IF there is not a huge variability in wheather. If you're living in Space London, you can have all the suns in the universe, but solar power would still be a somewhat silly investment. You need reliable access to sunlight to turn a profit, energy-wise (at least you needed it five or six years ago, not sure about current level of technology).
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Something to consider is the effect on weather and tidal patterns.
If the two suns are opposite each other then they will work together to create strong tides (by solar tide standards) but probably still not as strong as lunar tides.
Think about the spin of the planet compared to the movement of the two suns (since the suns will be orbiting each other).
With a vertical axis you have star A and star B with the planet spinning there.
```
A | B
```
In this case you would have continuous daylight and warmth at the equator, continuous cooler twilight at the poles. Expect weather cycles with evaporation and warming happening at the equator then flowing towards the poles where it sinks and cools. At the equator you would have cycles that go noon A-twilight-noon B-twilight-noon A etc.
With sufficient water you would have tides moving around the planet on a one-day cycle.
If the axis of rotation moves away from the vertical then the suns would start to move in the sky in small circles over the course of a year. There might be some seasons although the differences would be smaller than we see.
One last special case though is if the planet is tidally locked. In this case the planet is spinning slowly enough that one complete turn of the planet is one year. This means that one point at the equator on each side you have permanent noon and extreme heating. As you move away from that point things would get cooler and darker, until eventually you started to see the second sun rising. The sun(s) would always be in the same apparent position(s) in the sky for any point on the planet.
This is actually more likely than it might seem in this already highly unusual star system as the gravity of the stars would work to pull the planet into that configuration. It's the same reason our moon always shows the same face towards us.
You would have no tides as the gravitational pull from the suns would not be moving with respect to the planet.
**Life**
This is where things get really interesting. What would happen to life in this situation?
In the areas of constant sunlight then you could well get desertification, if there is enough water though then expect rampant plant-life benefiting from 24 hour photosynthesis. The constant light and warmth would be a benefit to cold blooded animals so expect them to compete more efficiently.
As you move away from the light conditions would change. Plants would need to cope with lower light levels and colder temperatures. Warm-blooded animals would take over from cold-blooded ones using their ability to regulate their body temperature.
**Seasons and plant life**
As already mentioned there wouldn't be any real seasons to speak of, even with axial tilt you would get modest variations. Because of this I'd expect plants to be evergreen. There would be no real concept of year or anual die-offs. You should consider how plants and animals would co-ordinate things like breeding cycles and pollination. Tropical ecosystems on earth would be a good source of inspiration here.
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There is a very interesting tale from Asimov about the consequences of perennial light: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story)>
There, there are several suns and always daytime, so no stars. Depending on the setup of your system you can have perennial daytime also, so you should check it and take the appropiate points.
Some of these points may be that a culture with no night could become unstoppably afraid of darkness, and consequently of closed spaces, to the point of a single periode of global darkness (an eclipse) causing the complete end of the Civilization.
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Well, this question has been inactive for a long time, but it's interesting enough that I might try an answer anyhow.
I see a few different ways this could go, depending on the planet's rate of rotation.
1. Planet is rotating at a speed comparable to Earth's. No axial tilt. In this case, the day proceeds in a cycle that looks like Earth's until sunset - whereupon, instead of twilight fading into darkness, the second sun picks up where the first one left off. The sunset-sunrise combo is presumably twice as romantic as anything we have on Earth. In this case, the suns reach their zenith at the equator, and the further north or south you travel, the less high they rise in the sky. At the poles, both suns hover at horizon-level and just go round and round without ever rising or setting, like two half-submerged luminescent nuclear sharks. It's cold there, like Earth's poles, and will probably feel creepy to someone from the more temperate regions, who's used to it being daylight most of the time. To sum up, this scenario is similar to Earth, except for the complete lack of either night time or seasons.
2. Planet is rotating with respect to the suns, but slowly, like once per year. In this case, while we still have the daylight/twilight cycle, it becomes more of a seasonal thing: summer is noon, winter is twilight, morning and afternoon are spring and fall. Night time is still unknown, but prolonged periods of dimness now exist, even at the equators. These periods last long enough for it to get substantially cold, so expect to see Earth-like cycles of planting and harvesting crops and digging in for winter. At the poles, nothing much changes - the suns are still doing their peeking-over-the-horizon thing, they're just doing it much more slowly now.
3. Throwing an axial tilt into the equation mixes things up a bit. Depending on the degrees of tilt and 'wobble', you could get:
~ Winter/summer cycles at the poles as they wobble seasonally towards one sun or the other, non-seasonal daylight/twilight cycles at the equator, and a mix of the two in between.
~ Permanent midafternoon (or any other time of day) at the poles, while the equators experience daylight/twilight (or winter/summer) cycles.
4. This is my favorite scenario - because it's totally the best. If the planet is tidally locked, then we have:
~ One side always faces one sun, and the other side always faces the other.
~ No winter, no summer, no day, no night - the sun's position in the sky, and the temperature of the weather, don't vary with time. They vary only with your location on the surface of the planet.
~ On each side, there will be one exact spot where *vertical objects cast no shadow*. Expect to see a sacred pyramid at this location, surrounded by a major city. This is also the best region for growing crops, and for never being cold.
~ If the 'poles' of the planet are the warmest, brightest points directly beneath each sun, then the planet's 'equator' is the 'zone of twilight'. From this belt, and only here, both suns are visible - at all times. Caveat: they're so low in the sky that they provide little warmth, and this 'arctic equator' is always freezing. It's also (relatively) dark, and has flora and fauna drastically different from what can be seen nearer to the 'poles'. Thank penguins vs. parakeets, polar bears vs. tigers. Basically nothing which lives at the poles can survive at the 'equator', and vice versa.
~ From the perspective of a person living in one of the polar cities, traveling away from that city begins to look, at a certain point, like a journey into Hell. The sun sinks lower and lower in the sky, the temperature drops precipitously, the light grows dimmer and redder. Plants and animals become alien and hostile. The fact that these people have never known winter or night time, and are used to frolicking naked in the sun 24 hours a day, makes this particularly trying. Human habitation thins out and disappears. Any that do inhabit this wilderness are probably exiles and outlaws, and living a somewhat desperate existence.
~ Now imagine that they *don't know* that there's another sun on the other side. Their map of the known world then looks like this:[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9M3rO.jpg)
It could be hundreds or thousands of years before anyone is brave and tough enough to make it all the way through the icy hell and find this whole other world with exotic people, cultures, animals, plants, and perhaps a subtly different sunlight than their own.
Final note: some have said that this planet can't have a moon, because it would add too much instability. I disagree. I think it *has* to have one. As others have been quick to point out, the system is inherently unstable, because it's balanced on a gravitational pinpoint, and some artificial, responsive mechanism is needed to keep it from falling towards one or the other of the suns. Well, how is this mechanism going to be actuated? You can't strap rockets to the sides of the planet - you'll burn away the atmosphere. You can, however, put rockets (or ion engines, or whatever you like) on the moon. By subtly altering the orbit of the moon around the planet, it should be possible to nudge it this way and that through the effect of gravity, thus keeping it right in the center where it needs to be. This would also give the alien overlords who built the place a nice vantage point from which to observe their wacky experiment...
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Three natives who study their version of science on the surface of a large rotating habitat located in a cylindrical shape in the space between our solar system and Alpha Centauri, are trying to figure out the basic physics, equivalent of our Newtonian mechanics. How would they come to the truth of the matter?
Research thus far has included: a couple of 'Isaac Arthur' [videos](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g) on the subject on Youtube, and a thorough reading of the Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke as well as the Ringworld books by Larry Niven, and an AIAA [article](http://www.artificial-gravity.com/AIAA-2006-7321.pdf) entitled "Artificial Gravity Visualization, Empathy, and Design" by Theodore W. Hall. I also used 'SpinCalc' at [this link](https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/) by Theodore W. Hall.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
A "natural philospher" who studies his environment will notice effects consistent with a rotating habitat. The coriolis forces may not be noticeable with human senses if the habitat is big enough, but spring-based scales might be used to measure them. (This could grow out of efforts to assure *fair weights* in the markets or some such.)
Additional measurements could be made on a children's carousel or the like.
The "natural philosopher" would then have to come up with a consistent theory which matches the observable effects, and invent new experiments to support or challenge the theory. This might actually be easier than inventing Newtonian mechanics **plus** a theory of gravity, because gravity does not get in the way.
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I'm assuming an enclosed cylindrical colony 600 kilometers across (so they can't just look up and see the other side of the world, or look out and see the stars rotating much too fast), and with no access to the endcaps. Such a colony would be rotating at 0.055 rpm, or about one rotation every 18 minutes.
Honestly, your medieval philosopher isn't going to be able to tell that this isn't a flat world. The easy test (drop an object and see where it lands) isn't precise enough: an object dropped from head height will land about 0.3 mm to the side of where it should, well within the medieval margin of error.
So let's move forward to the Renaissance, and have Galileo drop a pair of cannonballs off an Italian bell tower, 60 meters off the ground. We'll use a well-built tower rather than the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and, to make the effects obvious, we'll have him drop the balls off the spinward side of the tower.
There's a 0.17 m/s difference in tangental velocities between the top and bottom of the tower. The balls fall for three seconds, and then there's a pair of distinct "cracks" as they strike a balcony a third of the way up the tower, having drifted about half a meter anti-spinward (or, in a non-rotating reference frame, the colony rim rotated 5145.1 meters while the tower top, and the co-moving cannonballs, rotated 5145.6 meters).
Galileo's determined to prove that objects fall at the same speed regardless of weight, though, and he keeps dropping cannonballs off the top of the tower, trying to get them to hit the ground. He quickly notices that his ability to do so depends on which side of the tower he drops them from.
This information spreads to other natural philosophers, and when someone works out the equations of motion, those equations show distinct [coriolis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_force) and [centrifugal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force) terms. These are the same equations that describe motion on a merry-go-round or other rotating object, and the conclusion is obvious: we live on a rapidly-rotating world. Since we don't go flying off into space, we must be on the inside.
(Incidentally, you can do the same experiment here on Earth, but the greater radius and slower rotation speed make the effect far more subtle. Galileo's cannonballs only drifted by about 10 mm during their trip down the Leaning Tower.)
[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.
With medieval tech, they wouldn't have the concept of space. Their world would be the universe (everything there is). Their world is a cylinder. Everyone can see that.
They would likely not have any concept that the cylinder is spinning (no external frame of reference). However, unless the radius is huge, they would know that if you jump high enough, you will land in one direction (anti-spinward). They would likely have a name for that direction. So, there would be no need for a compass. Toss a rock high up in the air and see which direction it falls.
**Math:**
Word problem since I don't know mathlab:
The forces acting on a person standing on the surface is converted to a velocity vector in a direction tangential to the rotating surface in the direction of rotation. If we assume that the curvature is large enough to be essentially flat relative to the size of the jump, from a non rotating, out side perspective, he appears to jump in a triangle with each side composed of the combination of his jumping vector and the momentum imparted by the station with the top of the triangle being at the peak of the jump. If t is the time it takes him to reach the peak of his jump, 2t is the time for him to reach the ground. We take the hypotenuse of his jump to the peak and double it:
Djump = 2( sqrt (Dup + Dforward1).
If you compare that to the distance the surface moves:
2 x Dforward2,
you see that he travels a longer total distance jumping than the surface moves but, if you solve for Dforward, you will see that his jumping forward distance is shorter than the surface distance forward. the higher the jump, the more pronounced this will be.
--
The only way for them to find out is if someone goes below the ground and finds a window in the floor or have someone or something tell them the truth.
Look at Gene Wolfe's [The Book of the Long Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Long_Sun) series for an example of the type of society you are talking about.
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From your description of the rotating cylinder's habitat, it sounds like we can consider it to be in basic isolation. There are stars and such in the sky that appear to move in regular intervals across the sky, but they all just track half circle motions. This would be akin to watching the stars move in the sky at the Earth's equator.
The way to distinguish a non-intertial reference frame from an inertial reference frame would be to measure "spooky" unidentified forces that appear. In the case of a rotating reference frame, these would correspond to the Coriolis force and the Centrifugal force. In an inertial frame, the force on an object is
$F = m\vec{a} = m \frac{d^2\vec{r}}{dt^2}$
however in a rotating reference frame, this becomes
$F = m\frac{d^2\vec{r}}{dt^2} + [2m\vec{\omega} \times \frac{d\vec{r}}{dt}] + [m\vec{\omega} \times (\vec{\omega} \times \vec{r})]$
Where $m$ is the mass of an object, $\omega$ is the angular velocity vector of the rotating reference frame, i.e. how fast the cylinder is rotating and in which direction, and $\vec{r}$ is the position of the object in the rotating frame (note: I use $r$ to emphasize that, since this is a cylinder, the easiest coordinate system to use, for our purposes is the [cylindrical coordinate system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylindrical_coordinate_system)). Where there are two new terms (note: the $\times$ symbol above is a cross product, which is very important since we are dealing with position, velocity, angular velocity vectors). The first is the Coriolis force and the second is the Centrifugal force.
**Deviations from Earth**
It is very important to realize this is a different case from Earth. Many of the "spooky" effects of the rotating frame are easy to notice on Earth because one can change their distance from the rotation axis, e.g. by traveling from the Equator to the North Pole, and the direction of the force changes with respect to our horizon (ground).
Ex: Centrifugal Force always points outwards from the rotation axis. At the equator it points perpendicular to the ground (straight up in the sky). At higher latitudes, it will not be perpendicular. In our case, the centrifugal force will always be perpendicular to the ground.
**Centrifugal Force**
Probably the first to come to mind, if we look at the third term it depends on the objects position and how fast and which direction the cylinder is rotating. It will change the perceived force of gravity of an object by some amount and could theoretically be measured, given a knowledge of Newton's Law of Gravity $F=mg$, however it is most readily noticed by its varying effect due to changing an objects position. Unfortunately for your scenario, due to the cylindrical symmetry all points on your cylinder experience the same Centrifugal Force, and hence it is more likely that its effect would be folded into the gravitational force, i.e. $F=m(g + C)=mg'$ for some constant C
**Coriolis Effect**
This one depends on the rotation and the velocity of an object. You may be familiar with this causes objects to change from straight line trajectories when traveling West/East on Earth, but this **does not occur at the Equator**. What happens instead is that objects will deflect upwards or downwards, depending on if they are traveling the same direction or opposite direction to the rotation of the cylinder (see [Eotvos effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C3%B6tv%C3%B6s_effect)).
What this means is the only deviation you could observe would be that the force of gravity would increase/decrease depending on which direction you were traveling in, by a magnitude:
$\Delta F = 2m\vec{\omega} \times \frac{d\vec{r}}{dt}$
The greatest deviations would be seen between an Westward and Eastward moving object. But how could you possibly measure this?
**Measuring the Coriolis Effect**
The magnitude is determined by how fast your cylinder is rotating and how fast your object is traveling. You can tune this to your liking for plausibility reasons.
1. Measure with a gravimeter. Basically a spring with a weight on it, where you measure the compression of the spring to determine the gravitational force. Put it on something traveling west and something traveling east. This depends on the technologically prowess of your civilization, and likely your best bet for traveling object would be a boat. Things like waves would probably ruin any sensitivity your gravimeter had and the boat would be too slow moving.
2. Measure changes in how fast things fall. I could envision an experiment where you fire a cannonball (or similar projectile) towards the East and measure the time it takes to fall (or distance it travels) and then repeating by firing the cannonball to the West. There will be difference in fall time/distance traveled, but the scale of this might be too small given other sources of error (such as elevation changes, precision of measurement).
Both of these greatly depend on what technology is available and how scientifically advanced your society is. Remember there are limitations to how fast you can spin your poor natives before they fly off or something. And more importantly there should be a reason to try some of these experiments. No one spends lots of time and effort on an experiment unless they expect to see interesting results, especially if they risk their reputation, or worse, their life.
[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.
## With a pendulum!
We had a similar problem on Earth, a long time ago- trying to convince everyone that the Earth rotated in a simple, intuitive way. Leon Foucault came up with the idea of using a [pendulum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum) to prove this- the pendulum swings back and forth, while the Earth rotates underneath it, often causing dominos or some other marker [to be knocked over](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAZPJakvabA).
In your world, this might be discovered by the use of [pendulum clocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendulum_clock). As your culture progresses, they might notice that these clocks lose accuracy over time. A large, easy to track pendulum is then built to be "the most accurate" and then the precession becomes large enough to see with the eye. This would trigger [a whole debate](http://www.animations.physics.unsw.edu.au/jw/foucault_pendulum.html#ptolemy) about the Coriolis force.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
They'd find out simply by observing their environment and then making deductions, sorry if that sounds trite I'll explain.
They'll have a day/night cycle but with no apparent cause. There's no sun to disappear under the horizon and no moon or stars to take its place. So why is there day & night the natives ask themselves ?
Likewise the seasons, how are they implemented and how do the natives observe them ? How did seasonal crops evolve with no apparent reason ? Why do animals hibernate ? Why do the local fauna have fertility cycles (spring) ?
Large bodies of water will mimic tides, but why would tides exist with no nearby planet or moon ?
If they observe their environment for long enough they'll have enough questions that can't be answered by observation or hand waved away by religion.
Medieval tech is reasonably sophisticated but resource intensive. This was a level of tech that was building cathedrals, pyramids and Stonehenge. They may not have had telescopes but they knew enough about astronomical observations and celestial mechanics to make accurate calendars and use them to plan the agricultural year ahead. Their lives literally depended on them being able to read the night sky.
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
The only reason we ever stopped thinking we were the center of the universe was because the stars and planets didn't track neat lines across the sky. As a cylinder, all the stars would move in parallel lines, and with no other bodies to contradict the assumption, they would never have a reason to assume they weren't the center of the universe.
That said, it'd probably be pretty easy to tell it was a cylinder, as they could just walk to the edge and see the flat end caps. if they were inside, it's even easier, as you are completely enclosed.
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You need to read ['Orphans of the Sky' by Robert A. Heinlein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky). He gives one of the earliest descriptions of a generational ship including the detail that the passengers cannot see outside and, due to a mutiny, lose their understanding that they live inside a spaceship.
In this story the ship is rotating long-wise so each 'deck' has lower apparent gravity as you go 'up' and while the specifics for how you get a cylinder to rotate in such a way could be explained away as the writers prerogative, it could be easily satisfied by having the axis of rotation be in the middle where the other half is just never explored and can be of equal size / mass or it could be much smaller but contain lots have high-mass equipment so it just seems like the ship is flipping end-over-end. Regardless of that, even if you have the cylinder's axis of rotation go through the long dimension, the same physics would apply, apparent gravity would go down as you aproached the axis of rotation. The people inside might not be able to prove they are inside a starship but they would still have to explain why gravity changes based on location.
As Heinlein showed, humans are not just rational beings but quite as good at rationalizing based on incomplete data.
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In many ways:
1. They could see the other side. Or the shadow on a moon or other stations next to them.
2. They lived on another planet and know the flight path of projectiles should be different. That would be more of a feeling. Cause if you look at that tennis simulator you wouldn't say "Oh we are in a spinning cylinder" [here](http://davidkann.blogspot.co.at/2017/04/oneill-tennis-102-tennis-on-rotating.html). Maybe the answers from [physics SE here](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/149080/throwing-a-ball-in-a-rotating-space-station) help you.
3. They could just walk along it until they came back to the beginning. And then measure there curvature.
4. They find out that if you let drop something a given distance at different heights, it changes how much energy you get. You would just need clay and a heavy ball to prove that. So did we find out, that E=mgh (<-would be different for them) and E=1/2\*m\*v^2 (<-would be the same).
5. They find a book about it and test/believe it. (When people today believe the earth is flat, you need for nothing proof -.- ) Maybe even only a children book that explains earth and easy experiments to prove the earth is rotating. They test it and it doesn't work. So now they wonder on what they live.
6. The station wobbles and they get something like earthquakes.
7. With MAGIC...Ahem, sorry, I mean SCIENCE. And you just don't explain more :-/
PS: They could find out gravity exists, but highly unlikely until they see stars and planets. Some experiments: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym6nlwvQZnE>
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If an average human in build and intelligence were to gain immortality for whatever reason what is the limit to what they could learn and remember?
This human is for all intents and purposes a normal human, except they stop aging after reaching the age of 30.
Would it matter what year this person was born? Such as the difference between someone born in the stone ages vs. someone born in the 21st century?
Would they have to come up with special tricks to remember more things like a memory palace or something?
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According to [*How to Create a Mind*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_Mind) by Ray Kurzweil, the human neocortex contains around 300 million pattern processor modules, and "that a human master in a particular field has mastered about 100,000 chunks of knowledge." The primitive modules are assigned redundantly, with some things having many thosands of copies and others just a few. You can trade off overall capacity with integration/cross-corelation (e.g. the "fragmented hard drive" effect Jim mentions is predicted, and is more akin to reduced indexing). See also [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9875/how-powerful-of-a-computer-do-i-need-to-simulate-and-emulate-a-human-brain/14117#14117) for more background.
Experts already use the whole capacity of their brains. So an immortal won't continue to learn more and more, though maybe he will refine his ability in more subtle ways, optimizing his expertise and being able to try different methods by trial and error over the span of centuries.
The amount of storage for autobiographical information is also the same, so as he lives longer the amount he remembers will be a smaller and smaller proportion to the whole. But, so much is the same so what's lost, really? More interesting and unique experiences will continue to occur over time, so these will crowd out the mundane until that's all he ever remembers of the past. Talking to him, it would seem that he has had a very exciting life! But actually, the normal lifespan worth of excitement is spread out over thousands of years, with most of the time being mundane.
His own mind may perceive the *past* as exciting, while recent decades are boring. But it's always the case, as day to day memories fade except for the exciting parts.
---
December 2017: I came across a graphic story expressing a similar idea: [Schlock Mercenary, *Book 9: The Body Politic — Part II: Royal Flush*](https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2007-09-02).
>
> As we grew older, less and less of short-term memory was deemed 'new' or 'different' enough to be committed to long-term storage. Entire years, and eventually decades would fly by unremembered. Sanity fled, and life became a cheap commodity again. Civilization itself began to die.
>
>
>
[Answer]
# Prologue
Despite some of the answers claiming to know perfectly how memory works, the reality of modern science is that we do not understand the brain. At all. Like literally, popular science always acts like real science understands everything, but that's not how it is whatsoever. Just to give an indication of this: when I had my introductory (so not even some deep level) course on Human Physiology in university about 5 years ago every second or third paragraph on the brain ended with some note that we don't really understand it yet and a whole lot more research is needed. Our professor illustrated this by showing the scientific model of the circulatory system throughout the last 1000 years and pointed out that our understanding of the brain is comparable to when they thought blood was created in the kidneys and then moved to the rest of the body.
There are a lot of theories about the workings of the brain and if you look up the sources of the other answers you will find a whole lot of 'may's and 'might's. Or you end up with doctors in Psychology making claims about how the brain works (such as with the 'Slow Thinking Processes'-theory). Right now the brain is one of the biggest mysteries out there and what we know is a lot of little pieces and we have no idea how to put those pieces together (imagine a jigsaw puzzle with a few million pieces where you have a couple of thousand)
# Answer
So to directly answer your question there are two different approaches you can take:
* **Option 1**: The brain is a complex deterministic set of particles interacting. Free will does not exist and is just a human illusion.
**Result**: The brain can only store a finite amount of stuff. How much? We have no idea yet and you can pick anything you like for world building purposes. The big question being especially whether normal old age memory problems are a result of brain degradation (solved by immortality) or a result of the amount of memories (worsened by immortality).
* **Option 2**: The brain and human intelligence is something that falls outside the natural as it is understood by modern science. Free will actually exists.
(Important note: There is nothing unscientific about this, although it's an unpopular line of thought in traditional secular science. Science is only descriptive, so applying the label 'unscientific' to things that are not understood by modern science is incredibly misleading.)
**Result**: Realistically you end up with even more world building freedom here, as you can both justify an infinite memory, or any arbitrary limit you want. In-universe explanations would be along the lines of a scientifically described soul/spirit which would be unique to intelligent beings, although - just like with everything else - science could never understand it (which wouldn't stop the scientific method from building some amazing models describing it).
[Answer]
## Yes, there is a limit to what a human can learn and remember
But I haven't found any quantitative value for this maximum. It also probably varies depending upon the person and environment.
### Lost Memories
However, the human brain is adaptive and has a mechanism for throwing away extraneous information but retaining the important stuff. [Dreams play an important role in this function](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-dreaming-and-what-does-it-tell-us-about-memory-excerpt/). Dreams [reinforce the strength of certain memories](http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/26/dreams-are-key-to-memory/13157.html) and this keeps those important memories above the magic threshold of being forgotten.
As humans forget things, it frees up neurons for storing other information. Even at young ages, the brain works on freeing up memory.
### Slow Thinking Processes
If you have been around the elderly, you may have noticed that they seem to think slowly.
For decades it was thought that this slowness of thought was an indicator of mental decline in the elderly. Lately however, [scientists have found evidence that the slow-down more closely resembles a "full hard drive"](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10584927/Brains-of-elderly-slow-because-they-know-so-much.html) - meaning the elderly take longer because they have to look through more memories to get to the one they want.
>
> Older people do not decline mentally with age, it just takes them
> longer to recall facts because they have more information in their
> brains, scientists believe.
>
>
> Much like a computer struggles as the hard drive gets full up, so to
> do humans take longer to access information, it has been suggested.
>
>
>
So a very old person will both have forgotten much of what they used to know (especially that information that isn't still frequently used) and their ability to recall important bits of information or make decisions based upon their knowledge should continue to decline with age (somewhat like a fragmented harddrive).
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Centaurs are horse-human hybrids. Because they have human elements, we can assume that they have intelligence, culture, and a desire for a comfortable life. A stable that would be good enough for a mere horse just isn't going to cut it. So what would a comfortable residence for a centaur look like?
Some considerations that would seem to apply:
* Horses (and thus centaurs) don't do well with steps.
* Centaurs have human torsos and thus arms and hands; they can manipulate things like handles and drawers as well as we can.
* Spaces are going to need to be big enough for a horse to walk around, and that "bigness" is front to back, not side to side. A galley-style kitchen isn't going to work, and they'll need enough room to turn around wherever they are in the house.
* Furniture seems challenging, but presumably our centaurs don't want to stand all the time. What do they sit on? Lie on?
[Answer]
By coincidence, I've been thinking about almost the same issue for a bunch of aliens who aren't a human/horse chimera but share with centaurs the basic plan of quadruped locomotion and an upright "front torso" with two arms for manipulation.
I doubt centaurs would require their own beds or a room chiefly dedicated to housing a bed for a particular individual to sleep all night through. If centaurs sleep in a mode [similar to horses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_behavior#Sleep_patterns) they will do most of their sleeping in short naps taken a standing position, locking the "stay apparatus" in the muscles of their legs so that they can relax while still standing. However according to the Wikipedia link above, "Horses must lie down to reach REM sleep. They only have to lie down for an hour or two every few days to meet their minimum REM sleep requirements" - so centaur houses would probably be well supplied with bed/chairs available for any member of the household to use for a couple of hours at a time. I am visualising huge bean bags, but it is possible that they would actually prefer a pile of straw. Perhaps far from feeling that a stable-like environment is beneath their dignity they would consider the human habit of sleeping on artificial pads full of dust mites and shed skin cells to be unhygienic. Far better to have clean, natural straw replaced daily.
The ability to sleep standing up evolved in horses as a means to make a quicker escape from predators. For the same reason horses like to sleep in groups with one member of the group keeping awake and on guard. That's the basic evolutionary benefit of living in a herd. So at first glance it might appear that centaur households would need to be large, making for even bigger houses, and centaur lifestyle always communal. However centaurs are not horses. They can defend themselves extremely well, having both a man's ability to wield weapons and a horse's speed. This being so they could well be comfortable in groups of a wide spectrum of sizes, but probably never living alone. Much would depend on how "melded" the horse and human natures are in your centaurs, and how long they have been evolving for as centaurs. Possibly as mythical creatures they aren't subject to evolution at all, unlike my hexapod aliens.
Another thing that would differ a lot depending on the degree to which your centaurs were magical creatures with separate human and horse parts as opposed to evolved creatures that were more unified, would be kitchen and dining arrangements. For true dual-natured magical centaurs, C.S. Lewis's children's book *The Silver Chair* (one of the *Chronicles of Narnia* series) [says it all](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/108172-a-centaur-has-a-man-stomach-and-a-horse-stomach-and-of):
>
> “A Centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both
> want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and
> kidneys and bacon and omelette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and
> coffee and beer. And after that he tends to the horse part of himself
> by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some
> oats, and a bag of sugar. That's why it's such a serious thing to ask
> a Centaur to stay for the weekend. A very serious thing indeed.”
>
>
>
Now that I come to think about it, though, how *would* a centaur graze? His horse-stomach probably needs the grass, but it would have to pass through his human mouth and stomach first, which are not well adapted to either reaching, chewing or digesting grass. Returning to the subject of the question, any centaur home would require access to grassland, for psychological reasons even if not to provide nutrition. I do not think centaurs would be as willing as humans to spend all day indoors.
Centaur kitchens would be huge and continuously in use, resembling the kitchens of medieval castles.
In fact European castles of the Middle Ages and the sort of highly organised life that castle-dwelling fostered might be the pattern of domestic life closest to what centaurs would prefer. The fortifications would suit their horse-need to feel safe from predators, and given that every centaur is his own cavalry charger it might be needed to protect against enemies just as it was in human feudal societies.
Obviously the towers and upper stories would need wider staircases, especially if spiral, than human castles have - but horses can manage stairs surprisingly well. They don't find it easy to move backwards, so stairs and passageways would either need passing spaces and/or designated directions of travel as roads do.
If your centaurs follow the classical body pattern then to pick something up from ground level would require them to kneel down first. This is possible, but troublesome, so centaur houses would contain little other than floor and walls below waist level for a centaur which is about shoulder level for a human. All tables, handles, and shelves would start at this height. Delete the above if their "human" halves are adapted for grazing. In that case they might be able to manipulate things at ground level with their mouths as well as their hands.
The communal life within the castle, centred on the Great Hall with its huge dining table (no benches needed), would suit both their equine herd instinct and human sociability, with the option to retire to side-chambers on occasion for some privacy. (Note: sexual intercourse would not be included among the activities requiring a private room - it would take place outdoors.) Their human love of luxury and ostentatious display could be met as it was in castles by splendid wall-hangings and tapestries, rather than carpets or fancy, fragile furniture. Hooves are tough on carpets and furniture is going to have to be *very* strongly made to last long in proximity to horse bodies.
(*Later edit:* It has just occurred to me that though hooves are tough on carpets as I said above, hard floors would be equally tough on the unshod hoof. So unless your centaurs habitually fit horseshoes to each other, which of course they might well, they would like a softer floor surface than stone. So the top layer of a floor might be made of packed earth or sand by design.)
A description of the domestic sanitary arrangements necessary to dispose of the excreta of two differently functioning stomachs in one body I shall leave as an exercise to the reader.
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Steps would most likely be replaced by ramps, roughened to allow a safe grip. Since ramps tend not to be so steep as steps then spiral ramps would most likely be used, although they would have quite a wide radius both to allow the centaur to fit around the corner and to allow the slope to rise enough before it meets itself.
Centaurs do not need much more space than humans in a straight line, but when turning they need a lot more. I would expect to see no "dead end" corridors and certainly no sharp turns, instead turnings would be curves or would be small rooms big enough for a centaur to turn around in.
In general their houses would need considerably more space than human ones just because of all that horse body the have to get around in them.
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I don't think centaur would stay in one place instead I think they would being more nomadic. I can see them carrying a large tent with them. They would stop for a few days and set the tent. The centaur would eat and rest in the tent while other centaurs would keep watch outside. Furniture would be sparse nomadic peoples usually traveled light. They would probably have carts that they would pull within the carts contain cushions and tables that could be set up within the tent.
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I imagine centaurs as something between wild animals and humans - think Tarzan if he loved to fight.
I would imagine they would make practical-sized huts - just big enough to hold a bed of straw and maybe some of the centaur's loot. Not too big though. They might need to house a family of 4 for a bit but still, they mostly live outside. I don't know about materials, but something like branches, logs, and earth sounds like they could work with a bit of rope fashioned from vines and stones for support and reinforcement might do the job.
If a centaur is even more animalistic or nomadic, he/she might not even bother with a house and might just make a small camp in the woods marked or decorated with hides (that may double as clothes later), a canopy in case of rain, and a little place for a fire to roast their prey. A bed might not be necessary as the centaur might sleep on the ground, covering himself with leaves for camoflauge.
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With corridors, all the other variations make sense, but, if you’re looking for a thinner corridor for your centaur to walk through, maybe it could still be a bit narrow, but, the corridors have a split off section every few meters that act like branching roads on highways, so they don’t need to clumsily turn around, but they can continue walking while basically making a U turn. To put it simple; it’s easier to make a U turn than to forward and reverse constantly. This way, if your centaur is in a hurry, they can continue running or trotting while taking a path that is only a few second of time but much smoother.
If you’re having trouble imaging wha I’m saying, imagine a straight line, but stick a loop on either side or so, like a road island!
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Every time a rocket is launched into space, **debris accumulates**. Every time an old satellite runs out of juice, it goes derelict and turns into more junk. Over the years, paint-chips, broken off solar panels, the myriad pieces that result from collisions and from the occasional anti-satellite weapon test -- all these things build up. Only slowly do they decay out of orbit. Very slowly. Meanwhile, they travel much, much faster than a speeding bullet. **Each impact creates a cascade of debris**, increasing the likelihood of further impacts, and so on... This is the [Kessler syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome).
Now Earth is big, and the near-space around it is pretty big as well, but **with us busy ants on the surface, it's only a matter of time before enough junk accumulates in space to make each subsequent launch more and more dangerous. When will travel to space become exceedingly dangerous because of all the trash?**
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While it's possible we could cause space debris to make space flight too dangerous, we are learning to cope with this, most satellites are now built with a designed end of life mode, either decreasing the amount of time till they drop back down/burn up in the atmosphere, or for the further out ones systems to take them to "dumping grounds". That's not including any possible clean ups.
I think you touched on what would be the most likely cause: anti-satellite weapons.
If any of the major powers decided to start shooting multiple satellites out of our sky in rapid succession the number of particles would be Many thousands, and would highly likely cause a runaway effect (China's 2007 Anti-Satellite test created over [2000 trackable particles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Chinese_anti-satellite_missile_test)).
Only a large injection of numerous dangerous junk would stop space travel, because as user3082 says, we're working on the current debris situation.
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# A couple hundred years.
In 2013, the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IASDCC) published [a report](http://www.iadc-online.org/Documents/IADC-2012-08,%20Rev%201,%20Stability%20of%20Future%20LEO%20Environment.pdf) detailing comparisons of several independent models (one each from ASI, ESA, ISRO, JAXA, NASA, and UKSA) for how the amount of space debris will evolve over time. This was then translated into a probable number of "catastrophic collisions" per year. Here are some of their results, for Low Earth Orbit (LEO):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qFrlC.png)
The increase is roughly linear, with the models averaging out to around 17,000 objects in 2010 and increasing to maybe 22,000 objects by 2210. The models for "catastrophic collisions" are interesting:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xjC0i.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9tWcZ.png)
By the year 2210, then, we should see 20-50 "catastrophic collisions" per year - where "catastrophic collision" refers to something on the scale of [the Iridium 33-Mosmos-2251 collision in 2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision). "Catastrophic" doesn't mean "world-ending", just "relatively big, annoying, and possibly a hazard".
We haven't seen many collisions like the 2009 one yet, but obviously we may be on track to see more. Just how many you consider the limit depends on your level of acceptable risk, as well as what sort of craft we put in LEO (space stations, spaceplanes, something else . . . ?). At any rate, I wouldn't worry *too* much for another century, assuming the predicted rates of debris increases.
You can do the probability calculations from some simple assumptions, if you want. To calculate the probability of an object with cross-sectional area $A$ colliding with something over a time $\Delta t$, use the formula
$$P=vAn\Delta t$$
where $v$ is the relative velocity of the objects and $n$ is the number density of debris. The only thing that changes in time is $n$, which should increase roughly linearly. If we write $n(t)=m(t-t\_0)+b$ for constants $m$ and $b$ (where $t\_0$ is the present day, and $b=n(t\_0)$), and choose a maximum acceptable probability $P\_{\text{acc}}$, then we have
$$P\_{\text{acc}}=vAn\_{\text{crit}}\Delta t=vA(m(t\_{\text{crit}}-t\_0)+b)\Delta t\to m(t\_{\text{crit}}-t\_0)+b=\frac{P\_{\text{acc}}}{vA\Delta t}$$
$$\boxed{t\_{\text{crit}}=\frac{1}{m}\left(\frac{P\_{\text{acc}}}{vA\Delta t}-b\right)}+t\_0$$
We obviously know $t\_0$ in any measure of time we use, and we know $b=n(t\_0)$. From the models above, we can calculate $m$. We can also choose the ratio $P\_{\text{acc}}/\Delta t$ at whatever value we want. Therefore, for a given ship of area cross-sectional $A$, we just have to figure out the relative $v$, and thus we have our $t\_{\text{crit}}$!
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This is all predicated on a few key assumptions:
* There's no drastic shift in the amount of debris in orbit, or the rate of new launches. Perhaps the increasing privatization of space travel could cause some changes, but there are many unknowns there.
* We don't do anything to combat the increase. Questions on Worldbuilding have [covered this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/63923/627) [before](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/58587/627), and of course there are options, even in the near future.
* Spacecraft spend a good deal of time in orbit. [Kessler syndrome isn't really a huge problem for launches](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/58725/627) because the craft spend only a small amount of time in dangerous regions. However, if you want to make space stations or add new satellites - both quite realistic goals - then you'll still have problems.
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There are plans afoot to fix this. Aerogels to embed small particles in, for one. Plasma fields, lasers to vaporize, etc, etc.
NASA *is* working on it.
Whether or not they're funded adequately, or will come up with a good solution - or will be able to apportion the cost appropriately is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
So, if we want to go to space badly enough, we will.
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I think this is in the category of problems that should certainly not be ignored, but which is far from a cause for panic.
Right now, the amount of human-created space debris appears to be slightly less than naturally-occurring meteoroids. So basically we've doubled the problem, which I guess is bad, but it's not like we've multiplied it by 100.
The total amount of space debris is not that great. Using the NASA report that HDE226868 helpfully linked to, today there are about 10 objects of size 10 microns or greater per cubic kilometer of space, and one of size 100 microns or greater. It's not like any object in space is being pelted with debris.
Orbital debris cleans itself up naturally. Orbits tend to decay, and then the object falls into the atmosphere and, usually, burns up long before hitting the ground.
In practice: To quote NASA's website regarding space debris and the International Space Stations:
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> The U.S. Space Surveillance Network regularly examines the trajectories of orbital debris to identify possible close encounters. If another object is projected to come within a few kilometers of the International Space Station (ISS), the ISS will normally maneuver away from the object if the chance of a collision exceeds 1 in 10,000. This occurs infrequently, about once a year on average.
>
>
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(<http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/faqs.html>)
(Other relevant info on that page, BTW.)
There was a collision in 2009 between an American communications satellite, Irridium 233, and an out-of service Russian military satellite, Kosmos 2251, in which both were destroyed.
The French CERISE satellite was badly damaged by a collision with debris in 1996.
These are the only cases I could find of a collision with space debris causing serious damage. It's possible that other failures whose cause is unknown were due to space debris. So is it a problem? Yes. Is it a crisis at this time? No.
I think the chance that we would blockade ourselves on the surface is virtually zero. The major countries active in space today are taking steps to reduce the amount of new debris created. If it got to the point of being a serious problem, we could take steps to collect debris, destroy it with lasers, etc. It could certainly be a difficult and expensive problem, but not an unsolvable one.
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The earth is vast, the area of the upper atmosphere is even more vast. The odds of actually hitting debris is small although it has happened. You have to think about it like tossing a baseball randomly into the Pacific ocean and hitting a fish on the head. There are a lot of fish in the sea but a baseball is rather small so the odds of hitting a fish is near infinitesimally small. If it were as bad as some have portrayed it, how has the international space station not been repeatedly breached over the last 12 years?
If it does become more of a concern, more protections can be implemented (some as simple as not ejecting the atmospheric nose cone of a rocket to protect the payload or leaving a spent stage attached to a satellite and spinning it around to the front to absorb impacts) so being "stuck" would be near impossible. If all of the refined metal ever produced by humans since copper was mined in the stone age were to be made into caltrops and launched into orbit, it would raise the odds of actually hitting something by maybe a couple of percentage points.
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From my own perspective I don't necessarily see any immediate differences, but I'm newish to the field. What differences have you come across in regard to building for these two different scenarios (an rpg world and a story world), and should a builder consider what the world will be used for before beginning their building?
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There is a little bit of subtlety I want to clear up in your question before answering. There are two ways to build a world independent of its use:
* Build a world then select a use for it based on its characteristics
* Build a world expecting that it can be use for *any* use
From your comments it sounds like you lean towards the first but I will try to discuss both.
The first idea is very similar to story creation when deciding what media it will be portrayed in. If your story has a lot of action sequences, you may lean towards a movie, a lot of dialogue may lean towards live play, a lot of psychological ideas may lend itself towards a novel. Anyone who works with stories knows that some stories are better suited for different media.
It is very similar for world building. For a world you have created you would look at different characteristics such as how well defined are the physics, how many minute details are included, and the events that go on in it. A small, very detailed world with well defined physics may lend itself toward video games or a tabletop RPG. If it lacks the physics definitions, it may be more suited to being paired with an existing tabletop RPG system. A loosely defined world with large events happening may work better for story-telling (novel, etc.). But there is no reason this has to be decided before you make the world. Build the world you want to build, and likely before you finish, you will understand what uses would best fit it.
The second bullet above, however, is the trickier of the two. If you want to build a world that someone else can pick up and say "I want to use this as a setting for a novel" and someone else says "I want to make a video game here" and yet another "I'm going to write the next script for a James Bond movie in this world", you are setting a very tall order. This sort of world almost requires a top down design process. You can't possibly design all the details for it, some of it has to fall to the individual authors. Therefore it must be designed to detail the parts of the world that would impose consistency between the different author's creation. Physics, political maps, geography would all be required. Detailed demographics would also be very important. It would need to be detailed enough to provide consistency without being so complex that the authors can't possible get it right.
This is also much more difficult to do if you plan on it being paired with a generic tabletop RPG system. An RPG system, by definition applies rules to the world. You would likely need to have the system in mind before designing the world to ensure that the rules the world makes is consistent with the rules of the RPG system. With a little work you could even make it compatible with multiple systems, assuming the systems themselves are consistent with each other. I don't think it would be possible to design a world that would work with *any* RPG system, however.
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Note: since you mentioned DM in your comment, not Game Designer most of my answer will consider rpg world to be D and D like instead of Skyrimish.
The main difference is purpose. An rpg world is typically designed to allow multiple people to play characters in the world over a long period of time several times, such as D and D. Even a game like Skyrim gives a player multiple ways to build their character and explore the world. A story is written once, by you, under your complete control. That means an rpg world must be balanced and open ended. Everyone needs to have fun and should be able to reach the same level of inworld power. In a story you can have the prophecied one, someone with extreme or unique abilities. That doesn't work as well when multiple people are involved.
All this means that your first consideration when designing an rpg world is balance, you are creating a world for other people to tell stories in. Each person needs to have multiple choices available to them that allow them to have as much fun and impact in the story as anyone else. Since you hope the world will be used multiple times, you need a large world to give players plenty of area to explore. Mechanics need to be simple and well defined.
For an actual story, you only need to create as much of a world as your characters will interact with. Mechanics can be bent to fit the needs of the story. Since you control the story, you can have a much narrower focus. I think of it as, building a world for others to tell a story requires a telescope, a long range overview that gives plenty of room for exploration. A story is a microscope, a narrow focus on particular characters on part of your world.
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As others have said, the differences are fairly subtle. In both cases you need a world that's well-enough developed to be plausible and interesting to the people consuming it (readers or players). But there's an important difference: RPGs have players.
Well *duh*, you're probably saying. Let me unpack that.
A work of fiction like a novel is controlled by one person (absent unusual situations like shared-world collaborations), who is usually the world-builder. You build the world for the purposes of your story, revealing its characteristics in the telling, and if you need to adjust something while you're writing, you do that.
An RPG has players who *interact* with your world. In the course of doing that they may bump into problems you don't want your world to have (such as inconsistencies) that you wouldn't have found on your own. You might decide to fix those issues rather than living with them. If you fix them, you have to decide whether to do so in-game ("you've just discovered a new magic manual and *it* says...") or in consultation with your players ("look guys, I didn't mean to make it impossible for you to create simple healing potions; forget that thing I said about needing unobtanium").
And sometimes, as the players discuss what they're experiencing, they'll speculate about your world and you might hear something that you like even better than what you were doing, so you might want to incorporate it. This happened to me once in a game I was running and I found myself rewriting the explanation for an important artifact in real time because a player had said something that sounded *way* better than what I'd done and I wanted to run with it. This can be exciting (you're now part of the collaborative story-telling just like your players) but also nerve-wracking (you need to not mess up any of your other secret information, and you need to be good at thinking on your feet in multiple dimensions). I don't recommend doing this often, but in an RPG setting you have the *option* in a way that doesn't come up as much with fiction where, at best, you can address complaints in reviews in a later episode.
Bottom line, an RPG gives you the opportunity for more *collaborative* world-building even if you aren't explicitly inviting your players to the design table. Depending on how rich your world is and how story-focused your game is, your world-development and progressive-revelation processes could be very different from those you'd use in a story. Here are some links from the Worldbuilding blog that discuss these issues in more detail:
RPGs (these are all by me):
* [Revelation for RPGs I: Setting the Stage](https://medium.com/universe-factory/revelation-for-rpgs-ddb32bd91f20#.qfnz5yi27)
* [Revelation for RPGs II: The Written Word](https://medium.com/universe-factory/revelation-for-rpgs-2-the-written-word-45e9ef5e27ee#.9sj08iia3)
* [Revelation for RPGs III: Your World is Made of People](https://medium.com/universe-factory/revelation-for-rpgs-iii-your-world-is-made-of-people-467d0b5bae56#.887nbepln)
* [Revelation for RPGs IV: I Can See Clearly Now](https://medium.com/universe-factory/revelation-for-rpgs-iv-i-can-see-clearly-now-a7b84072435e#.cgnwd2c8i)
"Behind the scenes" fiction (various authors, related to stories posted on the blog):
* [Artificial Stupidity: Behind the Story](https://medium.com/universe-factory/artificial-stupidity-behind-the-story-fc5013a627ea#.4v3r8hvuw)
* [Sisters: The Story Behind the Story](https://medium.com/universe-factory/sisters-the-story-behind-the-story-12944abf0d2a?source=latest---)
* [Worldbuilding 101: On Suspension of Disbelief](https://medium.com/universe-factory/worldbuilding-101-on-suspension-of-disbelief-54b83fcdd6c5#.tqm4sc7wg) (could apply to either form but is mainly about writing)
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There are a number of good answers, but I'm hoping to condense and shorten the ideas presented:
* a RPG-world includes "empty spaces" for the player to take actions and define themselves or their world.
* a Story-world includes "empty spaces" which are open to interpretation and guessing, but knowing what happens during these spaces does not affect what will happen for the remainder of the known story.
Both cases do not necessarily require previous knowledge of which you are going for, before creating the world. However, it *may* require more world-building in some areas, and *less* in other areas, depending on what you eventually decide to do with it.
So, you could create your world, leaving more specific parts blank for whether you go for a story or rpg.
Or, you could create your world, and flesh out everything for both the story *and* the rpg, knowing that some of that information may get thrown away later.
*If you want to do both story and RPGs in the same "universe"*, you could look at which pieces of your world are more relevant to a story. (*Probably pieces of the world's history and major events*). As well as look at the events and places that are not as defined - and allow your RPG game to take place where the players would have more influence.
An example might be the Lord of the Rings universe. The *story* of Frodo and the Ring is defined, but many RPG games focus on the doings on what some other person (*the player*) is doing somewhere else, or even at, some of the major events of the story.
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The difference lies in the relative scope and detail levels; the world of a novel has less scope but more detail than the world of a RPG. Novels follow set lines created by the author so they only ever use a small part of the world they are set in but they use those areas very heavily so they have to have really full and lush details. RPGs have a planned outline but Player Characters (PCs) will go off and do unpredictable things in unpredictable places so the world has to be mapped completely because you don't know what you may need but PCs also don't tend to spend too long in one place so they can be kind of shallow in their details except where the GM needs them for the overarching campaign.
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I think the differences are fairly subtle if you want to do a good job with either. The main difference in my mind is how apparent the different aspects are to your target audience.
In either case you are creating the settings for a story. You need to figure out the nature of the environment (climate, geography, resources, etc.), the form of the society(s) (population density, main pass times, cultural rules, technology level, etc.), and at least an outline of how things got to be the way they are (historical events, migration paths, wars, etc.). A key point is making sure you have internal consistency.
For example, having a major city on top of a mountain or in the middle of a desert wasteland doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface. What brought people there in the first place? Why do they stay? What resources support them? How have the above influenced their culture? Crafting your world to provide reasonable and reinforcing answers to those questions makes a big difference in how immersed people become in the stories.
The difference between building for a story and a game is in how you present things. In a book you have all of this framework that you hang your story on, but none of it may be apparent to the reader if it doesn't advance the plot. It should however be apparent to you that the assumptions and actions of the characters fit with living in this setting and their individual backgrounds. Which brings up the point of character development, in a book type environment, it is all on you to figure out the traits, background, and motivations for each character the reader sees. In some ways each character that comes to the foreground is a world building exercise in itself. One major advantage of the book type setting is that it supports an iterative approach, you can go back and adjust and revise things until you have a cohesive whole.
In a game setting the perspective changes. The audience is not passive and focused by the scope of vision you have presented to them (or at least not in most good games). Instead you have to split the load and let the players help shape the plot as the story progresses. You as the world creator need to give them enough background to know how their characters fit into the setting, while allowing them to discover the rest as they move through the world. This is a difficult line to walk. Giving the players too much kills alot of the mystery and discovery that can keep a game interesting. Not enough information makes the game feel disjointed and contrived. And it is almost guaranteed that at some point your players will take off and run in some direction you were not expecting. The more complete your view and understanding of the world is, the easier it is to figure out what the outcomes of such actions should be.
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If magic were to manifest in the modern (present) age, how would first world governments attempt to classify and regulate its usage? To be more specific (and an example), if the USA created a Department of Magical Affairs, what would the primary and secondary concerns of such an agency be?
Further clarification, let's assume that magic is a field of study that anyone can learn with proper research, time, and dedication, but innate talent will cause variations in the extent/limits of power.
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If magic were to spontaneously manifest, I don't believe that the reaction of the US would be to create an entirely new Executive Department for dealing with it. Rather, the mandates of the existing Departments would likely expand - and organizations would be created within them to handle issues relating to it. There would also be a bit of internal politicking concerning who exactly has what operating authority in what areas to what extent.
The concerns of the Agency would also likely vary based on what the magical system is actually capable of, where it comes from, and who has access to it. This would also highly shift which organizations have the most operational authority in areas dealing with magic.
In the US, Defense is the 4th highest category of Federal Spending - with an extensive research and development arm and a very broad mandate the first response will likely come from the Department of Defense. Assessment and Categorizing of the potential threat and utility of the magic system would likely be the primary concern. The Military Departments and the Intelligence Community would most likely be the first to task.
Following the Military (in no particular order) the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. In these organizations exist the US Secret Service, as well as the FBI and ATF. These three organizations have historically expanded their mandates - and would be likely to take in handling issues of illicit magic use. My money would be on the Secret Service first - their position previously in the Department of Treasury and now in Homeland Security allows them to act really quickly, eventually I think the tasks would be phased into other departments where relevant.
This would be the quickest way that a response to magic could happen within the US system. Sometime after the initial manifestation the Department of Magical Affairs would likely be formed, to take over the new excess tasks of new organizations - as well as various others.
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This is a rather more complicated subject than the question would make it. There's an old saying about how there are two things you would not want to see the making of: sausage and legislation. This issue is further clouded by the unique political landscape of the US, in as far as there are quite a few people who dead set against the use of magic in any form. So there is really no practical way to judge what language the chartering legislation of such an agency might contain, and thus, what it's concerns *would* be.
However, I don't think it too difficult to judge what the concerns of such an agency *should* be.
First and foremost, it would need to take a look at how magic, in whatever form it manifested, would affect the enforcement of existing law - and most urgently and especially laws regarding violent crimes such as murder. Considering the depth and breadth of federal, state, and local laws, this would require considerable resources as well as inter-agency cooperation.
The second most important area, from a regulatory perspective, would be the effect on commerce. This would include things like licensing, workplace safety, and environmental impact. This aspect is also far reaching and would require considerable resources and more inter-agency cooperation.
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Probably the primary concerns would be that people did not use magic for illicit purposes (putting curses on people, etc.). A secondary concern might be something like encouraging education about magic, or if magic is an inborn rather than learned ability, seeking out and identifying magic-users. It would probably issue magic licenses to those who could pass a basic competency test, and fine those who used magic in certain ways without having a license.
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Government is about control, their goal would generally be to control the magic. Whether through licensing it, through pulling it into their own programs, or something else. You can expect that military and law enforcement in particular will be very interested in both harnessing and controlling it.
It can be interesting to see how a lot of established franchises have looked at this problem. For example X-Men, The Psi-core from Babylon 5, TV shows like Alphas and the film "To Cast a Deadly Spell" have all looked at this problem from different angles. Even where you don't agree with their conclusions it can be very interesting to analyze how they reached them.
You can also draw a lot of parallels with the advance of technology, after all "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke - so you can look at how government reacts to new technologies and then scale that depending on how dramatic the magic will be in this world you are building.
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I imagine it would be much the same as learning how to pick a lock or jimmy a car window. The nature of crimes wouldn't be much altered, but the methods involved would, of course. Regulation and control would be done in much the same manner as we see for a variety of skills with criminal applications, such as restricting access to learning materials except through registered practitioners; having trained police personnel, both mundane and magical, to handle the new investigative procedures required to trace such acts back to their perpetrators; and trusting in the natural laziness/good nature of the average citizen. Just as we don't go around stabbing people just because we can, the number of offences committed with magic would be limited by the number of criminally inclined citizens, and if they're committing magical crime, they aren't utilising the various other methods available to them.
As far as classification goes, it would depend on how you can modify your magical output. If the same training or spell makes you into a first-rate baker -and- a first-rate spree killer, then what's to classify? If spells are limited in scope and/or power, you can find a scale, and classify it like anything else. Spells could be classified by purpose and power, and sold at a price dependant on either its perceived value, or regulated by government (such as the agency you propose).
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**This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information.
Holograms *are* a real thing. But what science-fiction TV shows and movies call holograms are something different entirely.
From a classical geometric optics standpoint, in order to create the illusion of an object there must be some sort of light-emitting or light-modulating surface along the line from your eye to the points on the simulated object.
So, my question is: **is there any physical process that I can use to justify sci-fi-style holgrams?** In order to qualify, your "hologram" should meet the following requirements:
* The display volume must be air at atmospheric pressure (and it should work across a reasonable range of temperature and humidity) so that people can walk through the display volume. In particular, your solution can't rely upon a specific medium in the display volume (like smoke/fog or "smart dust").
* The display volume should be open on at least three sides (floor, ceiling, and one wall) so that you can walk around the hologram. Note that it is perfectly permissible to require devices around the display volume, as long as three or more sides are open enough to walk into.
* The hologram must appear "correct" to anyone standing outside the display volume, including occluding the view of other holographic objects behind one another. (For example, if a holographic person is holding something behind their back, you would need to walk around them to see it.)
* The hologram must be safe enough that a person can walk into the display volume. A hologram is useless if it bathes its viewers in gamma radiation, or constant high-intensity noise and stray laser light (I'm looking at you, laser-plasma scanning display!).
There are no requirements on:
* Color reproduction. The hologram can be monochromatic, or the color can depend on the viewing angle, and the objects it displays need not be textured.
* Computational requirements or energy consumption.
* Occlusion of real objects (the hologram can be transparent).
* Appearance of holograms from *inside* the display volume.
* Interaction with physical objects inside the display volume.
* Presence of visual artifacts (like beams of light extending from the projectors to the virtual object).
That is, I don't need holograms as realistic as in Star Trek:
Something as basic as Star Wars's holograms would fit the bill:
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Do note the [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") tag: I would like, if possible, to use real-world physics.
[Cross-posted on physics.stackexchange.com](https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/158868/70557)
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Just use "optical dust" and lasers.
An RGB laser system scans the volume to locate **every** dust particle in the volume. As a side effect a diffuse lighting and enough localized heat to keep the dust suspended is generated. Infrared lasers can be used if haze effect is not wanted and the dust particles are larger.
When you want to create an image, you simply hit the correct dust particles at correct locations with lasers of correct colors and energies. The dust particles will scatter the light and light up in precisely the correct color in almost correct location. The deviations in location can be compensated in the rendering algorithm.
The difficult part here is getting the properties of the particles right as they presumably need to be safe to breathe and swallow. Should not cause adverse reactions on skin or eyes either. But unless your story is about the invention or manufacture of the system you can just assume somebody solved all those annoying issues and got all the proper licenses and permissions to scatter artificial dust into the air.
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It is possible that they could exist as some kind of augmented reality that is either beamed directly onto the viewer's retina or inserted into the visual cortex by some other means such as ubiquitous nanotech augmentation. This makes a lot of sense if your setting is one where this could exist - given that it seems quite conceivable in the next few decades from there, that is not unreasonable.
If you are determined that they appear as objects in three dimensional space rather than being purely in the eye of the beholder then my guess would be that you did something very clever with a couple of different ray sources. These excite the air molecules at their point of intersection to emit light in a given wavelength or to reflect light in a given wavelength. Now I am not a physicist and I'm sure this is laced with problems, but it sounds plausible and unless you are using it as a cornerstone of your narrative, that is probably good enough.
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Yes they do!
We are really close to having this using [femtosecond lasers](http://gizmodo.com/you-can-feel-these-plasma-holograms-made-with-femtoseco-1715036802).
One cool thing about these projections is that you can actually feel them. Who knows, in a century it could turn into something like Voyagers doctor.
As 2012rcampion points out, this is early technology, and there are some shortcomings to overcome.
1. If a 3D object is projected, the back is visible from the front. This is a side effect of being transparent, and is a problem for any hologram.
One solution is to not project the full object.
Another might be to increase the density to where the front would drown out the back.
2. It's kind of noisy. This is because it's using lasers to create plasma. It could be possible to modulate the sound to be used as a speaker, or perhaps shorter bursts would be quieter.
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This is a very interesting problem that seems like something that will be solved in the next hundred years. I love star trek and have always admired the holodeck. When characters wanted to leave the holodeck they had to install emitters.
I'm gonna look at this problem in terms of what a room might need to create holograms.. Well what if the emitters was a super advance set of 3d printer heads. Perhaps they could all communicate with each other and create the image from every angle. Perhaps the room could initially be filled with some sort of Nano electric molecules light enough to float on their own with many capabilities of a microchip and the properties to take commands and show specific colors. The room would have to be incredibly densely filled with them at first like thick black smoke. Then the emitters emit some sort of signals that tells the Nano molecules where to go, how many to connect with and which colors to become. Perhaps they could even be program to move in concert independently once fully formed. Once the emitters finish with their commands by way of optronics. Perhaps nano directed flashes of light to coordinate messages of 1s and 0s for the nano molecules to receive and Decipher.
Once the objects were solid, the room could vent out all the extraneous molecules so that the user count enter safely. The objects should be able to interact with the users and vice versa and do a lot of things depending on the memory and power of the collective nano molecules all working in concert.
Once the program is finished they could be shut down by being given a command to go back to the original state; ready for the next person to use their own set of instructions in the holodeck.
If this sounds plausible, please someone expand upon it with their own ideas. Maybe an actual scientist. I'm just a regular dude and computer science student. Let me know what u think guys.
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You are intentionally restricting the definition of "hologram" to exclude some well known examples of things that might have satisfied your question, so I presume you intend to actually using the proper definition of a [hologram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography). As such, it is a light-field recording of a scene. There is no way for an object to appear outside of the viewing angle due to physics: light travels in straight lines. There is no way for the hologram to produce a light ray that arrives at your eye at an incident angle outside the field of view of the hologram itself. Thus holograms cannot be free standing.
You might be able to play some clever games with a black hole between you and the hologram, bending spacetime, but I think that would fail your "must be safe" clause.
If you want a "free standing hologram," you will need to rely on one of the technologies you explicitly excluded from the question, such as the plasma display or augmented reality glasses.
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It's actually quite simple:
1. Create a force field
2. Project an image on the force field (or alter the physical attributes of the force field to block / radiate certain wavelengths on a pixel scale)
3. profit
"But!", I hear you cry out in dismay, "Force fields aren't real!"
To which I say:
## [Teslaphoresis!](https://innovationtoronto.com/2016/04/teslaphoresis-gives-the-the-ability-to-massively-scale-up-force-fields-to-move-matter-remotely/ "Teslaphoresis lends the the ability to massively scale up force fields to move matter remotely")
*The directed motion and self-assembly of matter at a
distance using the near-field energy of the Tesla coil is a
phenomenon we term Teslaphoresis*.
While the concept is still in it's infancy (being only able to move carbon nanotubes within 30cm of the emitter as of 2016) I can't see why a sufficiently advanced version couldn't be used to manipulate "normal" matter in a very precise way with a larger range.
This has numerous benefits
* The tech uses Tesla coils. Tesla coils are *cool*
* Potentially useful as an *actual* force field
* The tech could also be repurposed to create something akin to replicators
* Did I mention the *Tesla coils*?
Downsides include:
* possible electric shock?
* Tesla coils are quite noisy
* probably quite power-hungry
Here's a link to the [original paper(PDF)](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsnano.6b02313)
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When you say there's "no requirements" on computational requirements or energy consumption, how far does that go?
It'd be inefficient to a silly degree, when you can just program your magnetically-guided mist to part out of the way of people passing through, but lets say the person calling the shots doesn't actually understand the tech, but is paranoid about poison gas, so you have non-technical reasons to do things the hard way. In that case, with enough computational resources (and this would take a *lot* of real-time computation), and enough emitters and sensors everywhere (hidden in every wall and other stationary surface in the room), theoretically, you could track every eyeball, camera, and other image-perceiving mechanism in the room, track every ambient surface as they move through the room, and scatter light off the latter and into the former. get enough of the right photons, with the right wavelengths, bouncing off the right surfaces, at the right angles of incidence, and hitting the right parts of the eyes and cameras, at the right angles, and they all add up to an image.
Frankly, though, any civilization technologically advanced enough to pull this off, let alone be practical with it, has probably long since outgrown any of the objectives such an image would be useful for conveying, unless it's specifically intended to be used to communicate to less advanced species in a way less threatening to them than having them all just suddenly know everything you want to convey to them. I'm not sure current technology would even be enough to allow us to *calculate the amount* of real-time computation pulling off such a stunt would require. It really is a silly large amount.
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## Molecule quantum manipulation or alternate universe light leak
Hello,
I love holograms. So much that for college graduation I built my own holographic display for store display using fog projection (youtube.com/mauvixx).
Also, I would love if we actually achieve free space holograms someday. There are some cool ideas here.
Free space holograms are quite the hard feat to manage unless someday we come up with a cool technology that make it so easy we'll be dumbfounded.
Using the power of handwavium here are my 2 cents.
We see things because light bounces off the surface and hits our eyes. That means you have to have a "thing" for light to hit (hence the dust particles already mentioned)
Sometimes we can see heated air shimmering, along this line of thought I propose that the droid actually has devices that can for microseconds change a volume of air in front of him. How? Not sure. Laser, electromagnetic fields, you pick. The droid would manipulate the air molecules so that they bounce the ambient light in the way desired to create the image. There is no projection. The very air is being used as the medium (like a fog screen) but one that bounces ambient light.
This would of course require very advanced tech, quantum level tech, to actually use the air molecules and make them bounce light in different wavelenghts. Ok, is far fetched, but sufficiently advanced tech is very much like magic...
If we are really going to use handwavium, you can say that in a parallel universe, one that is a copy of ours (only where light doesn exist), there are huge generators installed to create projections from every angle or where the images are even made using physical rotating screens, however because of some mcguffin, only light created in that dimension can cross and appears in ours. Thus, holograms can be made using many physical techniques but for us, only the light floating in air would be visible.
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There's more than one way to skin a cat. When a human looks at something on a screen, there is a huge long system involved, with each part having to work perfectly. The elements of that system that I can think of inlude:
```
Computer -> LED Backplane -> TFT/LCD Screen -> Coloured light traveling through the air -> Lens in eye -> Retina in eye -> Optic nerve -> Visual cortex -> Rest of brain
```
By altering this system we can create the appearance of a free-space hologram. Working backwards from the end, some potentials that come to mind are:
1. Computer talks directly to the rest of the brain. It convinces the brain that "hey, there's a thing here" and the human perceives that thing as being there.
2. Compute talks directly to visual cortex. Similar to above but the computer actually has to know what things look like and render them.
3. Use nanobots to tamper with the optic nerve
4. Bend the light travelling through the air - with mirrors, magnets, local gravity distortions
5. Emit the light actually in free-space (eg LED cube)
I'm partial to #4 as it is a nice blend of "real space hologram" and "physically possible". So here's my suggestion.
1. A screen similar in size to the human pupil
2. A collimating lens
3. A big array of magnets
The big array of magnets bends the light so that the light from the screen enters the human's eye at the correct angle:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eBjMB.png)
I hear you say: how does this work for multiple people? Well, it is 2202, so let's just have lots of them: an array of screens, an array of lenses and a whole gosh-darn stack of magnets. Each person get's their own viewpoint, *each person has a hologram projected right into their eyeball*.
Oh, and I hope you don't have any steel around - those magnets are going to be **strong**
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[Question]
[
In a world without enough land for a massive (and growing) population but plenty of water surface, experimental cities have started to spring up along the edges of various continents. The first is a city that is built into a cliff and is supported by oceanic platforms. As their technology and engineering strategies improve, these cities would inch further away from land masses and would have submerged livable space. I imagine these cities look like large towers or skyscrapers.
What are some of the engineering hurdles that such cities would face (besides withstanding violent storms)? For example, would their maximum height be more limited than a traditional skyscraper based on land?
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I think building construction on an ocean platform won't be too different from land, advantage is that you don't have land limitations as you can just build more onto the platform.
That being said, i did see a documentary about some skyscraper in India where they had to design it in such a way as to avoid the wind catching it and toppling it over. I'd dare say the same thing would apply when we talk about height.
The main things to consider with ocean platforms involve energy and food, but these supplies can be obtained from the sea.
***Solutions:*** Fishing for food; hydro-electricity or wave generation for energy; water treatment (desalinisation plants) for turning sea water into drinkable water.
The other thing is of cause the sea itself; well yes, you did touch on this slightly when you talked about storms, but also, if the platform is stationary or on a single/multiple pillars these will need to be protected from eventual decay (metal will rust, stone will erode).
***Solutions:*** Pillars made from layers of material that won't rust or erode; consistently maintenance and treatment.
If the platform is not stationary, then how will it handle waves? Small ones might not be a problem, but what about larger ones? If the platform floats then you should also consider whether it will move with the currents and what happens if it approaches land or rocks.
***Solutions:*** The platform can be steered; wave machines produce counteracting waves, to cancel out incoming waves.
Also there's weight considerations; a floating platform will start to sink the heavier it becomes, whilst a platform atop a pillar won't, but that said, how much stress can the platform take with such a big weight on top of it, regardless if it's on a pillar or sitting/floating on the sea?
***Solutions:*** Very think platform which can sink into the sea more; giant walls so the platform can go below sea-level; a dome to cover the top.
Building *on* the platform won't be all that different than building on land really, it's the building *of* the platform you should focus on, since that's just man-made land, and if anything happens to the platform then the buildings mounted to it are sunk.
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There has actually been a substantial amount of research put into this subject, and real proposals to create this in our world in the near(ish) future. For example take a look at Seasteading and specifically <http://www.seasteading.org/floating-city-project/>
There is a more general look at the subject on wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading> which has a very relevant section:
>
> **Retrofitted cruise ships**
>
>
> The first seasteads are projected to be cruise ships adapted for semi-permanent habitation. Cruise ships are a proven technology, and they address most of the challenges of living at sea for extended periods of time. The cost of the first shipstead was estimated at $10M.
>
>
> **Spar platform**
>
>
> The Seasteading Institute has been working on communities floating above the sea in spar buoys, similar to oil platforms. The project would start small, using proven technology as much as possible, and try to find viable, sustainable ways of running a seastead. Innovations that enable full-time living at sea will have to be developed. The cruise ship industry's development suggests this may be possible.
>
>
> A proposed design for a custom-built seastead is a floating dumbbell in which the living area is high above sea level, which minimizes the influence of waves. In 2004, research was documented in an online book that covers living on the oceans.
>
>
> **András Győrfi's "The Swimming City"**
>
>
> At the Seasteading Institute Forum, an idea arose to create an island from modules. There are several different designs for the modules, with a general consensus that reinforced concrete is the most proven, sustainable and cost-effective material for seastead structures
>
>
> **Other**
>
>
> Many architects and firms have created designs for floating cities. Marshall Savage also discussed building tethered artificial islands in his book The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, with several color plates illustrating his ideas. Some design competitions have also yielded designs, such as those produced by Evolo and other companies.
>
>
>
So as you can see a sea city is entirely feasible. Whether you go the "floating" or "fixed to the floor" route really would depend on local environmental conditions, in the middle of the deep ocean for example floating would be the only option.
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[
Related to: [How would rudder protection against water elementals affect ship's performance](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/206/95)
In a world with ordinary magic, military ships should be prepared for enemy fireball-hurling wizards. Is there some special quality required of good sails that might go against fire resistance?
If there is some real world material available with 15th or 16th century technology (minus gunpowder, plus magic able of producing high temperatures, pressure or other conditions used in chemical industry but unavailable then) that would resist ordinary fireball/ big pot with hot flaming oil and still is quite good for sails, I'd be glad for hearing of it. If it is vulnerable to some other hazardous factor (cold, acid etc.), it's important. If there is nothing like this (and the answer will give some reason why existence of such material is unlikely), I can still accept it - I can always state that there is some magical material for it.
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There would be very little impact on ship performance if they used sails woven from asbestos.
As far as I know that was never done in our history. However both the Greeks and Romans used asbestos cloth for such things as tablecloths, head dresses etc. The tablecloths were so fire resistant as to make throwing them in a fire an effective *cleaning* method - just throw them in and then take them out and all the food would be burnt away and the cloth would be left just as white as before.
[1](http://www.mesothelioma-help-network.com/mesothelioma/articles/history_of_asbestos/index.html)
With medieval safety that would cause problems in the production end - though Pliny the Elder did suggest using a respirator made from a bladder to decrease the lung damage from working with/quarrying asbestos. As cloth would be primarily made out of the *long* fiber type of asbestos there would be minimal danger to the crew working with the sails. Asbestos fabric is also quite strong and not very heavy. It can be combined with cotton to make a cheaper cloth with some of the benefits of asbestos - some increased durability, some fire resistance.[2](http://inspectapedia.com/hazmat/Asbestos_Textiles.php)
Asbestos cloth is also highly durable under extreme conditions so it would probably last longer even with large storms so there could be benefits in regular usage as well as when under attack.
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You can look to non-magical methods (for example Greek Fire), and the countermeasures developed for it. As a starting point, take a look at the [wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire#Effectiveness_and_countermeasureshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire#Effectiveness_and_countermeasures) on Greek Fire. Apparently, felt soaked in vinegar was a useful countermeasure.
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[
There are three "worlds" in this setting: Heaven, Hell and Midgard, Midgard being Earth and the entire Milkyway galaxy.
When a demon or an angel enters Midgard, they can't just walk there, as they need a body to be able to interact with it. If the body is destroyed, the demon is sent back to Hell **with their memories intact**.
**Turnaround time (Tt)** is the time it takes for a demon, immediately after their physical body is destroyed, to create a new one.
Tt varies from demon to demon, high-level demons like Zizel or Lime need hundreds of years, The Icon of John Romero needs a thousand years, "mediocre" ones like Marauder need weeks, however, there's a special class of demons, called Eternals.
Eternals aren't particularly tough or well-armed. Some have rocket launchers, others have shotguns, machine guns, and a handful possess mortars, however, they have virtual turnaround times as low as one millisecond, making them the ideal footsoldiers for invading Earth and holding position. Now, they accomplish these insanely low values by cheating the system. They have multiple bodies pre-made, albeit only one can be active (possessed) at any given time.
However, for the story, this poses a few problems. Of course, Eternals are numerous enough that simply having them active all at once will get you 10 000 units of unique demons to work with. But the main team of the story, the background dancers, have been fighting the same demons over and over again.
Sure, Doomslayer, Sammy and VEGA are leagues above them, so any improvement would go unseen, but the background dancers need each other to survive against the demon horde. This means that the Eternals should show signs of adapting to combat the humans' weapons and tactics, especially since they go up against the same five. It's not like there's anything better to do.
Yet their tactics and moves remain unchanged. They do have intelligence and are able to speak, [though you sometimes wish they weren't](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIx71XkN9Oo).
**I'm looking for a practical reason. Why do Eternals refuse to adapt to combating specifically humans when all they had to do was to take over that damn planet, CJ!**
At the point of the invasion, Earth has modern-day technology.
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Why would they? They're just here to punch the clock. Invading planets nine to five, then check out and relax. And you know what? If you get killed, you get a *vacation*. Of course, it must not be obvious that you got killed on purpose - so you just do the job you got, exactly according to spec, without ever thinking about anything new. The managers don't particularly care either, and any attempts at invention or innovation are generally frowned upon. You'll get there eventually anyway, and there's no rush - no matter the kill/death ratios, you keep coming back - they don't. After a few hundred thousand years, this has become the standard operating procedure, and everyone is perfectly happy to just do their part at the conveyor belt.
Let's just hope they don't discover agile.
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**They do not know what the tactics were**
Combat is a horribly confusing environment to be in. No one has the full picture of exactly what happened afterwards - recollections of individuals are contradictory and have been shown to be incorrect when compared to film evidence. It is only in modern FPS video games that kill-cam views show you how you "died".
This means that determining why a battle had a particular outcome requires detailed analysis from documentary evidence and all the eyewitness accounts that can be gathered. If the "Eternals" are reloaded into another body the instant that they are killed, all they have is their own limited, possibly unreliable viewpoint of their death. For example, a 155mm artillery shell landed among a group of Eternals and blew them to pieces - their only memories will be that they were at such-and-such location and then they were dead. (Soldiers who have survived being "blown up" never have clear memories of the event.) Another example would be that one "good guy" distracted an Eternal while another shot them from behind - the Eternal's only memory will be that they observed something that they *may* realise in retrospect was a distraction. However, if an Eternal is almost instantly being loaded into a new body with a mission to get back into the fight ASAP then even that limited reflection may be impossible.
The only way that the Eternals possibly could learn from their mistakes would be if they took extensive time out after each battle to recount what they each observed and have a skilled tactician add all the information together, which will make their "Tt" measured in days or weeks, not milliseconds. Without such a process the Eternals will be lucky to learn anything.
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**Because they're *winning***
Demons want to corrupt. They want to take good things and twist them. Humans, wrongly, believe that the demons are trying to conquer Midgaard, but that's not their aim. They want to keep the people of Midgaard in a state of fear, they want them to prioritise war and fighting over creation, art, and being good to one another. They want towns to cower behind walls instead of being wide open and airy. They want the heroes of the people to be warriors and killers, instead of artists and poets.
By keeping Midgaard in a constant state of war, they're achieving their aims. Altering their tactics so that actually won would end the war and defeat their real goals.
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Demons are immortal. As such, they’ve had a *long* time to get used to doing things a certain way. Their tactics are aeons old, even if their bodies aren’t, and because they have such a quick turnaround the tactic of ‘mob them’ has been ingrained over millennia of warfare. It’s not that they don’t see what’s killing them, they just can’t wrap their heads around why they should change the tactics of the ages.
Just like your older relatives might shake their heads and tut when asked if they can use a computer, even though using one has clear advantages, the Eternal demons shake their heads and tut when asked about any tactic more advanced than ‘run-n-gun’. It was good enough back in the Abyssal campaign of The Year Of The Blooded Goat, so it’s good enough now, thank you very much.
And the younger demons, who haven’t got the experience to turn themselves around as quickly but are far more flexible in their modes of thought, just put their heads in their multitudinous hands and cry whenever they’re asked to ‘just pop over and help with a human problem I’m having’.
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**Because they're very stupid**
Yes, it's a very cliche answer and it's not particularly creative, but there's nothing wrong with using it as a concept, especially when it comes to the 'background noise', as you might say. Power generally has to come with a price and a restriction. It makes sense that there's a price to pay in order to resurrect instantly with all memories intact, and that price is going to negate the advantage somewhat - and here the price is stupidity. These demons are just too stupid to learn from their previous mistakes. They don't have anything resembling human intelligence. They're just that stupid.
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**Speed vs Accuracy**
The quick transfer comes with a downside as well - no error checking, no CRC - the transfer is quick and dirty and 'corrupts' the long term memory each time its done and loses the data in 'RAM' or the short term memory when the demon 'dies'
High level demons on the other hand have a very involved and detailed process to transfer their memories involving a lot of error checking, redundancies, backups (of backups of..). The process is therefore slow (and expensive), but also extremely accurate.
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It is the downside of premaking your bodies.
They have the experience and knowledge of the demon, when they created them, rather than the experience and knowledge of the demon when it transfers into them.
The Demons might\* retain some short term memories when forced to shift from one body to another premade one, but they don't easily get transferred into long term memory, and as a result generally get forgotten, over a number of hours to a few days.
\*Some weaker eternals might not even be able to do this, which would give a moment after they come back when they don't know what is going on.
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>
> They have multiple bodies pre-made, albeit only one can be active (possessed) at any given time.
>
>
>
**Those bodies were pre-made long ago.** They aren't (yet) making more. In the military getting things turned around and adapting takes a while, and they do use the resources they have already. Numbers have likely worked in the past. They aren't going to waste resources on adapting grunts when those grunts already have 1,000 bodies each ready and waiting to go.
For the higher-level ones with a longer Tt, well, they have a number of bodies as well, and it would take them even longer to adapt something new.
**The short turn-around time means that they don't actually have time to give any kind of report on tatics and what killed them.** How can they possibly adapt when given a millisecond to respawn? Those bodies are already pre-made. If they gave a full report or had the ability to make a full report between getting killed and coming back in, they might well not be able to overwhelm the enemy. So your grunts do not have the option, and the ones with the longer times (bosses and such) might have that as a way to upgrade and lower-level guys just don't.
**The more diesel the body, the longer it takes to "connect" the host to the new body.** So while they might have their full memories intact, during the connection process they can't DO anything. This might mean that they spend the entire 2 weeks or 100 years simply reconnecting to the new body.
**Adaptation means that things have to change.** If the tactics they have developed over time have always worked for them, eventually, why change them? They don't have a full picture of the war, just their own experiences--they know they'll be back and they only have to kill you once. They have centuries, millennia. You'll be dead soon enough.
**They have it programmed within them.** For the body-swapping to work, though they might recall you, all these tactics come pre-programmed in every solider. This is the only way they are able to have such evil minions work together and only FOR the cause. Giving their soldiers more free-will is a disadvantage for the over-lords in the long run, but in the short-term, the heroes can use it to their advantage. And because they don't think in terms of human life-spans, the over-lords see no reason to allow it, which would also allow the demons to, one day, exercise that will to overtake them.
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They don't really want to win (quickly) because in the current status quo they are important to their masters. But once they overrun the Earth and win, then higher level daemons will follow and take over making them totally insignificant again. Putting that in the light of being immortal, a few centuries is nothing for them, so they just stick to the current situation for now.
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It sounds like you haven't played very many online video games, because if you have you would have met "that guy".
Nothing is his fault, every time he dies its the lag, or his team mates or because the game was designed by idiots, but the last possibility he would ever consider is that his decisions or actions might have fault in them.
He's somewhat immature, narcissistic and believes he knows everything. You will see him barreling down the same pathways, doing the same tactics, dying to the same person and throwing out the same excuse every minute or so.
Your demons aren't dumb or under armed or even un-evolved, they just have personality disorders, which, sounds like a demon to me!
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Why do some people serially engage in abusive relationships? I doubt there are therapists for demons, but my layman's take is that even though they know it's a bad idea they
* are blind to the pattern
* think it'll be different *this time*
* deep down think they don't deserve better
* ...
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### They always did it this way and it always worked out fine
... before now.
It's not that they are dumb or something like that. It's that it always worked. They waged wars before and they won them. They crushed entire worlds using this strategy. They believe in it.
Maybe some of them are not so fond of this strategy. A good antagonist might step out of line and adapt, while his peers want him to go back to the "winning strategy". Unless they have been losing for decades, what's a couple battles or a couple years to immortals? It's a drop in the ocean of time. The ones who "adapt" are the weirdo and in the past it has always been a pitiful waste of time.
[Answer]
**Bloodlust**
They could be fairly intelligent, approach sites in a semi-tactical manner, etc., but when they actually see the humans they lose their mind and just want to spill some blood. This simplicity could be the reason they never got up on the demonic corporate ladder. :)
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When you play a computer game, like a FPS, you get better over time.
But after a while... you don't get MUCH better. You don't very often figure out a whole new tactic to change the way it all works.
At least you have your muscle memory that improves, rapidly at first and then slower over time. Good thing you're not changing your body like these demons every time you died, or you'd lose that advantage, too.
So, they got OK at this level of the game. Not brilliant, and not enough to figure out a way to skip the level, but good enough to sometimes kill a player.
If you regularly play a FPS against your friends, you'll find this to be the norm: your relative ability against them doesn't change much after the first few games.
[Answer]
**They are already at the end of possible tactics**
It's been few hundreds years since we developed armour to protect ourselfs in combat. And we also developed better weapons to counter that armour.
Then why we have helmets to protect use from headshots by we don't have nice headgears with that? I think, when faced with possibility of getting shot in the face, I would prefer to wear a dog face helmet than a balaclava.
It might be due to the price and time needed to make armour versus just spawn another human sleeve.
Also Eternals might not have a lot to say in what body they land in. Grunt, Burnt or Flunkd. So they amass experience in much slowe rate than the 5 they're facing. They adapt, but background fighters are just few steps ahead. You cannot downplay the body-mind connection. Eternals might learn how fast the fingers on Grunt react, how fast the trigger falls, how long the bullet would travel distance beetwen them and target. They might not know that it's useless to pull that trigger in the first place as all those times combined are longer than just jumpin to enemy, grabbing their skull and crush.
After a while you discover you cannot push tactics further. You either try to bury them in corpses and have 101 soldiers against their 100 bullets or you realise there are not much variations of "jumping them from around the corner".
[Answer]
May I suggest a plot twist? Maybe their turnaround time only seems long to the humans and in fact is short (or short to the demons). In other words, it's not that they *aren't* capable of adapting, it's that they don't *choose to!*
But why would the Eternals do this? The way I see it, there are three possibilities:
1. Sinister Scheme-The Eternals are trying to lull the humans into complacency; when facing a clever, adaptive opponent any smart fighter keeps on their toes and becomes unpredictable. If the demons never seem to adapt, why would anyone develop new tactics to beat them? Problem is, the demons are simply planning to get the humans where their tactics are always predictable so that then they can do a sudden turnaround and attack with perfect knowledge of the human's tactics, the weaknesses of said tactics, and how to exploit them.
2. Nonlethal Intentions-The Eternals want to *capture,* not kill, the demon slayers, and that includes the five background dancers. Their superiors have realized that if they create new Eternals by capturing and converting the demon slayers, they'll get Gen 2 Eternals-more cunning, adaptive, versatile, and all-out deadly than regular Eternals.
3. They're sizing them up-A variation of Sinister Scheme; perhaps the Eternals are merely playing dumb while they size up the competition. Once they've collected enough information, *then* they go in and use everything they've learned against the supposedly strategical superior humans. Alternatively, this could be a case of the Love at First Punch trope-demons don't date like normal people, they spar instead to see if someone is a worthy partner.
This could be one of the weaknesses of the Eternal system: they're essentially demons in human form, so they can (and *will*) be attracted to anyone who can face or better yet, beat them. If this idea interests you, please see this link:
[Love At First Punch](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoveAtFirstPunch "Love At First Punch")
Anyway, hopes this helps!
] |
[Question]
[
In my world there are adventurers who are squeamish about getting blood on them. Trolls are commonly hunted by adventurers. What trophy can my squeamish adventurers collect from these trolls, and not get blood on them, to prove their kills and collect their rewards from towns?
I just realized that trolls in mythology have no clear anatomy and probably the term was just used to describe people living isolated in mountains or forests
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> Later, in Scandinavian folklore, trolls became beings in their own right, where they live far from human habitation, are not Christianized, and are considered dangerous to human beings. Depending on the source, their appearance varies greatly; trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly grotesque characteristic about them.
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So I'm going with the look World of Warcraft gave to trolls, they don't turn to stone in sunlight.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6uXj9.jpg)
[Answer]
# Hire or Enslave a worker to do the dirty work for you
Surely there are poor unskilled people who you can pay on the cheap to do the dirty work of carrying and harvesting your trophy body parts. Best part is now you can remain unencumbered should you be ambushed. This also increases your inventory as the worker can carry supplies too.
If the worker is too expensive or scared of the job
**Slavery works too!**
Capture a goblin or something and make him do the work. Chain his neck so he cant run. Be careful as he may try to kill you in your sleep. Though, if you are a decent adventurer you will sleep cautiously anyways (keeps ya on your toes).
[Answer]
# Cut off their tusks
Fortunately, trolls have tusks. Cutting the end off of tusks takes a bit of work, but there is no blood involved, so it is suitable even for the squeamish.
Note, [horns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_(anatomy)) are keratin over bone. [Tusks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tusk) are overgrown teeth. Troll tusks won't bleed.
[Answer]
# Fine, Strip them and Bring their crotch straps back
-Trolls wear loin clothes at least
-Trolls aren't hygienic so it would be hard to forge multiple used troll crotch straps
-So if they really press whether they are real or not you can tell the NPC to smell them and find out.
[Answer]
**Necromancy**
Why cut off a ear when you can kill two trolls with one spell? You could get your hands dirty cutting off ears, and the quest giver might still suspect you made fake ears. It'd take a brave person to accuse you of making 15 fake zombie trolls. Even if the contract requires you to remove the ears (and you are the lawful sort), you could keep your own hands clean and just get your zombie minions to remove each other's ears. If after all that they still refuse to pay... well then you have 16 pet zombies. It is win-win!
[Answer]
Get hold of a couple of palantirs palantiri. The NPC can watch the live action.
[Answer]
**Assert you did.**
Thrash up your stuff and bloody your sword. Go back to the dude. Yell "I KILLED TROLLLLLS!" Let the residual battle frenzy gleam in your eye. Make sure he understands you have suffered much brain damage from many fights over your life, but if anything that has increased your 99 strength.
If he starts laying conditions and caveats on you, become angry. If he says you did not follow the instructions, show him the blood on your weapons and yell about trolls.
He will offer you half pay to leave and not come back. He will apologetically explain he needed the troll parts which is why it is just half pay, but he feels bad about wasting your time. Take the money in exchange for him conceding that you killed the trolls. Give him a tip with his own money for saying it.
[Answer]
**DOCUMENTATION**
All your main char has to do is bring a vial of ink with him/her and also a sheet of paper (hopefully a journal). Assuming your character has the literacy skill > 10, they should be able to read and write.
After your character has slain the trolls, have the character take out some ink and a sheet of paper. Spread the ink over the troll hand and ear. Attach the sheet of paper to the hand and then the ear. The ink marks from hand/ears should be unique to each troll. Now present your slaying documentation to your quest giver and bing bang boom LEVEL UP!
[Answer]
## Ear Wax
Troll Earwax is the best wax for clean burning candles. Your quest is not simply to go kill these trolls but to harvest their earwax. You are paid by the weight of wax brought back that way fair compensation goes for bigger trolls with more wax than the smaller trolls who just don't make enough yet.
[Answer]
Take along an agreed credible witness to document the activity.
Perhaps a priest or other literate person.
Does create the extra bother of protecting them.
[Answer]
## Collect their foreskins.
David was tasked by Saul to collect a dowry of 100 Philistine deaths. David, one of life's over-achievers, returned with proof of their deaths in the form of ***200*** of the offending articles.
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> Therefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the
> Philistines two hundred men; and **David brought their foreskins, and
> they gave them in full number to the king**, that he might be the king's
> son-in-law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter as his wife.
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> [1 Samuel 18:27](https://biblehub.com/1_samuel/18-27.htm)
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Not only was it super-effective in proving their deaths (since no respecting Philistine would allow David's small army to mess with their junk if they could possibly help it) but it was both portable and relatively non-bloody because a dead body has practically no bloodflow.
If your men are *genuinely squeamish* about even a single drop of blood they can use the local equivalent of cautery by heating a razor-sharp knife over a flame until red hot. This will seal the blood vessels as they cut.
[Answer]
**Burn the Body**, then bring back the skull.
[Answer]
If you're really going with World of Warcraft (or D&D) style trolls, you've got a problem: [They regenerate](http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Troll):
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> Although enough physical damage will kill them, trolls can regenerate lost limbs and heal grievous physical injuries at an accelerated rate, giving them a large advantage in battle.
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So your proof is going to have to be something that doesn't regenerate. If you choose ears, or tusks, or fingers, or hands, or feet, your adventurers don't need to kill 15 trolls, they can capture just one, then harvest it for the relevant body part over and over (in both D&D and WoW, troll regeneration from nearly dead to unharmed occurs in the space of a few minutes at most, so you could harvest 15 trolls worth of body parts in the space of an hour, give or take).
So you need something that won't regenerate *and* can be uniquely associated with a single troll.
Unfortunately, the obvious solution here (in terms of maximum proof for minimum "amount of troll") is scalps; sure, the scalp itself can regenerate, but the *hair* is dead, and presumably grows at a relatively normal rate; you could harvest scalps over and over, but scalp #2 and onwards wouldn't have hair. The reason I say "unfortunately" is that nothing bleeds like a scalp wound and your adventurers are squeamish. As others have suggested, once the troll is *dead*, you could just wait a bit and the blood should coagulate, but if they don't want to deal with blood at all, they're stuck. Claws might also work (though in most depictions of trolls, a chopped off arm grows back with claws, so they may not be made of dead material the way human fingernails are).
The best I can come up with is having them collect the hair itself. It's not perfect; trolls have wildly varying amounts of, and growth patterns for, hair in most depictions, so it might be possible to take hair from one troll and pretend it came from two or more. But it's the best you're likely to come up with shy of dragging all 15 corpses back with you.
Ear wax, as mentioned in [another answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/130192/31602), might also be viable (presumably carving out an ear and having it regrow won't have it regrow complete with ear wax build up), though as that answer notes, it can't give an accurate kill count, just a rough estimate (it's like hair, but even easier to subdivide).
There is a flaw with all of these methods: If trolls are smart, they might try to game your troll death metrics by regular grooming; shaving their heads, carving out the inner skin of their own ears (or use q-tips, whatever) every week or so, etc. If you're adventurers looking to make a buck, taking the risk of death fighting trolls that you won't be paid for might seem like a bad deal.
[Answer]
You see hiring a guy to kill 15 troll and not telling them how he should prove those 15 kills would be the stupidest idea ever. Why?
Because person who take a quest to kill 15 troll IS the person who will drag (or will hire other people to drag) 15 rotting, smelly, troll carcasses to your doors to prove that they, in fact, killed them. And to prove that those are their kill, and not some roadkills they find lying around, they will either catch souls of those trolls to testify before you who slayed them or will have you watch their death with some magic.
Great deal, now you have 15 rotting meatbags, 15 screaming souls or you watched so many troll death you have it imprinted in your eyeballs and one person who you need to pay because you see they are nothing to flick around.
You know what is better? That don't have blood? That don't require you to watch? And will have higher crop with the same bounty? Troll Jewellery. Let's say that troll wears rings. They have finite amount of fingers so you assume that every troll can wear 10 of them. So you say "hey, bring me 150 troll rings".
The catch is that not every troll wear 10 rings. Some wear 3, some wear none. The result is that to get 150 rings adventurers need to kill much more. Yet the guild pay like they would kill 15 of them.
**EXTRA CATCH FOR MAXIMUM EXTRA MEGA PROFIT** The guild, and trolls, are the only ones who can melt those ring into "non-troll, not at all, all genuine dwarf" jewellery. So you make those rings worthless outside guild quest while fetching extra money. Basically the quest pay for itself while making extra income for the guild.
And this is the story of how make money in fantasy world using cheap labour and monopolizing market.
[Answer]
The squeamish adventurers kill the troll via boredom.
No blood, no guts, nothing.
The adventure pays (on account of being squeamish) individuals without a sense of smell to carry/drag/transport the full troll body back in an ice bag.
* The guild must acknowledge that it is indeed a dead troll, no questions asked.
* The adventurer is renowned for their ability to slay otherwise quite difficult to kill trolls without actually laying a hand on them.
* The DM buys shares in the ice business because it's going to be big.
[Answer]
## Get a referee / mentor to join your quest.
You may bring 15 troll ears, 20 tusks and 1 gallon of ear wax **BUT**:
Was it really you who did the work, or did you buy yourself through a gift shop down the street or worse, did you let others do the dirty work?
This is why the Guild of of Adventurers Anonymous provides a referee or a mentor for every one who goes on such an honorable quest of slaying innocent trolls.
The referee writes down every troll you killed and even how you killed them, because there are more than one way to kill a troll and not all of them are favoured by your guild.
[Answer]
Depends on your way of killing the trolls without blood, But if there is no modern technology around and going livestream while killing trolls is not possible, then let the troll come to you.
1) Lure the troll near the town
2) Kill the troll
3) Get Rewarded
All of the above answers(skinning the troll, ripping parts of the troll, etc..) could be bypassed by just either waiting for a troll to die, or searching for a dead troll, or making trolls fight each other, take the token and present it. My approach will make sure **YOU** did it, and the whole town witnessed you kill the trolls.
How you do it without blood is way beyond me, I cant seem to picture killing something without blood.
[Answer]
Make a [travois](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiG0tv8itLeAhXCHjQIHbl2A2IQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmontanateach.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F12%2F16Resilience.pdf&psig=AOvVaw3EssN71mGotWQuQCV9UK0K&ust=1542223090709007)! They're certainly simpler to make than anything with wheels
Regardless of your power level, dragging is easier than carrying. Travois don't require wheels, though it's certainly [an option](https://www.alexislewisinventor.me/travois) to reduce your expended effort. Make it longer, or tie a rope to it if you're still getting nauseous. Regardless, it's a simple enough device that you can hook it up to a horse or an unenthusiastic hireling
That being said, a cart or wagon will serve you better, but that's less outside-the-box
[Answer]
**Get the trolls to chase you**
1. Place the NPC at the top of a safe tower or other natural defence.
2. Dig a ditch of spikes and cover with branches and leaves. Leave one place where it's easy for you to cross but make sure it looks no different from the rest of the concealed ditch apart from an odd shaped branch.
3. Find a band of trolls.
4. Get them to chase you.
5. Keep shouting insults to enrage them but run just fast enough to keep ahead.
6. Run until you get to where the NPC is waiting.
7. Cross the concealed spiked ditch, turn to face the oncoming horde and shout your worst insults whilst making rude hand-gestures.
8. Watch as the trolls fall into the ditch and impale themselves.
9. Kill any that manage to cross the narrow concealed bridge by knocking them off it in the manner of Little John and Robin Hood. Shoot stragglers who didn't quite reach the ditch with your bow.
10. Collect your reward.
This also has the advantage of being re-usable. Make sure no-one lives to tell the tale and you can use the same trick repeatedly.
[Answer]
Do your trolls live in caves?
1. Wait until the troll goes to sleep after a long day of pillaging villages and farmsteads. *\*(Usually an adventurer's first instinct is to swoop-in and save the day before another village gets looted, but you have to remember to be patient here)*
2. Roll a giant bolder to the cave entrance. Make sure it's properly secured so the troll can't get out. (Maybe bring some mortar with you just in case...)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GEKgA.png)
3. Wait a year and then come back to the cave. By this time the troll should have run out of food in the cave and starved to death.
4. You now have an intact troll body (or more if he had a wife and kids in the cave), with body-parts that you can say came from multiple trolls, you've also got troll weapons and troll clothes as further proof for whatever you want.
[Answer]
# Take their Mojo
Adult trolls (or at least, the Warcraft variety) have their own special form of magic (Voodoo in Warcraft terms) that requires a special bag of charms (A liquid in Warcraft), called a Mojo. A troll will never willingly part with their Mojo while they are alive, and all trolls carry Mojo, so there is a one to one relationship between a Mojo and a troll. It doesn't require any severing of limbs, nor cutting of body parts to harvest, and it's relatively easy to carry. It's also hard to make a forgery, because it's infused with the troll's personal Voodoo magic.
[Answer]
**Insurance. No really.**
Where there is money exchanging hands, there is risk. Where there is risk and money exchanging hands, there is always someone looking to make money from this.
Have your reward payers set the value of killed troll through investment from those who wish to see the trolls gone. Have this value be underwritten by insurers. Only troll kills which can be verified by an agent of the underwriters will count. This causes the troll hunters to pay to bring along a verified agent of the insurance agency. This Agent also collects a salary based on how few trolls are killed.
If he lies by reducing the number, he can rest assured the next troll hunt will either see him not being brought along or being used as "accidental" bait. If he lies by increasing the number, he will be paid less in his salary. Finding this value to reduce the chance of bribery is a big part of insurance.
If he tells the truth, the troll hunters are happy that he isn't taking money away from them. The insurance company is happy because their books balance. And the investors are happy because there are less trolls running around.
Edit: Also forgot that the same insurers will be offering life insurance policies and workmen's compensation options to the troll hunters. Heck, they can even offer insurance for poor hunting years.
[Answer]
Bring full body vids including yourself knifing thru the heart & slitting throat of the orc, pre or post-mortem, along with an accompanying dna swab. He checks.
That should do the trick.
[Answer]
**Livestream it.**
Since you didn’t mention anything about your world I’m going to assume a similar world to ours. If it is a less technologically advanced world then figure out a magic livestream that people can watch in some specifically built theater.
You’re an adventurer with the equivalence of a live gaming Youtube stream. Thousands of peasants watch you (and others) ridding the world of those pesky trolls. Sometimes the adventurers die horribly in the process, which makes it even more entertaining.
[Answer]
# Troll Semen
With genocidal adventurers constantly picking off trolls to improve their status in society it would be necessary for societies to engage in conservational efforts to stabilize the troll populations.
Seeing as how there are adventurers who do not wish to return traditional socially rewarding trophies they can be used to instead return materials useful in conservation efforts.
Using a syringe an adventurer could harvest the eggs or semen from dead trolls. Because they are dead their blood flow has stopped so sticking them with a needle will not result in any significant spray that could get on them.
The eggs and semen could then be used to artificially impregnate captive trolls thereby replacing their population.
[Answer]
Let's assume that an ear is enough proof you've killed a troll. Your adventures could just hire an NPC who waits till the fight is over, then cuts off the ears of the dead trolls and put them into a chest, half filled with sand (the sand will keep any blood from dripping out of the box). Then all the adventurers need to do is present the chest to whoever asked for 15 trolls.
Of course, if the adventurers have a DEX above 6, it shouldn't be too hard for them to cut of ears without getting blood on them.
I'm far more interested how they plan to kill 15 trolls without getting blood on them.
[Answer]
Bury the dead trolls by anthills, termite mounds, or other scavenger insects. Come back in a year or so when the trollskull is clean and hand that in.
Alternatively, boil the trolls, the trollflesh will fall right off, again you get clean skulls and bones, as well as rendered trollfat and other usable parts.
Maybe a bit stinky though, if you're not gonna clean the bodies before boiling. You'll be basically boiling the bodies in a vat of trollcrap.
[Answer]
Direct them your twitter feed ;)
[Answer]
1. Help my cute elf! You must be female elf. I am sure there will be army of ready help.
2. Photo - No magic selfies or too expensive?
3. In name of my honor! Trolls are no more! Magic and divine oaths.
4. For for reasonable pay, guild verifies kills: sending extra with you or after job is done, while your pay is pending.
5. Get troll weapons or whatever your trolls have. Poor trolls.
] |
[Question]
[
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lPlIC.jpg)
This famous tapestry shows all the "modernized" traits of a unicorn--basically just a pale-colored horse with a single horn on its head. Of course, single-horned animals do and did exist:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/A4z3S.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xPH9c.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vJLt4.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Krtt.jpg)
The only problem with such comparisons is that real-life one-horned animals have their horns on a practical area of the head--the upper snout. That way, the animals can have a longer reach against a charging predator, forcing it to brake its feet. The unicorn, by contrast, has its horn usually set on the forehead. That's no problem for the usual two-horned animal, as the V-gap resulted by the two horns makes it difficult for an opponent to strike directly at the skull. The two-horned animals also have their horns ridged to prevent slipping.
But the unicorn of classic mythology and fantasy doesn't have either advantage, so a unicorn can't use its single horn to fight other unicorns. And it doesn't look sturdy, either, so of/defense against predators can't be a factor, either. With those two eliminated, what else would the smooth single horn of a real-life unicorn be used for?
[Answer]
>
> The only problem with such comparisons is that real-life one-horned animals have their horns on a practical area of the head--the upper snout. That way, the animals can have a longer reach against a charging predator, forcing it to brake its feet. The unicorn, by contrast, has its horn usually set on the forehead.
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The late Miocene toxodontid *Trigodon* had its horn mounted on its forehead. I'm not sure exactly why it had it there - sexual selection, probably - but it at least justifies the position of a unicorn horn.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KmXpb.jpg)
The horn is rather stubbier than that of a typical unicorn, but if it was a display feature, then it could certainly grow longer given time. If that's enough to satisfy you, then there you go; however, justifying any kind of spiral horn, like those in most unicorn depictions, is slightly more difficult.
One leading theory for the spiralling of narhwal tusks is so that they remain straight, and therefore streamlined - in a spiral pattern, even if the tusk grows irregularly, the overall shape of the structure remains quite straight. Streamlining, obviously, is unecessary for a land animal; perhaps straightness is also something that attracts females?
[Answer]
It could be an organ for communication.
As we know, Dolphins and Whales communicate by sonar sound waves. The teeth of dolphins are arranged in a way that makes them act like sonar antennae ([read more about it here](https://www.dolphincommunicationproject.org/index.php/the-latest-buzz/the-dolphin-pod/item/94397-dolphin-antennas)). They basically hear with their lower jaw.
The same principle could apply to Unicorns. They *can* create horse-like sounds, but do so only to communicate with other creatures. To communicate with another Unicorn, they create ultrasonic sound waves that are received and turned into nerve signals by their horns instead of their ears.
The center of the horn is packed full of nerve cells like a tooth. The ridged and tapering shape makes sound waves of different frequencies resonate in different parts of the horn. That enables them to distinguish different pitches of tones. By turning their heads and aligning their horns, they can determine the origin of the sound and thereby the position of the "speaking" unicorn.
Since young girls have high pitched voices, their singing might resonate in the horn as well. Thus the myth of virgins attracting Unicorns was born.
[Answer]
Display.
A peacock's display feathers have no practical function and exist solely to demonstrate the animal's fitness as a potential mate. From a practical perspective, its display feathers are something of a liability.
The now-extinct [Irish Elk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_elk) had antlers so large in relation to body size that they seem unwieldy. It has been speculated that their large size served as indicators of the animal's health.
Likewise, a potentially fragile, functionally useless feature like a unicorn horn could serve as a signal to the opposite sex that this particular animal is of top genetic quality and an optimal mate.
[Answer]
It could be as simple as [sexual selection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection)
A lot of natural features that occur in animals have no other obvious reason for occuring and have become integral to a species. colour, frills etc.
The narwhal has one horn, we don't really know why it has it. But it's thought to be linked to dominance or mating displays of some sort.
[Answer]
## Magic
Unicorns can use their horns to purify foul water, strip away malign enchantments, and heal injuries. But magic resides in the brain, so the horn needs a direct connection to the brain in order to efficiently channel magical energy.
The horn's spiral pattern and sharp tip help the unicorn focus and direct its magical energies.
[Answer]
I like the other answers but I would like to point out one advantage of a horn on the forehead, used as a weapon.
Think about the line of forces when the horn is horizontal and impacts a target at speed - a bit like a medieval knight's lance. In a nose based horn, the shock and impact is transmitted along the entire length of the skull - its maximum dimension in most cases - and *then* transmitted through a pivot join (the neck).
Clearly the neck must be very strongly muscled and the skull strongly built to withstand impact, but the closer the horn is, to the neck, the stiffer the bracing and the more efficient it is as a physiological support. You can imagine a knight who holds the lance tight to his side, at his hip, near his mount on the horse, and compare to a knight who somehow holds a lance at his shoulder where the lance wouldn't make such a solid impact, and is a lot harder to brace and withstand the force of impact. Basically, you want the impact braced as close as possible and on a direct line with its support, and the forehead of a unicorn meets that goal better than its nose.
A second reason it's a solid position is that the skull shape may also be less fragile and better able to spread and dissipate the force, at the forehead. It's more likely that bracing in the bone structure, and massive or stronger bones, could evolve on the forehead area of an elongated skull, as it does in many animals such as buffalo, bulls, rams, etc, and this might be more efficient in an animal with a horse-style muzzle that isn't as heavily built as a rhino's muzzle.
So there may be sound design reasons based on physics and physiology, why a forehead horn is a good position for a weapon horn, even though in many/most animals it isn't done that way.
[Answer]
I am going to reuse my answer to the following question (emphasizing my lasr paragraph):
[How do I explain a unicorn discharging powerful electricity at a distance?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/109199/21222)
TL;DR: the unicorn shoots lightning through it.
---
While it is true that air does not conduct electricity as nicely as water, it is also true that there is no (engineering) problem that cannot be solved by judicious application of brute force.
Lightning is a thing after all, so we know a discharge will happen in air if there is sufficient difference in electric potential.
Copy the design of the eel. [This is what the wiki says about it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel#Physiology):
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> In the electric eel, some 5,000 to 6,000 stacked electroplaques can make a shock up to 860 volts...
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Now notice what the wiki says about [its typical dimensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel#Anatomy):
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> The electric eel has an elongated, cylindrical body, typically growing to about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length, and 20 kg (44 lb)...
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If your unicorn weights as much as a [draft horse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_horse#Characteristics)... let's say one metric ton. It will have enough size and mass to have a lot more electroplaques. A back-of-the-napkin calculation says that, keeping the same volts-to-mass ratio, the unicorn will be able to produce 43,000 volts. You can buff that up - nothing is keeping the unicorn from having even more electroplaques. Let's say the unicorn is able to produce 50,000 volts. That is [about as much as a typical low end Tesla coil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil#Operation). Now check the pictures in the link. It also has this to say about the coil:
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> The high electric field causes the air around the high voltage terminal to ionize and conduct electricity, allowing electricity to leak into the air in colorful corona discharges, brush discharges and streamer arcs.
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**A pointy part in a body is much more likely to produce a discharge than a round part or a toroid, so the horn is perfect for shooting out lightning.** As for how the beast does not fry itself, it may have glass or some other very good electrical insulator material in its hooves.
[Answer]
Stabbing.
Most animals' horns are a huge liability for a charging strike. You either have to go head down and rely on your neck muscles to keep your head from being snapped off, or use the charge for terror and swing your nose more like a morning star to deal more damage. In either case, the common theme is a shitload of neck musculature.
Unicorn horns are aligned with their spines. They're much better suited than most animals for impaling the shit out of whatever squishy thing pissed them off.
(Side note, it's not that practical to impale things with your head. There are reasons this isn't a common adaptation. What do you do when you have hooves, an open field, and a dead dog stuck on your head?)
[Answer]
The horns purpose is to protect the beast's eyes.
It can run as long as it can see, so it's most effective pre-horn predator learned to slash the eyes during the opening of every attack.
At first, the horn was short but sharp, making the predator pay for its attack with wounded claws. It's function was to discourage attacks, making all but the most desperate predators choose safer prey.
Later, as it grew longer in progressive successful generations, it became a true defense. Any animal wanting to reach a unicorn's eyes must expose its underbelly to a potential heart shot from the razor sharp weapon. In this role, the horn's placement mid-skull took optimal advantage of the horse's side mounted eyes, allowing the creature phenomenal aim without obscuring forward vision. In a front-eyed predator, the longer horn would have blocked some of its field of view; but in a side-eyed prey-animal, no such disadvantage came along with increasing length.
Would it have been more effective if it grew out of the nose rather than the skull plate? sure. But evolution doesn't require the best design, only the better design. A mid-skull mounted horn is better than no horn. That is enough.
[Answer]
**For hunting like narwhals.**
As seen [here](https://www.sciencealert.com/never-before-seen-behaviour-reveals-the-violent-purpose-of-the-narwhal-s-tusk) it was recently (2017) seen that narwhals are capable of using their tusk as a hunting implement.
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> Drone footage has captured something no one's ever seen before - wild narwhals using their bizarre tusks to hunt Arctic cod by hitting and stunning them, making them easier to consume.
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So if your okay with making your unicorns carnivorous (or at least omnivorous) you can have them hunt birds, or even small mammals with their horns.
[Answer]
I'd like to challenge this assumption:
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> And it doesn't look sturdy, either, so of/defense against predators can't be a factor, either.
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A fragile horn might be better for defense against predators than a more robust one, if the cost of growing one is marginal. Lizards which have a break-away tail and plants with detachable spikes have similar adaptations.
The unicorn is an equine, so unless there are some very good reasons for a different survival strategy, they're going to be herd animals. In a group defense situation, their default strategy may be similar to the [muskox](https://www.nps.gov/gaar/learn/nature/muskox-circle-defense.htm): create a circle with the young on the inside, horns pointing out.
This is already going to deter the majority of predators, as the horn is long enough that they wouldn't be able to get close enough to harm one unicorns without running serious risk of being impaled.
For those that are foolish or desperate enough to make a run at it, the majority of the time they'd be skewered.
In this case, being able to give the horn a bit of a twist and have it break off may be the fastest and easiest way to put distance between the the dying predator and the unicorn it's impaled on. This is desirable for two big reasons:
* Preventing the dying predator from fatally injuring the unicorn it's now attached to is a really good thing for the unicorn.
* Having a corpse decaying on the end of a unicorn horn would be problematic, both from the risk of infection as well as general awkwardness.
This isn't as much of an issue for a species with a smaller horn and more robust frame, as they simply toss the predator off their pointy bits in the same movement with which they impaled the predator. An equine body type is pretty strong, but not well adapted to lifting with the neck, so the evolutionary cost of strengthening the head and neck could very well outweigh the cost of producing a long and thin horn.
A whitetail deer can grow up to [200 inches of robust antler over 120 days](https://community.legendarywhitetails.com/whitetail-deer-antler-growth-cycle/). We can approximate the shape of the antler by assuming that the thick and thin bits even out and it's basically a cylinder. The circumference of that cylinder we'll ballpark at about [4.5 inches](https://www.boone-crockett.org/bgrecords/records_FieldJudging_WTDeer.asp). Based on those values, we get 322.29 cubic inches total and a growth rate of 1.6 cubic inches per day, which we'll round down to 1.5 cubic inches per day for convenience.
Similarly, we can approximate the unicorn horn using a cone of the same base diameter, and we get 19.34 cubic inches for a 3 foot horn. Even if the horn were as robust as the antler of a whitetail deer, the rest of the herd could cover for a unicorn that lost it's horn for the 12 days it would take to completely regrow it's horn, or the 8 days it would take to get to a usable 2 foot horn.
A delicate horn that's intended to break away should require even less material, and would have a correspondingly reduced regrowth period, so 8-12 days provides a generous upper bound.
[Answer]
**To protect it from [drop bears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear)**
But seriously, if you are introducing a new species (the unicorn), why not introduce another species that, during their joint evolution, necessitated the horn? Just like the ant-eaters long tongue is an answer to the tunnels in an ants nest, the unicorn's horn could be an answer to a property this other species has.
Maybe the horn evolved because unicorns hunted a woodpecker-like bird. As the bird evolved to dig ever deeper, the horn evolved to be ever longer. (Don't assume [unicorns wouldn't hunt](https://www.tor.com/2013/09/24/equoid/)). Come to think of it, a variation on the drop bear might even be feasible, just don't call them drop bears I guess. The point is that when you introduce a fictional species, you might as well invent its ecosystem too.
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* the horn is unpractical to fight predators on the ground and is more efficient against predators coming from the air, as it already points upwards when the neck is in rest position.
* primary defense would be to outrun the predator, as for other equidaes. It is helpful mostly if predators are capable of sustaining unicorn's speed over long distances.
* the horn is magic, so it is especially helpful if predator is having magic shielding itself.
Therefore, the purpose of unicorn's horn is most likely to defend against dragons.
[Answer]
It could possibly be used as a tool, like primate hands.
They can use it to scrape away dirt or bark to access food.
[Answer]
Bear in mind that the [image of the unicorn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn#Entrapment) you quote is based on artefacts which were thought at the time to be unicorn horns, but which we now know to be [narwhal tusks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narwhal). So a "practical" unicorn could have a much shorter horn (see the Wikipedia article for some alternative illustrations) and possibly positioned better.
[Medieval bestiaries](http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beastalphashort.htm) had some very odd ideas about real animals, so if it turned out that unicorns were real you would expect that the bestiaries would have got some of it wrong.
[Answer]
Unicorn horns take years to grow, but once they are fully grown and the animal is mature, the unicorn diet changes to include meat. Having no hands, unicorns use their horns like a modern day shish kabob skewers. Unicorns that fail to grow a horn sufficiently long enough to cook meat will often times catch fire. So cooking meat on their horns is part of the natural evolutionary selective process. Only the most fit get to eat tasty kabobs and the rest turn into a pile of charred flesh.
[Answer]
Perhaps the unicorn's horn is placed higher on the head to allow it to align with the vertebrae and thereby reinforce a blow. It may be difficult to wield such a long weapon defensively, so maybe the unicorn is aggressive and attacks other unicorns or some other animal it perceives as a threat or as inferior to itself. Then having the long horn aligned with the spine would be beneficial in a charge.
Additionally, if the horn is long it will also be heavy, and portions of horn farther out will apply more torque to the animal's neck. Having the horn on the nose may strain the unicorn's neck, and so placing it closer to the central support of the neck may make it easier to tote as well.
[Answer]
**Unicorn fencing!**
The unicorn uses its horn like humans use foils, épées and sabres - to majestically parry its opponent's horn and go in for a fatal stab.
To be sufficiently sturdy and flexible, the horn would possibly have to be made of some unusual material that a horn typically wouldn't be made out of.
For example, perhaps it somehow consumes rock and its body absorbs the metals/minerals into its horn?
(After all, humans consume and absorb iron through different foods.)
Unicorn fencing has already been documented by a canny few on the internet.
(Taken from [here on deviantart](https://www.deviantart.com/adamsteve1984/art/Unicorn-Fencing-203503576), image copyright of [AdamSteve1984](https://www.deviantart.com/adamsteve1984).)
(Taken from [here on cafepress](https://www.cafepress.co.uk/+unicorn_fencing_tile_coaster,913033755), design by [Niadra](https://www.cafepress.co.uk/profile/niadra).)
[Answer]
As some of the repliers have pointed out here, there are animals that are thought to have had a single, large horn in the middle of the forehead, such as the toxodont *Trigodon* or the rhinoceros *Elasmotherium*. There is another toxodont, *Hoffstetterius*, that has an even more pronounced base for a horn core. *Kubanochoerus* is an extinct pig that has a very pronounced projection of bone in the center of the skull. No one knows what it was used for. There is also an extinct bovid, *Tsaidmotherium*, that has an asymmetrical set of horns with one being placed close to the center of the skull near the forehead. Ironically it seems to be a member of the same group that includes one of the possible real-life inspirations for the unicorn, the chiru (*Pantholops hodgsonii*)
Many sets of plate armor for horses also have spikes set in the middle of the forehead, though whether that is for function or aesthetic purposes I do not know.
Chris Lavers goes into some details at to what a single horn in the middle of the forehead might be useful for in his book *The Natural History of Unicorns*. Similar to some other repliers here, he mentions that a single, straight horn in the middle of the forehead would be much better for spearing and thrusting than a typical bovid horn. However, he also provides some direct observations that support this. In some parts of Africa, the horns of cattle are artificially manipulated during growth for aesthetic purposes. Some calves have their horns manipulated so they point straight up through the middle of the forehead, rather than projecting out to the side. As adults, these bulls are oftentimes dominant in competing with other males over access to females because they can be much more aggressive in fights due to their forward-pointing horn structure, and they do seem to fight with a thrusting motion rather than locking horns.
I remember there was some suggestion that horns in the middle of the forehead were hard to develop because of how horn cores usually develop at the boundary between two bones or something. I think it was in the same book, but I am not sure. Notably in horned toxodonts and *Elasmotherium* the horn is thought to have been keratinous.
As people have pointed out, a horn in the center of the forehead would be much better suited for charging behavior because it is aligned with the spine. I'd like to add that a horn or plate in-like with the spine was one of the lines of evidence that led people to think that pachycephalosaurs butted heads, and while direct headbutting is controversial it is pretty clear they were using their heads to hit something. Plus a lot of animals often have large sinuses in the forehead region that can act as good shock absorbers when the horn makes contact.
A unicorn would almost certainly have a ridged horn. Those ridges in living horned animals aren't really used for anything but are the result of natural periodic growth due to the fact that the horn grows from the base continually throughout life (in contrast to deer antlers or pronghorn prongs which are shed annually). Mark Witton goes into some detail how this works [here](http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-horns-of-arsinoitherium-covered-in.html). The ridges don't usually prevent slipping. An horned ungulate usually *doesn't* want to get its horns stuck in a struggling predator, the purpose of the horn is to keep the predator away from its softer body by prodding it with the pointy end. They're not designed to kill in the same way that spears are.
The really gracile, ridgeless, spiral-shaped, white horn you see in a lot of unicorn depictions is clearly modelled after a narwhal tusk, which is a modified tooth. Narwhal tusk was often sold as unicorn horn in medevial Europe, though the actual legend likely draw more from Asiatic rhinoceroses and the chiru (which has close-set horns that can look like a single horn from a distance). A "real" unicorn almost certainly wouldn't look like a narwhal tusk, unless the horn was grown and shed annually like a deer antler (which have no covering). Otherwise it would probably be brownish or black (due to a keratin covering), ridged, non-spiraled, and possibly much more robust.
There is also the possibility that a unicorn doesn't just have horns, but tusks as well, and the horns and tusks are used for different tasks. There is a tendency in many ungulates to lose tusks when horns are developed (this is seen in ruminants, brontotheres, and rhinoceroses, among others) but there are exceptions. The Indian Rhinoceros mostly uses its tusks in fights between members of the same species and tends to use its horn for defense against predators, or so I've heard. *Kubanochoerus* and horned toxodonts also have both tusks and horns. A unicorn could use tusks or enlarged canines in social disputes, but then use the horn in a thrusting or jabbing motion against predators. The comparison would be like a lance or a spear compared to the shorter, more sword-like reach of a cow or goat horn. The horn may not be sticking straight up as in popular depictions, but angled forward so that the frontal, parietal, and nasal bones can form a better base of support. A really long horn would force predators to stay further back to avoid getting stabbed, so long as it's not so long that it interferes with feeding. Getting struck by the side of the horn probably wouldn't be fun either.
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[Question]
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The year is 2109 C.E my friends and I were caught in a space disaster when the spacecraft we're in broke apart during a daring escape from a patrolling spacecraft. We stole an antique cellphone (from 1999, in good working condition) from a space museum but our escape was interrupted and fortunately we managed to get into the escape pod and didn't get caught up in the explosion. The only emergency transponder in the escape pod isn't working probably due to the destruction of the spacecraft. Given the technology of 1999, is it possible for us to sent out a distress signal to alert the leaving patrol spacecraft?
Note: the cellphone was the most innovative product of 1999 money can buy.
The escape pod is not a Faraday cage we're talking about the future and the patrol spacecraft don't necessary be on a lookout for distress signal; please use these clues to your advantage.
If there is absolutely no way to transmit any man-made signal out, please state a valid reason why it can't be done.
[Answer]
Assets
* 1 obsolete piece of short range comms kit requiring a battery you probably can't charge
* 1 slightly malfunctioning escape pod with up to date comms that isn't working but you're still alive
Current standards say the Mayday should be broadcast on VHF channel 16 (156.8 MHz). A 1999 phone, probably on 2g would likely use 900MHz (UHF). The slightly broken comms unit in the pod is probably using channel 16 or equivalent\*. This is your first problem. The patrol ship will be listening in for signals broadcast on the mayday frequency. That's the frequency you need to hit, so first up is rebuilding your phone to that frequency.
*Or you could look at the pod comms system and see what's wrong.*
Your next problem is that your mobile phone's range is laughable in interstellar space. What's going to be even more laughable is when you try to use it in the radiation shielded environment of your escape pod. The signal, which is line of sight at the best of times, most likely won't even penetrate the hull. So now you need to hook it up to the external antenna used by the pod's own comms system.
*Or you could look at the pod comms system and see what's wrong.*
Now you need to make sure you're using the right broadcast method: are you on AM or FM? (There's no reason to think that 100 years from now they'd be able to pick up an analog signal)
*I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Fix the pod.*
Ultimately all you're going to do is rebuild a copy of the pod's own comms system with a batch of obsolete components. If you're good enough to do that you're good enough to fix the pod's own system which will be much easier.
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\*I mention channel 16 as an example to show that there are standards for distress signals and they're very different from the standards for mobiles, if you want someone to pick it up then you need to be broadcasting on a frequency they're listening on.
**[Distress frequencies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2182_kHz)**
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> 2182 kHz forms an essential part of the Global Maritime Distress Safety System (GMDSS). It has an associated DSC frequency at 2187.5 kHz. Other international distress frequencies, in use as of 2008, include:
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121.5 MHz - civil aircraft emergency frequency
243 MHz - military aircraft emergency frequency
156.8 MHz - Marine VHF radio channel 16, short range maritime use
406 MHz / 406.1 MHz - Cospas-Sarsat international satellite-based search and rescue (SAR) distress alert detection and information distribution system
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Discontinued frequencies
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500 kHz Morse code is no longer monitored.
121.5 or 243 MHz locators. (No longer automatically monitored by satellite, though still used for aircraft communication and short-range direction finding.)
Effective 1 August 2013, the U. S. Coast Guard terminated its radio guard of the international voice distress, safety and calling frequency 2182 kHz and the international digital selective calling (DSC) distress and safety frequency 2187.5 kHz. Additionally, marine information and weather broadcasts transmitted on 2670 kHz terminated concurrently.
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[Answer]
Absolutely. Simply write "S. O. S." on a piece of paper, wrap it around the phone, secure it with some tape or a rubber band, then put the phone in the air lock and open the external door. Now all you need is a deck of cards so you'll have something to do while you await rescue!
[Answer]
I vote yes.
A lot of the cellphones back then already had a camera and flashlight. Actually the flashlight in those phones is often just a bright light, it doesn't even flash.
With that light you can easily send an S.O.S. signal.
And that's technically sending a signal out of your spacecraft. (It needs windows though.)
[Answer]
No. The cellphone is not a general-purpose radio transmitter, and without a signal from a base station (the kind that exists in every cellphone tower) it won't send anything except the "hello, any base stations out there?" signal.
Modifying it to do anything else is impractical: it's built to operate with a base station network, and the logic of doing that is built into its chips. The manufacturers *wanted* it to be hard to hack, because doing so would allow malicious users to mess up the cellphone network.
[Answer]
A cellphone from our era transmits with a power between 0.6 and 3 watts. For comparision, the Voyager probes had a 12 watt antenna. To succeed, the Voyager had to aim its dish at Earth and large radio telescopes on Earth were needed to receive the feeble signal.
If the transponder's dish isn't broken and can be pointed to likely craft locations, a cellphone may therefore produce enough power for a signal, even if it's gibberish. A cellphone will usually max out its transmissions power when searching for a base station.
Aiming at a large radio telescope somewhere would be better than broadcasting aimlessly. If you can transmit to Earth when your pod passes directly between say, Earth and Mars with it colonies, a lot of radio telescopes on Earth would already be aimed your way.
[Answer]
Here is a top-of-the-line 1999 phone, apparently the first to feature a WAP browser: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7110>
No flashlight (high power white LEDs not having been invented yet). The phone is either a GSM or a TDMA model. Either way, it is an omnidirectional transmitter in the 900 or 1800/1900 MHz band.
When you turn on the phone, it looks for a network. If it finds no network, that is pretty much the end of story; it will display an error message and will continue to search for a non-existent base station.
Modifying the phone is not an option. Even if you had the right documentation and tools at your disposal, you are confronted with a small circuit board with numerous densely-packed surface mount components, and in any case, those components are custom-designed to connect to a cellular network, they are not general-purpose radio chips, for instance.
So I think your best bet is to take out the phone's battery (I assume it is in good working condition and charged), find some lose wiring, and try to build a spark transmitter. It is a horrible abuse of the battery, but it just might work... especially if you can also fashion a crude parabolic dish and aim it at your potential rescuers. Even so, unless your rescuers are a) nearby, and b) are aiming a parabolic dish at your direction, it is very unlikely that they will receive a signal... your SOS will basically disappear in the noise.
[Answer]
What a coincidence! I'm also from the year 2109 and that was MY museum you ripped off! I want my phone back. Wife misses it. Frankly, thieves deserve that fate of yours.
However, if I were in a giving mood, I might suggest another approach. My cellphone is omni-directional and is not meant to broadcast far. I don't remember precisely, but it MIGHT have an LED on the top. LED's are coherent light and experience much slower power dispersion than an omni antenna. Of course, you would have to know where to point it. You could easily rig a circuit to modulate the LED to send an SOS and other info ... if you have the know-how. Think "fiber-optics" without the fiber. Put several of these together and you have a little array of lasers which is more likely to be detected.
How far are you trying to send the signal? Light is very fast, but if you're in another galaxy, or even another solar system, forget it. Both dispersion and light travel time will mean you're stranded forever. A fitting end for theives, hmm?
I'm not up on current events, but we might have inter-planetary or Star Trek-esque subspace relays off of which you could bounce a signal and minimize dispersion.
Tell you what, keep the phone. Just let me know the hot stocks for the next 30 years.
[Answer]
**Yes, because of FCC test modes**
A lot of people are assuming that a cell phone can only talk to a cell base station. If you are constrained to the end-user interface that is true, but if you can use your 100-year-future version of today's JTAG pod to get inside the firmware, the hardware itself will have been capable of transmitting an umodulated carrier at various frequencies during regulatory testing, and you can use that to send a slow Morse Code call for help. Then it's only a question if someone happens to be listening on a frequency you can reach; with luck some of the phone's frequency range will have become a ham band in the intervening years (and maybe someone is known by that community to be a on [DX-pedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DX-pedition) to an asteroid in your general direction, causing high-gain receive antennas to be pointed your way)
It's theoretically possible that test modes on this level could be accessible from the keypad, especially as an oversight (lots of products have shipped with test modes someone forgot to take out, or maybe the phone's state gets corrupted by a cosmic ray, exposing something not meant to be exposed)
A downside is that you won't know your signal has been received, until the rescue arrives.
**It may go further than you think**
We're used to thinking of handheld radios as having a short range, because signals may not readily wrap around the earth's horizon, clear obstacles, etc, and when they marginally do higher transmitter power can help. But conditions of good ionospheric reflection you can communicate around the earth on a few watts. And with line-of-sight in space power is even less of an issue.
[Answer]
Yes you can.
**However**, the signal strength would be weak considering it's a cell phone and the range rather poor. Considering all the interference which could obstruct you (wall, other frequencies, magnetic fields, solar flares etc) your chances of reaching a receiver are close to zero unless it is in close proximity and actively searching for a signal.
[Answer]
# Create a Giant Antenna
Given that your pod components are somehow damaged-beyond-repair, remove all the reasonably-strong wire you can from it and splice it all together. Splice it into your cell phone's antenna (assuming that is the only source of power). Tie one end of the antenna to something heavy and heave it out the airlock with as much force as you can in the direction opposite the travel of the pod. (This will be tricky.)
Now, your cell phone has way too little juice to really make this matter, but it will serve as well as anything else for sending some signal down the antenna - even better if that signal, regardless of it's content, can be in the Morse-code short short short, long long long, short short short format. No encryption is needed for that. Failing that, any repeated signal will do as that is almost certainly man-made.
More importantly, if the rescue ship is doing any active scanning at all, being The Future and the computers are better, it should twig to the fact that there is an antenna - which will cause an [anomalous interference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_cross-section#RCS_of_an_antenna) with signals in a distinct 'line' pattern along the length of the antenna. If the computer knows that such an antenna shouldn't be there, it should flag it as maybe worth looking at. The longer the antenna the more likely that active scans (read: throwing various beams of light at various frequencies out) will pick up the anomaly. Energizing the antenna at a rhythmic pace will give the computer additional clues as to the fact what it is looking at is man-made.
Of course, if the amount of debris is too high, or there are a lot of signals bouncing around, this may be way too small a difference for anyone to really notice.
[Answer]
I think the your best option would be to re-use available gear to create a [spark-gap transmitter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter). As it works more like a radio jammer than well-behaving transmitter, you might interrupt someone's regular radio conversations ;)
[Answer]
# Yes
I vote for yes. Cell phones back then used to have huge batteries. You might be able to rig something up to transmit some kind or morse code just through electromagnetic interference noise.
How much power you can generate depends on how much wire you have and how much electrical current you're prepared to sacrifice.
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[Electromagnetic Interference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_interference)
Electromagnetic interference (EMI), also called radio-frequency interference (RFI) when in the radio frequency spectrum, is a disturbance generated by an external source that affects an electrical circuit by electromagnetic induction, electrostatic coupling, or conduction. The disturbance may degrade the performance of the circuit or even stop it from functioning. In the case of a data path, these effects can range from an increase in error rate to a total loss of the data. Both man-made and natural sources generate changing electrical currents and voltages that can cause EMI: automobile ignition systems, cell phones, thunder storms, the Sun, and the Northern Lights. EMI frequently affects AM radios. It can also affect cell phones, FM radios, and televisions.
EMI can be used intentionally for radio jamming, as in electronic warfare.
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[Answer]
Some things to consider:
* Is the cell phone still working? (Phones were pretty sturdy these days, so probably yes)
* Is the battery still working? (Alternatively you should be able to find a low voltage output somewhere in your pod, lets count this as yes as well)
* it would use GSM (2G) or UMTS (3G, if you are *very* lucky). Is this (still) supported on a planet near to you, additionally: is is a multi-band phone?
* Base stations, which you need for the connection are unlikely to transmit omni-directional, since they are made for surface dwellers. (I haven't tried to use my phone in a plane, but I suppose you would have a hard time to connect above 10 km height.
* you are likely to move rather fast relativ to a planet, even if you get the base stations, will they be able to hand you from one cell to the other? Related: digital radio (DAB) is said to get problems beyond 200 km/h (?), is there a limit for cell phone connections as well)
* Cell phone use omni-direcional antennae, additionally the signal is not very strong. You should consider building a high gain directional antenna (For wlan, there are some designs using foam and blank wires)
* cell phones transmit a digitally coded signal, i.e. unlike analog radio, you can't just listen in even if you manage to get a signal to a planet.
* there are some problems with the GSM protokoll if you cant log into a base station.
As it can be seen, there are some problems in using a cellphone in a normal way in space.
it might be easier to get a continuous carrier signal out of the phone (just 900Mhz or similar), try to build a directional antenna and use it for Morse code (signal on/of) in the direction of the next planet with a receiver.
[Answer]
Definitely not!
It is not possible today; even your cell phone in orbit around the Earth gets the signal from the ground. The signal is probably not strong enough to reach 200-300km altitude, but to point out the main problem let's say that it is possible. (Actually, I will be not so surprised if cell phone could recognize the signal from BTS for 200km range.)
## The main problem:
Even if the signal is OK and the phone can "see" a BTS and a network, the problem for GSM, as it has been mentioned already, is time slots.
Time slots limit the effective distance to 35km only.
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> This limited the original range of a GSM cell site to 35km as mandated by the duration of the standard timeslots defined in the GSM specification. The maximum distance is given by the maximum time that the signal from the mobile/BTS needs to reach the receiver of the mobile/BTS on time to be successfully heard. At the air interface the delay between the transmission of the downlink (BTS) and the uplink (mobile) has an offset of 3 timeslots. Until now the mobile station has used a timing advance to compensate for the propagation delay as the distance to the BTS changes. The timing advance values are coded by 6 bits, which gives the theoretical maximum BTS/mobile separation as 35km. [Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_advance)
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In other words when your phone gets a slot to speak, "now is your time to go", the response from your phone reaches the BTS too late to make a connection or to transmit data. GMS voice is just data transmission. If you were to boost your mobile phone signal, and the BTS had big gain antenna, you would *almost* hear the signal (as nonsense :) ), but your GSM phone will still be not able to work for a greater distance than 35km.
## Recommendations:
1. You can replace old GSM phone from 1999 with some archaic professional "walkie-talkie" which don't need any BTS or network infrastructure, don't emit the signal in quite complex modulation, are packed to the small data sets and also encrypted with a key received during 1st three-way handshake when your phone connects to the GSM network. But keep it professional, because consumer walkie-talkie is not powerful enough. The signal power is limited for civilian devices to a city band.
2. Instead of your guy's old GSM phone, try an old radio frequency transmitter. They need to power it somehow because the battery is dead, because it is an old device. So they find that they need, to simplify, 12V. There is an external 12V source plug.
In the spaceship there would be a lot of working devices. So they disassemble the main panel and try to find supply cables. From the power source of the panel, they power up the transmitter. (The assumption is that for powering electronic devices the supply power is usual 12V, so the panel and its units could be supplied with 12V; not the chips on the circuit board, they are about 5V or 3V, but units.)
Meanwhile on the Earth, there is a group of young students with their teacher just finish assembling a simple amateur radio receiver and they are trying to test if it is working. But something is disturbing the reference test signal in the lab ...
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I don't think you can, based on the simple fact that you might get lucky and grab a walkie talkie, which was popular around that time to build into a phone, (The ranges I see got for that are in the range of 30 to 40 miles. Low Earth Orbit is around 100 miles up.) the more likely event is that you get your hands on a [Nokia 3210](http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_3210-6.php) or maybe a [Nokia 9110](http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_9110i_communicator-18.php) which doesn't even have that possibility to reach LEO it seems, but their batteries, provided they work, have around 4 Wh of power so, yay...
Probably, a much better use of your time is to look for any object that can be used to focus light or produce a laser and use the battery of the phone to power that to send an SOS in morse code using the light. That might even be how we communicate then anyways and all you'd have to do is figure out where to point the thing and send a coherent message. In that case, you would need to just write a program that very rapidly turns on and off the laser to convery the binary keyboard inputs into binary and flashes of light. Then you'd have a real time one-way communication and be able to request help very easily at that point.
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Well as many gave noted here the cellphone is pretty much useless unless you do something. Since its hardwired to transmit a signal looking for towers nearby all it can do is that and you have to work with it. All you can do is give it a boost so it talks louder not different.
You cannot make 1999 technology do the work done by 2100 technology, but you can modify 20th century technology so they simply do better what they did before.
Remember you want to get rescued here, not reinvent the cellphone all over again, hence all you have to do is create a commotion, one of any kind, even one which is a loud "HELLO IS ANYONE THERE" signal.
Maybe your friends know basic engineering:
1.) Add external antenna to give cellphone boost in the unheard of levels
2.) Give the cellphone an unhealthy kind of power supply, make this thing rock whole planets (a figure of speech)
3.) Turn on all lights / camera flash / accessories when sending it out in a probe
4.) Send out a ping signal along with constant text messages everywhere asking for help maybe even a picture
5.) Put it all in a box and send it out with high hopes that someone notices it before it blows up
Remember, this isn't about safety or efficient design, its about a group of survivors who throw in their last ditch effort at being rescued. They don't want this drone floating around forever in space, because they wont survive forever, hell they're hoping it makes some noise,*a large amount of noise given their predicament and lack of equipment for a short period of time before it burns out* and then luckily get rescued by some ship which happened to notice this antique cellphone kinda signal from the 20th century because they happened to have an expert in their crew who noticed it. Why? Well the protagonist's dumb luck I guess
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**100% Yes**
Remember Morse code. You don't need much to make that work. So Take your cell, figure out which way you want to go. Either rework the radio bit to send out "something" (even static), or ditch the radio bits and use the lights.
Remember you don't need much to **send** Morse code.
Now as to having that signal be received, well. With the radio part the receiver would need to be "tuned" to the correct frequency. It has to be listening somehow. Even if your only managing to modulate static, someone has got to be listening to the static.
For the light, that's even more of a crap shoot. Someone or something need to be looking. That cell phone light isn't going to travel very far.
You might better spend your time making the port side spot light blink.
TL;DR sure you can use it to send a SOS. Rather it's received or not....
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Biggest problem would be the people figuring out how to use it. They did a test a few years ago, and people couldn't even figure out how to turn on an old computer, let alone use it.
NASA couldn't even build a saturn V rocket if their life depended on it. We can't build a flying Write Brothers airplane either.
Having been using zero point power cells for the last 50 years, the concept of a battery would be so foreign to them they would be stumped. The very idea of dc current would be like speaking chinese to a kenyan president. Everyone knows electricity is just used to to wow children in magic shows because it has no state or need to traverse along paths.
Besides, what if the raygun happy cops hear your SOS and tell you to drop the phone, and because sound doesn't travel in space you don't hear them. Rioting and burning the sun down would ensue.
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You absolutely can send any signal from the ship. Anywhere.
The trouble is, that intensity of the signal, and thus signal-to-noise ratio, decays with the factor 1/r2, where r is the distance.
So, without network that will transmit (receive, amplify, send) your S.O.S. signal none can hear it.
Shouting out loud will have the same effect...
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[
I have a world with nations with culture/magic tied to each element. The Fire Nation was in the middle of invading the Earth nation when a disease starts to spread rapidly through their nation weakening it's people and indirectly putting a halt to their invasion. The disease doesn't seem to affect the other nations nearly as badly, despite originating in Earth, leading to the commonly claim that it is a punishment from god sent to stop the invasion and only able to affect Fire and 'unworthy' citizens.
My intent is for the disease to be a normal non-magical disease, and to be eventually cured by a protagonist, call him Bob. The disease affects Fire so much worse because the other nations have protections against the disease that Fire lacks. Water has healing magic to cure the disease and Air is too well isolated to have every been exposed to it. More importantly I would like Earth citizens to have some aspect of their lifestyle or culture that coincidentally protects them from the disease.
I'm looking for a believable disease that can be thwarted by something Earth citizens usually do, and which Fire can adopt quickly to stop the spread of the disease and *ideally* help those already sick to recover from it.
Bob is trained in medicine, herbs, and mundane healing, plus having a bit more scientific view to medicine in a world where people tend to believe more in magic and mysticism. He also has learned Water's magical healing. Few know both healing styles and previous hostilities mean there are no other Water healers willing to help Fire. Water magic also helps him 'sense' illness, which he can use to identify what mundane treatments to use when medicine will work better then magic. He has spent some weeks/months traveling & healing individuals using his Water magic already and has a good familiarity with the disease when he ends up in a Earth city currently occupied by Fire where the disease is currently spreading to Fire, but few Earth, citizens. He also notices that the few Fire citizens who have started to adopt Earth customs also seem less affected by the disease
Curious why this is tries to figure out what is protecting Earth in hopes of discovering a non-magical cure. I want him to be able to figure out something that would work within a relatively short time (say few months at max, sooner the better).
To help justify why he can do it so quickly when other's haven't I thought he would be aided by the combination of scientific medicine with Water magic allowing him to more thoroughly 'sense' differences between Earth/Fire/Sick/Healthy citizens to identify what is different, along with most citizens accepting the divine explanation and thus not looking for a mundane cure. The disease is also only been a problem for a little while, say 5-8 months by the time he cures it, so there hasn't been that much time to discover a cure. Still, justifying why he is able to find a solution so fast without someone else stumbling upon it would be great!
While I doubt I'll get everything Ideally I'd like a disease and cure that fit as many criteria as possible:
* Scientifically believable to exist
* the disease doesn't kill very fast, but renders one so weak they struggle to do daily tasks and is not quickly recovered from
* The cure can help those already infected recover, not just prevent new infections.
* cure can be discovered fast by Bob but not be so obvious someone else should have guessed it.
* Fire can adopt the cure quickly such that they can be back up to something close to fighting strength in a reasonable quick time, again a few months,
* The common peasants of Fire can benefit from this cure even if Fire's government puts little effort into helping them, ie not a large logistical overhead to enacting it.
* Doesn't draw the attention of Fire's leaders to Bob, who he's hiding from, Fire citizens often are willing not to report the guy helping them.
My original idea was that there is a staple food item of Earth that happens to provide some nutrient or even bacteria that helps fight off the disease (think a yogurt grown from a bacteria with some antibacterial property particularly effective against the disease?). My biggest issue with the idea is the logistics of it, It's likely the food would have to be stolen from Earth to get enough to treat Fire's citizens, and with limited supplies of food this means starving Earth and Fire likely only bothering to get the cure to the rich and military and not to the peasants that Bob is actually most interested in curing. I don't think Bob would reveal the secret if he knew it wouldn't help the common man and would lead to more war and starvation for Earth citizens. If the food stuffs was something that wasn't hard to get hold of in sufficient quantity to cure folks without Fire's stealing the food that would work, but why would Fire have enough in it's own borders to treat everyone but not have poor citizens already eating it?
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*Necator americanus* (Hookworm) and latrines.
[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm_infection#Life_cycle)
Up until the early 1900s, [people in the Southern United States](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/how-a-worm-gave-the-south-a-bad-name/) would just go #2 by going out to the field and squatting. The problem is that there are parasites, namely hookworm, that can crawl out of old poo and reinfect people by burrowing into their feet when they go out to the same area, to poop again or maybe do some farm work. This is why using "night-soil" as fertilizer is an extremely bad idea. While a few hookworms aren't that bad, *too* many can cause:
* severe lethargy
* nausea
* loss of appetite
* diarrhea
* abdominal pain
Enter the solution: a pit latrine. Dig a hole deep enough so the hookworms can't find another foot to invade before they die, and problem solved. There's [a Radiolab piece on it](http://www.radiolab.org/story/91691-sculptors-of-monumental-narrative/).
For your point where you want the disease to clear quickly, hookworms have a months-to-years-long residency in the body, but there are other [soil-transmitted diseases](http://www.who.int/intestinal_worms/en/). Or your hookworm could just have quicker turnover. Also, in your Fire Nation, maybe they could burn/boil/heat (sterilize/pasteurize) their poop if they really wanted to use it as fertilizer. Maybe there's a [zoonotic parasite](https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/animals.html) present in other animals' poo that could cause a more transient infection and where there's more of a reason to reuse the manure as fertilizer. Maybe just in an animal that the Fire Nation uses as a beast of burden/livestock?
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# Smoking.
This was the plot of a science fiction story back in one of the pulps during (I estimate) the early 60s.
In this case, the organism is a slow-multiplying pneumococcus bacterium which itself is essentially a minute partly-magical parasite which is stimulated by excess levels of fire magic, which obviously appear in the bodies of the Fire nation. Smoking works because smoke is the byproduct of fire, and so tends to absorb Fire energy, essentially smothering the parasite. Tobacco exists in the Fire nation, but smoking has never taken hold since in the long run it is extremely injurious to the Fire nation inhabitants. But it works more quickly on the parasite than on people, so smoking kills it and then the patient stops smoking. The whole process is similar to chemotherapy, whose agents are themselves toxic, only more to cancer cells than to others.
The effect was noted when earth POWs were allowed to smoke, and in the process some of their guards were seen to come down with the disease but then, in defiance of all experience, recovered.
Even better, the guards were assigned to be guards because they were in early stages of the disease's debilitation and not suited for more strenuous duties. Guard duty is not physically demanding, so affected soldiers could perform the duty for a while. Then, of course, they started recovering. Bob was part of the guard unit, but was the only one to make the connection.
With the collapse of the invasion, the influx of earth POWs has ceased. With no new POWs bringing cigarettes the POW population has had to quit cold-turkey. So the cures were only a transient phenomenon, and the government is in the dark about what smoking can do. This gives Bob the position of being the only one who has figured it out.
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**Scurvy**
from Lind's [A treatise on the scurvy.](https://archive.org/stream/treatiseonscurvy00lind/treatiseonscurvy00lind_djvu.txt)
>
> The following relation is no less curious. A sailor in the Greenland
> ships was so over- run and disabled with the scurvy, that his
> companions put him into a boat, and sent him on shore ; leaving him
> there to perish, without the least expediation of a recovery. The
> poor wretch had quite lost the use of his limbs -, he could only
> crawl about on the ground. This he found covered with a plant, which
> he, continually grasing like a beast of the field, plucked up with
> his teeth. In a short time he was by this means perfedtly re-
> covered 'y and, upon his returning home, it was found to be the herb
> scurvygrass.
>
>
>
This is a disease that meets all your criteria. The question: why did Fire people not suffer from scurvy before this event? The answer: they did, but it got worse. Mild scurvy was probably endemic in winter months in Northern Europe. Your fire people could be indifferent to vegetables most of the time but then during the war got away from greens and vegetables entirely, and so came down with the scurvy. You can die of scurvy but you can also bounce back fast.
Nutritional diseases were hard for people back in those days. They were mixed in with lots of other diseases. **Pellagra** is another great example: maize is a wonderful crop but once the Italians began living on it they developed rampant pellagra. I read an account of a mid 19th century Mexican scientist who attending a meeting on pellagra. He pointed out that the Italians were preparing their maize incorrectly: it should be mixed with lime. Of course he was roundly ignored. But that is why the Mexicans did not get pellagra over the centuries they lived on maize - lime releases the niacin.
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Kosher food practices.
For example, the disease is spread by eating the meet of the smerp. The Earth Nation's religion forbids eating this animal, but the Fire Nation has no such prohibition.
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For an interesting and quite possibly real example (though of prevention rather than cure), see Voltaire's Letter on smallpox: <http://www.bartleby.com/34/2/11.html>
>
> The Circassian women have, from time immemorial, communicated the small-pox to their children when not above six months old by making an incision in the arm, and by putting into this incision a pustule, taken carefully from the body of another child.
>
>
> In order, therefore, to preserve the life and beauty of their children, the only thing remaining was to give them the small-pox in their infant years. This they did by inoculating in the body of a child a pustule taken from the most regular and at the same time the most favourable sort of small-pox that could be procured. ...
> The Turks, who are people of good sense, soon adopted this custom, insomuch that at this time there is not a bassa in Constantinople but communicates the small-pox to his children of both sexes immediately upon their being weaned.
>
>
>
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Washing hands. Seriously. As fire people, they might minimize contact with water through cultural taboo. Washing hands is a very serious anti-microbe WMD. But what seems obvious to us today took until the mid 1800s to be understood. Ignaz Semmelweis noticed a pattern of dying vs. surviving in hospitals that made him finally see the connection.
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One thing that you may want to have is different methods of water purification. Historically communities purified water by turning into a weak form of booze making it safe to drink. However you could have it since most people (and especially troops) of the fire nation have the ability to summon fire literally at their finger tips they ban most forms of alcohol from their fire mage who are in turn supposed to boil their water to make it safe to drink.
Then all you need is some form of disease, fungus, parasite, or other pathogen that exists primarily in the earth nation that can survive being boiling for the amount of time people usually boil their water.
A good way of showing this in the culture is the earth nation could think that tea, coffee, and other drinks where you boil water are terrible for your health and drink only booze as it is the "healthy" and "natural" option
**Edit**
After reading the comments and looking into it a bit more I realized having the entire earth nation drink only their preferred form of alcohol may not be viable however I have two more options
Option 1
The earth kingdom believes all rivers and lakes to be cursed (probably because drinking from them will make them sick more often than not) and as such think only water given to them from the earth is safe. So even though they may have rivers and lakes nearby they drink exclusively from wells and aqueducts that come from either underground springs or mountain ice melts (both of which may be considered sacred by the earth nation).
This is made practical by the fact that digging a well for the earth kingdom is not a multi day endeavor with multiple people digging with shovels you just need one moderately powerful earth mage to think really hard for an afternoon and then you have a new well. Since digging many wells quickly is not viable for the fire nation they will tend to either disregard the earth nations superstition and drink from the perfectly good rivers and lakes or drink from the earth nation wells if wherever they conquer doesn't destroy or poison the wells.
Option 2
This still goes with the earth nation believing that rivers and lakes are cursed. They will take the time to do a ritual to ask the earth god( if you have one) to remove the curse by running the water through a sand filter <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_filter> This filter will obviously be crude in many cases and there will probably be an industry of selling better filters than one can make at home as better filters = better curse breaking ability. As the filters can be seen as a strange cultural thing it would be easy for the fire nation to ignore this as part of the local superstition since large towns and cities would likely still be supplied by wells and aqueducts. Also I think where they get sand from can generally be hand waved as earth mages can just make sand out of rocks or clean the sand filters.
Out of all three of my ideas you can mix and match them since they are not mutually exclusive, so people may prefer to drink beer made of water from a holy mountain that was filtered through the grand filter in the church.
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Make the disease the Bubonic plague and have Earth keep cats in their households. The cats eat the rats that host the fleas that carry the plague.
This doesn't cure the plague but it prevents it in Earth cities. Earth citizens would then not be too keen on visiting other lands since they can and would catch the plague in cities without cats. They may bring the plague back with them but it wouldn't spread very far.
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How about introducing the malaria mosquito? To keep your own protected, the cultural habit of drinking tonic water (with or without the gin) You could keep the ingredient quinine or more probably, the source of the quinine a state secret.
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# Burial Practices
The fire people practice funerary cannibalism, and are therefore susceptible to [Kuru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)), a slow disease that is transmitted by consumption of the brain.
The Fire nation believes that, just as all fire proceeds from fire, so all life proceeds from life. When somebody dies, their fire goes out, just as an untended flame will wither and die. But, just as two flames brought together will burn as one, so two people, brought together into the same body, will burn together. After a person's flame has gone out, but before the embers have died down, the community gathers to honor them. Each person eats part of the deceased, taking their flame. This way, so long as the community survives, the flames of the ancestors will never go out.
The Earth people believe that life proceeds from the ground, and returns to the ground to grow again. This is seen in the daily cycle of eating meals from the ground, followed by defecation into the ground. It is also seen in the cycle of a life, where each child learns first to walk, then to run, but will eventually return to the ground. When an Earth person dies, they are buried, that the strength that they borrowed from the earth may rest, and return to strengthen future generations.
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Actual real world example: Beriberi in countries where white rice is eaten, especially 19th century Japan.
White rice is deficient in vitamin B1 and there was a cultural belief that cheaper cereals were for the poor. The upper classes did develop beriberi but the traditional dietary cures were discarded when Western medicine became known and people started to believe that it was caused by bacteria.
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Realistically, you could make it a *combination* of practices that give the Earth people an advantage over the Fire people.
Say the disease in question is similar to giardiasis, a parasitic infection of the intestine acquired from contaminated water and fecal matter, which can also be spread directly between people. The Earth people could be protected by:
* Acquired resistance;
* Drinking tea, which is rendered safe by boiling;
* Religious cleanliness rituals; and
* Eating foods seasoned with herbs that combat the disease. (I’ve read claims that in real life this includes garlic and long pepper, but I can’t speak to their accuracy, so you could just invent something.)
The invaders might be made vulnerable by:
* Running out of beer (also rendered safe by boiling, and alcohol to a lesser extent) and switching to contaminated sources;
* Poor hygiene practices in the field, such as infrequent bathing or lack of latrines;
* Not using the aforementioned healing herbs in their food; and
* Suffering from nutrient deficiency, or using other recreational drugs (liquor, something like amphetamine) that suppress the immune system, making them more vulnerable to infection.
You could also make the parasite common only in Earth territory, for example due to different climate. So it mainly affects the invaders because they’re invaders—ordinary Fire people are perhaps more vulnerable than ordinary Earth people, but it’s mainly the logistics of army life that cause the outbreak. And they can be cured by adopting Earth people customs: taking herbs that treat the disease, and improving sanitation and diet to prevent it.
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# **Cholera**
This disease ravaged Europe in the 19th century. Its main symptoms are severe diarrhea, vomitting and stomach pain. It does not have a high mortality rate (less than 10%), but the way it affects people can be terrifying : through extreme dehydration, a strong and healthy man can be transformed into a living ghost only in a few hours, unable to do anything but lie in bed.
The disease usually comes from contaminated water, for exemple a well dug right next to a septic tank ([see Broad street pump cholera outbreak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak)). You can imagine that Earth nation has one or several of the followings to prevent the disease (chose the ones that fit your story the best) :
1. Sacred places to drink water from, not located inside the cities
2. proper sanitation system, with sewers and/or aqueduc to bring clean water
3. Some sort of national booze like SilverShdow suggested. I wouldn't be surprised this was a comon thing in Antiquity or in the Middle-Ages.
4. Some sort of National boiled beuverage like thea.
5. Garlic. You may have to make some additional research on this, but garlic usually helps against all sorts of infections (I tested it on several occasions).
6. Burning bodies. It always helps a lot against all sorts of illness. Especially if the fire nation use to honor the dead for a few days before burrying it.
None of these solutions can cure the disease, they just prevent it. One way to help the ill is to make them drink lots of water and something countaining sodium, like salt. Maybe your hero can make this discover shortly before/after realising that the disease comes from water.
If not taken care of, such a disease can spread rapidly : one infected well or pound can affect hundreds of persons. I don't know how long it lasts, but you can make it long enough so a significant portion of the army and the people is ill at the same time, and the rest too busy caring for the dead and the dying to actually help for the war effort.
Once the source of the Cholera discovered, people can just stop drinking water from where they poop (or the other way around), or produce high quantity of booze/thea/garlic/whatever. Then, with almost no new case to deal with, the number of sick fire guys decreases, allowing the army to march again, despite being weakened.
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I know you are asking for a disease but simply having a parasite that Fire, Earth, and Water all encounter and simply making the other two nations resistant too seems like a better idea. It's realistic and wouldn't be discovered very quickly.
To add resistance there could be a substance in the food the other nations eat. For example, not a ton of people eat rice in the U.S. but it is a staple food in Asia. So while rice may not be the cure, a crop that has a substance that is debilitating to the parasites that is cheap to make once you have the seeds for it might be a good option.
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For something of an Earth flavor... salt. Fire Nation treats it as a luxury; Earth Nation treats it as a staple of cooking. With salt, lots of bacterial spread is retarded. Adding salt won't cure those already sick but will slow spread for bacteria.
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Two examples come to mind:
1) malaria -- recurring disease that often does not kill but makes person very weak. The earliest cure (quinine) was discovered by Jesuits based on observation of indigenous people making concoction from bark of cinchona tree. Cultural habits that could be adopted from other culture would be sleeping under nets and adopting ritual of drinking tea from tree bark.
2) AIDS -- caused by HIV, does not kill fast, but it seems that circumcision greatly reduce the chances of disease transmission. This would lack the requirement of finding cure for already sick, but arguably, adopting cultural habits like circumcision and, for example, more prohibitive rules on sexual life would help to put the spread under control.
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[Ergotism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism) fills all your requirements.
Fire people eat black rye bread. I'd expect fire land to be a dry place and fire people not to know about ergot. But in the moister earth soils, fire cultivation methods will make the ergot thrive.
When they started to seize the earth plains, the fire guys started farming them with cheap labor (exactly as Romans did when they conquered Sicily) and send the crop to feed their army and cities. They won’t use crop rotation and they won’t double-check their crops for fungi. The downside is that it needs at least one year after the invasion for the epidemic to start, maybe more.
Basically, the harvest is just after the foreboding unexpectedly strong rain season. Good point is, it won’t be traced back, as the flour will be sent to be sold in the capital and mixed with non-contaminated one before getting sent back to the soldiers. And who would expect honest fire peasants cultivating rye, as they have always done, to be the culprits? (In the real world, it took them centuries to find it out.)
Another good point is, the more you’re involved with the invasion (being a soldier, buying goods from invaded lands), the greater the chance that you’ll be eating contaminated bread, without this being a specific rule.
Earth people are pretty much immune to ergotism, they eat white wheat bread, the whiter the better. Just make Bob stumble upon a sack of contaminated wheat, discarded because it's not white enough.
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**Filariasis**
Fever is a pretty effective treatment for a lot of things, so much so that malaria has been used to treat [leprosy](http://ila.ilsl.br/pdfs/v6n2a02.pdf) and [end-stage syphilis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Wagner-Jauregg).
However, leprosy doesn't respond nearly as well to fever as filariasis does, according to [this doctor again](http://ila.ilsl.br/pdfs/v6n2a02.pdf). Protracted fever in malaria patients causes a near-complete extinction of the parasites.
So perhaps the Earth Nation has a strong tradition of bathing in hot springs? Or volcanic mud baths, which is definitely a thing people do worldwide wherever there are hot mud pools. Thematically that makes sense, submerging yourself in the literal earth makes sense as a custom for an Earth Nation.
The Fire nation can take up building sweat lodges or something.
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**A disease that only affects some type of herds and transmits to humans**
One of the main ideas behind religious and cultural prohibition of some meats in some cultures points back to eras in our past where those food inputs were either unhealthy, poisoned or dying with some kind of disease.
>
> Why can't we eat Lord TwistedTail, mom? we're hungry. ~Because *\*insert god\** says so, timmy.
>
>
>
It could as well be that the fire nation is the only nation that uses mass cow amounts as meat input to their weather conditions, and thus, the only one affected by [A really interesting disease not long ago, in a galaxy not far, far away.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy)
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Obesity
a disease that can be cured by taking healthy food habit and lifestyle available in the culture and gastronomy of some indigenous culture that lacks fast food, but focuses on natural food or spiritually awakening and nature friendly lifestyle.
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[
In this world I'm making, I'm trying to avoid firearms (to keep things like melee weapons more balanced), but also be more industrial. I'm justifying it by the simple idea of 'we never discovered gunpowder'. However, with that void, what's there to fill? Sure, bows and crossbows and such a great and all, but humanity loves to improve upon their ways of murder. What would they make after getting bored with bows and crossbows? Feel free to use any kind of tech from anywhere up to the 1940s.
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## Siege weapons
Before there were cannons, they used ballista, catapults and other weapons to delivered large projectiles at far distances.
In a history without cannons, they would have developed into fearsome beasts.
The ballista is probably the best. It is basically a *really* big crossbow.
They originally had a bad habit of falling apart. The forces involved are enormous. With better materials and better understanding of engineering they should last much longer.
They were hard to transport. With modern cars and roads, no longer a problem. Well, smaller problem. And there is a railway near your target? Heavy Gustav time!
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The logical step after guns is machine guns, so the logical step after crossbows is rapid-fire crossbows.
Multi-fire devices did exist in Antiquity, a bit. The [Panjagan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjagan) was a device for firing five arrows at once. The [Polybolos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybolos) was a crossbow with some aspects of machine-guns.
I like the idea of pedal-powered polybolos/machine-crossbow, but I like pedal-power for everything in my worldbuilding :) Pedalling allows you to do about 20× as much work as you would do with your hands, and became a mature technology in the 1800s. A guy pedalling, driving gears and a chain drive that simultaneously [tensions the device, places the bolt and fires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_crossbow), could unleash a lot of destructive force very quickly. Obviously this is in a vehicle, probably something four-wheeled, rather than an infantry weapon.
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Air-rifles are an option. Projectile weapons operated by compressed air can be fairly powerful (ridiculously so according to [some](https://www.airforceairguns.com/The-Texan-by-AirForce-Airguns-s/118.htm#:%7E:text=The%20Texan%20is%20the%20world%27s,The%20AirForce%20Texan%20delivers%20a%20.) reports)
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How about a [centrifugal gun](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_gun)? Steam powered, manually operated or even electric. That would be quite within the desired range of technology.
Also an unrelated thought: "poor ferrite ore" (like it was in old Japan or even worse) is a very good excuse to limit firearms spread, while still having modern chemistry. If the whole world had really bad metal ore, it would make mass usage of artillery and firearms difficult simply because steel is precious and a longsword or a rifle cost so much it is basically impossible to arm an army with those even if you know how to make them.
Would also limit high pressure steam engines and combustion engines. But would not much impede the development of chemistry, electricity, construction. So you can have things like modern chemistry and medicine, telegraph, even radio, while combatants still have to resort to melee weapons made of softer metals. You can even go crazy with high density plastic full plates, ceramic swords and other somewhat high tech stuff. That may turn out to be a really fun setting.
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Here's my Answer:
**Optics**
You have Glasses, Telescopes, Binoculars all within your time period. One of the biggest advancement in Military Firearms of late has been the switch from having a single guy in a Platoon with a DMR or similar weapon with a scope, to every man in the Squad having an optical sight on their main Rifle.
There's the famous case where the US Military thought the US Marines were executing combatants in Fallujah - nope, it turned out that they had finally started getting ACOG optics for every man and the Marines (ever Marine a Rifleman...) were just out there headshoting every combatant.
Therefore, having a large proliferation of Optics for Crossbows makes sense.
Also, in terms of 'real worldliness' - one of the main impediments to large-scale optics usage on Firearms is that the Recoil impulse of a round being fired generates a lot of stress on an Optic (Pistol slide-mounted optics are particularly affected) - a Crossbow does have recoil, but it's recoil impulse is over a much longer period, meaning there doesn't need to be as much engineering on the Optic to prevent things like 'Wandering Zero' that affects Firearms.
Edit: Also - before anyone says it - whilst the effective range of a Crossbow (currently) is within 100 yards, there is still a massive tactical advantage to being able to spot an Enemy out past your standard visual ranges. WW2 demonstrated this, where using the Naked Eye (and of course the Terrain/surroundings of Europe) most engagements were happening within 400m - Trying to see an adult Human, 400 metres away who is either not silhouetted or otherwise standing in the open is actually really difficult - so an Optic on a Crossbow would have that additional benefit.
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## Chemical weapons
"up to 1940s" covers World War 1, [which saw widespread use of chemical weapons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapons_in_World_War_I) like chlorine and mustard gas. During the later parts of WW1 they were usually delivered via artillery, but the first use of them were canisters placed on the ground upwind of the enemy. Other possible delivery systems for chemical weapons would be to have canisters that can deploy poison gas remote-controlled or via trigger mechanism when the enemy is nearby. Or you could drop them from a balloon, plane or airship.
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The compound bow and crossbow. Conventional bows like longbows require a certain amount of strength and training to be effective. The cross bow allowed you use mechanical devices like a winch to pull back the bow string or to just be in a better position using your back and legs instead of just pulling with your arm. They were slower too load and fire but troops could be trained to use them quickly.
A compound bow uses cams and pulls to reduce the amount of force to hold back a bow in the full draw position. In addition since the force increase as the string moves form the back to front position the arrow get a increasing acceleration and ends up moving faster. With a conventional bow the speed to string is actually decr4easing as it moves forward and the majority of the trust applied to arrow is at the initial release. A compound cross bow is possible as it does have advantages in the arrow speed, but the drop off in force when held at full draw is not a big advantage.
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In the absence of gunpowder the bow is the one of the best projectile weapons. Crossbows may not be as quick or as powerful as longbows but there are several advantages to them. If you look at the progression of crossbow design and the number of different options available today you'll see that there are a lot of things you can improve on.
The big issue you're facing though is that crossbows are *slow*. They make up for this in various ways, but the rate of fire of a crossbow is just terrible. And the stronger the draw the slower it gets. For a light crossbow you can probably span the bow by hand in a second or two, but anything over about 100 pounds of draw you're going to want to use a [spanning tool](https://todsworkshop.com/blogs/blog/crossbows-spanning-methods).
But what you really want is this thing:
[](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AutomaticCrossbows)
(That's a folding automatic crossbow with bolt magazine. Powered by \*mumble\* \*mumble\* produced by monks or something. For shooting at vampires a lot, because apparently he can't aim.)
As fantasy as that looks, it's potentially doable. That magazine on the bottom has a set of bolts (OK, stakes, because vampires) in a race around the outside and the rest of the magazine is devoted to storing power for the spanning mechanism. A set of parralel spiral springs (like old-time watches used to use) could potentially hold enough mechanical power to do the job, and could be wound in sequence when preparing the magazine.
Not going to lie though, the draw on that thing would be terrible. Who needs a crossbow you can fire twice a second if the bolt can barely pierce naked skin?
To go faster than that you need to stop looking at bows completely and start looking at alternative-power rifles.
A high power air rifle today is more than a match for muskets and other early firearms, but if you really want an autmatic weapon worth the name then you'll need the technology to produce and contain liquid CO2. Then you can make these bad boys:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1qqVe.jpg)
What do you mean "just a toy"? That's a fully automatic .68-cal firearm with a maximum muzzle velocity over 400 ft/s. I know this because we had to tune the damned things down a lot during tournaments. The velocity is a little lower when you're firing solids instead of gel (don't ask me how I know this one, just take my word for it), but you can put all sorts of terrible things through them: acid, napalm, explosive, frangible rounds, you name it. And as long as your feed is clear - and the marker is well maintained - 10 rounds per second is easy, 15 is achievable. And that hopper on the top holds over 200 rounds.
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If they don't invent explosives, they may still invent metallurgy. So they'll have hand weapons and heavy weapons powered by strong steel springs. Compress some truck springs, and you can launch iron spears at armies from a distance.
A "machine gun" might fire large "cartridges", each containing a suitably sized bolt and a precompressed spring. Precompressed springs takes away the need to manually compress springs on the battlefield, enabling rapid fire.
Steam power allows steam cannons, and perhaps a clumsy steam powered tank. But you cannot run around carrying a steam engine, so the smaller arms would be spring powered. And a sword could be handy, when you run out of those heavy spring cartridges.
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## Just look at modern bows/crossbows
Your average ancient or medieval bow/crossbow maxes out at a firing velocity of about 150-200fps (45-60mps). Modern bows and crossbows can fire at 300-500fps (90-150mps).
So, lets say that you have an averages medieval 100lb bow that fires an 80 gram, 55mps arrow with a total Kinetic Energy of 121 J (based on KE=1/2mv2). Now lets take a more modern bow (if made to a 100lb draw) could fire a 60gram arrow at 90mps resulting in a total Kinetic Energy of 243 J. Twice the power thanks to better materials and design... but it's actually more than twice as good.
There is a principle in terminal ballistics that small fast moving objects tend to pernitrate armor better than slower heavier projectiles of the same kinetic energy. This has to do with concentration of force and shear. When you have a smaller, lighter arrow, it tends to have a smaller cross-section so it needs to displace less armor to pernitrate. The other important factor is sheer, when you hit a solid object slowly, the solid object spreads the force out across its surface meaning you are actually being resisted by a much larger cross-section than just the diameter of your arrow. But as speed increases, your penetrator gets to push through the armor faster than the armor can spread the force out meaning that you effectively reduce your cross-section just by moving faster. So, between greater speed, and smaller size, a modernized crossbow will pernitrate armor over twice as well as medieval bows and crossbows of a given draw weight.
Then there is range and accuracy. A 55mps bow has a maximum theoretical range of about 300m (give or take a bit for air-resistance, elevation, etc.) and an effective range of about 50m. This said, a faster 90mps arrow would have a maximum theoretical range of about 820m and an effective range of over 100m.
Lighter arrows also mean you can carry more/cheaper ammo.
These modernized bows and crossbows can lead to 2 possible trends. High draw-weight weapons that can punch right trough steel plate armor just like muskets did, and smaller 50lb bows that can out perform historical 100lb warbows. 50lb bows are MUCH easier to master than historical warbows because a man of normal strength can draw and fire them repeatedly, and you draw it to you eye instead of past your body allowing you to line up your shots. These factors mean you can train up effective archers almost as fast as crossbowmen who can out perform not just archers, but early firearms as well.
## The Technology Timeline
### Steal Compound Bows would likely come first
The first major advancement will be the compound bow system. In our world, this came much later than it could have. Pullies have been around for a long time, and if they are added to the steel arm arbalists of the medieval period, then you would have seen much more powerful, easier to use crossbows. The problem with steel crossbows is that they were already pretty much obsolete by the time they started to come into thier own; so, they were never rigorously developed like we did with firearms. Thier steel arms has massive draw weights, but could only flex a few inches meaning that a 600-1200lb crossbow was often no stronger than an 80-150lb longbow.
The reason we don't see compound systems used on any previous forms of bows or crossbows is that they are useless for materials that you can already flex a reasonable distance by hand. What compound systems do is allow you to turn a high poundage, low speed, short draw into a low poundage, high speed, long draw which allows one to convert potential energy into acceleration much more efficiently. Wooden/horn/bone/senue bows don't benefit from pullies, but steel bows benefit a lot.
By adding compound pullies to a steel crossbow, you can increase its draw length and speed and reduce its draw weight; so, you could make crossbows that could be drawn quickly by hand, but pack just as much punch as thier lever drawn counterparts... or you could make windlass drawn crossbows much stronger than any of their medieval counterparts.
If this invention came before gunpowder, then it is likely that guns would have never found thier place on the battlefield (at least not until someone figures out rifling)
### Next would come repeating crossbows
Historically, many civilizations experimented with repeating crossbows like the Chinese Chu-ko-nu, but ultimately, these weapons never caught on because they sacrificed too much power and accuracy in exchange for thier increased rate of fire.
One problem is that you still rely on the strength of human arms to draw the weapon back, so the faster you can draw it, the weaker it will be. A hand drawn crossbow is simply too weak, and a magazine fed bow like the Instant Legolas makes your bow so much harder to aim that at any real combat ranges, you'd miss more than the extra arrows would benefit you.
That said, if your compound steel crossbow can now be hand-drawn to an effective power, then you can add in magazines and have the accuracy and ease of use of a crossbow with the rate of fire of a bow making a repeating crossbow that could actually hold its own on the battlefield.
### Last would probably come Better Materials
The next major advancement will be resin fiberglass. Resin and fiberglass are 2 of those ancient things that gets too much credit as modern inventions. While **synthetic** resin and fiberglass did not exist until the early 1900s, natural resin and fiberglass usage goes all the way back to the ancient world. By the 1200s, the use of laminating fibers like silk and sinew to wooden bow frames was already common in some parts of the world, and the use of natural fiber glass (asbestos) in cloth making was common in other parts of the world. In our timeline, composite bow making was a dying art by the time these cultures really started to intermingle; so, fiberglass resin composites were never really experimented with until we achieved synthetic, more widely available versions of these materials.
However, if the gun never happened, the composite bow would have remained relevant long enough for these civilizations to trade the right materials and technologies for someone (maybe lacking silk or sinew) to try to see how well asbestos would work. And when they finally try this, they will learn a very important lesson.
Fiberglass holds more potential energy for its weight when flexed than wood or steel and snaps back to it's original shape faster than these other materials. A thin facing of resin fiberglass on a wooden bow significantly improves how fast it can snap back to its resting shape and imparts significantly more acceleration than wood or steel in the process.
This said... pure resin/fiberglass composites, like steel, is much harder to flex than pure wood; so, without a compound mechanism, pure fiberglass is not a very good bow making medium. But when you add together compound mechanisms and fiberglass, you get the basic key components of true modern crossbows.
## Conclusion
It is my estimation that the lack of firearms will accelerate these inventions significantly... though by how much it is hard to say. The thing is that all of the prerequisite technology needed to make a 300+ fps crossbow existed 800 years ago, we just did not put it all together until the 1900s; so, as a writer you can really put these discoveries more or less where ever you like between the late 1300s and early 1900s without them seeming too outlandish.
Alternately, if you just speed up the invention of these things, you could just plain make bows and crossbows outperform firearms so much that they never catch on. Early guns were not great, but they caught on because they could do to armor what bows and crossbows could not, but if compound crossbows caught on before early muskets were invented, then muskets would have never been more than a curiosity item. And if they never saw mainstream success, then there is no telling how much longer it would take us to invent things like riffling, gas repeaters, bullets, and all those things that really made the gun what it is today.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mNSA5.png)
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## Grenade launchers
They would be able to do a lot of damage and have a lot of flexibility due to allowing different kinds of ammunition (explosive, shrapnel, incendiary...), but they would not compete with melee weapons because they would be unusable in close-quarter combat. Technically, the grenade launchers could be implemented as slingshots, upscaled crossbows, spring mechanism or via compressed air.
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I think quick-reload and automatic weapons are still useful next steps.
If you have elastic material slingshots are great. This channel might give you some good inspiration on all of the above: <https://www.youtube.com/@Slingshotchannel>
Also, a lack of gunpowder should make engagements more quiet this would probably increase the value of stealth operations. Therefore, better disguises would be a plausible development.
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Following on from the suggestions of paintball guns and air rifles, I'll propose a no-compressed air option.
Pedal power, steam power, or some sort of wind-up mechanism provides a some rotational power (more below). This power is used to tension a spring - I'm thinking it'll pull back a "peg in a slot", presumably with a couple of ratchet points along its length in case of malfunction.
Once the peg reaches far enough back, a bolt can drop down from a magazine, and now lies on the "slot" the peg has been pulled along. The bearer of this weapon can now fire the bolt by releasing the peg, which uses its stored force to push the bolt out of the front of the weapon. Much like a crossbow would (with without the leaf springs).
I'm thinking of a miniature version of the catapult that "fires" fighters off aircraft carriers. They used to be steam powered, which you could use here too (for something more like artillery). For a more hand-held weapon, I'd favour a spring or elastic mechanism. If you put a couple of them side by side, you could probably fire quite rapidly, depending how long it takes to withdraw the "peg" in each - and that depends on what power source you have.
As for power sources, pedal power has been mentioned, as has steam. Both would really need a colleague behind the firer to do the pedalling, or to stoke the fire or whatever. The connection from one to the other could be something like a flexible drill bit (ie. a bendy metal rod in a tube, as you turn one end, the other end turns).
For a solitary firer, maybe a sort of "one man band" contraption. That is, a sort of foot pedal arrangement, perhaps mounted on the opposite leg. That is, the wearer is free to walk and run, but to reload a bolt, they have to lift up their right leg, put their foot on a plate next to their left knee, press down on it and then lift their foot off again to reset the mechanism.
Lastly, we can think about ammunition. An automatic crossbow probably just shoots bolts that have a pointed end designed to penetrate a human body. However, the larger, artillery version can shoot anything roughly cannon ball-like. You could just shoot cannon balls to smash through walls and defences, or you could possibly shoot a sort of "egg" that contains something nasty. Since you haven't invented gunpowder, no explosives, but maybe anthrax, or mustard gas, purified sodium when it's raining, or maybe even just a bad cold - anything that will "soften up" the opposition, ready for your final onslaught. The point is, without an explosion to fire the payload, you're doing something more like throwing it - so whilst it can't be fragile, it can probably be soft enough that it'd break apart on landing but wouldn't break in the muzzle during firing.
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Multiple other answers refer to bow/crossbow, but speed of repetition remains a bottleneck. So let me chime in with:
## The magazine-fed repeating bow
Refer to the gadgets of [Jörg Sprave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Sprave). He has built a number of arrow magazines, retrofitted onto various conventional traditional and compound bows. These seem to give the archer a much higher rate of fire (until the mag is empty - but stripper clips are a possibility for refilling), somewhat better accuracy through repeatability, and somewhat better/more ergonomic purchase and thus less fatigue in the pulling action, allowing a longer session of shooting. (My opinion, based on the limited experience I have from shooting a compound bow probably less than a dozen times a few years back).
These gadgets are all built out of plywood, but superficially look like something an experienced carpenter from the 1940 and quite earlier would be able to make.
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This "somehow guns don't exist" is a common trope, and it is only possible with the most extreme hand-waving. If gunpowder and its descendents aren't possible, then most of chemistry is also not possible.
But what's after the crossbow? Well, no one knows because they were coincidentally replaced by firearms. Consider that the heaviest of man-portable crossbows already needed a complicated and heavy leverage-adding mechanism just to cock it back. So adding even more power to it while keeping it man-portable seems challenging.
I am not aware of a fundamental change made to crossbows in the last 200 years. They could be made compound, or out of something other than a leaf spring, or lighter. The only real improvement I can think of is that they follow rifle ergonomics. That is, they have a buttstock now.
One possibility is that, like nuclear weapons, firearms are taboo. It's *not* ok to use a nuke. There could be a society where it is *not* ok to use firearms. But this is really a stretch because explosives are useful in civil engineering. Thus the materials will be at hand. And there's no taboo that won't be broken by an unethical or desperate man.
I will direct you to a book called "Dies the Fire" wherein, in a literal flash, most of modern tech quits working. Guns are inert. Airliners fall from the sky because their fuel won't burn. And then it's the 14th century with men-at-arms on bicycles. It's the only way SCA nerds can take over the world, and this is exactly what happens in the book. The genius about this approach is that it is never explained. It just *happens*, move along and deal with it.
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Since there's no gunpowder, I assume there's certain limitation to the available tech.
Crossbows, bows , thus maybe catapult like weapon.
and then the update, make the ammunition flammable.
Then next probably they'll research more into materials or ways to propel those bullets faster with available tech, since in our timeline gunpowder exist, the research into those elastic stuff kind of halted.
so maybe they tinker more in new weirdly shaped ranged weapon. or they abandon it since there's seem to be a big wall, so there's a blank era where ranged weaponry does not get anymore sophisticated for a while.
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**A different technology discovery sequence?**
I don't think its possible to avoid discovering gun-cotton (also high explosives) once chemistry becomes a science.
However, it might be possible for steam engines and electrical technologies to emerge before chemistry gets started (whereas in our world, electrical technology was delayed with respect to chemistry). The principles of the steam engine were known in ancient Greece. Early electrical machinery used silk wrapping, lacquer, or rubber to insulate wires. (Actually not that early; rubber remained in use until PVC arrived post-WW2). Electrical induction might have been observed in ancient Greece -- but (as far as we know) it wasn't.
In which case, a linear motor firing massive bolts becomes possible in the absence of chemical propellants. So does a sort of machine-gun using high-pressure steam as a propellant. Or compressed air, using a compressor driven by a steam engine.
Perhaps give your world a rubber plant that doesn't need to be grown in the tropics(\*), and more abundant supplies of copper than our world? Other plants that remove historical incentives for the commercial development of chemistry?
BTW push this to an extreme and they might even get thermionic valves and radio before chemistry. Also computers? Steam-punk with a twist.
(\*) it actually exists in our world, but was never commercialized. It was briefly cultivated during WW2 to compensate for the possible loss of rubber from Equatorial parts. It's the Dandelion!
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The only answer I haven't seen yet is a shotgun type load delivering a payload of many flechettes to rain down on infantry. Especially devastating when fired from a ballista to deliver up to 100 heavy metal or wooden darts in a concentrated area. Much easier to work than a fast firing mechanism.
Launched inside a cup or "wad" that holds them together at the beginning of the flight but falls away shortly after firing and allows the flechettes to spread out.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DAV3z.jpg)
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An interesting replacement for handguns could be the Sling - an underrated historical weapon. The obvious example of this is David vs Goliath, where David's victory is written to be an act of divine intervention. But the sling was apparently such a deadly and versatile weapon that many historical armies used it in combat ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_(weapon))) and Malcolm Gladwell compared it to a .45 calibre handgun ([Inc.com](https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/3-things-people-get-wrong-about-david-vs-goliath.html)). So it was actually incredibly powerful and in an alternate history setting without being made redundant by gunpowder weaponry it could have seen some serious improvements.
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Repeating crossbows to me would be obvious. It goes back to the [Ming](http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/09/unique-weapon-of-ming-dynasty-zhu-ge-nu.html) Dynasty and now, you can have a version that repeatedly fires multiple bolts at someone and allows you to load 'clips' that let you shoot your weapon quickly similar to guns in our own world.
You also work on creating bolts to make smaller, more compact crossbows with smaller yet accurate bolts.
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I think the basic wooden crossbow is phase 1. After that you have advanced metallurgy techniques. After you have the best crossbow material science can make, you make it shoot more bolts, but faster. A crossbow with automated loading (string pull) + top/gravity fed magazine of bolts would be the next step (basically a built-in quiver). Things like extreme long range bolts with glider like wings that pop out could be an option. Poisons are a good add-on. Bolt heads that shatter on impact, or are made from things like microbarbs would also be cool.
You could also go to a "linear" bow where the tension in inline with the weapon. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZvrk-L6Gzg>
Good luck!
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I think you might be coming at this from the wrong perspective.
Fire arms are way to obvious for us to just not figure them out. They are too conducive to what we are as humans.
*But* there are other ways around this, and that is to make them illicit.
For instance, when crossbows were first spreading, the pope tried to ban them internationally, because they disturbed the social order. That is, typically learning to fight effectively required so much time that only the upper class could be professional soldiers (more or less). The clergy was worried that this would lead to the lower class all being used as expendable soldiers, while the upper class would no longer need to risk their butts (thank goodness they were wrong about that, right?)
But I think that what you want is less a world were firearms don't exist, and more a world where this injunction worked. This would be a blanket ban on high lethality, low skill weapons, with the goal of keeping war the work of the nobility, and to a lesser extent the freemen, while the working class maintains a level of protection from combat.
This system was never perfect of course, but continuing it opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities. This would mean not worrying about "the next level of crossbows" because they would also be included in any such ban, but it would open up the door for swords with replaceable razor blades, modern steel armor.
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**Poison dart frog automatic rifles.**
Compressed air weapons. If they had steel that can't deliver much compression for airguns, then they could have poison dart frog airguns, which have a barrel of 3-20 poison darts depending on compression. Because poisons are potentially weird, the deadly poison dart is too difficult to obtain, so they mostly use sleep inducing frogs, mind-altering frogs, frogs that make you scared and run away, and the soldiers have a light pack of 200 mixed frog darts, and have to select the ones for battle, and can fire a volley of 10 darts in automatic weapon style. You can get bullet-ant darts, mutant radioactive style darts, darts that make someone mad or forgetful, laugh uncontrollably, so forth. The various regions can specialize in different poisons based on their local ecology, forests, and local wildlife.
] |
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[
## Mission Overview
A long-simmering conflict is about to break into open war in more-or-less modern-day Earth. You are part of the staff of an air force general, who is in charge of planning a wave of strikes against major enemy targets in the opening stages of the war. Small teams of officers have been assigned to work up the force requirements for individual high-value targets as part of this planning. Your team's target is an industrial-scale wind farm much like the one pictured (Whitelee Wind Farm in Scotland).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IH029.jpg)
## Target Description
Your target consists of 200 wind turbines spread over 50 km2. Individual turbines are roughly 500m apart, randomly scattered over low hills. The control centers and transfer stations for the farm only contain standard, easily-replaced hardware, so hitting only them would disable the farm for a week or so at most. On the other hand, the turbines themselves were imported, and each one destroyed would take them months to replace.
## Mission Parameters
Your strike will be part of a large-scale near-simultaneous assault on many high-value targets. Suppression of the enemy air defenses is being covered by other planning groups; your concern is only the wind farm itself. For purposes of this question, you can expect that your strike force will reach the target successfully. However, the enemy will likely still have interceptors that could be deployed once the mission's target is identified, so your force can only expect to get a single pass at the target, and time on target should be minimized. Due to the scale of the overall assault, you have been instructed to find the minimum force needed to destroy the target. As a secondary concern, less-expensive weapons are preferred (though aircraft costs are not a factor).
Use of nuclear weapons (including high-altitude nuclear EMP weapons) is not authorized in these strikes.
For purposes of this question, you can include any active or working-prototype weapon system or aircraft from any modern-day military. You don't need to necessarily name specific weapons ("cruise missile" vs "AGM-158", etc.) or aircraft ("strike fighter" vs "F/A-18E") unless they have a particular feature that similar weapons or aircraft don't have.
The strike will be launched from land airbases; a carrier-capable force is not required. However, aircraft that are typically used by naval forces can still be included if needed.
GPS and satellite surveillance is available at the target, but no ground forces will be within range of the target to assist.
## Mission Objective
The best strike package will destroy as many of the turbines as possible in one pass, using as small a strike force as possible, as cheaply as possible.
## Clarifications
Paratroopers are Army, not Air Force, and the Army is busy elsewhere. No boots on the ground.
Denying the electricity to the enemy is definitely the primary concern, but there is a substantial propaganda value to flattening the whole farm which cannot be overlooked. So while you can certainly target the control and distribution systems as part of the strike, you should also be hitting as many turbines as possible.
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**The problem is not that complex**.
The wind farm is connected to the electricity grid so... **ignore the individual wind turbines, they don't matter. Attack the connecting infrastructure instead**.
In order attack (1) the transformers & substations and then (2) the power pylons that connect the wind farm to the electricity grid. One or two aircraft modern fighters could easily handle the mission. (Note: other aircraft would be involved as deemed necessary by the mission planners to cover the attack or bomb replacement parts and roads/bridges as mentioned below depending on the strength of local air defenses.)
Step one would be an attack designed take out the transformers and substations. This can be done using one plane only armed with with standard high explosive bombs (anything in the **GBU** series deemed appropriate for the size of a specific target) and [**graphite bombs** (US designation **BLU-114/B**)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb), which are non lethal weapons specifically designed to take out electrical infrastructure.
At the same time a second aircraft *could* (this mission is more icing on the cake rather than essential) be deployed to take out selected power pylons linking the wind farm to the grid using something like the [**GBU 24** (Paveway III)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-24_Paveway_III).
Ideally these would be selected in advance as being the most difficult/time consuming for the enemy to to replace - based on local geography etc. Or just 3 or 4 pylons in a row. Given the nature of the targets (light/strong open framed metallic towers) this mission would probably require larger precision guided munitions but taking out even a small number would significantly delay reconnecting the farm even if the enemy ships in new plant to replace that destroyed by the other attack.
**Last points**:
1. If by chance there's a handy fail point (e.g say a bridge across a river, an overpass, a narrow mountain road or some other obstacle on the roads in to/out of the wind farm consider striking that as well in order to complicate any repair attempts.
2. If intelligence happens to know where any immediately available replacement converters and transformers etc are stored and the risk assessment is low - hit the storage point/s as well.
EDIT; added the designation of suggested weapons systems as requested by author and tweaked the answer to include to include two other possible strike points.)
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**Drones**
Drones are the future of warfare. Not just the multimillion dollar attack drones, but also the cheaper tiny drones that can be made en masse. The drones you want need to be more specialised, but are still effective.
They need to run just for 10 minutes to an hour, will have explosives or thermite and are just airdropped out of a plane a few thousand at a time from a single aircraft. With thermite they might burn through the outside and parts of the dynamo with just one, but you can spent several. If you use explosives, they can target the door on top, which then can be opened/has a hole. Then another will fly in and do the damage. This can be fully automated from start to finish. With the dynamo down the whole top needs to be replaced, or at least removed and refitted, which costs a lot of time.
Alternatively they target the blades to destroy the possibility of turning and generating electricity. Again, so many explosive drones can easily be enough. The whole top might have to be replaced as the joints can be deformed, so new blades cannot be installed. Either way, big specialised equipment is required.
[Answer]
## You neither want nor need an airstrike
A missile is worth more than an windmill and that's not even considering the risk you expose the planes or ships to during the attack. Additionally bombing on that scale is so 1944 and one can't even deny responsibility.
What you want is a **cyber attack**. Israel is doing something similar to hinder the Iranian nuclear program. The destroyed centrifuges they needed by getting into their controll software.
So you either hack the windpark remotely or, given that in cybersecurity defence often beats offence or the system is airgaped (not remotely accessible) send in a small team to raid and sabotage the facility.
This could be a acived by infiltrating the staff or by dropping in troops to take over the facility. Your hackers will study the system beforehand and will likely cause several components in the windmills to overheat. Burning windmills are really hard to extinguish and fire-supressionsystems can be disabled.
Hell, you could even strike during the night shift and make it look like a bunch of local criminals were behind the attack by stealing a bunch of stuff. As soon as all your forces are out of the country, you can set the windpark on fire.
PS: As it seems like you might be after the aesthetic of an airborne attack, I would ultimately recommend sending in paratroopers alongside a few techies for the sabotage. Sending multiple teams of different aircrafts will offer some redundancy in case the enemy air defence isn't as taken out as you assume.
[Answer]
Using standard military ordnance has the advantage of a rapid deployment, minimising time between issuing the strike order and its execution.
Wind farm turbines are dispersed structures, so each must be attacked separately.
I would suggest that a flight of 40 aircraft such as the F-16 be used, each carrying 6 AGM-65 Maverick air to ground missiles, each missile costing US$17,000. A maverick missile is easily capable of destroying a wind turbine when targeted upon the upper housing, where its shaped-charge warhead could destroy any number of critical components that would lead to the turbine failing completely. This option minimises the strike package's time over the target.
As an even lower cost solution, the 40 aircraft could open fire on the wind turbines with their GAU-4 20mm cannons. An F-16 carries 511 rounds for its 20mm cannon, and approximately 100 rounds would likely do sufficient damage for an operating wind turbine to tear itself apart. At 27 dollars per round, the cost of destroying one wind turbine with guns would be approximately 2700 dollars. This option would require more time over the target.
If both Mavericks and guns were used, 20 aircraft could take out the 200 wind turbines at an approximate ordnance cost of $9850 per target. This option involves the greatest time spent over the target for the strike package.
The possibility exists to use one GBU-39 glide bomb per tutbine at a minimum cost of 40,000 dollars per unit, or one GBU-32 JDAM per turbine at a cost of $18,000 each. From this, it can be seen that the AGM-65/20mm solution is the cheapest option in terms of ordnance expended and fewest aircraft. The 20mm solution is cheapest if there is no limit to the numbers of aircraft that may be deployed. The AGM-65 solution minimises both cost and time over the target area.
Obviously, the cost of operation of the launching platforms are not included in these figures.
As an additional bit of info, I have flown similar missions in simulation (Falcon 4.0, a very realistic F-16 simulator for PCs). Guns, dumb bombs or unguided rockets require aiming the whole aircraft at the target, which takes time during which interceptors could be approaching, and guns and rockets require holding the aircraft on-target long enough to do the job while dumb bombs require releasing the bomb at the correct moment. These weapons are much less accurate than they may seem to the general public.
Conversely, self-guided weapons such as AGM-65 Mavericks can be targeted and fired off-axis (without pointing the aircraft at the target) within a few seconds by a skilled pilot, and an entire salvo of 6 can be fired off in a single pass. Wind turbines would actually be more forgiving targets, as my experience is with shooting tanks in a column from the side of the column, while wind turbines in this scenario would be one after the other with significantly greater spacing.
Laser-guided weapons have the disadvantage that the attacking aircraft (or the designating asset) must hold the laser on-target until weapon impact. This increases the time over the target area, and increases the risk of interception.
The possibility exists to use guided surface to surface ballistic or cruise missiles, but all of these cost in excess of a million dollars per unit, and one would be required per wind turbine. The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile costs 1,537,645 dollars *each*, far in excess of the cost of sending in aircraft as I have described above.
Another option that I rejected was the AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile. This is an air to ground missile with a range of 110 km, but its cost of 720,000 dollars each makes it too expensive in comparison to the other options despite its suitability for the role.
[Answer]
### Frame challenge: two successive hits on the control centre
As someone who worked on these kind of systems, I can tell you that the control centre is actually a significant chunk of electronics. Even if you have one spare, you certainly don't have more than a couple, especially if you hit several sites around the country, and it's not that quick to set everything up.
Conversely, you need to lose a significant proportion of the windmills to affect output. And whilst you can take them down for sure, it's so much more reliable to nail the connection to the grid.
So I'd dispute the question's premise that the way to take down the wind farm is via the windmills.
[Answer]
# A handful of AC-130s and A-10s
If you have a large number of nearby targets without significant anti-aircraft support, there's no substitute for AC-130s with help from A-10s. The AC-130 is basically a cargo plane with a cargo bay full of artillery and gunports drilled in the plane's left side. Note the gun barrels in this picture from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GE52N.jpg)
A small number of AC-130s could absolutely devastate the wind farm. A moment's attention from any of the AC-130's weapons would destroy a turbine. Since the location of each turbine is known in advance, mission planners would create the most efficient route for the aircraft to follow to reduce the duration of the attack.
What if there are a few turbines that are out of the way and hard to reach for the AC-130s? That's where my favorite warbird comes into play. Meet the A-10.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l0wpG.jpg)
The A-10 is basically a machine gun with wings. A single round from that A-10's main gun could destroy a wind turbine. To be clear we're not talking about regular ammunition. Here's a comparison of the kind of bullet the A-10 brings to the fight and a 30-06 rifle round.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0UT3W.jpg)
If any of the turbines are *really* out of the way, the A-10 could use its AGM-65 air-to-ground missiles. The combination of the AC-130 and the A-10 would reduce mission costs, destroy the target, and minimize the amount of time over the mission site.
## Realism bonus
There are already a lot of great answers to this question. I humbly submit that the AC-130/A-10 teamwork is battle tested in conditions similar to OP's question. In [2015](https://web.archive.org/web/20151117162257/http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/11/16/us-a10-attack-planes-hit-isis-oil-convoy-crimp-terror-funding.html), this pairing of aircraft successfully engaged a convoy of around 100 ISIS oil tankers. If they can attack 100 moving vehicles, they could make quick work of 200 stationary wind turbines.
[Answer]
Use the GBU-43 Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB)
It has an effective area of 1 square kilometer. As an air burst weapon, it will be especially effective against wind turbines. At a unit price of 170 thousand dollars per, you can have a sortie of 50 C-130 aircraft delivering these to target for 8.5 million dollars. Only a single pass is required to take out the entire farm, and even if a few bombers have to wave off, the damage would be exceptional.
Going with this approach may also take out roads and bridges, collapse tunnels, and flatten support structures. Above ground lines and towers in the entire area will likely also be demolished. It would maximize the cost of rebuilding in this location.
[Answer]
Drop carbon wire or steel wire nets allover the field, with ballast to pull the nets down.
The nets will get tangled in the rotating blades, and once they will be loaded with the weight of the ballast because of the rotation, the wire will cut through the blade. If the cutting doesn't succeed, the unbalance in the momentum of inertia can still produce damage.
Even though some might not succeed in disabling the tower, the enemy will still need to carry visual inspection to ensure that no small crack is present, which could potentially lead to a catastrophic failure later on. And don't forget that the tangled nets need to be removed anyway to let the wind farm work.
[Answer]
**Two B-52s**
The B-52 Bomb can hold up to 81 dumb fire bombs and 72 smart weapons. Two bombers can destroy nearly all the towers with dumb weapons, and then target the misses and remainders with smart weapons. B-52s are not small, but they get the needed fire power, and while the one pass is a bit curvy it should still be one pass.
[Answer]
**Paratroopers.**
It is old school but it is a good use of resources for this mission and I suspect will be the minimum to achieve this end. It is analogous to [Operation Shock](https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Operation_Shock) carried out in 1968 by Israeli paratroopers against elements of Egyptian electrical infrastructure. A modern mass attack as is proposed will not have much need of individual infantrymen but the dispersed, remote and individually vulnerable elements of the windmill farm are perfect for this sort of attack. One can use an ordinary plane for the drop which frees up specialized aircraft for uses elsewhere.
Paratroopers will be dropped some kilometers from their target in advance of the mass attack. They will make their way across the countryside on foot, fanning out across the windmill installation. A windmill is a great target for a paratrooper as a single rifle shot can irrevocably disable a windmill.
<https://www.wibw.com/2021/04/01/nemaha-co-sheriffs-office-searching-for-information-about-shot-wind-turbine/>
After all windmills have been shot, paratroopers make their way to an extraction point / points, possibly by car or train.
---
In addition to being effective and efficient, the first person viewpoint of the paratrooopers is dramatic and lends itself to a work of fiction. The recounting of the paratrooper experience in linked Operation Shock is a fine example.
---
I must add that this would be called Operation Quixote. The South Dakotan officer pronounces it "Quicks-Oat".
[Answer]
Think about incremental gains. Determine the value of certain things that are relatively easy to hit and build out to your desired goal of taking out the whole windfarm. Take one Sortie, and hit them in layers.
So the First targets should be the switching and control center and even more important, the ROADS leading to it. Yes, the hardware is easy to replace once it gets there. If you take out the roads, it will take it a lot longer to get there. Potentially exponentially longer depending on the weight of the components in question. You could probably do this with some fighter bombers.
The second layer gets more complex. You need drones and bombers carrying payloads of laser guided bombs. The drones don't have to be ordinance carrying, but they do have to carry a laser to paint the targets. I don't know too much about the particulars but if you can get a bunch of commercially available quadcopters in the air with a laser pointer in line with the camera, well... Laser guided bombs will soar in and hit the base of each windmill.
It's important that you hit the base of the windmill. The Nacelle and the vanes will get damaged as they fall and even if the enemy has replacements ready to hoist up at a moments notice, they still have to pour a sufficient foundation and that takes a ton of time. Oh, and remember how I said hit the roads leading up to the wind farm? Yeah, those have to be in good shape before the really long parts of the windmill can be transported up there.
So, wave one is hitting the road and control center. Even if the rest of the plan fails, Your enemy loses a power source for at least a few weeks, maybe longer. An incremental gain. Heck, even if you just destroy the road, you make the windfarm more vulnerable as parts are harder to get to it.
While debris is still coming down from wave one, the drones are painting targets and the laser guided bombs are being dropped. Even if laser guided bombs are not an option, there is always the option of saturation bombing. While less precise, you should be able to take out a substantial amount of windmills if you plan the pass properly. If it's even feasible, drop ordinance that can act like landmines in a last pass over the target. Anybody trying to get to a damaged windmill risks life and limb just getting there and back.
[Answer]
## Frame Challenge: You would not want to destroy the windmills anyway
There is no good reason to take out the power plant permanently. If you are already doing a combined offensive in a modern context as the OP dictates, then the invasion will either be won or lost in the time it takes them to get the power back online if you just hit the control center. The whole point of a combined and coordinated offensive like this is to hit everything of importance so fast that the targeted nation loses its ability to coordinate a defense. Making sure those assets stay lost is not important since your ground forces are expected to be entering relevant theater of operations within the week anyway.
So, as a commander you need to ask yourself if it is more important to take out the powerplant permanently or with fewer assets, and I guarantee that this is a situation where using fewer assets is more important. If you can commit 1 plane to knocking out the control center or 40 planes to leveling all of the windmills, then that is 39 other targets that are not being hit during your pivotal first offensive. Even if you go with the B-52 cluster smart bomb scenario or a smaller formation of planes using autocannons, there are going be big trade-offs. While those attacks use fewer planes, it still means taking specialized planes off the board and using up a lot of specialized ordinance which could be better utilized for attacking other targets that need those specialized planes like enemy battlements and tank formations.
The other reason you don't want to hit the windmills directly is because once you invade the country, you need to control it. Permanent damage to the enemy's infrastructure will result in being unable to re-establish a working economy once the hostile regime is taken out. If your attack destroys the economy, then those people who lost their jobs are more likely to take an active role in resisting your occupation, but if power is only down for a week, then people still have their jobs and can go back to caring about providing for their families as soon as the shooting is over. So, when you look at it from this perspective, it becomes clear that attacking the windmills directly is not only inefficient, but a worse actual end-goal given what you are trying to achieve.
### As for what exact weapon system to use...
This will boil down a lot to where the windmill facility is, and if the control center has been reinforced in anticipation of an air strike. If it is in lightly protected airspace and easily accessible, something simple like an AGM-65 Maverick could get the job done for as little as \$17,000 plus the operational cost of the attack craft. If you are looking at more heavily guarded airspace and/or a hardened target, then you might need something as expensive an AGM-158C LRASM at \$3,960,000. But... without more information on the control center's level of protection, it's pretty hard to get more specific than this.
[Answer]
**Use several low flying aircraft moving in roughly parallel lines**
As the targets are dispersed, the simplest strategy is to just drop explosive or shoot them, with the approach being to the point where the minimum amount of low flying aircraft cover the maximum amount of wind turbines assuming roguly straight flight paths. When each wind turbine is passed, drop explosives at the base, or fire at the center axis? at, now on, now no longer on which the wind turbines.. turn. making the wind turbines no longer to be able to function as turbines and consuingly produce electricity as a result.
[Answer]
**Su-25 'Frogfoot' x 2**
A Su-25 can carry 160 S-8 OFP-1 (aka "Broneboyschik") unguided missiles, each with a 9.2kg warhead (with 2.8kg of A-IX-10, that is approx. 4.4 kg TNT), so if you want to make a show out of it, look no further. Bonus propaganda points for a surgical strike instead of bashing everything in crosshairs.
If you really want to reduce time-over-target and/or want guidance, take a look at S-8Kor ("correctable") missiles, aka "Ugroza". Su-25s can paint for themselves and can stagger (ripple-fire) at least 7 missiles at a time. They are more like a cross between a dumbfire missile and a guided bomb instead of an AGM proper, but if enemy AA is already mopped up by the other planning groups, they should do. As they are the same size as regular S-8s, you still have 160 missiles.
If you are really worried about stray interceptors showing up to say "hi", you can take off two missile launcher pods and strap a pair of R-60 Vympels (NATO: AA-8 Aphid), and you're still left with 120 missiles per plane for a total of 240. Spam away.
[Answer]
Wind turbines are... going to be hard to attack by air directly. They're often made of composite (so hard to detect by radar), are far apart (so you can't really saturation bomb the place) and you have one attempt to get in...
Bombers are the wrong tool
Now, the smartest way to do this would be infantry with lots of det cord at the bases - and if you time it right, it would be absolutely fantastically dramatic and probably even more damaging than an airstrike
That said, the fact that they're far apart and made of composite means that attack helicopters would be the right tool. You don't need to *obliterate* them, merely render them unusable and Cannon and unguided rockets would do quite a number on them. Since they're low level, fighter interception would be difficult.
An alternative would be ground attack aircraft - but in this situation I suspect helicopters could go in low, and use the targets as cover as needed and would be superior.
[Answer]
# Smart Skeets that go Boom
No but really.
## Assumptions
Let's try to answer the actual question. No destruction of other infrastructure, no "what if the war is in an entirely different stage and occupation is possible", no "hack the planet", etc. Who knows, perhaps the attacker is the producer of turbines and can cheaply replace the wind turbines after occupying, but cannot cheaply/easily replace the rest of the infrastructure. Perhaps one of the reasons why the war escalated, is that the to-be-attacked country had the turbines installed by the to-be-attacker, but failed to pay, and the to-be-attacker decided time is up, but doesn't want to damage things that aren't technically owned by them (after all, third countries' opinions are important when going to war).
So we *are* going to attack the actual turbines, and little else. There's many turbines, and they're not *that* expensive, so the cost for the attacker should be low-ish. And we *are* going for a single pass by a small, rapid force that doesn't look like it's about to nuke the capital, or even like it poses a big risk at all.
# Technology
All good tactics start by an armchair historian dumping Wikipedia links, so here goes: [The BLU-108](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-108) is, "an air-delivered submunition, containing four further smart "Skeet" warheads".
The idea of weapons built around this platform is that a bomb or missile flings a whole bunch of 30kg heavy bomblets around in the area where it is deployed. Good 'ol Wikipedia lists the area covered as "15 acres (61,000 square metres) ". When the skeet's built-in sensors recognize a pre-programmed target (laser-designated or recognized by an IR-sensor, but in the light-fiction of this worldbuilding exercise, image-recognition or proximity fuses could work too), it detonates its ±1kg shaped charge warhead. It is summarized in [this diagram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBU-97_Sensor_Fuzed_Weapon#/media/File:CBU-97_SFW_(8steps_attacking_process)_NT.PNG), again taken from Wikipedia.
# Cost/Benefit
While unit costs of military equipment are always difficult to accurately gauge, [the CBU-97 weapons system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBU-97_Sensor_Fuzed_Weapon) which utilizes the BLU-108 submunition cost $360,000 (fiscal year 1990), and contains 40 'skeets'. Even if we assume only one in 10 bomblets actually happen upon a turbine, that's still a pretty good amount of damaged turbines per dollar.
Each such 40-skeet bomb weighs a measly 450kg. Delivery methods go from "fly overhead with a big bomber" to "skim the treetops with a fast jet"; anything remotely considered an "attack aircraft" can carry this category of weapons (in the worldbuilding scenarion; it might be the case that, e.g., an F-35 happens to not have the software interconnect to 'talk' to a CBU-97 currently in the real world). Use whichever delivery method best fits with the SEAD method that fits your story, but if it's a surprise attack and air defense is sparse in the area around the turbines (and why wouldn't it? It's in a sparsely inhabited area, and as the rest of the answers show: nobody considers it a likely target), it's realistic to get away with it at very low losses to the attacker's side.
# Summary/Why I think this Answer is Valid
Taken together, this method is
* single-pass as far as the delivering aircraft are concerned,
* fast and autonomous enough that there's not much the defender can do once the attack is sprung,
* cheap enough that the attacker can afford it (and can afford to do it again),
* using light ammunition providing a lot of flexibility in the delivery method,
* using powerful enough warheads for substantially damaging turbines, which aren't that hard of a target, but don't offer that big of a target area either (e.g. buckshot at a rotor wouldn't necessarily disable the turbine, and wind turbines' low-drag profile makes them less vulnerable to distant blast effects than some other answers seem to expect),
* targets the requested targets.
[Answer]
I'm not sure if this will work, but how about drop tanks?
Come barreling through the field on carefully planned supersonic trajectories. Wind turbines don't like excessive wind, especially when they are spinning. I don't think they're going to like a very close range sonic boom one bit. Just bring extra fuel for your time on afterburner.
[Answer]
### Zero planes. One missile. *The* bomb.
I'm talking about a nuclear strike.
Realistically, no matter how much General Don Quixote insists on it, destroying windmills turbines conventionally is a waste of resources. A single fighter with a missile can take out a substation and drop everything remaining on access roads for good measure. Hell, you could do it with a drone strike for an even more impersonnal experience.
You say
>
> there is a substantial propaganda value to flattening the whole farm which cannot be overlooked
>
>
>
You really want to destroy the wind farm and leave a lasting impression? I can't think of another method that wouldn't require a ludicrous amount of planes and ordinance striking with perfect coordination while also making that point.
[Answer]
Consider the parameters- you have targets that are
1. Quite spread out
2. Not defended
3. Not hardened
4. Fragile
5. Quite a few of them
As such, nearly any weapon will do the job. Something like an A-10 or AC-130 could neutralize these targets quite efficiently- if a bullet can kill a tank, it can kill a windmill. There are downsides though. An A-10 in particular is not a long range aircraft. With refueling and a light loadout, it can be made to be- but you don't mention the range from the closest air base. Unless you have a fixed wing base within a couple hundred miles of your target, I would rule out any fighter type aircraft. An AC-130 has much greater range, but still not exactly transatlantic. Even without range, it'll take a lot of ammunition for a mission profile like this. You would probably have to plan for one A10 for every 3 or 4 windmills, or an AC-130 for every 6-8. And if they get intercepted, they are going to get shot down. (Attack helicopters are usually Army- in this case they'd be even better for the mission, but have even lower range and vulnerability)
There are a great many bombers that ARE designed for long range strikes. B-2 for example, the enemy would never even see them coming. During the recent wars, even B-1s routinely made strike runs to the middle east from bases across an ocean. The B-52 is also capable of this task, and as this is a low threat mission, this may be the best use for them. When considering bombers, you have to think of the ordinance. I would propose that this is the perfect target for something like the GBU-39 ... a small GPS guided bomb. The targets locations are known precisely, they are unhardened, and the only limitation is that there are a lot of them. A single B1 can carry 144 of these, preprogrammed with the coordinates of each windmill. I didn't look up the loadout of the other bombers mentioned, but carrying a bunch of them is their whole point.
There is a third possibility- unmanned aircraft. Without carrying a pilot, these tend to have extreme range/durability (often over 24 hours on target). It looks like an MQ-9 could carry up to 4 JDAM gps guided weapons- so you would need a lot more of these than bombers- but no people at risk. The end result would be that the best choice would depend on what OTHER targets you have. A b-1 is going to be much more survivable than an MQ-9, and a B2 even more so- but if they get intercepted by fighters, you don't mind losing ten drones as much as a single B2.
You ruled out other services, but you should also consider for the rest of your scenario-
* Naval gunfire- if its within 30 miles of the sea, this would be highly effective.
* Cruise missiles - the most expensive option, but extraordinarily low risk, and would be the biggest "factor of suprise" possibility
* Ballistic missiles - I was wrong, these are even more expensive, but who knows you did say "earth like" haha
[Answer]
## Two SSGNs
Sorry Air Force, this is a poor use of your talents. Enter the Navy.
Assuming anti-air / anti-missile weapons are suppressed, the easy answer is to use cruise missiles. Even if the defenders are able to get a few luckey shots off, all they have done is waste a missile, instead of killing an expensive airframe and crew.
The targets are stationary, and relatively fragile - so precision guided munitions like [TLAMs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)) are perfect.
Obviously you can launch cruise missiles from land based assets, but for an offensive, particularly a surprise offensive, few things are going to out-perform an [SSGN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio-class_submarine#SSBN/SSGN_conversions). They are stealthy, mobile, and have a *huge* magazine.
Existing US SSGNs can carry well over 100 TLAMs, so two of them could reduce a large wind farm to rubble in a couple of minutes, from over the horizon, without subjecting any aircraft to combat risk.
Bonus points: SSGNs can carry Special Ops frogmen, so once they empty their magazines, they can deliver a different kind of payload.
[Answer]
**Plant explosives the night before the attack.**
Just walk up to the turbines and plant explosives, and the next morning detonate them all. These windmills are located in a farm-land country, so there's plenty of farmland and crops to walk through undetected.
You can also hire a few drone pilots to pick up the explosives *cough, I mean the mail delivery packages*, from a mail delivery truck or boat, and fly them over to each turbine.
[Answer]
**Precision aerial minelaying**
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition#Precision_aerial_minelaying>
>
> On 23 September 2014, the U.S. Air Force performed the first-ever drop
> of a precision-guided aerial mine, consisting of a Quickstrike mine
> equipped with a JDAM kit. The Quickstrike is a Mark 80-series
> general-purpose bomb with the fuze replaced with a target detection
> device (TDD) to detonate it when a ship passes within lethal range, a
> safe/arm device in the nose, and a parachute-retarder tailkit in the
> back.
>
>
>
It seems to me that the technology is all there, you'd just need to tune the sensitivity on the target detection device (TDD) to pick-up "ships" that are the size of windmills.
The idea is you use the GPS coordinates (basic JDAM functionality) to get a proper number of bombs distributed to within a few meters of each target, then rely on the TDD to ensure detonation occurs near the main housing and not wasted on the grounds.
The tech is designed to hit moving targets (ships) from 35,000 feet. The windmills are sitting ducks.
[Answer]
All of the other answers give direct answers.
Here is an option that I believe none have considered:
**sabotage**.
Option 1 (boots on the ground)
1. Infiltrate the maintenance teams (might include, kill maintenance teams and send in sabotage teams).
2. Destroy the breaking systems on the blades.
Option 2 (software)
1. Infiltrate the software that controls the individual windmills.
This could apply brakes to reduce generation,
remove brakes to allow out-of-control spin,
or just reorient the blades out of the wind.
2. Remote active the software a day or so before the attack.
The above will allow the windmills to spin out of control and destroy the generators.
[Answer]
**Frame challenge**
Wind farms do not produce electricity, they produce subsidies. They're actually a handicap, so you want the enemy to have them.
If your leaders are competent, like Chinese leaders are, your country manufactured the power and communications infrastructure of the enemy, which means it has a backdoor and you can turn it off at will. But your leaders ordered you to bomb a wind farm, which means they are not competent, so I guess this option is out.
Another option would be to have some competent businessmen who manage to sell Nest connected thermostats to everyone. Just send an order over the internet to all the thermostats to switch the heating to full power in every home in the country at the same time. Power grid goes down, problem solved. It would take three weeks to fix, and that's when no one is bombing the people trying to fix it.
If you want the enemy to no longer have electricity the old fashioned way, without any of this cyber bullshit, then you should disable something that actually produces it. So, obviously not a wind farm. You could disable a nuclear, thermal or hydroelectric powerplant instead. It's much easier, and the safest option would probably be the nuclear one.
If your leaders are competent, you already did that, by funding some tree hugger anti-nuke commies in the enemy country, so they turn off their NPPs themselves. Failing that, you can always "bomb" it by spraying a few tons of sand contaminated with alpha-radioactive chemicals from a plane. It should be pretty harmless to humans, since alpha is dangerous only if you eat it or breathe it, but the guys at the nuclear powerplant will shut it down themselves when they think they have a radioactive leak because all their radiation detectors go crazy at the same time.
Or you could throw a cruise missile at some part of the nuclear powerplant that won't make it go Chernobyl, but regulations say it can't operate if it's disabled, so it will have to shut down. If your enemies have lots of useless things like wind farms, then they probably also have lots of red tape, so you'll have no trouble finding a way.
] |
[Question]
[
I’m trying to build a world with steampunk-level technology, but would like it if compasses didn’t work/exist (or, failing that, if they were prohibitively expensive or difficult to get hold of). The technology level of the world excludes the possibility of it being too advanced a device, so I’m wondering: **why *wouldn’t* a compass work in this world?**
There *is* magic in this world, but it’s more limited to the existence of mythological creatures, rather than completely reality-altering stuff, so a more realistic/scientific reason would be preferable if possible.
Other modes of navigation are possible (such as using the sun or stars), but I’m currently envisaging a character flying dragonback over open ocean with no landmarks, it’s nighttime, and the sky is cloudy/it’s stormy. I’d like to exclude the possibility of “oh, I’ll just get the compass from my pocket” as a solution to them getting lost.
I would also prefer it to be **a constant thing** for this world, rather than there being a convenient solar storm or something. I also know that magnetic fields are a bit changeable, so compass navigation wouldn’t be an exact science anyway, but getting rid of compasses entirely is what I’m aiming for.
If it’s not plausible to have compasses just not exist (idk why, maybe there’s some crazy multiple magnetic field thing going on that would make compasses pointless), why might they be **really hard to get hold of?** (I’m talking only the richest of the rich might own one.)
[Answer]
Large magnetic ore deposits everywhere, altering the reading of the magnetic North on a compass.
They have noticed that a magnetized needle aligns along a preferential direction, but that direction changes with the place, so it is unusable for telling the North.
Incidentally the large magnetic ore deposits would be good for your steampunk people, because they would have large amount of metals at easy reach.
[Answer]
Perhaps too easy, but what if your planet simply has no magnetic field, or at least a field too weak to be useful for navigation? Venus has almost no magnetic field, but is otherwise similar enough to Earth that if they traded places, complex life could potentially have emerged on Venus, and Earth would be a hot-house.
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Your planet could have a magnetic field like Mars.
Instead of one large, semi-stable dipole, it looks like it has the Measles.
(this causes other concerns, as you do not have a good shield against space radiation)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iRmcS.jpg)
Or: Your moon could have a *very* strong magnetic field, with the result that a magnetic compass just shows you the direction of the moon, and nothing else.
Or: Even the Sun's magnetic field could be stronger at the surface of the planet than the planet's own magnetic field. For Earth the Sun's magnetic field is only about 10 000 times weaker. Having a Sun or companion star with a magnetic field that much stronger is not an astronomical stretch, just make your system's primary a close binary with one element being a white dwarf or neutron star.
Or: Your planet could have a magnetic field exactly like that of Earth. Just as strong, just as directional. But it could "wander" around more rapidly. Earth's current North Magnetic Pole is running off towards India at a rate of about 15 km per year. This requires constant adjustment of maps to get accurate compass bearings. What if your planet's north pole moved a bit faster, say 500km per year? North today would have been NorthWest 10 years ago, and south-by-southeast 50 years ago.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X47dX.jpg)
[Answer]
# How wrong is your compass anyway?
The first thing to start with is a map. This is a map of [magnetic declination](http://geokov.com/education/magnetic-declination-inclination.aspx). Critically what it shows is how wrong your compass is at any point in the world.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dcyrL.jpg)
This is of course only the bigger picture. If you're in an area with a lot of magnetic rock you'll find that your compass is even more unreliable on a local level.
What this means in practice for your world is simple a matter of how far off the "true" values your magnetic poles are. For people in the "civilised" regions, towards the temperate zones and equator, a magnetic compass is a reasonable tool. But if you move the magnetic poles further from the true poles then as you get further towards the arctic "adventuring" zones a compass becomes increasingly useless.
[Answer]
# Machine interference
Steampunk machinery achieves things realistic machines wouldn't, but at the cost of producing extremely strong magnetic fields. While the clanks are activated, everything that is ferromagnetic is drawn to them. This has the effect that iron parts don't necessarily need to be welded or screwed into machinery, but it also means you don't want to have too many iron things in a heavily automated area.
This is actually seen in Dishonored 2, where some moving contraptions ([clockwork soldiers](https://dishonored.fandom.com/wiki/Clockwork_Soldiers)) include this in their design:
>
> While the head and body of a Clockwork Soldier are mechanically attached to each other, the arms and legs are magnetically attracted to the frame.
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Fun fact: one of the earliest connections between magnetism and electricity was discovered when people noticed that when lightning strikes, a compass close to it will point to where the lightning hit for a moment before pointing north again.
[Some real life devices can get a compass to act even crazier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd5w8KhYrQk). If you wish to skip the electrical engineering explanation go straight to the 1:40 mark in this video to see what I mean.
I always imagined the most complex steampunk devices as having lots of such coils in them. The only extra handwaving you need to make such technology interfere with compasses has to do with the intensity of the magnetic fields involved.
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Your character and/or the dragon probably have tech on them, so any compass will point to the rest of their equipment. The character may use a compass alright, but he'd have to land (not possible while flying inside a storm over an ocean), and get very far away from their belongings (not safe) to get a reading. And since staying on course requires multiple readings and path corrections, this becomes unfeasible. Only the primitive tribes, which do not use tech, manage to use compasses.
Properly civilized people use a degaussed [heading thingamajig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_indicator) in conjunction with a steam powered [antikythera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism) and a wrist watch to chart their course, but that requires either seeing the stars (not feasible in a storm), or knowing exactly where you are (doesn't seem to be the case), so they are lost anyway.
[Answer]
**Shifting Magnetic Fields**
Perhaps the molten iron core of the planet is unstable causing fluctuating magnetic fields making compasses as we know them useless.
See "[The North Magnetic Pole Just Changed](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/magnetic-north-update-navigation-maps/)"
The compasses used by the rich don't use magnets but some form of magitech which is rare and expensive.
[Answer]
**They have a compass...**
...but hand compasses are rather finicky. They don't have a very powerful magnetic element, and you need to make sure it's stable enough that the attractive force of the magnet isn't overwhelmed by the rocking of the compass body. So to get an accurate fix - accurate enough to fly by with no other landmarks - you need to hold it very still. On the back of a dragon. In flight.
If you were over land, you could land, get a fix, fly for awhile (and hope you didn't deviate too much from that course while in the air), get another fix, etc. But of course you're not over land, and dragons aren't typically known for their use as a flotation device.
Once you've lost your original track, a compass alone is not hugely useful as a navigation aid, unless you happen to be flying to one of the magnetic poles. If I'm following a track due north, and I get blown westward by the winds, I can figure I need to fly east of north... but I don't know how much, and I can't figure it out without some other kind of landmark, earthly or celestial.
[Answer]
**Aetheric Interference**
Examples abound in fiction of magic and EM fields mixing badly.
Harry Potter's universe for example has them pretty much at odds with one another, Magic is explicitly stated to cause electrical devices to go haywire or otherwise fail.
You might not have reality-breaking magic in your universe, but if you just treat it as "Aether" and use your Magitek Steampunk stuff with it in some cases, you have an easy excuse to break technology usefully for your story.
The Aether is a fantastically useful story-telling element that lets your lightning-powered anti-gravity ship work if you can gather it in bottles, or you can use specially treated goggles to see "ghosts", or with the right fabric you can fly like a bird in it.
Basically it's the magical equivalent of Electro-magnetic fields.
However, it's can also be utterly incompatible with those same Fields.
The Aether can cause electrical devices to receive nasty power-surges, cause light to bend oddly (fun to make invisibility shields with), metal objects can float in it under the right circumstances (similar to electrical superconduction) and most relevantly, Compasses tend to point straight at the nearest concentrations of Aether for miles and go utterly bonkers when immersed in it.
Basically you can think of it as "what if magnetic fields were a gas?"
Mix and match whatever traits you like, can you breathe it safely? Is it toxic or corrosive to the wrong materials? How dense is it?
It neatly justifies gratuitous use of brass-goggles and respirators if you want it to.
It could be justified as killing the high-technology industry before it could happen. Integrated circuits and even vacuum tubes simply burn out when exposed to Aether outside of the most carefully shielded laboratories (and every natural-philosopher is using Aether in their experiments and projects, so such labs are going to be rare)
For your dragon-rider, the creature might well need Aether to fly, being a magical creature and most likely being thoroughly aerodynamically unsound like most depictions.
On top of which, the critter itself being saturated with Aether, is basically a massive electromagnet making the rider's compasses useless.
[Answer]
Navigating with a compass and no good landmarks can get you lost easily. All you know then is how to get to the north or south pole, not how to get anywhere else.
I got lost with a map and a compass once - I was hiking through one of three nearly identical valleys and for 24 hours I didn't know which.
Your dragon rider has an even worse situation. The open sea has no landmarks at all. The dragon flies forward relative to the air, not relative to the ground, so if there's any wind it won't fly precisely in the direction its snout is facing. If the wind changes direction or speed, the dragon will not fly in a straight line. If there's a headwind or tailwind they could have flown a much greater or smaller distance than they think they have. And a dragon is not a precise instrument, so it cannot be relied upon to travel in a perfectly straight line at a perfectly consistent speed even in still air.
Consequently, even if the rider has looked at the compass every five minutes for the whole journey, if they've been out of sight of land for a while they could be far from where they think they are.
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Your story happens in Earth but in the middle of a [geomagnetic reversal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal) and geomagnetic field is too weak or irregular to be useful.
Geomagnetic reversals happen quite at random in the Earth - more often than one every million years -, and they take a few thousands years to complete. In that period the field - or at least its bipolar component - diminishes and grows again, but inverted. When the bipolar component is zero, the remaining geomagnetic field could be as useless as those of Venus or Mars described in other answers.
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Unlikely, but for completeness: if there are no ferromagnetic materials in the (top layer of the) planet, the compass would not be invented.
It might limit your story quite a bit to rule out iron though. And it might seem unlikely, seeing how prevalent iron is (being the most stable atom, after all).
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Organic interference. In your scenario, a person riding another living thing, the person or dragon itself could produce small but impactful amounts of disorganized EM interference. Enough to make a compass wiggle and be unreliable or not useful. This could play into the bigger steampunk world, where electronics become difficult to develop if the presence of the researchers messed it up. That'd also make functioning compasses more awkward and bulky, since they'd have to be encased or shielded.
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## Dragons are magnetic
Did you know that the chemicals Dragons need to breath fire are highly magnetic? Compass always points at Dragon, character gets lost, mission accomplished.
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There are clearly lots of better answers, but I thought it might be worthwhile to bring up a different perspective. Just like evolution, human-developed tools seem to stop when they solve problems well-enough. They don't always have to keep improving. My thought is that if something else had already solved the problem in a different way, you would not NEED to develop a compass. True, some people like creating a better mousetrap, but they don't always catch on. I realize this is not technically an answer, but it might offer an alternative explanation, if you have your own tool in mind.
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The compass existed for around a thousand years before people thought of using it for navigation (it was originally a tool for divination), and making good use of them takes some skill, training, and good maps. It's entirely plausible for them to just not have been put to that use, or for the relevant characters to not have one or the knowledge and skills to use it.
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You have a small moon in a low orbit that has an extremely powerful magnetic field. (Note that this probably can't be natural.) This often dominates the planet's magnetic field.
Tables could tell you when the moon was far enough away that you could use a compass--but nobody has figured this out. Since compasses don't consistently point north nobody has realized the potential.
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The planet has a liquid interior but no iron core. The magnetic field is unstable and reverses periodically like that of the Sun (which flips every 11 years). A compass would sort of work but inaccurately, and there would be years in which it isn't usable.
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Open Ocean, No Landmarks, Nighttime, Cloudy to Stormy Sky ... Compass of no use or non-existant.
Iron is needed for a compass needle, and your world just doesn’t have enough ferric material.
This would mean your steampunk machinery is non-ferric based.
However, if dragons in your world are migratory like passenger pigeons, they would be tuned in to the planetary magnetic fields through natural evolution and a small storm would not throw them off course.
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[Question]
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Most Earth cultures — as far as I know — tend to use square or rectangular surfaces to write upon, and similarly our texts are also organized into square and rectangular shapes. However, a culture that writes in circles (as in all the letters fall along the circumference of an invisible circle) would likely not use squares or rectangles for writing on surfaces due to the wasted space and instead elect to use circular or oval surfaces.
For an example of this writing style in action:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z8UHr.png)
What does this mean for the medium on which longer texts--such as books, records, and even personal writings--are written down? I'm very attached to the idea of books and scrolls as I know them, but in the context of this writing system, I can't see how those would form or be useful to the people using them.
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They write on horizontal cuts of tree trunks, so they just follow the tree trunk's circles as opposed to trying to make it into a new material. Some might even write in a spiral so as to make it look more artistic.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CbDwu.jpg)
This is by no means the best method to write, but it's the best one they figured out since they had no access to papyrus and any technology to make actual paper. Then, as time went on, they might get the technology to make paper, but they might just be, somehow (for cultural reasons one would assume), stuck in this way of writing and making circular papers instead of square ones.
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You would still have books made of paper, papyrus or whatever material you choose. You would use the middle section that you left out in your sketch to bind the different pages together, for example by threading them on a string, or a piece of wood.
If you choose to use for example a small piece of wood your *books* could be rotated, which would make reading easier. Maybe you could then add a string to the start and end of the piece of wood so that you can take the foremost page you just read and put it to the end of the book to read the next page without fearing that some pages get lost in the process.
Basically your books would look like scrolls and could be kept in such for transport. You have a staple of round pages with a stick in the middle to keep them in order and a string going around to *turn* your pages.
If you want to make both sides readable you could use a second piece of wood so that when you turn the page you change the page to the second piece of wood and can read the backside. But this seems a lot unwieldier than the single-page solution. Still, it would be a possibility and might be used when not relying on *books* that need to be transported.
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Something similar was used by the ancient Minoans from Crete. The Phaistos Disk is an example and uses a spiral track to record the symbols.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0WCUL.jpg)
But there is no reason in principle why paper and ink type media should not be used in a similar way as suggested by others.
Although not particularly practical, one interesting solution to the page turning problem for short(ish) works would simply be to extend the size of the disc used to write on. If it suits your purposes there might be specific religious reasons why some texts should be written on one complete disc rather than split across multiple discs.
One could imagine religious centres having large reading rooms where 4m wide (or more) discs could be read by spinning the wheel slowly around whilst an external cursor pointed to the reading point. The reading point could be adjusted by moving the whole disc (or the reader for bigger books) slowly up or down by 5mm (roughly equivalent to turning a page) if reading horizontally. Perhaps a better method would be to read vertically and arrange the cursor to move inward as the disc was turned to match the spiral pattern on the disc.
Quite a lot could be recorded on one disk assuming 5x5mm for each character in all of the following calculations. Smaller characters obviously could give greater density at the cost of less clarity.
The ~500,000 characters with spaces in a [typical novel](https://www.quora.com/How-many-characters-of-text-letters-are-in-an-average-book) sized book would require a 2.5km length of track to write on.
using this [calculator](http://www.giangrandi.ch/soft/spiral/spiral.shtml)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/D1GV2.png)
And pretending the “tape” is 5mm thick and we are writing on the edge of it gives H =5mm and an external diameter of 4m for something the size of a novel and 6.2m for something the size of the Bible. This is huge but quite manageable for sacred works in a cathedral like setting. Especially if you want to keep control of who has access to it…
Other options for the unwashed masses would either be illiteracy, use much smaller discs for their petty needs or use some sort of crude and distinctly un-holy “paged” system as described by others for their temporal worldly needs.
[Answer]
Instead of the writing style dictating the medium of the writing surface, perhaps it began the other way around. Perhaps there is a common plant that has circular leaves or has bark that peals off in circular patches. Or perhaps an animal that has a skin that when shed or skinned results in a mostly circular sheet of parchment.
Perhaps this item also has a hole in the middle. While perhaps not the most efficient way to store these documents, it would be convenient to run a spindle or cylinder through these holes to store them. The material around the hole would need to be treated and reinforced to prevent tearing though.
With this item resting on the spindle, the scribe begins writing downwards on one side of the spindle (likely right, in a right-hand dominant society). As the scribe writes with one hand, the other hand slowly spins the document.
A high end writing surface would likely be an actual turntable, while a clear and polished surface would be the standard.
Reading such a document that contained multiple pages, would likely require that you remove the top page when finished, and placing it upside down on another spindle. "Closing" the book would be taking the pages off the other spindle, turning them back over and sliding them down the book's spindle.
For the quality books, the top and bottom of the stack would likely be reinforced covers, perhaps leather bound, and would extend out past the pages and would have rims that would be designed to meet each other so that the book is contained withing the box created by it's end pieces. The top and bottom of the stack would likely also have some sort of matching central spindles so that the top cover can hold the pages removed from the bottom.
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While this style is interesting, I don't think it would look how you have suggested. If you think about the logistics of writing your hands and arms go onto the surface below the writing. In the example given you would end up smudging the ink repeatedly.
Instead the writing would start at the center and form a spiral (or concentric circles but spirals have more obvious "start reading" points and easier flow) outward from that point. The letters would be arranged with their "top" towards the center of the circle and their "bottom" towards the outside. The paper would then be formed in a circle itself. The circles could be bound in books at one edge by flattening off a small part of the circle. Scrolls would just involve rolling up the circular paper. Or the paper could be laid onto rectangles of a cheaper substance (for example sheets of wood) and then still bound into square books.
Alternatively they could use rectangular paper and write the main message in the center and then other messages (like footnotes) in the four corners around that. Even smaller messages could then be entered in the remaining space.
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This writing style could have appeared from the necessity of people being able to carry messages that wouldn't be easily lost or damaged.
They would carve symbols on a bracelet type of thing, made of somewhat malleable metal, not too malleable, that messengers would carry on their arms for safekeeping, but would still allow them freedom of movement when needed.
A cross of these:
<https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/30/11/1a3011c08b65e778eb7b22f9d1c85e75.jpg>
<http://www.langantiques.com/university/images/7/78/Ancient_Egyptian_Bangle_Bracelet.jpg>
[Answer]
All the ancient civilizations used pottery to record stories:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hVohh.jpg)
Africa
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=african+pottery&oq=african+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l10.31607.32557.0.33003.7.7.0.0.0.0.84.547.7.7.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.7.546...0i7i30k1j0i13k1j0i10k1.0.08iOlzzUwko>
Babylon
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=babylonian+pottery&oq=babylo+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i7i30k1l2.84490.91215.0.92845.18.11.7.0.0.0.108.930.10j1.11.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.12.628...0j0i13k1j0i8i13i30k1.0._cYqsKmBnus#imgrc=8Ckc8rhrrb34DM>:
Egypt
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=egyptian+pottery&oq=egyp+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3.1.0i13k1j0i7i30k1l9.50226.51065.0.53690.4.4.0.0.0.0.94.327.4.4.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.4.325....0.Ojl7qwq_I6c>
Greece
<https://www.google.com/search?q=greek+pottery&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq97Can4DXAhULjlQKHe54AdEQsAQIJw&biw=1440&bih=708>
China
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=chinese+pottery&oq=chinese+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67k1j0l7j0i67k1j0.11300.12377.0.13041.7.7.0.0.0.0.100.601.6j1.7.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.7.598...0i7i30k1j0i13k1.0.59cdOxGdtJ4>
Middle East
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=middle+eastern+pottery&oq=middle+e+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0i7i30k1l2j0i7i5i30k1l2.56788.58137.0.59447.8.8.0.0.0.0.87.647.8.8.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.8.645...0.0.hsZZMhVCJm8>
American Indian
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=indian+pottery&oq=indian+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l10.47497.48047.0.48737.6.6.0.0.0.0.119.546.5j1.6.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..1.5.453...0i7i30k1j0i13k1.0.0IbrkwKIT_I>
India
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=india+pottery&oq=india+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i7i30k1l9.34910.34910.0.36097.1.1.0.0.0.0.84.84.1.1.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.1.83....0.YPd1-QhblKg>
Inca
<https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=708&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=inca+pottery&oq=inca+pottery&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i67k1j0l7j0i7i30k1l2.42447.43125.0.43668.4.4.0.0.0.0.86.324.4.4.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.4.321...0i5i30k1.0.A0p8omHlJdI>
...and the list goes on.
[Answer]
While it is a very weird way of writing/reading information it does allow for the fun fact you can have 'infinitely' long chapters of a medium, unlike books which fail once the binding reaches a certain size (and this fact maybe the reason that things are developed by your culture this way?)
I imagine the writing is always a single line in depth, and the medium follows the shape of these brushes:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/O7a7f.jpg)
You'd read them by simply slotting your finger into the gap behind the 'start' and bending it outwards slightly, so as it rotated you can continue to read the 'next' page, all you have to do is continually rotate it to proceed.
For extremely long chapters of material, it could possible be mounted on some sort of stick, maybe with a device which does the holding of the two 'pages' apart automatically, as you push/pull it through.
[Answer]
Trying to think out of the box here; because it's possible that such a culture never considered books made of flat pages.
The suggestion of using a round paper (e.g. the current top answer, a slice of a tree) works well as a first step. But as your civilization expands, the need for compact storage (and a way to "flip through" a book) becomes more important.
The below suggestion is what they might think of as the successor to disc-shaped paper/tablets.
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When I was a kid, I use to play with a water-balloon-tube toy. It's hard to explain, so let me just show you one:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wCpvI.jpg)
*According to Google, the best results are found by searching "water tubes toy", "water wiggly" or "water snakes toy".*
Notice that there is a hole in the middle that connects to the other side. This is a hollow tube, where the sides are filled with water.
This tube has an interesting property, you can slide the membrane back and forth, in a way that the inside of the tube becomes the outside of the tube.
This is again hard to explain, so let me show you a quick video. It's easy to understand when you see it:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbCt6VEA1Dg>
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This could function as a book. Imagine if the words are written on the outside, like so:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/67CcV.png)
* The "page" is the outside of the tube.
* You can "scroll" through the text by sliding the tube, thus revealing what's written on the inside.
Construction notes:
* The water makes this a bulky toy. However, if you manage to develop a material that is very slippery (on the inside), you no longer need the water for lubrication.
* Need a bigger page? Make a cylinder with a bigger radius. Or a taller cylinder (it depends on whether the radius is grammatically important, I guess)
* For a sufficiently advanced culture, they may develop some sort of internal mechanism that allows *many* inside layers at the same time (e.g. layering it back and forth on the inside).
* If they're unable to make such a multi-layer tube, you might be inclined to put each chapter of a book on a different tube; and a book then becomes a box of tubes (chapters).
* There's an interesting option of making a marquee. Put the tube on a stand that makes it shift the page by one line every e.g. 10 seconds; and also let the tube rotate (1 rotation = 10 seconds). Not only does it allow for people to read the text without moving their head (similar to how a [ticker](http://www.wavetec.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ticker-stock.png) works), but because you are showing multiple lines at the same time, it's possible for several people to read a different part of the text (by focusing on different lines).
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**Minor edit**
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> I'm very attached to the idea of books and scrolls as I know them, but in the context of this writing system, I can't see how those would form or be useful to the people using them.
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Good news! Such a device still looks like a scroll, so you can retain the visual aspect of it.
You could also retain the visual aspect of a book, if you use the book as a box to store the tubes in. Not unlike a cigar box:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AZDbf.jpg)
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Apart from being really inconvenient, if there was a culture writing like that, for space-saving reason you could use cone-shaped blocks.
They can be stored very space-saving. If you write considering the angle of the cone and stretch your font accordingly, when looking on the cone from the top, it would look like what you described.
[Answer]
It might not translate exactly to circular writing, but I can see writing on the outside of a cylinder to come close. A sentence can start at one end of the cylinder, then slope slightly so that as the words go around the cylinder, the lettering becomes stacked. This would be similar to spiraling on a flat plane, but not be limited by the area of a flat piece of paper. It would, however, be limited to how long and how large a diameter the cylinder is.
So, a person would rotate the cylinder as they wrote or read. This could lead to interesting geometries such as a paper/cloth "scroll" that keeps the text at a certain distance between the top and bottom of the cylinder as the user turns it. The material would feed out of one end and into the other to maintain this distance. It could then be translated into a similar style electronic device where the words flow the length of the cylinder, rather than turning pages. It would end up being more line a vertical scroll on a web page, I think.
This could also include a device that had multiple cylinders that have material flowing around, or into them, for longer text. A simpler version could be just a bundle of sticks that are consecutively marked for a large book. The bundle could be attached, in order of reading, into a mat. This mat could then be rolled out and the individual cylinders be rotated for reading. Finish one cylinder and go onto the next in the mat. I'm thinking something like a bamboo scroll, except the pieces would be cylindrical instead of flat.
Another option would be telescoping rods to contain large amount of text in a compressed length.
This culture might design reading materials based on concepts like mobius strips or klein bottles.
This type of writing could be be explained by citing ancient writing on trees, bamboo, or whatever else is of significant diameter to write on. Creating quality writing material would then be as easy as creating a simple lathe, which an ancient culture could manage fairly simply. In fact, Wikipedia states that turning originates as early as 1300 BCE with a 2 person lathe in ancient Egypt. Wikipedia states that paper making was documented in 25-250 CE, which the lathe predates considerably. That doesn't account for papyrus and other pre-paper materials, but it's something to work with.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paper>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathe>
Hope I gave you something to work with!
[Answer]
I assume, writing in circles would likely lead to write in spirals. Mysthical reasons could be to stay with circles, or writing on wooden discs with annual rings.
Branches are good to write in circles or spirales around them. You would spin the branch for reading. (Though, it would be a circle or spiral, but you never see the circle as a whole).
Round discs of wood are imaginable, too, directly providing annual rings as lines for circular writing. One drawback: wooden discs tend to snatch from the outside to the center, because the outer parts shrink more than the center. (Though, with some experience in drying wood you can avoid snatches.) You could remove the wooden center to avoid snatches. You get wooden rings with circular lines.
A book would be a collection of thin circular wooden discs with annual rings, with a circular hole in the middle, hold together with a circular cord.
Little sidestep: [rune stones](https://www.google.de/search?client=firefox-b&dcr=0&biw=1871&bih=891&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=rune+stone+&oq=rune+stone+&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i19k1l7j0i10i19k1j0i19k1l2.33095.34110.0.34428.6.6.0.0.0.0.279.682.0j1j2.3.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..3.2.537....0.hpxz5SabwAk) sometimes show sort of circular or spiral writings (but more often knots or lines).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yRv13.jpg)
(Picture from <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_runestones>)
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Circular writing might also have the advantage of making the hierarchy of ideas in a written work immediately apparent, because the words (or logograms or whatever) that are central to your argument are literally at the center of the page. You can glance at the page and know its topic immediately, then read the details spirally off the center if you're interested. More complex documents with multiple central ideas could be made by attaching two or more circular pages edge-to-edge, with multiple possible paths for a reader to follow.
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It seems, from the example, that they do not write in discs, but in arcs. That is, they don't really spiral in to reach the center.
So I pondered: why would this work, and for whom?
Eyes are a possible reason that it might make for a better form of writing: a species with differential focus/zoom (like an eagle, with the center of the eye very zoomed in, but the outer eye more wide-angle), and good peripheral vision, might find it easier to focus with its wide-angle view, especially if moving the eyes is strenuous. So, writing going in a circle around the periphery of its vision would be ideal.
But what mechanism would create such a form of writing?
What about a very stretchy latex-like tube, coarse on the inside but teflon-smooth on the outside? Thread it through the back of a large ring, and stretch the opening of the tube back over the ring, so it's wrapped around the ring.
You can then read from, or write on, the part of the tube stretched out on the ring.
Squeezing the tube that wrapped over behind the ring will pull more tube through, until eventually the whole tube is inside out - you then need to undo the operation to "rewind" the book. Or maybe just the page: whether to have a whole book on a single coil, or a book made of a sheaf of coils is up to you (or to the publisher). Sort of the difference between long old-world scrolls, and newer books with short pages.
With one tube per page, this would end up looking not unlike the Incan Khipu knot-writing, but with far greater information-density, and obviously no knots (though a knot would work as a "spoiler" tag, you'd have to undo it before reading; and a knot sealed with a chop would work for privacy protection):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mTQwq.jpg)
Historically, this would have been a good way to store very dense writings in a very small space, because the text would shrink as the surface did - a single coiled hose could hold a whole encyclopaedia! Also, the writings would be protected on the inside of the hose.
In modern times, of course, devices would be just a ring, with a display on, and no hose... much more convenient, but some people would feel that it wasn't the same as curling up with a good coil.
[Answer]
[Tibetan prayer wheels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_wheel) style approach is probably the closest one can get physically.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5quxb.jpg)
Old telephone dials are another example, but they worked because of limited set of characters(numbers) to put in. It may be noted that numbers were all pointed up and not pointing away from the center.
Since human eyes have planar vision, it would require much more effort and time to read text written in circles.
[Answer]
Assuming a somewhat primitive culture:
They use chains, necklaces, strings and such. Things that are circles. If you write on top of the chain (basically looking at an O as you suggested in your question) or on the outside as in the LotR movies (or even on the inside?) doesn't matter I believe.
It can be used as jewelry. It can be used to decorate their temples. It can be worn by high officials. They can have a "book on a stick" that basically looks like a Christmas tree.
Important passages are engraved into metal (e.g. gold) chains that last for ages. Every day bureaucracy and book keeping might write on for example leather/textile scarfs or a poncho that they wear all day and then have access to all day.
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There are several real languages with round characters.
Burmese:
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> ဤသည်ကိုမြန်မာဘာသာစကားသည်။ ဒါကဥပမာတစ်ခုဝါကျဖြစ်ပါတယ်။
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Sinhala
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> මෙය සිංහල භාෂාවයි. මේක උදාහරණයක්.
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Malayalam
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> ഇതാണ് മലയാളം ഭാഷ. ഇത് ഒരു ഉദാഹരണമാണ്.
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Telugu
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> ఇది తెలుగు భాష. ఇది ఒక ఉదాహరణ వాక్యం.
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Lao
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> ນີ້ແມ່ນພາສາລາວ. ນີ້ແມ່ນປະໂຫຍກຕົວຢ່າງ.
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If you are looking for each "page" to be read in the round, you could curve the *headstroke* into a circle or spiral in languages such as
Hindi:
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> यह हिंदी भाषा है यह एक उदाहरण वाक्य है, ताकि आप देख सकें कि बहुत, बहुत लंबे समय के सिरस्ट्रोक के साथ एक सास क्या दिखता है।
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[Real world example.](http://lightvibemandala.weebly.com/uploads/9/2/0/2/9202603/6562555.jpg)
As far as how to bind a language written in the round, the first thing that comes to mind is how East Asians used to carry money, [this for example](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Bundles_of_100_copper_Mon_coins.jpg).
Alternatively, they could write on a semi-circular surface which would be "bound" (perhaps rung around an axle?) on the flat edge. This would make the entire "book" a sphere.
[Answer]
They use the writer's equivalent to a pottery wheel:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tEouW.jpg)
[Answer]
*The media used may not be the same as that which the written language's originating culture used*
The storyline in use can have any number of reasons why and how the circular writing came to be in use, and it can be easily alluded to by describing other elements of the story such as the characters, world environments, other inhabitants, and their motivations.
To help address the portion of your question: "I can't see how those would form or be useful to the people using them.", and considering that there is no defined setting for the world(s) the question applies to, here's an example of one way it may not matter how exactly the media in use "here/today" came to be with circular writing in use.
*Philanthropic Twirling Aliens*
*Long ago and far away, there exists a culture of intelligent people that live on a planet with an atmosphere that has many vertical thermal winds miles deep into the atmosphere. Within these thermal vents travel up and down a variety of life, including these people. Their awake time is spent floating slowly down from the uppermost level of the atmosphere, twirling gently all the while. When they near surface level, they aim for a nearby upward direction vent and shoot back up to the top to start the long leisurely trip back down again.*
*The people have bodies that consist of, among other body parts, retractable spiral lofting wing-like appendages, and their most common orientation is with the eyes on the very bottom of their bodies. Think bat hanging upside down except the eyes dangle from the "bottom" of their heads and it's all day, not just at sleep.*
*This means they are fully comfortable writing and reading amidst a continually circular moving view. Even when they settle in hanging upside down on perches at dark, they feel most comfortable on perches that slowly spin (they see fine in the dark, but too many other creatures do not--vent travel at night is for the adventure-junkies only).*
*They use the shed skin of the makeupaname, found only on their world and falls off in absolutely felicitous circular pieces of "paper".*
*Expeditions of these people periodically embark on long off-world journeys to other worlds in search of less advanced cultures of intelligent beings capable of learning written languages in order to help them along in their intellectual evolution. One such journey brought them to Earth, where they encountered Earthlings that very easily learned one of their languages.*
*Alas, there was no makeupaname skin available for additional paper to practice with, so the Earth people used whatever was available at the time and location.*
[Answer]
The Phoenician languages used scrolls for hundreds of years before books came along.
The jump to using books required the invention and dissemination of new rules about breaking text into manageable segments. These rules don't make the text more legible; mainly they help with organization and storage.
Pages are only one example of the many innovations embedded in modern books.
Your culture's circular texts work fine for early writing; as their civilization becomes more complex, so will their texts.
I don't see any reason that books disrupt circle-writing more than scroll-writing.
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This is not a direct answer, but it does impact the writing material of your civilization quite a bit.
If you see a normal object, you can recognize it, no matter how it is turned. You might not see an upside-down car often, but you will see that it is a car. However, reading mirrored or flipped writing is much more difficult.
This is because many letters actually mean something different when they are flipped or mirrored, like the 'w' and 'm'. While learning to read, people learn to repress flipping characters, and that is why we can't read mirrored text, but do understand the difference between 'w' and 'm'.
This leads to the idea that, maybe, if our writing system didn't have pairs like that, we would all be able to read upside down just fine. If that is true, your civilization doesn't need weird ways of rotating round text, as long as no characters look like others when turned.
[Answer]
## Consider a different medium: woven fibers.
Ancient American cultures used knotted strings to encode messages. Step it up a notch and you have macrame pages of text. Move up one more notch and you have woven prayer mats or even rugs. Hang them on walls, ceilings, lay them out on floors.
You could even go natural, and weave tales into cultured plots of plants. Another ancient American custom was to culture strawberry beds and other flowering plants (including flowers in some regions) into sculpted shapes of form and color. Those who had the proper training could walk the streets of the towns and cities and read the tales (usually bragging about the accomplishments of a notable person, group, or even town) that had been woven into the local horticulture.
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> In a culture that writes in circles, what would the medium for writing look like?
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Good question?
Another good question that already has a secure answer:
Why do floppy disks, HDs and DVDs get data wrote to then in circles?
Answer: because this way make randomic access to data much more easy/swift.
Maybe, I am risking here, that culture has two eyes, but only one eye is able to close look things, the other one is only able to distant seeing. One thing that culture, HDs, floppy disks and DVDs has in common is they are single eyed readers.
For the media I suggest plain disk formated paper :).
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0rUyV.png)There are many options.
I hope they would came to the idea of "Reeb foliation", which makes infinitely big surfaces wrap arround themselves. They are all contained in a torus.
**<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeb_foliation>**
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[
In my alternate Earth, which follows our timeline almost consistently, I want one of the differences being that the de facto standard for cars is that they have rear steering wheels instead of the front steering wheels we have. With rear steering wheels I mean the two back wheels which give direction to the vehicle.
What single change in the (technology) history would make this happen?
The earliest the change, the better.
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Rear-steering wheels are dynamically unstable, that is, when the car is moving forward, any small misalignment of rear wheels position vs fixed front wheel axis will cause a force that would turn them to the side they've got turned. This is an unstable equilibrium and will not last long enough without any control. Yet, should one of those people trying to drive such a car EVER drive backwards, he will discover that the controls are now easier, with the result of front-steered car. Therefore, what you ask for is plain impossible.
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## Super Patent laws
As Vesper already pointed out, front-wheel steering is far superior. So if left to develop freely, cars would quickly converge on that. The solution must be in society then, not technology. We already have laws that prevent use of technology by society in general: Patent laws.
In your alternate history "alternate Edison" has successfully lobbied for strong and perpetual patent laws. These give total control to the patent holder. Now, "Lightning" front-steering has been patented by some misanthropic inventor that feels the masses should not be allowed to enjoy his inventions. He only licenses it for the production of supercars etc.
The entire car industry has then banded together to create an international standard based on a rear-steering bar (RSB) that has become the global standard.
[Answer]
## Very early invention of actively stabilized steering.
The only way to drive a rear steering vehicle without constant high levels of attention and continual steering inputs is if the steering is actively stabilized.
This need not require electronics, as we might tend to think today; a "fifth wheel" under the center of the vehicle can act as a combination of stabilizer and steering controller, giving the stability of well designed front steering and the maneuverability of rear steering. The linkage, being all mechanical, might well date back to the Renaissance (equivalent) or even Classical period, whenever someone was clever enough to invent this.
However, rear steering doesn't fit well with vehicles *pulled* by animals, so there might also be a case where the inventor had a very skittish cart horse, and invented a way for the horse to push the cart while remaining enclosed in a lightweight "stall". Tiller steering (which evolved into a steering wheel, eventually) allows control of the horse without dealing with long reins and the slack in them.
Yes, the system is complex -- but first is best might well win the day, or the "sheltered horse" carriages might have competed with "horse-tail" types up until someone needed to mount a large, heavy steam boiler where one person could both tend the fire and steer the machine.
Should also note, from comments, that [Cugnot's tricycle](https://www.britannica.com/facts/Nicolas-Joseph-Cugnot), the very first steam powered land vehicle (first "automobile") was front drive and front steering -- but if Cugnot's valve gear had been opposite phase, his engine would have rotated the other way and it would have been rear drive and rear steering. I recall another very early steam automobile that was a converted boat, driven by the main wheels but steered with a smaller wheel mounted on the rudder (would have been pretty cranky without a differential, though).
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A rear-steering car is an example of an [inverted pendulum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pendulum), which as many have mentioned is inherently unstable and infamously difficult to control. Using this design will make cars more dangerous, will require roadways to be significantly wider, and will limit how quickly your vehicle can turn. If you *really* want this in your world, though, here's a way you can contrive it into being:
**Henry Ford didn't return home when he was 19.**
At age 16, [Ford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford) left home to work as an apprentice machinist for several companies in Detroit. He returned to the family farm three years later, where he worked for almost 10 years on a farm and a sawmill until he became an engineer for the Edison company. It was here that he developed his [quadricycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Quadricycle), the precursor to his automobile.
In your world, Ford never returned home. Instead, he continued to work in Detroit, where his last employer was Dry Dock Engine Works, a manufacturer of engines for boats. Ford stayed here longer in your world, where he advanced to become the chief test pilot and analyst for new engine designs. He spent many, many days piloting small craft around the Detroit River, and he particularly enjoyed the tugboat that they used for testing cargo hauling capability. As a result, his automobile designs did not evolve from the horse-drawn buggy. Instead, he took a wildly-successful tugboat design and modified it to operate on land.
The resulting vehicle would be built in a radically different manner. Your cars would look more like this photo of a tugboat pushing a barge:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oWfmM.jpg)
[[image source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tug_and_Barge_--_New_York_Harbor_(NY)_April_2016_(26621401834).jpg)]
The driver would sit in a small cab, most likely alone, with the engine and controls. This cab would link up to a payload of some sort, whether that be a passenger compartment, flatbed for cargo, etc. and would push it along. The payload section's basic frame would be structured somewhat like of a train car: a flat platform with its own fixed wheels, but dependent on external propulsion and steering.
All of the complex, expensive machinery is encapsulated within the cab. Customers could buy a single cab, plus several relatively-inexpensive payload units which would allow them to easily haul cargo, take their family to town, or even do light farm or industrial work without having to buy separate vehicles. A delivery driver could drive a box truck, a liquid tanker, and a refrigerated food van in a single day, all without leaving his cab. Ford was also known for his standardized designs, which allowed customers to upgrade to a newer cab design while still using their existing payload units.
Engineers would undoubtedly notice the inherent stability problems with this arrangement once speeds increased to a certain point. However, Ford's design was ubiquitous and deeply entrenched by that time, and the existing ecosystem of cabs and payload units meant that redesigning the vehicle for higher speeds would require customers to abandon their extensive investments in it. That would make the new designs far too expensive for all but the richest customers, not to mention you'd have to re-train every driver on the road. Drivers were even *frightened* at the very thought of piloting a vehicle from the front. The payload unit offered good protection in the event of a collision, and moving the cab to the front presented a lot more danger for the driver and for the expensive part of the vehicle. Instead, the existing design stuck, and vehicles in your world have inherent limits to their speed and maneuverability that drivers simply accept as a normal thing.
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# The Inevitable Might of Roman Steam:
Early concepts of Greek steam engines are developed and exploited by Rome to build a world-spanning empire. Steam ships and trains come to totally dominate long distance transportation. Wagons and horses are considered backward, quaint, or weapons of war (and thus rebellion). Even wagons come to be run on rails, which are viewed as modern symbols of power and dominance. Open land is used for crops or filled with trees to fuel the hungry appetite for steam power.
So all roads are narrow and twisty, dominated by pedestrians, horses and the smallest and most maneuverable wagons. No one considers roads to be long distance transport, so no one thinks about going fast on them. You want to avoid the many obstacles.
So when cars come to replace wagons and pedestrians, they compete with a massive, standardized global network of trains and rails. Cars put a premium on maneuverability, and speed is not a significant consideration.
# Wild Safety Feature:
The earliest cars had a terrible safety record, but forward-thinking engineers realized that seat belts and rear-facing people prevented deaths. So they decided to make the driver face backwards and drive via a series of mirrors.
The saddle and bridle lobby, eager to quash the horseless carriage, lobbies to make the awkward arrangement mandatory for the dangerous contraptions. This was so successful that governments mandate this seemingly unusual arrangement.
Car engineers add gears in both directions to facilitate driving either way. "reverse" driving is stable at higher speeds, while "forward" driving allows better control and a direct view by the driver at lower speeds.
# Computers come before cars:
Mechanical computers in the 1800's lead to an early development of advanced computing power. So by the time cars become popular, they are already self-driving. They start with dynamic control, and rear steering is adopted as the standard.
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## naval cars and cultural inertia
Your cars arise from shipping design not horse carts. Ships are steered from the rear, so if the first mass produced car was created by maritime enthusiast or in a society with a much stronger maritime tradition, that is what they would make because that is the form of steering most people are familiar with. Keep in mind early automobiles were steered by tillers so its not even that far fetched, the tiller linkage can just as easily go to a back wheel as a front wheel. It does not even require that major of a redesign to just swap the direction of travel so you can use early cars as models.
Keep in mind early cars are slow, so high speed performance issues will not have a chance to have an effect, problems later on will not be able to reverse the design.
It doesn't matter if the design is better or worse it just need to dominate the early market. Once it becomes common cultural inertia sets in and rear steering front end drive cars is what gets made from then on regardless. Because that is what people will know how to drive any attempt to try something different never gets a chance. Its the same reason the Qwerty keyboard is the keyboard we still use and why we use a dangerously narrow railroad gauge. It is how countries lock in electrical plug or which side of the road you drive on. A lot of technology has horrible inefficiencies that are just baggage from early designs and changing them is just too much trouble because it requires retraining the users. One fun side effect is rear steering bicycles would likely also become the standard.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Iqare.png)
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Without changing physics. We change need.
Horses never made it out of North America and so went extinct. The carriage was never invented and standard road widths were human push cart widths, not carriage widths.
Although other creatures were domesticated none performed as well as horsed would have or adapted to their domesticated role poorly. City's became more compact. When the gas engine came about it needed the maneuverability of the rear wheel steering to navigate the narrow streets built up over centuries. Custom became standard.
where speed became a need in inter urbane/city travel. A method of the driver turning around and driving the car at higher and safer speed was devised.
Naturally the whole design of the car will need to change since the road width limits the cars width to under 5ft wide or less! I would not be surprised if in city driving the driver would sit in the rear behind 2 row seats in front of him and drives from the rear, until he needs intercity speeds where he turns the cockpit around and then is driving from the front. This is all weird and almost Rube Goldbergish, or might not be surprised to see a cat in a hat driving...but it checks the boxes.
[Answer]
As Vesper's answer notes, the laws of physics dictate that front-steering cars will cause a lot fewer accidents, due to stability.
One way to make rear-steering cars safe is to make them trams. This is sort of cheating, because trams are not really cars. But imagine a society where there are tramways on every road: it would be infeasible to have switches at every junction in the track, so the junctions are just open and the tram must be steered onto the branch the driver wants to go down. (There are probably also not as many junctions as a typical road network has.)
In this case the main safety risk is that the front wheels will go down one branch while the back wheels go down another, so it actually makes sense to give more control over the back wheels than the front: that way if the front wheels take the wrong branch by mistake, the driver can more easily apply a force on the back wheels to take that same branch. (Perhaps there is also some mechanical feedback built into the steering system to make this happen automatically.) Taking wrong turns would be more likely, but the front and back wheels going down separate tracks would be much less likely, so it trades inconvenience for safety.
So what single change in history would cause every city to have tram lines on their roads? Perhaps if people had started taking the threats of air pollution and climate change seriously a lot longer ago, society would prefer trams because of their lower emissions. Here's a not-entirely-implausible sequence of events:
* The 1948 events of [Donora, PA](https://www.epa.gov/air-research/history-air-pollution#then) instead occur in 1848, bringing the same scientific attention to the health risks of air pollution a hundred years earlier.
* Because of the greater focus on air quality in the scientific community, [Eunice Foote](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/happy-200th-birthday-eunice-foote-hidden-climate-science-pioneer)'s 1856 discovery that an atmosphere with more carbon dioxide results in a warmer planet receives more attention from her peers.
* Consequently, through further research, the scientific consensus about these two issues is reached in around the 1870's.
* Through science communication and education, at least among those with political power, by 1900 there is a general understanding that burning fossil fuels on too large a scale is harmful in the medium term (due to air pollution) and the long term (due to climate change).
* After Henry Ford invents the [Model T](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T) in 1908, politicians and the public see that mass-produced fossil-fuel burning cars will not be good for people. This creates a problem for Ford; not wanting his business to be legislated out of existence, he meets with local politicians in various municipalities to negotiate a deal: his cars will burn much less fuel if they be allowed to run on existing tramways. The next Ford model is a dual-mode car and tram, and this design becomes popular for a couple of decades.
* The growing automobile industry lobbies for more tramways so that they can sell more cars.
* Eventually, there are so many tramways that it is viable (and cheaper) for a driver to purchase a single-mode tram-car. The regulatory environment for single-mode tram-cars is also more relaxed because they are less likely to accidentally leave the road and hit a pedestrian.
This gets you to a modern society where most people drive "cars" that can only follow tramways in the roads, and those cars can have rear steering as standard.
[Answer]
Just to add to assorted comments why rear-wheel steering outside of certain specialized vehicles isn't a thing, here's an example of why: the 1933 Buckminister Fuller designed [Dymaxion Car](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car).
Leaving aside the issue of the bad aerodynamics making it dangerous to drive, here's a video of someone driving one. While one of the problems noted would have been dealt with with two rear steering wheels and not the one, the control issue would not have gone away because of the steering. Basically, at over 40 mph the thing is a danger.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1yxFDvqALI>
And here's a useful experiment I saw someone describe to explain the issue with rear-wheel steering: the next time you're at a grocery store or some other place with a shopping cart that has two fixed wheel and two on casters for steering, try pushing it around the store *backward* for a while and you'll begin to see some of the issues.
[Answer]
**Cargo cult**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3eWnb.jpg)
Your civilization didn't invent cars, they learned about them from another advanced civilization that left some car kits on your planet/continent. But the instructions were confusing and written in a language your people don't speak, so they did the best they could. Maybe it didn't come out looking like the diagram, and there were some extra screws, and steering is kind of a pain, but it was better than riding donkeys. Eventually people figured out that front steering works better, but by that point cultural inertia, blah blah...
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**Religion**
The society is extremely religious and there is sacred symbolic importance to the steering orientation, that is more important than safety/convenience/money. Perhaps this would evolve from a naval culture where helmsmen were toward the back of the ship, or a military where generals were in the rear. The Christian Church once condemned left-handedness, perhaps this culture would equally condemn front-wheel drive or front-wheel steering.
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**Digitigrade legs**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/A82m4.jpg)
Okay, this is a big change, but...
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> In terrestrial vertebrates, digitigrade locomotion is walking or running on the toes (from the Latin digitus, 'finger', and gradior, 'walk'). A digitigrade animal is one that stands or walks with its toes (metatarsals) touching the ground, and the rest of its foot lifted. Digitigrades include walking birds (what many assume to be bird knees are actually ankles), cats, dogs, and many other mammals, but not plantigrades or unguligrades. Digitigrades generally move more quickly and quietly than other animals.
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* [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitigrade)
Digitigrade legs (as found in birds, dogs, and many others) are much more nimble, usually resulting in faster and quieter animals than platigrades like us. Perhaps to a digitigrade hominid, super-sensitive rear-wheel steering would feel natural.
[Answer]
A rear-steering car **IS NOT** an inverted pendulum.
The only thing that affects stability of steering wheel position is inclination of steering axle.
A wheel with perfectly vertical steering axle is in neutral equilibrium - there is no force that opposes / promotes turning.
In practice king pin inclination is used to stabilize wheels in one or both of the following ways:
* [axle is turned inside/outside](https://youtu.be/wVYb7AElb7A?t=320), so when wheels are straight the car is at the lowest position, so you need to use a little force to turn a wheel to side and there is small force that returns it to neutral position without use of any springs.
* and/or [axle is turned backwards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLbs8kBXgrw) a little, so centrifugal force during turn straightens the wheel.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MnkK3.jpg)
If second way is used then steering of **normal car may feel unstable during fast reverse driving**, since in this case centrifugal force would destabilize the wheel, but **that has nothing to do with "inverted pendulum"** and easily fixed for rear steering wheels design.
**The real problem** is that when normal car turns then it's front begins the turn immediately.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UcIst.png)
It is bad for parking in small place - that's why we use reverse parking for that (and your rear steered car would be easy to park for novice driver).
BUT it is good when you want to avoid obstacle / pedestrian while driving fast - rear-steered car will need higher lateral acceleration.
In frontal steered car frontal part is accelerated first during turn - the one that avoids obstacle. In rear steered car - back part is accelerated first and to the wrong side. So it needs more acceleration to avoid obstacle and skid is more probable. Rear-steered car can make sharper turns but at high speed maneuverability is restricted by skid.
Also you need to put driver at the back - that would make a little harder for him to notice obstacles, or add long (and costly) axle to turn rear wheels from front.
That would make rear-steered car more dangerous and no "actively stabilized steering" would be able to help with that.
So you need to find a way to make good maneuverability of rear-steered cars at slow speeds much more important than their bad maneuverability at fast speeds.
[Answer]
Two things together:
* Rear engine cars became the rule rather than the exception. Perhaps due a series of accidents where the engine was pushed into the passenger compartment, seriously injuring or killing the driver and passengers.
* Steering was tightly coupled to the drive wheels, which in turn where located with the engine.
In other words, no rear-wheel drive cars with front engines or front-wheel drive cars with rear engines + cars mandated to have rear engines for safety + steering on drive wheels = rear steering.
[Answer]
**No Power on the Wheels**
Your Society didn't figure out how to get Power to the Wheels.
Instead they use Rocket Boosters to accelerate and for the first fifty years the rocket cars were only used on straight ways so there were no big deal to steer with the tires.
During the invention time the world wasn't that populated and the major cities are fare away from another. So the rocket-cars started as public transportation like trains in our world, but faster and without rails. When the surface of your planet got more populated the cars needed a possibility to steer around some objects. Steering was made by pushing a break into the ground; and that's easier to control if you break in your rear part.
When they had to make slower vehicles to support more nearby cities, they stayed with sliding and rear steering as long as they could. That's where technology is today.
The main technology comes from an very icy region (like Antarctica) where they don't need wheels. So the whole invention took another way.
I guess in future they will discover things like front steering.
[Answer]
Glass was never invented, thus no windscreens are available.
To avoid bugs in the face, passengers sit facing backwards, like a rowboat.
Depending on technology level, bumpers, mirrors or electronics deal with collision avoidance.
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Weak (or governed because of emissions concerns or safety rules) coupled with something like narrow 90 deg car parks (perhaps due to car population explosion meant driving forwards with visibility and rear steering useful, but no reason to change to front.
[Answer]
As others pointed out cars with the steering wheels on the rear are unstable, but that could be part of the fun. In the [Stout Scarab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stout_Scarab) the suspension were attached to the car body above the centre of mass and this gave the car an unusual behaviour, in the turns it leaned towards the inner side of the curve like motorcyclists do. With some extra struts and reactive joints the wheels might, also, lean a little bit. That would make a car a little bit more stable, but still prone to skidding. After all when you have the steering wheels on the rear it turns like a boat and getting the momentum for a skid is easy.
Such a car would be fun to drive, but it would not be for everyone, so you can imagine a world where most of the people use public transport, only few expert drivers use the private car.
How did we get there? A period of freak weather left the roads muddy or icy, but always slippery. Trams and train became so successful that they took over the bulk of the transport system. The roads were left to few drivers that took the habit of skidding at every turn like in a speedway race. When the weather stabilised the habit remained and drivers wanted cars prone to skidding.
**The alternative story**
I also thought about a world with small and crammed roads. All turns must be done in narrow spaces with little visibility, but in such context probably 4 steering wheels would be the best solution.
Unless most of the cars are cheap pick up trucks with the cargo on the front because thefts are frequent and the driver must keep a constant watch on it. With little visibility to make tight turns and the rear wheels closer to the driver position, the rear steering wheels became the easiest and cheapest solution.
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[Question]
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I have invented a large machine that allows me to create monsters out of blood. These monsters are called golems and are very powerful. My plan is to produce a large number of them to include in my army for world conquest. To accomplish this, I must acquire live humans to sacrifice to this machine.
The process requires a large amount of blood in order to create one golem. The human body is capable of losing up to 40% of blood before immediately dying from hemorrhaging, which works out to around 3 to 4 pints of blood. Thirteen humans at a time (the max amount) are placed inside this machine and hooked up to it through a series of tubes and wires. They are periodically drained to the maximum that their bodies can take, being kept alive by artificial processes. This provides up to 50 pints in total, after which they are given time to recover their blood supply until the next drain. This procedure happens until a victim expires and need to be replaced by new materials.
I want to create the largest amount of golems I can get while keeping each batch of victims alive for as long as possible to get the most mileage out of them. How can I make this happen?
[Answer]
Simply put?
1. Drain them to the point where it's still safe.
2. Keep them hooked to an IV that sends vitamin-enriched fluid to them (like when keeping a coma patient alive).
3. Use magic or drugs to keep them unconscious. If doing so would have a negative impact on their quality, keep them chained to a wall so that they can't move the arm with the IV.
4. Drain them again when their blood has regenerated.
That's the go-to if you're impatient. But if you have time on your hands and want them to give you their blood willingly... keep reading.
What you do is go to the orphanages around the area. Odds are we're in a civilization predating modern adoption records and laws, so just offer a couple gold coins and get a half dozen orphans from each, some male and some female. Train them to do work for you, but raise them like you would if you had kids. Then, when they've gotten to the point of being happy and healthy, once they've started trusting you, take their blood for the first time. They'll feel woozy and tired. Tell them they've done well and have the next couple of days off of working. Give them treats and rewards. Have a few of the workers start taking care of the ones who have the day off and catering to their needs. This will allow you to groom them well into adulthood to think this is normal and that it's worthwhile for them to participate because they get to have fun and relax instead of doing hard work. Make sure they love and trust you.
Once they are old enough, instruct them on how to mate so that you can breed more without having to buy them from orphanages anymore. In time, they'll create their own army of blood donors who love you, trust you, and will give their lives for you if you so much as asked them to. Once there are enough of them, train them to go on the machine of their own accord on a schedule. If any die, hold a beautiful funeral for them while you secretly use their body for meat as you start to turn a select few of them into Wendigo and while you also convert their bones into Skeletons to serve you in death as they did in life. Now, you have an expanding army of humans to serve as a blood bank, a troupe of wendigo with all the advantages that come with that, a troupe of skeletons who will obey the orders of their summoner, and all the golems you could possibly want. Not to mention a nursery full of new test subjects should something go wrong the first time.
Yes, I took this answer to a dark place. No, I don't have an issue with that. Quite simply, it's the most resource efficient as you can have them do so willingly while also producing food, clothes, and other things on their own. Some of these things which you can trade and sell for more coin to regain the money lost... Maybe you could even build a second then third machine so that you can keep making more and more golems, never having to stop until you have a military force that rivals that of each of the most powerful nations combined. You have to get in-character when answering these kinds of things. Would I personally do this? Not at all, but a character who was sufficiently evil enough to invent such a machine would have no problem being pragmatic about making use of the resources available to have them create more resources on their own of their own free will.
[Answer]
Open a blood bank and pay people for blood. People can give half a litre per donation and then go home.
It's much cheaper than trying to keep them alive using machines.
Build it in the poor areas and they will queue up waiting to give it to you.
[Answer]
**No Near Death Draining Required - this is Business.**
Ask the [Blood Donation Clinic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_bank) near you.
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> Thirteen humans at a time (the max amount) are placed inside this machine and hooked up to it through a series of tubes and wires. They are periodically drained to the maximum that their bodies can take, being kept alive by artificial processes.
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Very bad idea. First off, it's just not necessary. You can use a hundred people or a thousand and there's no reason to get all the blood at the same time !
Blood is stored and used quite normally by hospitals and can be kept for period of longer than a month when cooled.
When donating blood typically the amount varies from place to place, but would typically not be much more than 500 mL (about a pint for you people still stuck with the backward Imperial system :-) ). No need to kill the donor.
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> This provides up to 50 pints in total
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So 50 people required for your system.
Blood donors should have replaced the lost blood completely within two months and you can base your requirements on that level of safe production.
This also places some limits on what's practical in terms of nearly draining the life out of people. The more you take the longer (and harder) it is for the body to replace the lost blood. The more you take the more vulnerable the "donor" is to disease and medical complications.
In the US about 43,000 pints of donated blood are used *every day* (more always needed, BTW :-) ). That's a potential production rate (without much difficulty) of 860 new golems per day for you and not a single human had to be killed !
Now you can probably do better (see below) that this rate of production without any problems, but even with that rate you have an army of over 300,000 golems in just one year. The US army is about 2.5 million active enlisted and 3.5 million reserve.
**And this thing can *Pay For Itself* !**
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> My plan is to produce a large number of them to include in my army for world conquest.
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There's not even a need to force people to do this. If you're producing golems you are producing *workers*. OK, eventually you're going to use them to take over the world, but this is one case where it doesn't pay to advertise !
What you do is start a *business* paying people for normal blood donations (maybe even supplying hospitals for free for PR purposes) and funding this by renting out golems for all those tasks it's illegal to use child labor or slaves for. These golems are expendable anyway, so hey, the odd death isn't a big problem for anyone.
People will happily donate blood as normal (if not more) when being paid for it and there's no need for chains or kidnappings or enslavement. No fuss, no suspicious government investigations.
Heck, the military would actually *welcome* golems for hire. You might even get the idiots in the military to *train* your golems for you this way !
The possibilities are endless.
You're aiming at about 6 million golems to defeat any army on Earth (do these things need weapons ?). Well if you get the entire world donating blood at normal levels, and extrapolating from US population levels, you could get something like 20,000 golems a day ! That's an army of 7.3 million in a year !
Heck, why take over the world with an army at all ? This has the potential for a real money earner.
**Problems of Management ...**
After you made the first year's batch of golems you have a private workforce of 7.3 million golems.
And just what do these things eat ? Do they need housing ? Do they require medical care ? Education ? Training ?
Renting them to the US military sounds attractive. Those suckers in the Pentagon will pay for all that stuff, train them, teach them to follow orders and *pay you for this* !
Man, don't ya love the military-industrial complex ! :-)
But if they don't (bribe here, donation there) then you need to use the golem army to work for a living until you've enough resources to launch your attack.
Of you could just issue shares and make even more money that way !
But if you insist on ruining a good money making scheme, then right up until it's too late to stop you, you are the smiling face of Golem and Blood Inc. (OK, the name needs work :-) ).
[Answer]
Actually, what you want to do here is not *drain* the blood out of a person, but *replace* it with something else until the person's natural systems start to reproduce what has been lost.
In other words, you need artificial blood.
Enter a rather interesting liquid - Fluorocarbon Emulsion.
This stuff has reared its head in the past when talking about fluid breathing systems for deep diving. It's a liquid that is capable of storing and releasing oxygen and therefore during a deep dive, would prevent pressure issues when trying to store air as a gas when under the enormous pressure of a deep sea dive.
The thing is, as early as 1999 it was being investigated for another purpose; [artificial blood](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10695091). IN this scenario, what you'd do is start draining out the blood, but replacing it as quickly with this emulsion. Under the pressures that oil pipes get to, the fluids [don't tend to mix all that much](https://www.quora.com/How-can-both-petrol-and-diesel-flow-in-a-pipeline-without-mixing) which is why you can use a single pipe to transport super, unleaded, diesel, whatever. (There is a bit of mixing, but a certain volume of the mixed fluids either gets sold as one or the other, or discarded.)
In any event, you *might* be able to do the same thing in the human body, especially if you're draining from one area and filling from another (but I don't know enough about the fluid dynamics of the cardio system to state that categorically) but in any event, you'd get a LOT of blood out of someone and keep them alive.
The other piece of good news is that if you start putting in a lot of Ringer's Solution after that, the lack of hemoglobin should trigger a response in the marrow to start over producing red blood cells, and you can go again later down the track when your person has fully recovered from the ordeal.
Of course, what we don't know is what makes the blood useful for monster building. If it's only the capacity to store and release oxygen, perhaps you could use the oxygenated fluorocarbon emulsion directly? Easier to manufacture and harvest, with less risk to your subjects. Just saying.
[Answer]
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> The plasma from your donation is replaced within about 24 hours. Red cells need about four to six weeks for complete replacement. That’s why at least eight weeks are required between whole blood donations. ([Source](https://www.redcrossblood.org/faq.html))
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I'm assuming you need the red cells, not just the plasma. It doesn't matter if you take four pints now, then wait for 16-24 weeks, or one pint now and wait 4-6 weeks.
We could use a chemical like [Darbepoetin Alfa](https://www.medicinenet.com/darbepoetin_alfa-injectable/article.htm), which (massively oversimplifying the situation and COMPLETELY IGNORING the side effects), reduces the 4-6 week period to 2-4. Medications like this are not technologically available to medieval societies, but let's assume the best.
So, 13 people, 1 pint each, pumped full of the magic blood-juice, that's 13 pints every 3 weeks on average, and you need 50. So, every 11.53 weeks (every 81 days) you get a golem.
**If you drain them maximally...**
If we take the maximum, you get one golem at the draining (4\*13=52). But you must wait about 12 weeks (yup, 81 days) on average before you can drain them again. This would be a quick-and-dirty way to get a golem quickly, but you risk killing the people to do it (stress always has a risk, taking anything quickly is always stressful).
**Conclusion**
The best you can do without magic (or changing the nature of your machine) is one golem ***every 81 days.*** If you wait until the end of the 81 days, you get a golem and your blood source has a high chance of surviving. If you take the golem at the beginning of the 81 days, you seriously risk the lives of your donors.
*Of course, you could always have a fleet of people on rotation to get the golems-per-hour you're looking for. It's just algebra to determine the number of donors.*
[Answer]
Selling your own blood or being a blood merchant was quite common in early post-independence China. It used to provide more money than typical labour in far lesser time, ignoring the health consequences of course. So all you need to do is find a country where the governments don't have too many regulations regarding the people donating excessive amounts of blood for money.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicle_of_a_Blood_Merchant>
[Answer]
**How can a person be kept alive while being periodically drained of blood?**
The way the question is framed by the context that you've given leads me to show this:
*My answer is speculative and in no way meant as a criticism, as I'm not familiar with the nature of the world that you're creating. My answer comes from a scientific standpoint, because I do.*
**Stage 1**
While this could be done by parasitising on the available population - keeping them like battery hens, whilst (as has appeared in other answers) force-feeding necessary nutrition and perhaps developing steroidal type drugs to increase the production of blood components in the individuals - such as [Erythropoietin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythropoietin) - *A person can be kept alive indefinitley*.
All this is true, but not as part of an effective workforce - they'd need constant medical care, automated or not, using much equipment, resources, many person hours and engendering much resentment, heartache, disgust, social-outrage and potential unrest leading to.. who knows what?
Which will need to be policed, and a huge PR. team to manage it, if it can be managed - without civil-war.
The *"How can a person be kept alive"* part of your question may become compromised, as a civil-war claims a lot of lives.
*Depending on your world*, this would appear to be an inefficient use of people and resources.
As I understand your objectives, the growth and maintenance of the size of the army is the key. Population numbers and available resources would limit production of your army, the more blood you take, the weaker the population becomes and the less food/arms they can produce - and the less energy they would have in total to put towards population growth (and therefore production of your army). Therefore the greater the chances your enemy will win and kill *those you wish to keep alive*.
Meanwhile your scientists and technicians are working on a more efficient solution:
**Stage 2**
Industrialisation.
This can ultimatley save a lot of lives. People are put to work in the business of making blood but not necessarily to the detriment of their health.
Great vats containing artificially created biologically compatible [scaffolding](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4981149/) seeded with the marrow of the strongest and healthiest of your people are being used to generate vast artificial bone-marrow reservoires, these are fed by tubes and pipes, constantly circulating oxygen, nutrients removing and filtering waste and generating a constant supply of precious blood.
This frees your population to grow and produce more resources to feed the vats and increase your civilisation's reserves and chances of survival. Specifically it *benefits all individuals* who would have otherwise been used to produce blood - being kept on the brink of exhaustion and death - they can now live productive lives towards your goals.
In times of extremis, if the war is going badly, you could cull the prison population/elderley/infirm/political opponents - depending how ethical the leadership is.
Of course voluntary (or compulsory) donations would still be welcome (demanded) as long as people don't become anaemic to the point that they can't work.
**The but.**
Who will get to mass production first, yourself or a competing faction/group?
If not yourself, then those *individuals otherwise kept alive may die in the ensuing conflict*.
Phase 1 would potentially be vulnerable to the introduction of [pathogens that cause anaemia](https://www.hemocue.com/en/health-areas/anemia/anemia-due-to-malaria), by enemy spies into the general population. This could be *detrimental to those individuals* amd to total blood production under that regime.
Similarly both Phase 1 and 2 would be vulnerable to attack on the production facility itself, and any such attack would potentially have *collateral damage*. Swings and roundabouts, war is costly in lives.
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[Question]
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So usually the use of tanks is to shoot at other tanks or fortifications. So would a tank be useful against zombies? Would they just use it to crush the Zs?
[Answer]
**It's the mounting platform for your flail.**
If you pull the tank battalion's [mine flail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail) ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqY39bCPeVM)) out of the back of the motor pool and put it onto the tank, you can shred your way through lots and lots (and lots!) of zombies.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FaIOV.jpg)
WW2 Sherman Tank Mine Flail. Uploaded to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_flail) by Balcer
You do need secure start points and endpoints for the trip. After all, you want that expensive tank (and its crew) back.
Oh, the endpoint needs a wash rack -- the gore may be quite deep by the end of a run.
You can use the approach for classic route clearance and convoy protection, or add big noisemakers on top to attract walkers for area clearance.
[Answer]
[**Flame tanks**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_tank)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VaPMF.jpg)
Flame tanks are a variation of battle tanks where either the main or secondary armament is replaced by a flamethrower. They haven't been developed much since WWII — the combat mission of tanks evolved in a different direction, emphasizing mobility and long-range firepower — but the adaptation is straightforward, and likely extremely effective against mindless ravening hordes.
All things considered, it might be more efficient to retrofit an Armored Personnel Carrier or Humvee with flame devices. The light armor of the those two is more than sufficient against zombies, and they have far better mobility and fuel efficiency. But parking a flame tank near the entry to a secure area should make that entry effectively impregnable.
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*Before there are more pedantic comments arguing about the exact definition of "Tank" - for the purpose of this answer I use [the Merriam Webster definition of "Tank"](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tank): "an enclosed heavily armed and armored combat vehicle that moves on tracks"*
Tanks have armor which is impervious to zombies trying to claw at them. The are often air-tight (in case the zombie virus is transmitted by air). Their tracks enable them to free themselves even if enveloped by a huge zombie crowd which might be too much for a vehicle with wheels. So if you want to do a scouting mission in an area overrun by zombies, then a tracked tank would be the safest way to do that.
The main gun of a battle tank would be overkill against zombies, but battle tanks are usually equipped with at least one machine gun, which should be pretty efficient at neutralizing zombies. Still, if you have the luxury of being able to choose which tank to use, you might want to opt for a lighter armored personnel carrier so you don't consume as much precious fuel.
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# Tanks can be easily configured to attack zombies
Tanks are flexible and can serve a variety of missions. For example, the M1 Abrams, the main tank used by the US Army, can fire the M1028 Canister Cartridge:
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> The 120mm M1028 Canister Cartridge was developed for close-in defense
> of tanks against massed assaulting infantry attack and to break up
> infantry concentrations, between a range of 200-500 meters, by
> discharging large numbers of tungsten balls from the main cannon. ([Source](https://www.gd-ots.com/munitions/large-caliber-ammunition/120mm-m1028/))
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That sounds like an ideal anti-zombie round. Additionally, the M1 can have up to four machine guns. Imagine a massive hoard of zombies lurching toward a tank that's firing canister rounds and four machine guns.
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They would (in most zombie apocalypses) not be used for offensive purposes. At best they would be used in a defensive (stationary) way.
This is because during a "typical" zombie apocalypse supply lines would grind to a halt meaning that it would be difficult to keep a steady fuel supply. And tanks use a lot of fuel. A tank like the M1 Abrams gets about 0.6 miles per gallon. A Humvee (a faster vehicle that is also armed and armored and easily able to charge through a crowd of zombies) can get 12 miles per gallon meaning you can have 20 Humvees operational for each tank you leave behind.
So best use for tanks would be simply to become part of a barricade and use the machine gun (perhaps the main gun) on top. And if the barricade get's overrun they could always hide inside the tank and wait for rescue or if there is some fuel left ball back to reestablish a new line.
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### They wouldn't, because of fuel consumption and maintenance
You don't have to agree with everything [Max Brooks wrote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z), but if you're talking zombies then you need a compelling reason to go down a different path.
Your biggest problem when you're facing zombies is not the zombies directly in front of you, it's the zombies over the entire rest of the country. Someone needs to make your army's supplies, and more people need to transport those supplies to your army. As Napoleon found out in Russia, if you can't supply your army then your army can't fight.
Brook's US military, dramatically on the back foot and desperately evolving effective tactics, came up with the concept of "kills per resource expended". (I think that's the right phrase.) Any weapons system was assessed based on how many extra zombies it could take out for the cost in resources to produce it. Aircraft and vehicles were assessed as only being resource-effective for transport of people and equipment.
Sure, a tank can plough through zombies, so long as it's got fuel and it's well-maintained. But the [M1 Abrams only gets 0.6mpg, and an armoured division needs 600,000 gallons of fuel a day](https://www.forbes.com/2008/06/05/mileage-military-vehicles-tech-logistics08-cz_ph_0605fuel.html). And you might only get [1000km](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-can-i-go-before-changing-the-tracks-on-my-tank/197100) before you need to change the tracks, which you would certainly do inside a week of constant action. When your factories and fuel refineries are mostly out of action because of zombie infestations nationwide, you need to radically conserve your resources. Is it better to use that fuel and steel for a tank for a day, or is it better to use that fuel to transport a thousand extra troops and food to sustain the attack for a month, and use that steel to equip them all with anti-claw mesh armour and battle-axes?
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Zombies go for the flesh of the humans.
Tanks are really hard to open cans, and are proved capable of running over bodies.
They made a good protection for the humans they carry inside tasked with killing the zombies.
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Some of the [first tanks deployed in anger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_heavy_tanks_of_World_War_I#Mark_I) were fundamentally designed to overrun entrenched infantry positions. While modern tanks are less directly designed for this purpose, they're likely more effective at it.
Also one of the safest places you could possibly be during a zombie invasion is inside an armoured vehicle of some kind, even if all you're doing is sitting it out. While you're likely to use lighter armoured vehicles for getting about the place, any armour being good enough to keep zombies out, there's certainly a use for tanks in the larger equation.
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While the general idea of a tank is as a mobile platform for fighting other tanks - there's also several advantages to a modern tank or AFV.
One can't break a window, or swarm a tank as easily, and a swarmed tank can button up and wait for assistance.
I'd prefer a smaller [AFV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_fighting_vehicle) or [IFV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_fighting_vehicle) to a [MBT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_fighting_vehicle) - but generally you have a vehicle that's designed for rough/unimproved terrain, against an enemy who cannot effectively use anti tank weaponry or penetrate even the weakest of tank armours.
If we're talking main battle tanks, they're an odd choice. You might be able to outfit them with specific improvements for more effective zombie killing. Military vehicles do often have modifications to specific threats, like anti RPG slat armour. You might have electrified outsides for zombie zapping, spikes to make climbing up a tank dangerous, or even the use of claymores as a form of reactive armour
Effective use of an MBT might be as a 'mobile' pillbox or command unit. Move em somewhere you expect a zombie presence, lager them, with defences like concertina wire, and use their night vision equipment, height and superior firepower to clear the nearby area. You might also use lighter screening elements to herd the zombies into the most efficient fields of fire. Essentially tanks form a great core for a temporary base, as well as local firesupport.
That said, even the [75mm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX-13) pop guns on the AMX 13 are hardly the *right* tool for the job. While anything you hit has had all its days ruined, its overkill, and you really are not going to carry more than 20-30 rounds. Tank guns are best used for effect, possibly with specific ammunition types.
Your 7.62mm or .50 cal co-axial guns might be a better option (even more so than conventional infantry 5.56mm rounds), since you don't really want to *wound* zombies as much as blow off meaty chunks.
The classic [M113](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M113_armored_personnel_carrier), while having armour marginally more useful than cardboard, with a remote weapons platform might be a perfect pillbox. Drive it over, use the .50 caliber to chew up those zombies, and scoot away to rearm, refuel and rest.
Personally, perhaps in a fit of national pride, I'd prefer something like the [bionix 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionix_AFV) You have a lovely turret with a 30mm cannon, cause nothing says "goodnight" like a 30mm round (the same calibre as the famous GAU-8 Avenger of thunderbolt fame uses). You have *two* (three? I can't remember) additional 7.62 guns for lovely fields of fire
Even the adorable little [weasel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiesel_AWC) is going to get you much more efficient throw weight than a hummer.
If you want something with a little more flexibility, and want to not rip up the streets, a MRAP type vehicle would give you a lot of the same firepower advantages, though aren't really designed with the same sort of throw weight.
I don't really think there's any real contemporary literature on the use of indirect fire from mortars or artillery but depending on the density of the zombies, and available fields of fire these might also compliment an armoured lager/firebase well. You can carry, transport, or use armoured units that are capable of fire support for this. I'll leave the implications of responsible use of artillery and anti zombie landmines to be considered by the reader
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**Because there are no better options**
Of all terrestrial vehicles, tanks are the most zombie-resistant. Their weight and off-road capabilities make them almost entirely impervious to zombie attacks. Zombies will have to make a pile of bodies big enough to have any hope of stopping a tank. So, whenever the military needs to get from point A to point B, and air transport is not an option, tanks become the primary choice.
And this is not to mention very broad offensive capabilities of tanks listed in other answers.
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**Tanks are just lawn mowers for zombies**
No number of zombies can take out a tank. A tank weights around 60 tons and not enough zombies can get close enough to flip it or even damage it, not even World War Z zombies.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/JxvVf.jpg)
They're loud and attract the zombies to you making clearing an area faster and safer.
The only real addition you need is a drone above you or a spotter so you can see if you get covered in zombies.
If the worse happens, you turn the tank off and wait for them to leave. They can't get you inside.
It's a safe way to exterminate zombies.
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It seems the questioner is getting at a good point, which is that tanks are usually employed to achieve strategic objectives in a manner different from infantrymen or other tools in your arsenal. The main gun on a tank doesn't seem likely to be very effective at destroying hordes of zombies approaching from all directions, but the tank's ability to maneuver over hordes and its impenetrability seem like huge advantages. The tank's main assault weapon would be, in this case, a machine gun or some unconventional weapon like a flame thrower or the chain apparatus already mentioned. Their other utility would be as a scouting instrument, though perhaps LAVs might be more effective here.
The tank would likely be deployed in tandem with infantrymen performing house clearing operations. This is because the tanks can provide high firepower and protection for the infantrymen while the infantryman can clear a city or other region zone by zone. This is similar to how the Marines operated in the second battle of Fallujah. I should point out that armored personnel carriers would be an invaluable asset in this mode of combat, allowing the infantrymen a means to deploy and maneuver quickly. This type of maneuver would be more difficult if only tanks (combined with infantrymen) were used.
The more interesting point this question is getting at is "what does victory mean in such a war?" War is typically defined as the use of violence or the credible threat of violence to achieve political ends. Tanks are effective tools in this front because their armor and awesome firepower allow for the destruction or capture of strategic objectives. This, along with their intimidation factor, allows for the accomplishment of strategic goals. These types of goals would ostensibly be irrelevant against the type of enemy you're considering.
If you're considering such a military scenario, you should read "We Were One" by Patrick O'Donnell. This is an account of the battle in Fallujah, where combined arms were used to clear zones block by block as I imagine you are considering. If you're including military strategy in general the manual everyone should read is "Warfighting", a USMC publication which is the standard reference for militaries the world over for how to conduct war.
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The military would use tanks because they would be very effective against zombies, contrary to what fiction says. They're impervious to anything zombies can do to them. They can outrun zombies (especially if you disable the engine governor), with their turret facing the zombies. Anti-personnel rounds can carve through hordes like pie slices, hitting brains wouldn't even be necessary. And they have multiple machine guns.
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simply put you put yourself into a good bit of mobile armor that can defend against physical and aerosol attacks that also allows Crowd-Control capabilities without being exposed. Coaxial machineguns, front mounted machine guns, or even just canister shot. Heck even white phosphorous will do lots of damage to unarmored and unprotected crowds of the already half-rotten corpses. if you run out of munitions, you have a good engine to take you away or to go on a ramming spree (although the latter is ill advised due to possibility of damage to the tracks; might injure your possibility of getting away. But the tank is only as good as its team; you will need repair teams to help keep the combat team most efficient.
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This is a WIP map of a continent in my world:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WhIrj.jpg)
The small portion of land you can see in the topmost area is another continent, to the north of which the sea is almost always **frozen** and thus almost impossible to navigate.
The strait between the two continents is temperate, but on the other hand it's controlled by a single entity, which can impose **trade tariffs** as they please.
Since the entire eastern coast of this continent features [an almost-impassable mountain range](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/181172/20154), **traders coming from the east** will probably be inclined to sail south and **circumnavigate** the continent, avoiding both the mountains and the tariffs.
The traders I'm interested in will be coming from **another continent located to the east** (not pictured). Their goal is **reaching the continental area to the west of the mountain range** (so, basically 95% of the continent) and a few more islands to the west. Picture this as some kind of **Silk Road**, where "*fantasy China*" is in the middle of this continent.
**What could this southern sea be like, in order to discourage traders from trying to circumnavigate the continent, and instead force them to choose between paying the tariffs and trying to find a way through the mountains?**
To be as clear as possible, my end goal is that the strait tariffs and the mountains will be **the only viable solutions, not just preferable**, and in the end due to political rivalry ("there's no way we will keep paying those tariffs!") the empire from which most of the merchants are coming from will decide to build a tunnel through the mountains, as in the other question of mine (linked), rather than having the possibility of just taking the southern route.
The more "original" (as in "woah I hadn't thought of that!", not necessarily something totally unique and never heard of) the idea - while preferably being simple to explain - , the better. So the best answers would either be ones with a lot of ideas, or a really cool and interesting one. In the end I guess the accepted answer will be the one containing the suggestion I end up using :)
Note that this is a **medium-high fantasy medieval setting**, so magic stuff isn't prohibited, as long as it makes sense (made-up megafauna = okay, "oh there's just a generic magic tornado always spinning around there" = meh)
The technology is comparable to 13th-century Europe.
**What I have thought of so far:**
* **dangerous megafauna** (intriguing, but could pose more worldbuilding problems: why is it only in that area?)
* **ice** (I would rather not; this area should have a temperate climate)
* **pirates** (sounds a little dull maybe?)
* **storms**
Note:
Answers to [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/42535/what-scientifically-would-make-it-possible-that-certain-large-bodies-of-water-be) surely help, but it's far more grounded and focused on realism, having the [science-based](/questions/tagged/science-based "show questions tagged 'science-based'") tag. In my case, fantasy explanations (as long as they're not far-fetched and are sensible - as in "can be explained so that they sound plausible in a fantasy world") are
more than welcome.
[Answer]
## Blue Reefs
The southern sea is big and open. The winds can go hard and the waves high, and there is no dry land nearby. This by itself would make the journey somewhat dangerous, but not especially so.
The problem is a certain type of coral reef that is common in the area. They form strong reefs with sharp edges, and have a deep blue colour - not exactly the same as the ocean around it, but close enough to be hard to spot. On a calm and sunny day, they aren't much of an issue. You can navigate around them, and they aren't close enough to the surface to reach you unless you sit very low in the water.
In less smooth conditions, it's another story. It doesn't have to be a storm, just a bit of wind and wave. The winds stirs up the surface making the reefs hard to see, and waves make valleys where ships go low enough to crash into them, making big tears in the hull.
Getting one or two tears in the hull is a solveble problem, especially if you're close to shore. Getting half a dozen new ones every few days, way out on the open sea, not as much. Even if you make it across without sinking, the repair costs would far outweigh the tariffs on the safer route. Worse still, the reefs break off and grow back in new places often, meaning maps go out of date in just a few years.
All this has naturally resulted in sailors considering the whole area cursed, so it's hard to get a decent crew together if you want to cross. Until you get iron hulls, best to just go the easy way.
[Answer]
## Let's try a real world example
Say that the continent shown on the map is Africa. Traders coming from Shanghai in the east going to Amsterdam in the west have the option of going through the Suez canal and of course paying the transit fees, or going around Africa and avoiding those pesky fees. For some strange reason, they prefer paying to go through the Suez canal.
1. Running a ship is not free of charge; the crew needs to be paid, supplies need to be bought, maintenance needs to be done.
2. Ships are chartered for profit, not for fun. If going through the Suez canal means that a ship can do four trips against only two going around Africa, then paying the transit fees is better for both the shipping company and the merchants shipping the goods.
For an even more clear example, consider the advantages of transiting the Panama canal against sailing around South America. Besides making the trip a whopping lot shorter, *nobody* (see note) wants to go through the [Drake Passage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Passage) if they can avoid it.
Note: Nobody wants to go through the Drake Passage except adventurers who actually *like* being in danger on the high seas.
To summarize, the main reasons why the vast majority of shipping would avoid the southern route would be distance and wind patterns.
1. *Distance* is the first obvious answer. You really don't want your ship to stay at sea more than necessary; merchandise in transit does not earn a profit; each day at sea increases the danger, and the expense.
2. *Wind patterns* may be an equally powerful answer. Going around Africa west to east was very difficult until sailors learned that the correct route is to go all the way to Rio de Janeiro instead of trying to go around the coast. Trying to go around South America east to west was considered almost suicidal before the advent of steam engines. (In fact, sailing ships preferred to go *around the world*, from Europe to Rio de Janeiro to the Cape to Australia to Chile or Peru, instead of trying to go around Cape Horn east to west.)
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**Teredo worms**
The sea that lays to the south of your continent is cursed by having the ideal salinity and temperature for a particularly aggressive family of [Teredo worms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teredo_navalis)
While these creatures may also be present in other seas, and so known to your sailors, the species common in the South Sea make the long journey through these infested waters extremely damaging for the ships hull.
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> Teredo navalis is a very destructive pest of submerged timber. In the Baltic Sea, pine trees can become riddled with tunnels within 16 weeks of being in the water and oaks within 32 weeks, with whole trees 30 cm (12 in) in diameter being completely destroyed within a year. Ships' timbers are attacked, wrecks destroyed and sea defences damaged.
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> No treatment of timber to prevent attack by Teredo navalis has been completely successful. Experiments by the Dutch in the 19th century proved the inefficacy of linseed oil, metallic paint, powdered glass, carbonization (burning the outer layers of the wood), and any of the usual biocides such as chromated copper arsenate.
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And this is the common Teredo.
The ones in your South Sea would be even more aggressive. A round trip in those waters would mean the destruction of the hull after just one travel.
The archipelago to the South East of your continent looks particularly suited for infestation of the coastal waters.
Outside of the South Sea they may not find the right conditions for reproduction (just like the real Teredo), thus limiting their spread in your world.
As they stick to the hull they also increase the drag in the water and slow the ship down. Historically ships had to visit the shipyards from time to time for scraping.
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> In 1878 it was discovered that creosote was an effective deterrent, though to work best it had to be applied to soft, resinous woods like pine; in order to work on harder woods such as oak, special care had to be taken to ensure the wood was completely permeated by the creosote.
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Given the Middle Ages setting I would suppose your sailors do not know this method. Yet, in your story, you may have someone make the discovery making the South West Passage a possibility. Up to you.
If you would like to know more about these animals:
[Smithsonian Magazine - How a Ship-Sinking Clam Conquered the Ocean](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/tunneling-clam-bedeviled-humans-sank-ships-conquered-oceans-180961288/)
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# Trade winds
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> The [trade winds or easterlies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_winds) are the permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth's equatorial region (between 30°N and 30°S latitudes) (...)
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Now check this out:
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> The Portuguese recognized the importance of the trade winds (then the Volta do mar, meaning in Portuguese "turn of the sea" but also "return from the sea") in navigation in both the north and south Atlantic ocean as early as the 15th century. From West Africa, the Portuguese had to sail away from continental Africa, that is, to west and northwest. They could then turn northeast, to the area around the Azores islands, and finally east to mainland Europe. **They also learned that to reach South Africa, they needed to go far out in the ocean, head for Brazil, and around 30°S go east again. (This is because following the African coast southbound means sailing upwind in the Southern hemisphere.)**
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That is one hell of a detour - check on Google Maps - and it was still faster than following the coast.
In your fictional world, couple an easterly on the southern sea to an eastward ocean current and only motorized ships will be able to go west.
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**Same situation as up north.**
You are interested in a fiction with political rivalries. Your northern passage is controlled by a single entity. Duplicate this with the southern passage. The equatorial desert continent (not pictures!) approaches close to your fantasy China, and a power on the northern coast of this continent controls the shipping route.
It would be easier and more interesting to write about this than to explain to your readers about wind.
This also offers the possibility of merchants trying to play off the northern vs the southern power, trying to get them to compete to lower their rates. Unfortunately one group is less Suez Canal and more Tripoli pirates.
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Side note - where are the inland waterways? Your inland empire will need water. If I were approaching from the west I would look for a big river and see how far inland it could take me.
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There are plenty of good mundane (as opposed to magical) answers, so I'll add a bit of magic reasoning to the mix
sailors couldn't really know what their longitude was in open water until the 18th century, so in your world they use magic for it. the southern part of the continent has something wrong with the magic field around those islands, the reasons could be one of many, like a natural hole in the "magisphere" or some mineral deposits that mess with magic or maybe even some sort of monster that affects the how magic works around it.
So you have a problem with magic in the area and now your magical longitude device does not function so what do you do? simple hug the coast so you know where you are, but you can't! have you seen those mountains and islands? the tectonics in the area are pretty crazy, it's very likely that there are shoals, sandbars, underwater mountains, etc... just under the surface, its just not safe sailing close to the shore which makes the whole endeavor extremely dangerous and definitely too dangerous for any commercial company to send trade ship through, the risk/reward is just not worth it
[Answer]
Gaseous Erruptions
Burried under the seabed are huge pockets of natural gas at high pressure. Regular small movements of nearby tectonic plates cause partial releases of gas that significantly reduce the density of water and hence the buoyancy of boats and people until the gas can disperse into the air.
The few sailors who have survived attempts to cross the Southern Seas before turning back report foul air and ships suddenly vanishing below the waves for no reason only to sometimes reappear a few minutes later with entire crews drowned as if the very souls had been sucked out of their bodies.
God forbid you try to make passage during a thunderstorm as the sea burns around you as though Hell itself had taken to the seas against you.
In mediaeval times, the people have no way of knowing the cause of this so fear alone should keep all but the most desparate of fugitives out of the Southern Seas. Couple this with poor winds and currents to make headway slow i.e. the ship has to stay in the affected area even longer and you have a winner. Alternatively, just make the affected area so large that traversal without hitting a gas release becomes statistically impossible.
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**Something Cool**
The island looks like a tooth right? In fact it IS a tooth! It is the tooth of a very large and very slow-moving creature. Your world is a world of microscopic people living inside the mouth of an animal. They sail their ships through the saliva seas!
The South sea is where the tooth joins the gumline. Down there are giant predatory plaque bacteria. Those guys like to eat ships and people booga booga booga! No one wants to go down there.
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The first thing I thought of when I read this was the Sargasso Sea. Have such a high amount of seaweed in the seawater there that it's nigh on impossible to sail a ship through it. You might need to make it slightly warmer than temperate, but it would seem to fit with the geography for it to be warmer.
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Some possibilities include
1. Prevailing winds make it too difficult.
2. The region is a doldrum without winds.
3. The region is dead, magically, and the ship requires at least one spell to function properly, or at all.
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## Nobody knows.
No ship that's ever attempted the Southern Passage has ever survived. Since no ship ever survives, nobody knows what is killing then.
(Obviously, this isn't a really answer, but it could be a fun way to add some mystery tip whatever answer you decide to use. Also, it allows you to use a reason that has an obvious work-around, because sailors can't take advantage of it if they don't understand the danger. Of course, readers may expect you to pull on the thread and explain the mystery effectually)
## Virulent diseases
The sea birds off the Southern coast are carriers for a lethal disease which can sicken and kill an entire crew.
## Cursed.
The empire that controls the strait cursed the southern passage to give them a monopoly on trade.
Alternately, the people who dwell (or dwelled) in the southern mountains really don't like visitors.
## Sirens
Any ship that takes the passage is led to its doom. Probably either a curse or a cannibalistic society, as natural sirens might be tricky to justify.
## Takes too long.
Sailors can only live for a certain period without eating fresh surtic fruit or they come down with magical scurvy. That's long enough to take the strait, but not long enough to take the southern passage, and surtic fruit doesn't grow down there.
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# There's a giant rift in the ocean in that part of the world
It's a sort of edge-of-the-world kind of thing. There's a 2-3 mile wide gap along that part of your world where there is no ocean and the water that forms the walls of the chasm is magically suspended. Basically, it's a giant canyon made of water instead of rock.
It's not a matter of danger. The ocean just doesn't exist there, so there's no possible way to sail across.
An example of this can be found in Ni No Kuni 2:
[](https://www.gamerguides.com/assets/guides/126/Upgraded_Ship_1.jpg)
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## Religious Taboos
Never underestimate the power of superstition and/or religion to keep people from doing something. In your world, the dominant religion has placed taboos on the Southern passage and any sailor who dares traverse it is faced with excommunication (or a similar punishment).
Why would they? I can think of a couple of reasons, and there are probably more:
1. **Rumors of mythical beasts.** Legend has it that a sea serpent, Kraken, or similar monster lurks in the Southern passage. This alone would be a powerful deterrent, but your religion considers it the devil incarnate out to steal the souls of fools who pass that way (or something similar).
2. **Corruption within the religion.** The religious leaders have cut a deal with the being controlling the northern passage, who has bribed them handsomely for their services.
Now, you specified that you want it to be *impossible*, not just unlikely, that they would take the Southern passage, and even if it seems possible, it really isn't. Even with a skeptical captain who is willing to risk the voyage, no crew would sign on to such a ship, and if tricked into it would almost certainly mutiny.
I hope this helps you.
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See those islands off the south-east of the continent? They extend a long way south. Way further than can be seen on this map.
They are a volcanic archipelago with many active volcano's both above and below water. Charts can not be relied upon. The reefs and the shapes of the islands change all the time because of the eruptions. Ash-fall, explosive eruptions and earthquakes (with tsunamis) happen often.
Passing through the archipelago is extremely dangerous. No matter how much money you pay the crew, as soon as you try to go through those islands you'll have a mutiny on your hands.
So you have no other option to go north or make a very long detour south with makes the southern route almost 3 times as long. (Especially if the point of origin in the east is at roughly the same latitude as the northern tip of the archipelago.) Prevailing winds in the southern seas are westerly so they don't help either.
Carrying enough fresh water on-board for the longer southern route is a problem and cuts into your cargo capacity.
Cargo "on the move" earns no money. The shorter the transit time the better.
Shipping costs for the southern route are just not economical.
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## Dragons
That's as far as I'm going on that subject.
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There are a wide ranges of things that will keep a ship out of an area. One of the big ones is lack of access to accurate navigation. You have to keep well clear of any known reefs and rocks because you don't really know where you are until it's possibly too late.
Your map shows a line of (rocky) islands off the South East coast for example: the winds, tides and currents around those will be a nightmare for a wooden sailing vessel. You'll have patchy wind being focused between the islands, you'll have the same in currents, potential whirlpools if you catch the tide wrong (see sea crossing from Scotland to Orkney for example) unknown draft, sharp rocks, better just to stear well clear of the whole area.
**The Southern Ocean** is another real world one. The northern oceans are surrounded by continents, storms and waves can only get so big. The Southern Ocean goes uninterrupted all the way round giving the waves space to keep rolling and keep building. The places where it's interrupted by land, such as Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope are famed for the sea conditions one encounters. Remember the Cape of Good Hope used to have a simpler name, the Cape of Storms.
**Ocean currents** are an interesting one, consider the gap at the northern end of your continent. There's going to be a strong current passing through there, probably East to West with the tide. At certain points of the tide it'll be faster, sometimes slower, but as a general rule it'll flow East to West. That means if your ships are a bit slow, like the Spanish Armarda, they'll not be able to sail East through that gap. I mention the Spanish Armarda specifically, because after their battle with Drake in the Channel, to get home they had to sail North round Scotland and Ireland to be able to get home. The current in the Channel is primarily northbound and the ships were too slow to sail directly South.
Now some of these aren't areas of sea to avoid specifically, they're constrictions on which direction you can pass through certain regions, but they should be touched on, along with the reminder that there's a right way and wrong way to sail round the world.
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We are ovethinking this. How about. . . .
**The South Sea is Dangerous.**
The North Sea is calm and sheltered. The South sea has frequent storms and wrecks. Hence traders refuse to go south.
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> But Daron, I wanted the tunnel to be **the only viable solutions, not just preferable**!
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For one person making one trip the South sea is an option. However since most traders refuse to use that passage, making a tunnel is the only option **for the kingdom**.
Consider how merchants operate. They own a ship and sail back and forth and hopefully make the trip dozens of times before they retire. Since there are so many trips even a 10% death rate is enormous. Heck even a 10% lose-all-your-goods rate is enormous. It means you need to make more than 10% profit on each trip!
If I was on the run from the baddies I might risk that 10% rate since I'm only going there once . But if I was a trader I would **refuse** to use that route.
**Bonus:** If you want something more exotic you can have that too. Since people rarely go South and dead men tell no tales, there very well MIGHT be a Kraken down there.
[Answer]
**Very high Shipworm concentration**
With your southern islands producing a lot of natural flotsam of trees (maybe from constant storms), the incidence rate of shipworms is astronomical in the southern waters. Normally taking about a year to cause sufficient damage, the species present in your waters reproduce more quickly and are of an abnormally large size. Ships will be infected and made non-seaworthy in the a shorter period of time than it takes to make the journey.
Combine the weakened hulls with higher storm rates (also the reason why so much timber is floating around) and you have an impassable sea from plausible factors.
Some fun plot ideas:
* Certain types of wood (or metal plating) could be used by others to allow passage.
* West to East passage could be allowable while restricting East to West travel if you make the concentration of shipworms only in the eastern portion.
* Some people could risk it and have their ships eaten out from under them halfway through the voyage to report upon this infestation.
* Ocean salinity is an important factor of where shipworms can live, this could also be used to designate safe/unsafe regions.
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Certain geological activity can make that part of the sea too dangerous to use.
The continental shelf to the southeast of your continent could have large natural gas deposits fairly close to the surface. Ridges throughout the area could have unpredictable eruptions of methane gases. These gases are lighter than water and create a region of the sea that suddenly becomes highly aerated and is far less buoyant than regular seawater. Any ships caught in such a region would sink quickly, and for no apparent reason.
It doesn't take many ships suddenly disappearing in calm weather before sailors will go out of their way to avoid the area. With no way to predict when or where the sea will bubble, few will risk that route. Losing a single ship with a full cargo hold will cost you more money than several years' worth of tariffs from the northern route.
This is actually one of the proposed [explanations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermuda_Triangle#Methane_hydrates) for ship disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle.
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One factor no has mentioned, yet is obviously simple: lack of harbors or ports.
As we all know, until the industrial age ships could not stay at sea safely for extended times. (Even in the industrial age, they needed land bases where they could restock coal or coal to drive their engines.) At regular distances, a ship would need to land somewhere to replenish its supply of food & water, maybe replace sailors who were sick, injured, or had died. They can only do this where there are established port towns or cities with a hinterland to provide these goods. (A bay or open roadstead alone will not meet this need; even one with a good hunting ground will eventually be denuded of all of its game &/or vegetation due to overuse, & become a barren stretch.)
This ties into the plausibility of your "almost impassible mountains": given enough incentive, any mountain range is passable. There were trade routes across mountainous Ethiopia with its deep canyons, & over the Himalayas the tallest mountains on Earth, all because merchants could make a good living freighting goods across these obstacles. However, if there were no available ports on the seaward side of these mountains -- or all of the known ones were controlled by that empire to the North -- this would serve as a sufficient disincentive to traders crossing these mountains. (Or were they to cross them, the tariffs at the ports controlled by the hostile power would eat up an unacceptable share of any profits. Or the garrisons would simply confiscate the trade goods & turn the traders away.)
With this comes a possible plot device. One of the good guys -- traders from the Easterners or the Westerners -- discover an overlooked port on the coast which can be connected by building a relatively short tunnel thru the mountains. By this, instead of one several miles/kilometers long, say long enough to be completed in a year or so. This would be a short enough time that by the time the hostile power to the North learned of this, mobilized a fleet & made an attempt to capture this port, the tunnel would be completed & good guys could respond much more quickly with enough troops to defend it. Time would be of the essence here: if the tunnel (or maybe a bridge, or maybe a combination of these) is not completed in time, the adversaries will get there first, & not only fortify it but march inland to slaughter the engineers (or navvies or sappers) constructing the bridges/tunnel.
This does take the scenario out of the realm of fantasy, but it would still be a fascinating adventure story.
[Answer]
Fairly straightforward:
North of the continent the waters are shallow because the two continental landmasses have quite a small gap, technically they're the same continental plate. The shallow and comparatively sheltered strait between the two continents has quite mild weather suitable for sailing.
South of the continent, the sea currents are powerful and mostly flow east.
The south is hard to travel at the best of times, and the combination of the mountainous coast of the continent, strong winds and ocean currents and open ocean produce frequent powerful storms that make traversing the south even harder.
North is the only sensible route.
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**Here there be merfolk**
Some sort of sapient aquatic or amphibious people occupy the southern seas and don't like merchant vessels.
After decades of surface people using the southern ocean as a dumping ground for refuse, mutineers, and colonial agricultural runoff, the sea peoples have vowed to stop all sea traffic into the region. The waters between the southern islands and the mountainous coast were naturally shallow, with submarine volcanoes and isolated seamounts, and are now built up with surface refuse and quarried rock. Sandbars are dismantled, moved kilometers; wooden wrecks are tethered to the seafloor and allowed to buoy just a meter under the water surface, ready to gut any night-going ship. It might be possible to sail through this region with an up-to-date map of all the shifting shoals, but add in the sea peoples' own formidable weaponry, their cultivation of predatory megafauna, and the terror of wild speculation, and these days few pilots dare to even anchor on the southern islands, let alone venture past them.
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**Two things**
1. Already mentioned were **trade winds**; if they were pretty consistent/strong westerlies that blew for most of the year then travel *to* the west could be prohibitively expensive/time consuming for sail powered vessels given they have to travel down the coast of the continent first. So coming back that way might be fine but getting to the West coast via this route in the first place - not so much. So the route is just not particularly attractive cost wise. (Especially if the nation that imposes tariffs for using the other route has carefully calculated how much they can get away with charging before the other route starts to look attractive.
2. **Endemic piracy** - you've already noted there are few if any towns along the East coast with access to routes over the mountains. This doesn't mean those towns/cities might not be worth while trading with on their own BTW but that is not your objective.
However it may be that some of the islands to the south have few if any natural resources and are ruled by petty feuding kingdoms or tribal groups that have a long history of piracy and raiding to supplement their otherwise meager incomes. If there is no strong regional power on the mainland or elsewhere nearby with a strong incentive to suppress their activities the southern route could simply be too chronically dangerous for anything but largest most well armed merchant fleets traveling in convoy (also very expensive).
More likely **both combined** would be the explanation.
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## The Southern Seas are the ruins of an Ancient Continent destroyed in Hoary Antiquity
This is actually a concept with a precedent in, of all things, [A Song of Ice and Fire](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Smoking_Sea). The [ancient peninsula](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Valyria), was [literally shattered](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Doom_of_Valyria), and the sea formed by its smoking ruins is the site of permanent volcanic activity and thought to be infested by demons. Indeed, as per *The World of Ice and Fire* (quoting from the wiki):
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> In 55AC, Princess Aerea Targaryen claimed Balerion as her mount, and disappeared for more than a year, before reappearing in King's Landing in 56AC. Grand Maester Benifer and Barth found her to be infested with "horrors" which burned her from the inside out and killed her, erupting from her body as "worms with faces", "snakes with hands" and other monstrosities. Balerion was also found to bear wounds and scars seemingly received during their absence. These observations led Barth to the conclusion that Balerion, uncontrollable by an inexperienced rider such as Aerea, flew her to his original home of Valyria, where he was born before the Doom and the flight of the Targaryens; these "horrors" that infested Aerea, he supposed to be remnants of Valyrian experiments with blood magic. After these events it was declared forbidden for any ship suspected to have visited Valyria to dock in Westeros, or for any inhabitant of Westeros to travel to Valyria.
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Not only is this a reasonably established trope in fantasy, such stories are present in real life too, such as the fabled lands of [Atlantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis#Madame_Blavatsky_and_the_Theosophists) and [Lemuria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuria_(continent)), and the myths form a familiar part of pop-culture; being referenced in literature, occultism, politics, and even [music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_of_Atlantis).
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There are several ways in which this could work for your purposes:
1. A large area south of the continent could be a shallow wasting sea with frequent earthquakes sending tsunamis into the entire southern sea and frequent fiery eruptions making the crossing even more hazardous. You can optionally add eldritch monstrosities to increase the danger. To explain why the creatures are limited to the area, use either the presence of special magic required by the monsters (or keeping them at bay), or their need for extreme heat provided by the incessant volcanic activity.
2. Have the continent be destroyed in an apocalyptic explosion or temporal cataclysm, which has rendered that part of the sea much deeper that the surroundings. You could have warm water from the surface sinking into the cold depths throughout the tropical ocean, leading to strong currents into the sea from all sides, trapping anyone who ventures into the region. Alternatively, strong volcanism at the seafloor could lead to rising waters and strong outward currents denying entry to the region. Either way, the limited technology would make the ocean innavigable.
3. Let the people of your fantasy-India be survivors from the destruction of the southern land (or alternatively their ancient enemies). They could have a strong taboo against mixing with people who have passed through the sea. Maybe the authorities have even banned ships coming from that route from docking anywhere in the country. This would easily make the ocean anathema to all traders.
4. Another option might be to use the warmth from the volcanism (or magical forces) to cause unpredictable super-cyclones that ravage the sea and crash into the mountains at the south of the continent. You could have synchronized activity where there is volcanism near the continent much of time, but then suddenly it shifts to deeper waters in the South leading to cataclysmic storms being triggered out of the blue. The double whammy would increase the aversion even more.
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If you want to keep things science based, an asteroid impact (think the [Chicxulub Impact]), or ongoing seabed volcanism *a la'* the Siberian and Deccan lava fields. The magma plume that caused the Siberian flow went on to cause activity in the Arctic Ocean, and all these events are thought to have led to mass extinctions. It should not be difficult to tune the timing and intensity to suit your needs.
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# Megafauna
You ask why would megafauna be found more often in the southern ocean; real ecosystems provide some options
## Ocean Upwelling
Ocean upwelling is a circulation which brings nutrient-rich water to the surface resulting in a larger populations of photoplankton which in turn support the rest of the food chain.
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> Approximately 25% of the total global marine fish catches come from five upwellings that occupy only 5% of the total ocean area. [(Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwelling)
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Upwelling often occurs in coastal regions. One example, is the California Current. In your geography, the southern coast may have more upwelling than the northern coast. The fish support a thriving population of sea monsters which are very territorial and destroy transiting boats. For this option, I would suggest giant vertebrates such as whales, or aquatic dragons, rather than giant cephalopods. For cephalopods, see the next section.
## Deep Sea / Polar Gigantism
For unknown reasons, deep sea and polar marine invertebrates tend to be larger than their shallow water relatives. A well-know example is giant squid. Hypotheses for possible causes include lower water temperatures increasing cell size, less population pressure, and scarce food resources [(Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-sea_gigantism).
Regardless of the actual reason, you only need to know that size is correlated with water temperature and depth. The southern ocean is deeper and colder than the northern ocean and therefore has large and dangerous invertebrates, such as the Kraken.
Why are these deep-sea creatures harassing surface-going ships? [Some cephalopod species gather in spawning events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod#Reproduction_and_life_cycle). Perhaps these Kraken gather near the surface for reproduction and mistake the ships for competitive males.
## Wildlife refuge
Another reason for megafauna population differences across ecosystems is human-caused population pressure. In the north, there is clearly a large human population, hence the tariffs. The southern ocean is a [marine protected area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_protected_area) for endangered megafauna species. Therefore, not only are dangerous megafauna present, but it is illegal for commercial activities to take place there, especially during breeding season. The traders are not only tax-dodgers but environmental criminals.
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You said pirates are mundane, but what if there is a single area in the southern part of the continent that's suitable for a port. And it has a port. An exotic port with multiple ships and crew and taverns and supplies... and it's all fake. Everyone you meet is a resident of the town and they put on an elaborate charade for crews who visit. (They can see ships far off from a perch in the mountains, and prepare for them.)
Ships are sailing against incredible currents and winds and need to stop somewhere. And when they stop at this welcoming port, the entire crew is zombified (drugs in their drinks at the tavern) and put to slave labor in mines etc.
The ships are modified to be hard to recognize and then play their part in making it look like a crowded port. They're also used for actual trade with the western side of the continent. A ship can make it from the port to there by hugging the coast for about the maximum viable sea journey.
So this southern port is fabulously wealthy: they get free ships and cargo from unsuspecting merchant crews, they get free slave labor, and when they show up on the west coast and run into Eastern traders who took the northern route, they can let it leak accidentally that they took a southern route -- recruiting more victims. Oh, and some of them do actual trading, just with other people's ships and cargo.
With all of those ships and a hidden lock on the southern route, they could assemble a bunch of cannons in a fortress guarding their town. ("Pirates around here. I hear some ships disappear after they leave us. Gotta be careful.")
So it is pirates, but a much creepier version. (Of course, the Eastern Kingdom traders would never know this back story. They would only know the "pirates" story, or perhaps they'd be told, "Ah yes, I remember that trader. He partnered with Josiah's son and headed to the far west islands, where you can make an unbelievable fortune in a few years! That's how I got my place here: took some risks in the far West for a while and finally retired here.")
So in some sense, it's piracy on the northern route and the southern route, just different kinds: on the north it's civilized and open and doesn't really seem like piracy at all, on the south its hidden and sinister and also doesn't appear to be piracy at all.
(If you want, make them vampires who really only need the blood of the crews that stop, and not food or other supplies. May or may not be creepier.)
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I'm going to post a tangent answer.
One of the most compelling theories for Werewolves and 'Beasts of the Full Moon' is that nocturnal predators (like wolves and jungle cats) are always at their most desperate/hungry during the times around a full moon - because their prey have an easier time seeing their approach. And that predators like this, which would ordinarily avoid trying to take down dangerous human prey, are desperate enough to eat that they attack humans.
Why am I mentioning this?
There are *still* people that say things like, "Uh oh, full moon tonight; the crazies are going to come out" - there's *still* a concept that the full moon means danger - and this is hundreds (or even thousands) of years after 'wolf attack' was a typical existential threat to the average person.
So simply put... there doesn't *have to be anything at all* down to the south. Maybe there was something in the past, something terrible or pervasive or comprehensive... but at this point, it's halfway into the realm of myth/superstition.
Sure, there might be some brave souls that go the southern route to avoid the tariffs, but "most sensible people realize there's no point in tempting calamity just to avoid paying a few coins."
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**Pirates!!!**
For example, look at the spice trade in the Strait of Malacca. Boats coming from India, laden with spices for sale were a prime target for pirates... and traders would steer well clear of these areas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_Strait_of_Malacca>
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C.S. Lewis's [*Voyage of the Dawn Treader*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Dawn_Treader#Plot_summary) gives several fantastical impediments to sea voyages that you could use as inspiration and modify:
# Magical sleep curse
One of the islands is cursed in a way that eventually causes an endless sleep. This could in your case apply to the entire sea in such a way that no one can cross the sea because no one can stay awake long enough to navigate through it. Similar ideas would include magical confusion, maybe even rage inducing confusion causing crew members to always mutiny or just kill each other, or go the other way and cause extreme placidity such that they just have no desire to do anything, even survive. Or both at the same time ([Miranda...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(2005_film))).
# Water that transforms everything to Gold
This is actually by itself not too bad, if you can stay in the ship, not touch the water, and the alchemy of the hull doesn't sink the ship (A ship that could survive this wouldn't be too difficult to build). However, if even the sea *mist* turns things to gold, then eventually the crew would start becoming effected. On the ocean it's really hard to keep things dry, especially in storms.
Gold though would be almost as much of a draw as a deterrent though, but you could do various other types of alchemical effects of things that entered the area, including things that would affect mostly ships, but not people (makes ships brittle, less tough, or very soft, turns wood to mercury or gallium, which soon melts). A real world similarity is just radioactivity. A highly radioactive sea would be for all intents and purposes impassible without extreme engineering.
# A cloud of nightmares
Areas where your dreams or stray thoughts becoming manifest as you think them. Could be passible, but the extreme mental discipline required to not think of deadly pink elephants would be hard to find in a ship's crew. But maybe some crews do exist, and they could even use this to their advantage, and use it to prevent unwanted competition. That could be your "pirates", but they would be very different from the rowdy scoundrels most people imagine pirates as... These "dream clouds" could also be a kind of local "weather phenomena" in behavior. Making it difficult to avoid, and too dangerous for someone not trained to even attempt.
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How could the dictator of a poor to middle-income country without any mineral wealth nor strategic position, stay out of the headlines of the big western media?
The assumption is that the dictator doesn't want to change i.e. it still wants to continue oppressing people, don't allow free press, ban opposition parties etc. The dictator only just wants to stay out of the front page news. The less the big western media talks about dictator's country the better.
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There a few "no-nos" for a dictator. As long as he's following those rules, everything is Ok.
1. Don't anger western nations. Better off, put a good friendly face. Don't harbor terrorists or drug lords. Don't make alliances with Russia or China unless you are bordering them. Don't even think of getting any weapons of mass destruction.
2. Don't create too much mess. Any wars, or internal genocide would create a stream of refugees, which would turn the media spotlight on your country.
3. Don't mess with international tourists. Make sure they do not get imprisoned on questionable charges and end up in a coma.
There are so many dictatorships in the world that follow these rules and enjoy their quiet existence.
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## It doesn't matter, nobody cares about you.
All you have to do is not invade your neighbours, that's the only thing that garners international military attention if you don't have oil and don't have nuclear ambitions.
You can murder your population if you like, nobody will do anything as long as you keep within your own borders. Sure you'll make some international headlines, but that's about all that'll happen.
Never again they said, but it happened over and over again.
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**Most dictatorships are never mentioned by the media; so you don't have to do anything.**
Look at this list of [list of countries by democracy type](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_Index_by_country_.282016.29), scroll down to the list of Authoritarian regimes. I'm betting there's countries there you've never even heard of, let alone seen in the media.
The truth is that the big Western media cares little, if at all, about dictatorships so unless you rock the boat or have strategic significance you will be rarely if ever mentioned. Murdering and oppressing your own people is not enough to catch the attention of the West.
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I assume you speak of foreign media as as a dictator you already taken care of your country media.
And the answer to "what could you do" is: nothing. You don't care. No one is giving a flying flock about your country already. Because why would they do? You only export some bananas or potatoes and that's all. Your country is in no one field of interest.
Source: Swaziland and other multiple African countries. Burma, Do we know what is going on in Nicaragua?
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Yes, it is the Eddie Izzard theory of Dictatorship: "You want to kill your own people? We've been trying to do that for years, mate, help yourself."
Basically don't make waves. If you're not invading, saber rattling, or running your government so poorly that foreign aid is necessary, you're not going to cause enough issues to make it to Western Media (especially the States, which have a reputation of being isolated from reporting world events. If your luck is terrible, you might be devistated by a natural disaster on a day where a pop culture icon hasn't divorced another icon, died, or otherwise made a fool of him/herself and they need to fill the vaccume with something. If you're on for more than a minute, it's particularly bad under those conditions.). I am curious about your country's economics, specifically what goods and services allow you to be a benevolent or irrelevent dictator.
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The smart dictator minimizes corruption. The happier the population is the less the need to oppress them, and removing corruption and arbitrariness from everyday life goes a long way of doing that.
In order to keep western media happily ignoring you you should also try to avoid declaring for any controversial political ideology. Socialism/Communism is a big no. Full on neo-liberal laissez faire capitalism may create too big social rifts which may cause unrest, which in turn causes unwanted attention. (Also, there are western media who'd love to poke a hole in that.) Aim for some watered down social liberal approach. Make sure people are well fed and have jobs to go to. Skim of the top percent of GNP into your private bank account.
Try to present yourself as a man of the people. Don't live too opulently if your people starves. Always strive to make sure you don't get too greedy. Play the long game. You want to retire a billionaire by 50 or 60, not get strung up by your intestines in a gibbet on Liberation Square. The less unrest you have internally the less interest foreign media will have in you.
Now, if you've already messed up and installed a corrupt regime where the poor starve and your sons and nephews drive golden sports cars in the street and claim droit a seigneur with every comely maiden don't panic. There are steps to be taken.
1) Bite the bullet, you'll catch flak in the media but it's time you let some heads roll. Preferably not your relatives, they can be kept in check in some less drastic way. But pick a few choice corrupt officials and have them hung. (Alternatively imprisoned, but who deals in half measures these days?)
2) Declare yourself for liberal market economy and open up your country to foreign investors. Liberalize the internal market and allow people to start small businesses.
3) Take steps to reduce every day corruption, especially when it comes to foreign investors.
4) Declare the new era to have begun. Regret that the transition period from the old regime was so rough. Blame someone else, have him or her hung. Promise free elections as soon as the situation has stabilized itself and your country is ready for western style democracy, then start planning your exit.
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Be next to other authoritarian countries. I present you Kazakhstan- despite being the 6th largest country in the world and having some of largest petroleum projects in the world- unless you just internet checked it over 99% of the population of most major countries in the world would have not have a clue what goes on there- beyond it is a dictatorship maybe- who is the president? What is his political organisation called? The great majority of the "stans" are highly authoritarian. I challenge you to find one reference to it in any major paper in the last year. Note knowing the names of all the countries is not the same as knowing all the countries even briefly. Kazakhstan probably has strategic value given it is so large and bordered by Russia.
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Media is also a weapon, called propaganda. They could be used to takeover government. [Peaceful Evolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_Evolution_theory) is an example Important club is "without any mineral wealth nor strategic position".
As long as you do 2 thing:
1. Do not hurt other nation (like invade, or kill their people...) => no retaliate counter attack from others
2. Yourself have no value. "without any mineral wealth nor strategic position".
=> no one want to take you.
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I am designing a world for high-magic, epic campaign for D&D 5e. I really am feeling this map, and am trying to figure out how the different countries would interact. Right now I have nothing planned for different governments or societies, I am just trying to figure out if this can work.
That island in the center is what the title is referring to. Why would the surrounding countries, who have been at war and have very easy access to water travel (large navies, war ships, etc), not make attempts to claim that white island in the center?
Right now all the answers for related questions are things like "it offers no resources" (I would like it to actually be resource rich), "it's in a bad spot" (it's closer than other successful wars have been fought), or "religious taboo" (this feels almost like a cop-out).
Does anyone have any thoughts? I could think that maybe it was monster-infested, the countries are worried they couldn't hold it, or things like that. However, for being monster-infested, they have some pretty strong mages and fighters, why not fight them off? For the too big to hold, why not just hold part of it that is closest to you and then expand slowly as you get more manpower and resources from controlling it in the first place?
Right now I'd be okay with there being people there or not, but I am unsure if there is a good reason that I like.
Ideas or counterpoints would be appreciated! Thanks all :)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nfleP.png)
Edit to clarify the context for D&D, sorry I didn't elaborate. It's essentially medieval technology but with better metals and boats but no gunpowder. However, they do have basic lamp oils and the like. Long distance communication is possible by magic as well. Non-magic users can keep up with magic users in a fight, but only very very well trained non-magic users. In a fight with your average soldier vs your average magic-user, the magic-user will win most of the time.
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There is an area of land that both Egypt and Sudan cannot claim. To claim it they would lose claim to other larger, and more profitable areas of their countries. To them it's not worth what they would lose to claim [Bir Tawil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil). The neighbouring Hala'ib Triangle is claimed by both.
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Since you have mages and are thinking about monsters, you could have an ancient magical war leaving the white country full of dangerous magical radiation.
I particularly like the idea of a magical boundary spell that was placed to keep the monsters in one area, a previous kingdom. To claim the land is to break the spell and let the monsters loose on the world.
As it was an existing inhabited country before the boundary was raised, there should be old knowledge of the resources available inside. Some of the information may be incorrect (and out-of-date) which can lend an air of mystery. Some of the monsters may even have destroyed some of the items known to have existed, for eg rare scrolls or other such quest items. Or fellow explorers have already retrieved these items on previous explorations, and simply didn't tell anyone. This all leads to the possibility that the dangerous quest was all for nothing!
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## Petty Politics
The existing countries hold a delicately balanced peace as it is, all vying for power while trying to keep their peers weaker. If anyone tried to claim this resource-rich land, it's likely that all the other countries would come down on them hard to prevent one getting too strong. No country is strong enough to take on the rest of the world, so no country wants to risk it. Distrust and racism/nationalism run too deep for any nations to attempt an alliance to claim it.
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Leave it as a mystery.
It was once inhabited by people who flourished and used the available resources. Then they all disappeared. No-one knows why and now everyone considers the island cursed or host to some disease that wiped out the previous inhabitants.
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All the surrounding nations claim it and the others would prefer that nobody had it.
Though some nations may be more powerful than others, if one power actually attempts to take possession of the island the others will ally against that one to prevent them from doing so. Ultimately leaving nobody able to secure their claim.
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I think the best historical example of this is the Vikings and the Americas.
The Vikings knew that the Americas existed but did not make any major effort to colonize it, why? From my understanding it was because they already had claim to Iceland and more land than they could use. Iceland at that time was a large place that had lots of available space but not enough people to live on it. So they knew of even more land across the ocean in the form of the Americas, but did not have any incentive to move people there because there was already an abundance of land.
Basically land was a plentiful resource, but people for colonies were not. Maybe your planet has a similar situation.
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Because it's been universally agreed to be no man's land and any country trying to occupy it would immediately be attacked by the other neighbours
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You say they could fight off monsters. Sure, if you assume they're weak enough but why stop there? Maybe there's a a few dragon lairs and they really don't like humans. Or there's not just one tarrasque but a whole family of them!
With some CR20+ creatures, it's pretty easy to justify the place being avoided despite being resource rich and the countries having strong armies. It's not that it's hard to get there, they just really *don't* want to go there unless absolutely necessary.
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The most salient example of this type of land in the real world is Antarctica, which officially belongs to no country. The situation is a bit complicated (countries have made claims to shorelines and the cones pointing from those shorelines to the south pole), but really no country has a presence there. This comes down to a couple of factors:
* There is a mutual agreement not to settle on Antarctica, and there is a reasonable expectation that this would be enforced by the international community (note that *both* parts are important; if everyone agreed but expected no enforcement there would be strong pressure to just go ahead and settle anyway)
* There's nothing of great value there. The landscape doesn't support agriculture, and extraction operations (mining, drilling) seem like they would be too difficult to justify unless something really valuable was discovered there
* It's an incredibly harsh environment, and supporting a large population there would require a masterwork of logistics, personnel management, and training. In many ways establishing a large settlement on Antarctica is similar to doing so on the moon
Now, if you've projected your map centered on the equator, your unclaimed island appears to be largely temperate or tropical. So it's not exactly analogous, but maybe we can put these same factors to work on your world.
1. **Political pressure:** This one is highly dependent on the history of your world, so I won't dwell on it too long, but here are a couple thoughts:
* This is most likely if this area wasn't touched early on in your world's expansion phase. For Antarctica, this happened because it's a far-away hellscape. Maybe in your world it makes more sense for it to be agreed to be a holy land, or perhaps the seas around the island are particularly hazardous and forced most ships along other routes.
* Maybe there was a large-scale war over the island in the past, and the countries of your world have agreed that it would just be better for everyone if nobody tried to access this island. Be aware that this is an unstable situation (if people wanted it originally, there's probably something there worth having). Your campaign is set at a certain time in your world's history, and maybe it just happens that at this time it is agreed nobody should claim it, but that could change in the future.
2. **Natural resources:** The quickest way to deny the region any usefulness would be to cover it in desert, rugged mountains, and volcanic landscapes. These types of landscape are very difficult for people to use to grow food, and unless an explorer finds a seam of unobtanium or a cache of Money Crystals somewhere, it may just not be worth setting up permanent residence. Doing a geography like this realistically would probably leave pockets of good land, which could be interesting (maybe nobody claims the whole island, but different nations all claim different little enclaves of arable land).
3. **Hostility:** There are lots of ways to play this. Your idea of monsters comes into play here, and as @0xFF points out a few particularly nasty monster threats could be enough to keep humans out. There could also be a hostile native population, albeit one that doesn't have an organized government, who are very effective at warfare. The types of landscapes mentioned in (2) also contribute to the hostility of the land itself (something that can't be defeated with an army). If it comes to it, the answer could also be magic: people who travel here never return, trapped by a one-way wall of force; a magical disease afflicts any who set foot on the land, which worsens day by day and only abates ones you leave; etc.
Hope this gives you some good food for thought. Happy worldbuilding!
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## Colonization is expensive
It takes a lot of people and resources to get a colony going. You'll have to provide the people with *everything* they need to survive while they are getting started/settled. Prepared food, livestock, seeds, tools, pre-fab shelter (tents), weaponry, transportation, and the list goes on.
Then, if there are any monsters, predator animals, insects, etc. (as suggested in other answers), you'll be defending the colonists against all that at the same time as trying to set up livestock pens, more permanent housing, farms, a fortified structure, and all the other things even a basic village needs. This means more weapons, replacement warriors, more transportation (boats), more food, etc. (again).
You'll also likely have to defend against raids of other countries that believe that if they can't afford to setup a colony, neither should you. Besides, it's a soft spot in your defenses while it's still getting set up, draining your resources and distracting you from a possible attack against somewhere else on your homeland.
Even after the colony is somewhat setup, it'll still likely be a soft spot, since
it's harder to get your armies there, due to needing boats (again), than it is to simply march them somewhere on your main island.
It could take a decade (or more) to get a real handhold on this one tiny spot on the "new" island, and there may be people who eventually give up and move back, so you'll need to provide transport back, while also transporting more people as replacements.
This is a Lot of work, time, expense, and that's even if you sent out scouts ahead of time to find a good spot that's easily defensible, has good land for crops and grazing, a good source of clean water, and isn't a gathering spot for the Nasties mentioned earlier.
You might not have to wait that full decade to get mining going on, or to reap whatever other good resources are on this island, but it's still a lot of work for something that isn't going to make immediate returns on investment.
Each country may have already tried a colony before, only to run into too many problems for it to become self sufficient. Maybe it's happened multiple times for each country. Too many raids to defend against, too many monsters, malaria, bad village managers, scores of wolves eating too many livestock, poison ivy, and again the list goes on.
Besides, you might be fighting a war, or 2, with other countries, so colonizing even a wealthy land isn't your top priority. Besides, all that planning and stuff is boring compared to war.
## Not actually uninhabited...
So, there's this guy... ok, lots of guys that got together and somehow survived this island after being hunted for crimes in their own countries. They are outlaws, maybe even pirates, that want the island basically for themselves. Sure, it's completely surrounded by enemy countries, but these same countries are where the ~~loot~~ food, clothing, etc. comes from.
These guys and gals don't like it when one of these "self righteous" countries tries to "take over" their land, so they defend their ~~turf~~ ~~lair~~ ~~hide-away~~ adopted new land by raiding the colonies, killing everyone or co-opting them into the ~~gang~~ family.
From the colonists standpoint, these outlaws are worse than the rival countries when it comes to raids. The outlaws use all the island has to offer, when it comes to attacking. Stampedes, attracting huge swarms of biting insects, tame wolves, you name it: the outlaws use it as a precursor to a raid. While everyone is distracted by the "natural" problem, the outlaws sneak around to the least protected spot in the defenses and cause major damage or even take over the village.
## Frequent Natural Disasters
Massive flooding, earthquakes, sink holes, fire swamps, very active volcanoes, quicksand, and torrential rain all seem to converge in this island of easy to get to metals, gems, etc. Except that the metals are liquid pools, surrounded by lava. The gems are constantly churning in large lakes of mire. The grains are completely infested with biting insects that cause horrible, even deadly reactions.
"Sure, it's a great place for a vacation, but who would want to live there?"
[Answer]
## Because claiming that land would be a Pyrrhic victory.
"A [Pyrrhic victory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat"
Even if in the long term the conquest of this island could produce wealth, the efforts necessary to conquer it would be so expensive in terms of resources, troops and time that it would leave the country defenseless against the other nations. In other words, it would be like "winning a battle but losing the war".
Were you a settler, the time you build your first village, your origin kingdom would have been overthrown or destroyed. Worst case scenario, the settlers become citizens of the new kingdom, in the best case, they declare their independence and will become an important nation... in a few centuries.
At this stage, all neighboring countries prefer not to appear weak in front of their enemy and thus the status quo is born.
[Answer]
Having some fun with this...
What if there was a hole in the ozone layer there, and everyone that tries to settle it gets sick and dies from the radiation? The island looks moderately isolated so colonists might not be expected to respond back immediately, making the island seem like a black hole. Everyone that goes there, never comes back.
The same concept can be applied with numerous different ways. Could be a radon hotspot, could be covered radioactive metals, it could be volcanic and the water around it is poisonous.
[Answer]
Endemic disease?
All the expeditions sent to investigate the island, disappeared. No bodies found. A ship that picked up a crazy survivor, was found later empty.
(This is to surpass the exceptional healing properties of clerics in D&D).
So the surrounding countries can't send more expeditions because they don't find volunteers. And if they try to send an army force, the ships don't get constructed on time or the weather isn't fine or the food gets spoiled... Aaaand we need to leave the conquest for next spring. When there is another levy, thank you very much.
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# Mosquitoes
One of the nice things about D&D is that magic lets you make discoveries that would have been out of reach for medieval scientists. For example, the fact that mosquitoes carry illness. Well, on your *tropical* island, there are a *lot* of mosquitoes. Think swarms like [this](https://youtu.be/aueK_a67lkg).
For most people, that’s already enough to disincentivize ever going anywhere near it. Want to make it worse? Let’s make it worse!
* These mosquitoes are the divine offspring of Talona, the goddess of poison and disease, so attacks on them are an affront to the Goddess. The very vindictive goddess.
* Their mother has blessed them with toxic saliva. Normal
mosquito bites swell up: these ones turn black and gangrenous, like
some nasty spider bites. I’m not gonna link em. Google Brown Recluse
Bite if you hate yourself.
* Oh, did you forget? She’s the goddess of
poison *and* disease. They carry a horrific plague that thrives in
human hosts, and spreads swiftly.
* Talona is just awful. She’s also given her precious children Limited Magic Immunity. They are immune to spells of 6th level or lower, and have advantage on savings throws against all other spells and effects.
* As the offsprings of deities often do, these swarms dream of spreading across the world. The only thing keeping them from doing so is the expanse of ocean that surrounds their home. Any ships that get closer than a few miles from shore are swarmed, every inch covered with these vicious insects. With their occupants drained of blood, these ships, called Corpse Galleons, drift across the seas. Every nation has fire ships patrolling its coasts: when a Corpse Galleon is spotted, a frantic effort to sink it before its cargo can spread commences. There are ballads sung of people who have sacrificed their lives to save their homes from this threat.
At this point, this island would be avoided like the literal plague, and would be given a wide bearth, but there’s no reason not to escalate further!
[Optional Apocalyptic Escalations].
* The swarms are not just malignant, they are sentient, possessing a wicked intellect. They spread not only out of instinct and hunger, but in a deliberate fashion. They cling to every piece of driftwood that passses by the island in an effort to spread. The more of them there are, the more intelligent they get.
* The disease the swarms spread is not just any disease. It is called Talona’s Madness. Those afflicted by it willingly expose their skin to be fed on, and take actions to spread the swarm: Corpse Galleons no longer drift aimlessly, but are steered by experienced sailors. From a distance, these walking dead look like pitch-black humanoid shadows at their stations, every inch covered by teeming bugs. This covering acts like natural armor, of course. If separated from these parasites, the victim will desperately try to return to the island and obtain more.
* Some afflicted by the madness are not visibly so: they carry Talona’s offspring under their clothes, against their bare flesh, and seem almost human. They spread the word of Talona through the world, starting dark cults where they can. In the basements of their cult hideouts, they create artificial swamps, and nurture the larvae of their goddess’s messengers.
* These cultists are driven by the intelligence of the swarm, not mere delusional madness. They seek to infect enough people to bring the Goddess Talona into corporeal form in the world, so that she can begin an eternal reign, beneath skies that are black with the swarms of her children.
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Maybe its been designated a prison colony, and everyone sends there worst criminals to said island. There to fight it out with each other over food and resources.
Nobody would want to setup a colony there because hundreds/thousand of violent criminals roam the land who would kill you just because you exist.
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## Miscommunication
Both countries think that the other has claimed it, but that it's not worthwhile strategically. The occasionally reports that it might be strategically useful after all are dismissed as propaganda from the other nation intended to cause a wasteful attack against useless territory.
[Answer]
It could have the most unfavorable climate of all the land, and its resources could be only recently discovered.
Also, it's not clear why you want it to be rich in resources. I point that out because you might want it to have the kinds of resources that a hero party would like to farm, like high exp monsters, powerful weapons and scrolls, important quest items, etc. It could be the case that the "resources" here are not of general value, but only of specific value to the hero party. They could be on a mission to collect various dragon bones that are not of high general value, but a specific collector, museum curator, or high-level magician (maybe someone who needs magic materials, but is too physically frail for intercontinental travel) has commissioned a small party to collect dragon bones, and the area is rich in them. It could be that the collector's headhunting fee could be a relatively rich prize for a party of 5 people, but not nearly enough to justify the launching of thousands of ships and general colonization. For everyone else, the value of finding dragon / dinosaur bones may not be worth the unbearable effort of crossing the ocean, braving the cold elements, fighting through high-level monsters, etc. If the North Pole was rich in dinosaur bones, would the average 8th century viking want to sail to the North Pole just to collect some dinosaur bones?
[Answer]
**The map isn't flat**
Immediately when I looked at the picture, I thought of the way maps create a 2D image out of a potentially 3D environment (The globe). In this case, the map shown could actually be centered at the top of the globe, the arctic circle of this world. This means that the landmass is not very habitable, but can definitely still have loads of resources (metals and other underground riches). The edges of this island could still have pine trees or other cold environment flora, because it's farther away from the pole (remember the orientation of the map!); however, being that all the other continents are closer to the more temperate regions of the world, no one has bothered trying to live in a location that ill suites them.
[Answer]
**[Buffer state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_state).**
>
> A buffer state is a country lying between two rival or potentially
> hostile greater powers. Its existence can sometimes be thought to
> prevent conflict between them. A buffer state is sometimes a mutually
> agreed upon area lying between two greater powers, which is
> demilitarized in the sense of not hosting the military of either power
> (though it will usually have its own military forces). The invasion of
> a buffer state by one of the powers surrounding it will often result
> in war between the powers.
>
>
>
A nice thing about D&D is there are lots of sentient races. A buffer state might be inhabited by some race of sentients not present in other areas, and so neutral as regards its neighbors. In addition to the value of the neutral state as regards putting space between potentially hostile neighbors, maybe the situation in the buffer state is valued for what it is. For example, maybe it is the Lava Child state, and all surrounding countries totally dig the Lava Child thing they have going on there and don't want to screw it up. The Lava Children are cool with that and OK if you want to visit.
[Answer]
## Magic!
Some magic anomaly will ´remove´ (desintegrate/eat overnight/whatever you fancy) living creatures from the island (except plants maybe?). The anomaly got there because a battle between lots of powerful mages a long time ago used a lot of magic in one place. Over time, the magic residue condensed into the anomaly with a will of its own and is pretty much bound to the place to stay powerful.
The anomaly is invisible and leaves no survivors, which makes it practically a ghost island. Nobody knows what is going on the island, but all know nobody is coming back.
This no mans land could still entice daring treasure hunters to keep the ghost stories alive. This means no army will set foot on the island while people keep disappearing from the island.
[Answer]
# A curse
Legend says that a powerful being put a curse on the island. Anyone trying to claim to the island will suffer horrible consequences. It doesn't actually have to be true -- as long as people believe it, it will keep people away.
Perhaps in the past, one country may have tried to claim the island, and a freak storm sank half the ships. The generals in charge more likely point to the legend (re-enforcing the belief in the curse) than pointing out they ignored the weather forecast.
[Answer]
To approach this from a slightly different angle...
# Nobody knows it's there (because of magic)
You said this is a high-magic setting. There could easily be some kind of magical effect that keeps people from knowing that there even *is* an island there. And if no one knows it's there, how can they claim it?
What kind of magical effect? There are a number of options.
## Perpetual storm
As suggested by [@Ankinou](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/51458/ankinou) in a comment, there could be a great storm with powerful winds and currents that force sailors away from the island. Make the clouds thick enough and far enough from the coast, and no one can be sure if there's an island inside the storm or not.
*"Some say there is and some say there ain't. All I can tell ya is, any ship that sails inta the Godstorm don't come out again..."*
## Space-warping
Any ship that approaches the coast of the island suddenly finds itself sailing in the opposite direction from where it was going a moment before. Or perhaps in another part of the ocean entirely. It is *literally* impossible to get close enough to see the island.
If the warping is reliable and useful enough (for instance, if a boat approaching one side of the island always "skips" to the opposite side), sailors might use it as a shortcut. But if the warp is random, even a fraction of the time...
*"Ever hear the story of the* Arno *and her fool of a captain? Addle-headed prat thought he could take a shortcut through the Not-There. 'Cut the time between here and Kingsharbor in half!' he used to say, with that smug smile on his face. T'be sure, he got lucky the first two times, but the third...Was a year and a half before they found her frozen in that iceberg, and him stuck to the deck still smilin'..."*
## Terrifying illusions
Sailors are superstitious at the best of times. If they even hear a *rumor* about a patch of ocean where your worst fears and nightmares take shape before your very eyes, they are going to stay as far away from it as humanly possible.
A few *very* brave (or foolish) sailors might be able to make it through the seas of fear to the island beyond. Most of them will be too terrified to risk passing through those waters a *second* time, trapping them on the island forever. The very, *very* few who escape will be driven mad by their second exposure, leaving them unable to report on what they found.
*"We were blown into those waters by a squall once. Things I saw in there are what turned my beard gray. Still have nightmares about it sometimes...but I got off luckier than some. Old Man Creedle went in twenty years ago, and from then until the day he died, all he did was sit in the corner and mutter to himself, 'The eyes! By gods, the eyes!'"*
---
Naturally, your player characters will be the ones to find some long-lost manuscript or ancient talisman that allows them to bypass this magical barrier (whatever form it takes), and see what lies beyond.
[Answer]
In no particular order:
* Because The Gods Say So! ("Yea, And Lo! We Have Built-eth This, Our Holy Temple, Upon-eth This Place, And Have Therefore And Henceforth Claimed This Place For Our Own. And Whomsoever (What? "Whosoever"? What-eth-ever Art Thou, The God Of Spelling And Punctuation?!? Thou Art..? Huh. Poor Fellow!!! :-) Trespass-eth And Appear-eth Upon-eth This Here Place-eth, Being Naughty In Our Sight, Shall Snuff It!" -signed- The Gods).
* Big Monsters!
* A Curse Most Ancient! A Doom Most Foul!!
* GREAT big monsters, which, as Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, The Virgin Mary, are my witnesses, they will FONG you, with big nasty teeth and claws and fangs and fingernails and..! PAIN! LOTS AND LOTS OF PAIN!!!!!
* An impenetrable ring of storms which surround this Isle, and which keep away all those who seek to trespass there!
* BIG HONKIN' MONSTERS!!!!!
[Answer]
**Pirates**1
The island is infected by pirates and other exiles.
When the custom started, the island was nigh unreachable due to the poor navigation practices, so countries were keen to use the method: they did not bloodied their hands, just send the exiles to their death. Now that navigation has improved, the island is relatively easily reachable (it's D&D, so travel still is risky), but it's too late...
The island is inhabited by the worst of the worst, cults to evil deities and pirate fleets, brotherhoods of assassins and the Zhentarim; there's even rumors of chromatic dragons having their lairs there, of Drow outposts and Illithids. It's evil or lawless? You'll find it there.
This is the most chaotic evil place in the world, and the only reason it's not a country is because the various factions keep waging wars on each others rather than cooperate, vying for a supremacy they can never achieve and competing for resources to further pursue their interests. Whenever one rises slightly higher than the rest, it's pulled down by its jealous and frightened neighbors, the only time tenuous alliances really take place.
For all intents and purposes, **it's best considered as a Layer of the Abyss on Earth**, and who in its right mind would ever try to colonize the Abyss?
1 *Because every game of D&D should have pirates and ninjas.*
] |
[Question]
[
I have a world set in the far future, no specific time for vagueness sake, that is completely war-torn by 2 warring factions. This planet is both sides' last stand, so it's all-out, no-limits warfare. Is there something that could potentially be use on the battlefield that would be noticeable, kill everyone instantly, but cause no bodily damage from the weapon itself? So no open wounds, burns, or the like. Exactly like they just dropped dead.
[Answer]
If you had some way of efficiently generating neutral particle radiation *without* generating a whole load of gamma rays at the same time, you could make a [neutron bomb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb) that actually worked like people seem to imagine they do ("kills people but leaves buildings standing") rather than being a nuclear weapon optimized for use on heavily armored targets like tanks.
The problem would be generating an intense enough neutron flux that it could reliably and quickly kill people (presumably even people quite well protected) without causing major tissue damage or setting things on fire. It might be possible to do this if you could make miniature [deuterium-tritium fusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium%E2%80%93tritium_fusion) bombs (pure fusion weapons are already [a bit neutron-bomb-like](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb#Hypothetical_effects_of_a_pure_fusion_bomb)). Detonating a tiny nuke is left as an exercise to the reader, but it might be possible to do with picogram amounts of antimatter and maybe a tiny amount of some kind of fissile like uranium or plutonium. The warheads would need to be carefully engineered to maximize useful neutron flux... possibly they're encased in a layer of [beryllium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium#Nuclear_properties) and/or [depleted uranium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-238#Breeder_reactors)that can act as a neutron multiplier. Materials that can convert alpha particles from the fusion reaction into [more neutrons](http://www.wise-uranium.org/ranch.html) would be useful too if you can find something suitable (maybe uranium nitrides or oxides). Fast fission of U-238 might add too much thermal energy and risk cooking things. Other more exotic materials like gold might allow increased gamma ray output, but that too risks cooking things or developing a fireball with all the resultant blast damage that implies. X-ray transparent materials (like beryllium) on the top, and x-ray reflective materials (like uranium) underneath might be a good arrangement, but I Am Not A Nuclear Weapon Engineer so I can't give useful advice here ;-)
The warheads are delivered across a wide area from something a little like a cluster bomb, but each one is attached to a "smart" guidance and propulsion system to allow controlled descents so that they can perfectly synchronize their spacing and altitude and detonation times... they all need to go off at once, because the radiation flux will cause any remaining devices to fail or detonate at the wrong altitude, and you want all devices to go off at an optimum height above the terrain to maximize neutron and gamma radiation flux but minimize thermal and blast effects.
Now, if this *does* work, then you can deliver a dose of radiation across the battlefield in one giant pulse that should immediately *incapacitate* everyone. I say incapacitate because instant death might require a flux so high that you'd probably burn and blast things to bits, but a high enough dose will simply scramble the brains of victims who will fall over trying to work out what just happened and why their muscles don't work properly anymore and then quietly die where they lay a few minutes later.
[Answer]
*Massive carbon dioxide flood*
This would work like a [limnic eruption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limnic_eruption) such as killed nearly two thousand people at [Lake Nyos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos_disaster), and also many animals. People suffocated, and it was noted at the time that it looked like a neutron bomb attack.
[Answer]
**Kill Switch**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fmmXCm.jpg)
In the distant future, the Facebook Pepsi Corporation covers five eights of the planet.
Every child is fitted with a Facebook Pepsi "Hornet" implant at the base of their spine to allow them wirelessly access the Metaverse, and also remotely enjoy the silky smooth taste of Pepsi Brand Cola.
The implant receives a wireless signal and transmits it to the brain as sensory data. It also broadcasts brain functions back to the Mothership.
For data protection reasons the implant has access to all of the body's critical systems. This is all contained in the GDPR legislation article 89 Subsection 3b.
One bonus feature is that shutting down the implant also shuts down all brain function. The shutdown can be done wirelessly if you have the access code. There's your weapon.
[Answer]
This kind of weapon exists and is called a nerve agent. A famous example is [sarin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin), which was twice used in terrorist attacks in Japan. From the wiki:
>
> Exposure is lethal even at very low concentrations, where death can occur within one to ten minutes after direct inhalation of a lethal dose, due to suffocation from respiratory paralysis, unless antidotes are quickly administered.
>
>
>
>
> Sarin is generally considered a weapon of mass destruction. Production and stockpiling of sarin was outlawed as of April 1997 by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, and it is classified as a Schedule 1 substance.
>
>
>
[Answer]
## Nanobot swarm
Nanobots are highly advanced nanotechnology used in warfare. They are released in swarms (which covers the criteria to be noticeable). They can be controlled and they are able to target humans. They are small enough to enter the internal systems of humans. They can stop a vital function, or block some vital blood flow, or release some deadly substance that can kill humans quickly with no significant visible bodily harm.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Mm3Zgm.jpg)
[Answer]
**Don't say.**
The war people were working on something. They must have found something. Because everyone is dead. Like they just sat down and died. Even in the tanks and war machines; even in the hazmat suits and the bunkers. But the birds are not dead. Squirrels run in the trees. Leaves stretch to the sun. Just the people are dead.
And some unusual things. Some of the bodies lie in circles, or stars. Have these dead people been arranged in patterns after they died? Did they arrange themselves then die? There are some among the dead who do not look like soldiers and do not look like locals. Where did these people come from? Why are there so many children? The birds are singing and the trees rustle in the wind, and it sounds like someone is whispering. But no-one is whispering. Everyone is dead. What was that they said?
It is the difference between porno and romance. In a porno you are shown everything. In a romance you have to wonder, and guess. Make it scary. Make them wonder.
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## Halt all brain synapse for a bit (Brain EMP)
Imagine a sustained EMP, but rather than targeting wired electronics, it's geared specifically to overload the electrics within our brain. Hold the brain in stasis for say... 4 minutes (or some other appropriate amount of time), and everyone's stopped breathing for that amount of time, their hearts and other bio functions may have also been paused for that long. By the time the brain is free to move electricity around as it normally would again, it's dead.
[Answer]
# Supervillain
First, the hapless population of the planet was passivated and caused to accept the idea of a supervillain surrounding them with broadcasting satellites. The satellites released a tunable monochromatic terahertz signal, which we'll henceforth call "5G".
When the 5G was set to the [right frequency](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255730586_Terahertz_spectroscopy_of_methemoglobin_implications_for_novel_medical_imaging_and_therapeutics), it was able to resonate the structure of oxyhemoglobin in the blood. Loosely, hemoglobin in the human body works like a Daoist sexual practice, keeping Fe2+ (ferrous ion) always just on the verge of a conclusive reaction with O2, but never quite allowing it to be satisfied. By nudging it with an intense broadcast of just the right frequency of weak non-ionizing radiation, the supervillain found a way to bring it through to the state where the oxygen reacts, leaving an [inactive methemoglobin](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1778-428X.2007.00081.x) behind. Now, the body will normally restore the original hemoglobin form over time, but people all over the world were abruptly and heavily radiated with this killer 5G, which nobody had ever really studied health effects for Hz by Hz in any rigorous way (except in classified sources).
For a few minutes, each person targeted had to make do without oxygen in their blood. After that, they continued to make do without oxygen. It did not take long for the 5G system to run through the whole planet, assisted by the users' own spy devices and finishing off with satellite reconaissance.
* I should note I don't *know* any such frequency exists, and also the current satellites stop around 50 GHz because of water absorption in the atmosphere I think. This hardly seems enough to get in the way of a fair plan to destroy the world, let alone a sci-fi yarn.
[Answer]
**The Ice-nine Approach**
Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle uses as its primary macguffin Ice-nine, an allotrope of water that is solid at higher temperatures than more common ice and self-catalyzes crystallization of liquid water to its form. This is consistent with a lower-energy form of ice existing; and although thankfully no such form has yet been found, it is not excluded.
For your purposes, Ice-nine is has some flaws. First off, while one can imagine freezing a human at room temperature by this catalysis, that would be an (unusual) mark; and human-to-human contagion would require ice crystals of one to come in contact with fluids of the other, which isn't straightforward.
Instead, the same mechanism of proposing a lower-energy allotrope can be applied to the oxygen in the air itself. We don't know too much about red oxygen (O8) currently, but we're pretty confident that it's not stable at atmospheric temperatures and pressures, let alone energetically preferred to normal gaseous oxygen under those conditions. But what if...
O16 if a fifth stable allotrope of oxygen, after diatomic oxygen, ozone, oxozone, and red oxygen. It is a murky brown-to-red liquid at temperatures up to 50 deg C and pressures down to a quarter of an atmosphere. It is lower energy than diatomic oxygen under normal conditions, but does not commonly form in nature. In addition, it is only autocatalyzing on the bulk surface -- that is, a droplet of O16 will tend to arrange O2 molecules that hit its surface into new O16 molecules, eight at a time; but a handful of O16 molecules insufficient to form a drop with a well-defined surface will not cause more O16 to form. Finally, O16 is extremely sensitive to ultraviolet radiation, and decays to a mixture of O2 and O3 even in faint UV. (The ozone itself further decays to O2 with UV, but not as rapidly.)
The war between SideA and SideB reached the point where drastic measures were needed. SideA had synthesized O16 and confirmed its properties. Hundreds and thousands of liters were synthesized, and loaded into aircraft. At noon over the coastal airbases of SideA -- just as the sun finished setting over the other hemisphere, where SideB plotted their own plots -- a flight of three hundred bombers lifted off, with just enough fuel to cross the ocean. The bomb bays were empty. One fuel tank, in the fuselage, contained fuel. The other fuel tanks were filled with O16.
As the bombers crossed over into the dark hemisphere, the dump valves on the fuel tanks were opened. Falling through the atmosphere, the streams of red O16 broke up into an orange pink mist. The droplets, held together by surface tension against the wind of their own falling, did not dissipate further -- instead, they began to grow as O2 out of the rapidly thickening atmosphere adsorbed onto each drop, becoming O16 and adsorbing yet more O2.
Underneath the bombers, a flood of O16 poured onto the ground, a rainstorm of such intensity as has never been seen. And as each new droplet fell into the pooling murk below, more and more oxygen fell out of the air.
The airfall itself, although intense was, in the end, just a storm. Individual drops were small and hung in the air, causing an intense deluge over hours, rather than a literal river falling from the sky. And the watershed below was just as capable of channeling O16 as water -- with occasional dramatic landslides, dam breakages, etc.; but on the scale of a millennial hurricane, not an unimaginable disaster.
But after the fall... death. Rapid and inevitable not just for humans, but for all terrestrial animals. For the O2 level had reached so low that there was nothing to breath. Without a rise in CO2 levels the human body does not realize that it is low on oxygen -- instead, consciousness just fades, and death follows. In the lakes and the seas, the fish survive, as the dissolved oxygen cannot adsorb onto the O16 that is mixing in with the water rather than forming drops.
The sun rises the next morning over a flooded, brown, desolate landscape. With the first rays of the sun a mist is seen shimmering over all the lands. The O16 is breaking back down to O2, which is remixing with the air. Sporadic forest fires start as local oxygen concentrations spike; and with no one to put them out, some grow out of control. But in the cities, where there was nothing to burn; in the valleys, where the O16 flowed to the sea and will burn off from the surface over the next few days; and where the fires did not, by chance, start -- all that is left is the blue-lipped corpses of all that once was alive.
[Answer]
[Vacuum bomb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon)
>
> Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness."
>
>
>
Just be aware this is a good way to get on human rights groups naughty list.
[Answer]
**Anti-gravity satellites**
Special device (or weapon) emitting a gravity beam to pick up people from the surface and put them in a low orbit trajectory, long enough to kill them. Most times they need to be put up say 10km in the air.. keep them up there for a few minutes, they will just suffocate and freeze a bit. In the air, you can do with them whatever you like. You can also put their corpses back on the surface again, gently. They will unfreeze and their bodies sustained little damage, except the brain damage that killed them.
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If the goal is just to leave intact corpses, then there are a lot of options – poison gas, plague, radiation – but they are all far from "clean". Any chemical or biological agent is virtually impossible to disperse over a significant area such that everyone gets a promptly lethal dose; realistically, if you sprayed an oil tanker's worth of VX on Chicago, some people would get a million doses and die in minutes, but some would be running around panicking hours later, and some would still be alive after a week. With any type of radiation, if the source was powerful enough to kill everyone in a 100m radius within 24 hours, then by definition it is at least powerful enough to set stuff on fire; whereas if you used lots of small sources, e.g. plutonium-238 dust, you have the dispersion problem again.
To make everyone in a city-sized area drop dead at once, short of brute mechanical force, there's no know way to do that (which is arguably a good thing). You could electrocute them all, but you'd need an environment specially set up for it.
In the realms of handwaving, you could have a memetic virus or poison-releasing implants distributed in advance and triggered by a radio signal / musical cue / etc. Or [some kind of quantum woo] could temporarily change the ionization enthalpy of sodium atoms, causing people's nervous systems to shut down but without visible chemical side-effects. Or a wizard could teleport everyone's hippocampus into the sun.
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Perhaps a bit less hard scifi, but say they invented teleportation a la Star Trek, but due to power constraints full body teleportation is too costly (and certainly too costly to affect an entire warfront at once). However targeting a cross section of arteries leading to the brain, either surgically removing them or placing a block/blood clot/foreign object instantly shutting off blood flow leads to everyone targeted appearing to instantly die for no apparent reason with minimal energy costs.
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I think a biological weapon in such a war would be a airborne transmissible Coma Inducing disease.
You can add a lot of Sci-fi to the idea and there are lots of paths to follow, connect with the "what consciousness is" question or just move onto the consequences of having a whole world of sleeping bodies that will slowly die of dehydration and hunger.
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#### Genetic magnetic weapon
The weapon would change the magnetic reliance of a cell, and the cell will disfunction for a very short time, which lead to death of body. Migratory birds rely on its magnetic sense (towards the Earth's magnetic field) to fly across the earth. If migratory birds' magnetic sense is disturbed somehow, when the migration season comes they will start to fly but to the wrong direction. And very likely die half way.
This damage can be exerted to the individual when it is against an individual. This damage can also be exerted to the mass when a weapon is used to manipulate the Earth's magnetic field.
#### Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Fields
Most human invented devices do not significantly disrupt long term functionality of the genetic code as they are at or under 2 Tesla of strength. The generation of extremely low frequencies seems to be a factor in potential damage to the genetic structure.
[Study of genetic damages from ELF magnetic devices](https://cds.cern.ch/record/1246526/files/p375.pdf).
This implies that a device that is disruptive to genetic structures or even brain waves would have to be both higher strength than any normal human devices, and would also have a short range and would have to be deployed strategically in geographical terms.
#### Magnetic Strength for Weaponization
The threshold seems to be at about 15 Tesla or better for significant genetic disruptions.
[Plant Cell Disruption at High Magnetic Fields](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1764872/)
Since higher strength affects the range, the strength of such a weapon would be a multiple of 15, such as 30 Tesla or higher. There is no guarantee that other lifeforms would not die, since there is no particular way of tuning this to only affect human bodies. The need to generate and use high amounts of power would be a limiting factor, so advanced power generation may be a factor in the use of such weapons.
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**Microwave Egg Brain**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TYGka.jpg)
If you heat a bowl of damp rice in the microwave the inside heats faster than the outside. You have take it out and stir and put it back in. This is more extreme for an egg. The wet inside of the egg heats faster than the dry outside because microwaves work my vibrating moisture to create friction.
Your head is like an egg. It has a dry skull on the outside and a wet brain on the inside.
Your death weapon works like a big microwave oven. It creates a bunch of microwave radiation. Not enough to melt the dry outsides of the victims, but enough to vibrate their squishy brains until they become jelly.
Of course the brain jelly is still contained in the skull. Unless you have the bright idea [to crack open the skull](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzybAS7zltE) then it will remain a mystery.
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Way out of my league here ....
An air burst bomb detonation or series of detonations causes infrasonic sound waves of a frequency and intensity that damages the liver. The liver damage {somehow} causes the upper esophageal sphincter to go into spasms preventing the victim from being able to breath. They asphyxiate.
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## A gaseous chemical inhaled by the participants did it
In the film Serenity (Firefly Universe), [spoiler tags used in case you've not seen it]:
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> the Union of Allied Planets added the Pax to the airprocessors of an entire planet, Miranda, to pacify the populace. However it worked a bit too well, and caused 99.9% of the populace to stop doing anything at all (including eating) and just waited for death to come. The remaining 0.1% of the population became ravenous killing maniacs committing all of the worst crimes humans can.
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In your world, peace activists could use this same substance in an attempt to stop the war...but it had the unintended side effect of killing everyone!
As for being noticeable, if it is dispersed at a sufficient altitude, by an air-burst munition, in the right conditions, it would fall over all of the combatants not leaving any chance of escape.
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[Question]
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In the prosperous capital of the country where my story is set, undesired babies are discreetly abandoned in the darkest hours of the night on the front door of the guild of Truthers.
There, as everyone in the city knows, they will be taken care of and raised as guild members, provided that they do not know how to speak when abandoned.
Newcomers are given a potion to drink, the recipe of which is the best guarded secret of the realm, for no member of the guild knows the totality of the long list of steps that goes into its brewing. The effect, however, is known to everyone: **for the rest of their lives, whenever they drink that potion again the skin of a Truther will turn *permanently* blue, if they lie during the next hour**.
My questions are the following:
* What role would the Truthers likely occupy in society? Obviously, they would make terrible spies or diplomats, but would powerful people seek their services for other purposes?
* Are they celebrated? Disregarded? Feared?
* Truthers who did lie at some point would obviously lose their advantage. What happens to them?
For the purpose of the question, you may assume the following:
* The effect of the potion is only activated, if the Truther is not telling the truth as best as they know it. Omitting a detail by mistake is not a lie, as long as the intention was to tell the truth.
* Although the potion is complicated to brew, it is not expensive.
* Truthers are marked with the emblem of the guild early on: it is virtually impossible to have someone believe you're a Truther, if you are not one.
* My story is rooted in medieval settings, with moderate magic interventions, but I am interested to know how the response to these question might change through time. Would the Truthers become obsolete at some point and why?
* No known magic can revert the effect of turning blue.
EDIT: **What makes an answer better than another?**
I am really more interested in the second and third questions (what is Truther's social status? What happens to the blue ones?) than the first. I just think they can not be answered without the first. So an ideal answer elaborates on those points.
Hopefully, the answer would find a plausible balance between the privilege Truthers may acquire but also their weaknesses. Some important points to consider that I have thought have are
* They can not allow themselves to be put in situation where they have to lie.
* If entrusted with secrets, there is always the risk that they will be bound to reveal them in the future.
Perhaps such balance does not exist (i.e. the pros far outweigh the cons or vice versa).
Bonus point for any thoughts on how the answer changes in more modern settings. In a day where we can videotape us and each other, do we really need to pay human witnesses?
[Answer]
Eunuchs formed part of the highest bureaucracy of many Empires (e.g. the Byzantine Empire), occupying positions akin to a Prime Minister for the Emperor. Some parents castrated their sons so they would get a job in the government or become religious patriarchs.
The argument was usually that, since eunuchs couldn't have (natural) children, they would look for the good of the nation and not for their families.
Some of these eunuchs got incredibly wealthy but still they were despised. Most legal systems treated them nor as men or woman and sometimes they were slaves all their lives.
Your Truthers could be the same, trusted public servants of the king/emperor/whatever. The Truthers could be asked any moment about their work without fearing a lie. Imagine the relief a medieval king would have knowing the person managing the Treasury can't cheat him. Or the governor of a province.
The situation of the Truthers might be similar to the eunuchs: envied because they will occupy the highest places in the government, depised because they paid a great price for it. A Truther with the blue face would be seen as a fool who had only one function in life and he didn't fulfill it.
When the society advances, personal forms of government (like Monarchy) turn into groups (Parliaments). A very taxative system of employing workers (the Truthers), who could ask for a lot of money, would be disregarded in favor of a collective control of the government and the development of a press that keeps the public informed about the abuses comitted by that government.
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Witnesses. Specifically for legal documents and contracts, or even blood oaths and what have you. As they can not lie, they are the most trustworthy person to use.
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Inspectors/auditors. They can't lie about not doing the job fairly, they can't lie about why they're being sent there, they can't lie about what they found, and there's no point threatening them or trying to bribe them because it would be trivial to find out if they were.
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# There is a *gigantic flaw* in this scenario.
No one knows the full secret of the potion, so no *single* person can attest that it has been made correctly. If the potion is made wrong or a fake potion is used, the Truther can say whatever they want and they won't turn blue. So how can *anyone* know that the potion works, at all, ever? **The only way you could completely trust a Truther's statement is if they attest to various things *and then lie and turn blue,*** so that you know they did in fact take the real potion. Which means any Truther is only good for a single use.
Or, you would have to "dispose of" (turn blue) a single Truther to attest the effectiveness of *every* new batch of potion brewed. But that would only convince the people who were actually there to observe that the Truther:
1. Did not ingest *anything* for the previous hour;
2. Drank a sample of the potion out of a large container that does not contain subdivisions that might have something other than the potion in them;
3. Attested to various facts;
4. Deliberately told a lie and turned blue.
This would attest (a) the truth of whatever was stated in step 3 above and (b) the potency of the potion batch in that large container.
But if that container were taken out of sight between the public demonstration and any use of the potion, you could no longer trust its potency unless the person taking it *also* turned blue.
So really, there would be no effective fully trustworthy use of the potion without the Truther turning blue at the end of whatever attestation is made. This drastically changes the social dynamics at play. It also means that Truther services would be **extremely** expensive, since any Truther's services could only be used a single time. He could attest to many facts in a single hour, but that would be it *for life.* So this would be a service only paid for by kings or noblemen or such.
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And then, further, they could only attest to facts *that they know personally.*
So I think every king and nobleman would have a non-blue Truther in their employ, simply to observe everything so the king or nobleman can, in some urgent moment of need, publicly exhibit the Truther and have him take the potion and attest to various things (e.g. to prove the nobleman's innocence in some political intrigue), and then deliberately lie and turn blue.
If the Truther lies too early in the demonstration and turns blue, then the nobleman is out of luck: no other Truther was *present* to observe the nobleman's activities at the time in question, so no other Truther can attest to his alibi.
Overall, for these reasons, I think the Truthers would only be marginally more useful than a trusted class of priests.
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Blue (discarded) Truthers would be commoners with no special status. They're useless as Truthers at this point.
Actually, there is absolutely no reason why the Guild that makes the potion would *ever* take it personally. Rather, I think that they would *not.* It's only one-shot anyway, so why bother?
This also makes it much more convenient to test a batch of potion. Just give some to a prisoner and make him say something false, and then he turns blue so you know the potion is good. And then you can execute him since he was already a condemned prisoner.
Social status of the Guild would be *extremely* high. Secret knowledge always carries that type of status. (Of course, secret knowledge *also* eventually blows up in the faces of whoever tried to keep it secret, but that's another subject entirely.)
Social status of someone who takes the truth drug would be nothing special.
[Answer]
# Secure Services
The Truthers are the only ones who cannot be spies because they can be given the potion and asked if they are spies. You can also exactly know what their intentions are to their employers... "Are you plotting to kill Lord Richmoney?" Oh, okay, I guess we can trust you then.
They would be valued in any number of professions where trusting another person is difficult. Here are a few examples:
1. Merchant: "Is your markup on your goods less than 25%?", okay, I'll buy from you.
2. Guard: "Have you accepted bribes, or been coerced?", okay, thanks for doing your job well.
3. Maid: "Have you observed your mistress having inappropriate relations?", oh, good my wife has been faithful.
4. Pirate: "Did you take any of the Captain's loot?", there's a good pirate!
The inherent trust that would be given to these truthers would make them very valuable to the people who employ them, and that value will keep the truthers from saying anything that would turn them blue because then they wouldn't be able to have that profession anymore.
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They would be put in positions of power where it is hard to check if they have been abusing it.
So the King might hire a truther as for example a steward who oversees a critical project or a far off colony or area. He can then call this steward of the north, honourable lord in service of the King, give him a potion and ask him "well Greg, have you been doing bad stuff behind my back?".
But mainly people like merchants, bookkeepers, policemen, judges, referees and whatever else who might fall for a bribe, coercion or human weaknesses like lust and greed would likely be a truther to make sure they will be found out. If the truther does not have the requisite skills then still no problem as they can be asked to watch precedings and be in the presence of people that need to be kept an eye on, so they can still be asked questions about the others doings without being able to lie.
Anyone with a blue skin would be a pariah. They had something they risked getting blue for and outright lied for, or they might not have known they had gotten a drink and lied, something a truther should not do anyway. Although most would likely be punished if not executed after they are found out.
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They would be negotiators.
The potion would be used at or towards the end of a negotiating session but before any of the parties have signed anything. To prove that the negotiator did not hide anything, is not being paid by one of the parties (aside from the fees all parties pay), and has no hidden agenda. To her/his knowledge, the contract/treaty/etc is the very best compromise for all parties.
People will respect them for being important officials who get paid well and do their job honorably. But unless that's an exception in your world, it won't really change their social status. No one outside the guild can get the drink (and even if they could, they'd never know if it was the real drink so it couldn't be trusted) and no one can force the truther to speak during that hour. So there's no real use for this other than for their job and occasionally if needed to testify in court or go before the ruler.
Blue-skinned truthers would of course lose their jobs (since they can't turn extra blue if they lie again later) and all the social status that goes with it. Just like anyone who really messes up, their spouses might leave them, their kids won't respect them, their parents might disown them. Or not. They will lose some friends. They will take a normal job without such high stakes work. And they'll settle into their new (lower-paid) reality.
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**Lawyers**
Provided your system of laws has an emphasis on finding the truth, it will be critically important to have a group of people who can be counted on to debate a case honestly, without fear or favor, representing each side to the best of their ability. If the "turning blue" also applies to hyperbole or rhetoric, even better. Knowing that they can't be bribed, intimidated, or otherwise coerced is already a big improvement on the real world. You might not even need a jury, since the judge is guaranteed to be impartial.
This will give them significant social status, much like lawyers in our world, as they will effectively be the arbiters of truth and justice. This is a lot of soft power. However, the impartiality requirement will keep them from exercising it much, especially as they will have to answer the standard "have you ever abused your position" at the start of each case, which means they can't *directly* do much.
This also means they won't all become hugely rich; because they have to be impartial and honest, this means there will be much less difference between them than lawyers in RL, to the point that they might even wear a mask during trials, because the focus is on the truth not the speaker. I can see this becoming a major cultural ritual.
Truthers who turn blue will have all of this social pressure turned against them. Ostracised, maybe even banished or killed, because they will have acted against society as a whole, and abused the trust of the community. There will be enormous stigma against them.
[Answer]
## Advisers
A person who is an adviser is supposed to judge things according to their best knowledge. Concealing anything undermines the sense of having an adviser but that's what happened ever to often in reality. People are afraid for various reasons (usually due to the power held by the one who asks - a king, , company manager etc.) to oppose someone in power. The Truthers risk more by lying since they'll lose everything they have - their ability and thus position (and as a result also money for living). I guess most people (at least in broadly understood European/Western culture countries) know the tale "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen. The problem existed in past and still exists. Having a critic who is bound to tell the truth can give a totally unbiased second opinion - something of value hard to estimate.
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> Are they celebrated? Disregarded? Feared?
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Well, I would say it will be a mix of reverence and fear. They bring a lot of value being source of reverence. But we fear truth. That's why people won't become Truthers voluntarily (not to mention potion price - see below).
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> Truthers who did lie at some point would obviously lose their advantage. What happens to them?
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They will lose their status for sure as already explained above. Yet they might become useful for the guild. Since now they *can* lie, they may be granted access to the secret of potion brewing (of course part only). Of course not all and large part will know only the disguise version so that no-one can know for sure if the guild member knows the real part of recipe or a fake one. The member themselves won't know if they know a real or false recipe and will on many occasions take part in "brewing".
It might be that the actual brewers will lie voluntarily on a guild's request but only those innermost guild members will know this.
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> Would the Truthers become obsolete at some point and why?
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No. On the contrary their service will be more and more sought. The second unbiased opinion is as valuable today as it was always but there are more areas in which you need them.
### Side note
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> Although the potion is complicated to brew, it is not expensive
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It may not be expensive *to brew* but since it is so secret and so useful it will be for sure expensive *to buy*. This way the Truthers' guild, which corners the market of the potion will be one of the wealthiest guilds.
[Answer]
>
> undesired babies are discreetly abandoned in the darkest hours of the night on the front door of the guild of Truthers.
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> There, as everyone in the city knows, they will be taken care of and raised as guild members, provided that they do not know how to speak when abandoned.
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> Newcomers are given a potion to drink, the recipe of which is the best guarded secret of the realm, for no member of the guild knows the totality of the long list of steps that goes into its brewing. The effect, however, is known to everyone: for the rest of their lives, whenever they drink that potion again the skin of a Truther will turn permanently blue if they lie during the next hour.
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If the guild/realm holds the secrets for this potion, then any pronouncement by a truther requires trusting the people that prepared/provided the potion. All the people. And those who handled it after its preparation (although that can be mitigated by wax seals on the bottles). So any usage of such a potion would need everyone involved in the process to also be truthers and swear under its influence that they had prepared their portion/step correctly, and a truther who actually knows all the steps (or at least all the other truthers involved with the steps) to confirm that all the truthers swearing to the fact that their steps were correct are really all the people involved in its production. (Even that doesn't fully cut out sabotage, since it would allow an unknown infiltrator to potentially muddle the mixture without the knowledge of anyone involved.)
I recommend a two-potion system, where the first potion (which converts someone into a truther) is a carefully guarded secret, and the truther guildmaster annually swears publicly that it is compounded properly (as far as they know) under the influence of the second potion, which is just blueberries or something which can be easily obtained, but makes tampering obvious.
It still doesn't rule out sabotage or someone spiking a truther's drink with it (and would lead to truthers avoiding certain foods unless they were on the job), but it reduces the high amount of trust everyone would need in the truther's guild.
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> What role do the Truthers would likely occupy in society? Obviously they would make terrible spies or diplomats, but would powerful people seek their services for other purposes?
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> Are they celebrated? Disregarded? Feared?
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Anyone who wants a verbal/witnessed contract made needs a truther on hand, so that nobody can say afterward "I was coerced into it!" or "my seal was stolen from me and put on that contract!" However, that truther needs to be kept 'pure' afterward by the interested parties. If a truther is a witness/notary for John Doe, John Doe really won't want that truther potentially going blue (by lying about a different incident/contract) as long as that truther's information would be necessary for him to prove. So for any John Doe that has a truther witness, it's within their best interests to keep that truther from witnessing any other cases/contracts/etc.
Because once that truther goes blue, the 'absolutely truthful' evidence John Doe was counting on disappears, since the truther can no longer be presumed truthful.
And anyone could spike a truther's drink with the potion, without their knowledge, and they might say a lie in the hour after that and go blue, rendering anything they'd witnessed worthless as evidence. So it would make sense to keep truthers who had witnessed something important under protective custody and heavy guard.
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> Truthers who did lie at some point would obviously lose their advantage. What happens to them?
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Hopefully they can become regular commoner members of society, depending on the world. If everyone knows they were abandoned kids (so they didn't choose that life for themselves), while "so how'd you go blue?" is a reasonable question, it's not as if they are a cast-out noble or scholar or someone who worked their way up and threw everything out the window for a reason.
I think general populace feelings would be mixed about them.
I doubt commoners would encounter many non-blue truthers in their daily lives in the first place.
And if a truther was involved in an important deal, or was privy to secret information, I doubt they would get out alive after their usefulness expired by going blue, since the other info they have would still be valuable, even if unconfirmed.
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[Question]
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There is a space ship, flying from planet to planet for multiple years. It is a science vessel, so, once they reach a planet, they do research. But what do they do if they are in transit between planets?
If the ship is at a planet, the researchers shall spend all their time researching. So "normal operations" (maintenance, housekeeping) are performed by the non-research crew. I assume that the non-research crew keeps doing their jobs when they are in transit, so, no need to do the cooking, cleaning, repairs or stuff like that (unless you can convince me otherwise).
Researchers on board include chemists, physicists, geologists, biologists and sociologists.
Here are some ideas I already had:
* They will spend some time analysing the data they collected at their last stop.
* They could start science projects that could be carried out in any other lab just as well.
* They could perform maintenance tasks on their lab equipment.
[Answer]
>
> ...once they reach a planet, they do research.
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Nope. They're doing research all the time. That's their full-time employment. Aside from the usual time off, it's nonstop research.
Once they reach a planet, they do *fieldwork.* That means collecting samples, interviewing or observing people, observing animals, taking careful notes and pictures, measuring stuff, maybe running some experiments. Depending on where they land, they might also attend conferences, do guest lectures at universities, workplaces, or for the general public.
Everyone needs vacation time or they burn out, so that's most likely to happen on a planet because, where can you go on a spaceship? You can (and must) have days off, but you can't do a real vacation. So you save it up and go off to some bubble beach and drink margaritas made from something you're going to pretend is agave.
The spaceship is your home base and all your usual work and rest routines happen there. It's where you live. It's where your main lab and office are.
On-planet work is what breaks your routine. In addition to taking a vacation, you're resupplying and getting data and all the other stuff one does with fieldwork. Then you go back home. To the spaceship.
The non-research crew will get some vacation time too and will probably rotate a skeleton crew to watch the ship (if one is needed at all since it will likely get a full maintenance haul-out and a deep clean, though there will be some needed care for plants and animals on board).
Everyone else goes to the planet. Do you really want your cafeteria and janitorial staffs to burn out because they can't get time off from the ship cause they have to stay behind to take care of the scientists? Nope. That's what hotels and dorms are for.
Some but not all of the planets where they stop will have populations. I am inferring that some do because the OP said that some of the crew who did research on planets were sociologists (who study sentient life). Even if none of the planets have other intelligent life (or civilizations) and even if none of them have breathable air, my point about the ship being the primary home and work location holds. Vacations are good for morale, but sometimes they're not possible.
Don't think of planets as places where the "real work" happens. Think of them as the "away" times. The spaceship is home and workplace.
[Answer]
I am a scientist. Although I mostly do computational/theoretical work, I have a lot of colleagues who are chemists, geologists and biologists. Just like the scientists in your question, these people spend only a small part of the year on location gathering data. For most of the rest of the time, we are in our institute/spaceship engaged in one or other of the following activities:
* analysing samples in the laboratory (the samples may have been gathered some time ago)
* analysing data from the lab results
* formulating hypotheses to explain the results
* constructing mathematical or computational models of the results
* giving or attending seminars, discussion groups etc. so that we can understand each other's work
* writing scientific papers so that our results can be understood by the wider scientific community
* perhaps doing some media outreach work to present our results to a popular audience as well
* reading papers to keep up with current research
* learning new skills
* supervising PhD students and junior scientists
* teaching undergraduates
* writing grant proposals
* doing administrative paperwork, of which there is a surprisingly huge amount
The last three may or may not be relevant on a spacecraft, since there might not be any students on board, and one would hope (optimistically) that most of the admin stuff would be done elsewhere. But the other things would be relevant parts of your scientist's work. I would expect the spacecraft to have an on-board laboratory, so scientific work doesn't have to stop as soon as you leave the planet.
But the results dissemination and paper writing would also be an important part of any scientists' time on a long-term mission. After all, if you don't tell anyone about your results, there wasn't much point in doing the work in the first place - and who better to write it up than the people who are out there in the universe making the observations first-hand? This is one of the most important parts of a scientist's job, and the travel time between planets would be a welcome opportunity to do it.
[Answer]
**Don't underestimate how long preparing and analysing samples/data can take.**
As a paleontologist, I know that for every hour spent collecting a fossil, you spend 20 hours cleaning it, and that is not including actual research. I know microbiologists who spend months trying to create ideal conditions for extremophile bacteria so they can keep a population alive. Geologist can collect drill cores in a day and spend months reconstructing the geology of an area, mapping an entire planet, eugh I'm having sympathetic nightmares. And keep in mind there will be data to analyse about a planet you are approaching, and data to record as you leave. Actually being on the surface will be a haze of collecting everything you can, and hoping you get enough stuff to answer the questions that come up months down the road.
You also have thing like building your own tools, A lot of science involves cobbling together solutions to problems data or environments create. I can't imagine how hard being a biologist would be in this scenario since you not only have to deal with completely new evolutionary trees and drastically different biochemistries, (how do you do genetic analysis on a creature that doesn't have a nucleic acid based genetic code) but also have to worry about interactions with your own biology. They would probably look forward to the occasional sterile planet just for a chance to catch up. Woe is the poor chemist, the biologist is never going to leave them alone.
[Answer]
If the researchers do their own cooking, maintenance and housekeeping you can cut away several crewmembers, which means you need less food, water, heat-dissipation, fuel/energy and space on your space-ship to get there.
The Researchers are likely best qualified for many of the jobs onboard, if only because flying in a space-ship is something for careful, intelligent people and the basics of the day-to-day living will require a lot of advanced knowledge. Most of the researchers you named would have an easy time being the primary sources for controlling and maintaining the ship.
Lastly these researchers would do good on studying to keep themselves up to date in the latest knowledge to get the best results when they arrive.
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Unless the ship has artificial gravity (either rotation or magic), they'll spend a lot of time doing vigorous exercise to slow down muscle loss from lack of gravity. Somewhat more than ISS astronauts, because they'll be expected to do field work under gravity after multiple years at zero gravity. That's unprecedented here on Earth, even the cosmonauts who logged over a year in orbit could presumably chill for a while after coming back.
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Pilot studies would probably take up quite a lot of time. Given they are exploring the unknown, they will be doing experiments that have never been done before. They would want to practise their techniques to refine them, and make sure they work in space, using samples they already have to hand, before they risk using up the very rare and expensive off-world samples they will be collecting. Typically, most experiments fail the first few times, until the techniques are debugged, so they will want to try all kinds of different approaches to analysing the samples, before they have the samples themselves.
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Sending people to space will be expensive. Sending them to a different planet would be even more expensive.
To make the journey cost effective you need to **cross-train** as much as you can.
Scientists can double function as:
- Data scientists and software engineers
- Farmers
- craftsmen
- nurses and pharmacists
- engineers
- baristas
- psychologists
- yoga teachers
e.g. if you want to bring a geologists and a shoemaker on a 4 year mission than it should be totally worth it to train the geologist in shoe making.
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they will do all those things. things like cooking would be made by machines. you DON'T want someone forgeting about his cooking meal inside a spaceship (scientists are smart, not perfect) so no risks or unnecessary crew members would be consider for all those daily tasks you mention.
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Some of the members of the ships must be working in the tech-security related task. There are people working in protecting the intranet of the ship. The ones working from their computers keeping the network working without cyber attacks. This squad protects the data in the servers and computers, they protect those scientific research and general information stored in the ship.
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You should read Ringo's [Looking Glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Looking_Glass) series, which comes fairly close to dealing with exactly this question. The short answer is "see Nathaniel's answer"... but playing around with this will make your story more interesting. For example, Bill Weaver does his best thinking while engaged in intense or even extreme sports (mountain biking, rock climbing). The main female scientist (anthropologist? linguist? socioloigist? all of the above? I forget, also I forget her name) is a genius and hyperactive and, because she has nothing professional to do until they *finally* encounter another sentient species, spends her time repairing stuff that breaks and also repainting every pipe on the ship (an actual maintenance task, but one that the normal crew absolutely hates).
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This is extremely dependent on technologie levels.
What kind of drives do they use? Do they have FTL? Does the crew consist of bioconservative baseline humans, biological immortals or uploaded minds who jump into whatever body or robot is best for the task? Is minduploading a thing? Is cryosleep a thing? What are their ideologies, orders and belive systems? What exactly is the mission? How far is AI technologie? Are there selfreplicating machines? Can they create and desire to set up massive support infrastructure and factories? Do they use no, spin, thrust or handwaveium artificial gravity?
Assuming a very soft sifi setting (insert Star Treck for example) they would most likely sience arround and analyse the data. (offscreen unless it is plot relevant)
Assuming some what harder sifi (insert Revelation Space universe by Alastair Reynolds) they probably go into cryosleep during intersellar travel. While in systems they would do the probing and review the results of data analysis done by low intelligence AI. Due to advanced fabrication and robotics the ship will care for itself with nanotechnologie, robots, e.c.t.. Humans only act in delicate roles were important decision need to be made.
If the setting is hard sifi but very transhumanistic, dataships are a way to go. These are very small vessels with 95+% of their mass serving propulsion. Furthermore they carry a huge computer and enough selfreplicating mashines to start a local industry. The ships travel at low relatevistic speeds and their crews exist as data. They might all hibernate during the trip, with some beeing awake to manage things or on duty to be woken up if the ships AI can't handle a situation, live inside simulations or shorten or lengthen the trip subjectively via frame jacking. Frame jacking is the idea to speed up or slow down minds by changing the computational resources available to them. This will lso change data analysis. Why wat to get back to the lab if you can do a comprehensive 5 year sudy of a new discovery within 5 min of finding it?
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If 5 million people disappeared at the same time globally, assuming an even spread of random disappearances (not focused in any one location) how long would it be before people noticed there had been a mass disappearance if ever?
Assume the person disappeared with the clothes on their back and whatever they had at the time from wherever they were.
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Almost instantly.
While many people in the world live under the poverty line, with little technological ways of letting the world know what happened, 36% of the world population lives in India and China, and on average 1,800,000 of those disappearances will happen there. The density of the population and relative closeness to emergency organizations means that disappearances will quickly be notified to police and hospitals, which will quickly acquire news attention. Since people have disappeared globally, the news from any country will be combined with the news from other countries, and thus spread the word quite quickly.
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You are talking almost 1 person in 1500 (there are 7.5\*-ish\* billion people on this planet, depending on who you ask; but that doesn't really change my point). Noting that you are saying "even spread", that means
* 1 moving car in 1500 loses its driver
* 1 moving truck in 1500 loses its driver
* 1 moving passenger train / subway train / light rail vehicle in 1500 loses its driver and gets unceremoniously stopped by the automated systems.
* 1 flying airplane in 1500 loses 1 pilot. Most are not jetliners but simple ["General Aviation"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation)\* aircraft. Many crash with 0 fatalities, 0 on board.
+ Any remaining passengers will probably figure out how to use the radio, get emergencies declared and may need to be "talked down". Such incidents are extremely rare and [very, very noticed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVAqiwnMNYo). ATC radio is monitored by random citizens via liveatc.com. Two of them happening *simultaneously* will get attention.
* 1 freight train in 2.25 million loses both crew, so probably none. Ditto commercial jetliners.
There are a LOT of all those things. Which means this will create a LOT of "X-Files". One, might be reported in news of the weird. But when Fulton County, Georgia has 60 of them in the same hour... Different deal. When CNN has 3 people in the building just disappear, yeah, the moment they hear an external report that corroborates their own experience, it's on the air.
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-\* In the USA alone, figure between 0 and 15 GA aircraft depending on time of day, season and weekend. Most 0-soul crashes will play out like hypoxia accidents; they are trimmed for cruise, and crash [land] when they run out of fuel.
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It depends if it's random or selected.
5 million people selected could go missing and nobody really notice but random would lead to questions especially if they were near a camera at the time or driving a vehicle or with other people.
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Almost instantly, if those 5 million are randomly distributed.
Many missing persons result in missing persons reports. People compile statistics on those, and they compare those statistics between cities, between states, and between nations.
Someone would say "wow, yesterday we had more than twice the usual number of missing person reports." And someone else would say "strange, same over here." Probably before the amateurs on the internet notice the same pattern.
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**As soon as its filmed and put on social media**. Chances are pretty good that some of these people are going to be on film disappearing. People might think the videos are fake, but they will still be newsworthy if a bunch happen at once and that's going to lead to more investigation(even if only to prove its a hoax) which will reveal that something is happening.
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*I assume in my answer that the disappearance itself happens unobserved. Otherwise your question doesn't make sense. Because if there were millions of witnesses, the disappearance would already have been noticed.*
It will depend on who disappears. Children in most Western countries will be reported missing often within a few hours, and if many such reports come in on the same day, that will certainly make the evening news.
But there are many people in the world, whose disappearance will not get reported immediately. For example:
1. Many people today in Western countries live alone. If my mother disappeard (who is 88 and living on her own), no one in my family would notice for several days or even week. If the person living alone would be working, the co-workers would notice, but they would probably assume the person was sick and had forgotten to call. They might call after a few days, but they would probably not go to the police for a very long time. I wouldn't.
2. Anyone on holiday will not be missed until they are due home. That could be a month (summer holidays are quite long is some countries).
3. Hunters and fishermen in non-industrial countries are out hunting and fishing for many days. My Russian step-father is out in the forest for weeks, sometimes. No one would note that he was gone for quite a long time.
4. There are migrant workers who no one knows where they are. Where I live, many workers are employed illicitly. Their boss will be annoyed that the worker doesn't show up, but he will certainly not call the police. Rather he will assume that the worker has found a better paying job. And his friends and family will expect him to return home in half a year or so.
5. Everyone who is self-employed will not be missed for a long time. Clients will call and email, but probably not involve the police, and if they do then they won't report a missing person but fraud.
6. If my older son didn't come home in the evening, I would think that he had stayed with a friend and gone to work from there. I wouldn't worry until the next evening.
And so on. In all, many people are unaccounted for for pretty long stretches of time. So
### reports to the police will be made not all on the same day, but *over the course of many days* or even weeks.
And
## since [millions of people go missing every year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_person#Laws_and_statistics_by_country) worldwide, these disappearances will not be easily recognized as being related.\*
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\* *Note.*
8 million children go missing every year. I cannot find numbers for all missing persons, including children and adults, but let's try to estimate.
Close to 700,000 persons go missing each year in the US. That's about 0.2 % of the population. 38,000 persons go missing each year in Australia. That's about 0.15 % of the population. 250,000 persons go missing each year in the UK. That's about 3.5 % of the population.
If we assume that around 0.2 % of the global population go missing each year, that would be 15 million people each year, or a bit over a million each month. That seems to be a good estimate. In Europe and the USA, about 40 % of missing persons are children. 40 % of 15 million are 6 million. So likely the number of missing persons worldwide is a bit higher than 15 million.
5 more million missing spead over a few weeks would certainly create a "bump" in that distribution, but that bump might not be recognized immediately.
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**Not too much time, pratically as soon as the first families to realize the disappearance of their relatives spread the notice**
5 milion people would mean that about one man every 1.400 people would disappear.
Think that you live in a 5.000 people town and 3 people suddenly disappeared. In such a small town (and thanks to social networks), as soon as their families would note their absence, everybody else would know this and start to wonder why 3 unrelated people had gone missing at the same time.
Moreover, since the first thing to do in these cases would be to notify the police, even a small police department would receive at least half dozen missing reports in a few hours and realize that there is something wrong and alert the authorities.
And since the same would happen also in the small towns nearby, the word would spread really fast... I think that in no more than 1-2 days the disappearance would be of common knowledge.
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Most people seem to think it would be very rapid, and cite examples -- people caught on camera, operators of vehicles.
I'm not so sure:
People who are talking to each other on the phone would go, "that's odd" but I think would shrug it off as "boss came around" or "doorbell rang." Most wouldn't realize that something had happened until they failed to reconnect. But it would be odd, most quick disconnects are accompanied with a "Gotta go"
People on facetime/skype would be confused: The view suddenly shifts and the device is dropped. I think many of them would just think "Butterfingers..." but when the camera showed only ceiling, no noise, they would be aware that something happened. I think most people would make a semi-rational scenario for at least a few hours.
People who were physically present in the same room -- meeting, classroom, etc, where you know a lot of the others would notice right away. But picture the conversation when you call building security and say that someone evaporated giving a power point presentation. Strange looks. Water tests for mind altering substances. Lots of statement taking. And who does security report to? I think that each level it goes up the chain will require several hours of "Yeah right" "You don't say"
It won't get real consideration until one person gets reports from several places. Up to that point it's a "Mary Celeste" story. Odd. Unexplained. But unless you are family it's going to be a 15 minute sensation.
Some alterations of your scenario could keep it quiet for longer:
* Skip anyone moving faster than a walk. This eliminates most of the moving accidents.
* Skip anyone within 3 feet of a computer monitor. This eliminates anyone on a phone. or in front of a computer screen.
* People vanish in clumps. A room full of people at a time.
* People in the open, in sight of other people are left alone.
* People are taken with what they are holding. There are no piles of clothes, no phones lying on the ground. No, your car doesn't go with you. (Or maybe it does? Hmm.)
The clump vanishing means that the entire dev team meeting for a code walk through is gone, the entire congregation of the West Horsebiscuit Dutch Reformed Church is gone -- or at least everyone in church that day; Mrs Smith's Grade 12 lit class; Parents vanish in pairs unless sleeping in separate rooms. Bus loads of people, but only when the bus is at a stop or light in a fairly deserted area. Restaurant full of people one instant, gone the next. Waiters in the kitchen left, ones in the dining room gone. Whole families and groups except for the ones in the washroom.
This makes for a bunch of odd events.
The dev team isn't noticed until someone later is missed at another meeting. Bunch of living partners will probably wait a day, "He went out for beer with the boys" but not get really concerned until the next morning.
A missing church congregation is really unlikely to be noticed. Usually whole families will be gone. There will be a bunch of kids marked absent, a bunch of adults who aren't at work. Probably a few people who weren't in church, who complain about people that didn't come home.
Kids who wake up to find their parents gone will range in reaction. Some teens will think, "Great, the house is mine, at least until they come home" Some kids will get themselves off to school. Young kids won't know how to report missing people. Parents who wake up to find "the twins" gone, but Susan still in the house will have reactions depending on the age of the twins ranging from, "What are those two up to now?" to "Sneaking off to their trapline again..."
Class in school will be noticed the next period, at class change, but the next class in that room won't report it; however the noise will likely get someone from administration in, who finds no Mrs. Smith. It will take a while to realize that Mrs. Smith isn't on the school grounds any more. A raft of absent slips over the next few classes will convince the admin that something is wrong. But if it was the last class of the day, it will be supper time before parents start contacting the police, "Mike didn't come home after debate practice last night"
In this sort of scenario I think it would take several days to connect the dots at a town level, and a week or more at the national level. A town of 10,000 will have about 7 missing people. Which may mean some towns are missing a classroom, other towns are business as usual. A city of 100,000 loses 70 people. A bus found empty at a bus stop in suburbia, a missing group from a meeting, an empty MacDonalds.
You're the watch officer for Precinct 6 in East Horsebiscuit. You've gotten an odd call about a disappearance. Dispatch sends an officer to check. It's only as reports trickle up through the system that you realize something is really wonky. A precinct in NYC typically has 100-130 thousand people (77 precincts, 10 million people) So they are missing 70 to 100 people, but many of these will trickle in. By the end of the shift something is clearly going on, but it will take another day to realize there is a real problem, then another two days to get a good handle on the scope of the problem. I bet, however that each city will think that it's a local problem.
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In the US there are more than [2 million prisoners.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate) using the [1 person in 1500, rate per the answer by Harper](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/146087/31507) that means that more than 1,300 prisoners are going to disappear at the same time.
There no way for this to go unnoticed.
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Less than 10 seconds. As soon as it happens, anybody who has a twitter account, who is talking to somebody while they go missing, will report it.
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It's a fairly common theme that magic was a more powerful force in the past but as we come into modern times it has got weaker and maybe extinct.
But why? The ability to use magic would be a huge advantage. Surely evolution or economics would favour a being who possessed it.
**Question**
Assuming that magic exists, how can the decline of magic be explained given its huge utility - and presumably potential economic value?
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# Answer from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
1. Magic itself is fading in the world. Not the fault of the practitioners.
2. Magical people are interbreeding with non-magical ones, thus diluting their strength in magic.
3. Knowledge to cast powerful spells is being lost.
4. Magical people are eating the wrong foods as children, or something else besides heredity is making them grow up weaker.
5. Non-magical technology is interfering with magic.
6. Strong magical people are having fewer children. Either out of preference or because magic affects their fertility.
Investigations would have to be carried out to determine which of these is the case. See [HPMOR chapers 22-23](http://www.hpmor.com/chapter/22) for results.
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# Various possibilities
* Larry Niven presented the scenario in which "mana", the energy on which magic depends, slowly [ebbs and disappears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Goes_Away) (and in another story, it comes back, when the Earth passes through a region of space which is richer in *mana*, that rains on Earth as stardust). According to Niven, the idea originated from a discussion about oil, and intended to present magic as a non-renewable resource; humanity is only allowed a finite number of spells.
* A similar model is also present in *The Zero Curse* series by Christopher Nuttall (and slightly differently in the *Schooled in Magic* series by the same author); the ambient magic is naturally replenished, but very slowly, and can be depleted by over-use (or by some clever gimmick that converts it into waste heat, not unlike Niven's *anti-mana* wheel).
* It is also possible for the magic to actually be the "laws" of another Universe seeping into ours in a region of space where the fabric of the continuum stretches thin (see e.g. *The Gods Themselves* by Isaac Asimov). If that is the case, we can conflate Niven's dependency of magic from the Earth path in the Galaxy and Asimov's physical laws leaking and obtain magic that wanes semi-periodically.
* The magic could also be there, but become less easily reachable (or utterly unreachable) in response to *different* and incompatible types of magic, or the "negative magic" of skepticism (this last in "Those Eyes", by David Brin, online [here](http://www.davidbrin.com/fiction/thoseeyes.html)). Or because whatever it is that empowers magic users (Merlin's gene, or blood nanomachines, or midichlorians) gets diluted with the generations.
* Magic could depend on some mumbo-jumbo quantum effect, and is being lost due to dilation of the time-space continuum. The Big Bang was actually the most magic moment of all eras. Something akin to this in David Brin's *Uplift* universe, with the galaxies becoming more and more isolated.
* Finally, since we're talking about *magic*, it's disappearing just *because*. Not knowing the why's and wherefore's of magic disappearance could just be [integrated in the plot](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging).
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A counter argument
# Magic isn't declining
Everything is about perception and expectation. Magic isn't declining, it's just that with the advent of technology, the things magic is capable of just don't seem so, well, magical any more.
In a low tech society doing more complex tasks with ease appears phenomenal.
Consider the perception of a simple fire lighting magic when compared to spending 20mins with a [fire drill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_drill), as opposed to an involved fire spell when compared to a cigarette lighter. Or the legend of the great mage who brought down a castle when told to a man sitting in a bulldozer.
The reason there doesn't seem to be so much magic around is simply that it's been superseded by the practicalities of technological progress. Hence the tales of great works of magic in times past are simply the folk tales of an earlier age when the baseline of comparison was much lower.
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Magic depends on Mana, a natural resource that fuels it. No mana, no magic.
Mana may or may not be a renewable resource. Whichever it is, humanity can no longer tap its source as it did in past eras.
Alternatively, the amount or mana is constant, but the amount of users has grown way too much. That means less mana per creature available for magical operations.
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# Simple obsolescence. Magic is just not that useful anymore.
As technology evolves, we find easier and easier ways of accomplishing the same tasks we've always had to do. And as these things are discovered, they quickly replace the older methods.
## Consider walking.
Throughout history this was a primary mode of transportation for many people. Unless you had the money to own a horse, or another animal for transportation, you had to walk to get to where you needed to be. And so a lot of people walked, and they got good at walking, developing the necessary muscles and stamina needed to keep walking for a long time.
But how useful is walking in today's society? Well, depending on where you live, walking is almost a lost art. There is simply no need for it. With the ready availability of cars, or other public transportation, the most you need to walk is to and from your vehicle. Technology does the bulk of the work in getting you places, while you relax in a comfortable seat.
## Magic is the same way
Unless the magical system in your world is particularly generous, most spell casting involves a level of effort proportional to the effect. Whether it be prolonged magical chanting, complex mystical runes, or simple mental/physical strain, there is a cost to casting a spell. Now, in the past, the benefits of knowing magic outweighed the costs. Knowing a haste spell meant getting places faster, telepathy sped up communications, and knowing an ice spell or two meant better food preservation, and not starving when the winter came.
But with the advent of technology? Why would I strain for hours, if not days, to create a scrying mirror to observe the surroundings of my home when I can just install a camera. The haste spell still doesn't let me outrun a car, and the ice spell just needs too much upkeep compared to a fridge. In a world such as this, magic would no longer be useful for the majority of its inhabitants. Easier to use, possibly cheaper, options via technology are widely available, and so the number of magical users declines.
But this alone is not enough to account for the prodigies, the mages who in ancient times would have single-handedly stood as a powerful deterrent to conventional armies, and shaped the elements with their will.
## A genius is not always needed
There is a widely accepted view in programming, that a single highly skilled programmer is often more of a detriment than a benefit to the team where they work. If the difference in skill between them and the rest of the team is too great, then the work that they do will be too difficult for the rest of the team to follow. And consequently, no one but that lone programmer will be able to modify or improve on what they did.
As I see it, there is no greater gap in skill than magic.
As such, most large organizations would be very careful not to become dependent on a single mage. An army of golems is a fantastic work force, but if each change in design of the product they are making requires the original mage's intervention, most companies will likely settle for a less efficient technological solution. Because, don't forget, magic is hard, and there are unlikely to be an army of mages capable of operating at the scale required. Meanwhile, technicians can be trained with a mere 4 years of college.
## But not all is lost!
Despite all of this, I would still argue that if nothing else, magic is cool. By that reason alone, your world will probably never fully lose its mages. Children will be interested in learning it to play tricks on their peers, or impress a crush. Adults might know a spell or two that makes their daily lives slightly easier. This low level use will allow the people of your world to find out if they have an affinity for magic, and then those with the drive to pursue it can go on to become full fledged mages.
I imagine their roles would be more like Olympic athletes, or the innovators and visionaries in your world. The difficulty in acquiring, maintaining, and using their skills will weed out all but the best, but by the same token their numbers will be tiny in comparison to the rest of the population.
And so there you have it, a waning magic in your world through no fault of its own. Just people being people.
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No one suspects the Spanish Inquisition, i.e. magic has deliberately been suppressed because its *too* useful, if single individuals capable of using magic can match legions then they'll be hunted by governments either to use them or eliminate them. The end result is that most magical bloodlines are destroyed, and the remaining magical families' abilities are diluted by out breeding with non-magical people while in hiding.
Alternately magic requires certain materials that have been used up due to the extinct of their sources, dragon bone and the like. Or magic can only be used in the *absence* of a certain material, traditionally Iron, magic was destroyed by the coming of the Iron Age, this also made the European conquest of the New World an absolute certain as the European's steel and iron armour and weapons drained the native wizards and priests of arcane power by their very presence.
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## Storing Magic depletes it
Magic doesn't obey the 2nd law of thermodynamics, in fact, casting spells creates mana in the world... However a wizard can only hold so much mana within themselves at a time, so to cast more powerful spells wizards have long embued objects such as staves and wands and magic crystals with mana sinks. These kind of act like perpetually charging batteries, soaking up ambient mana in order which a wizard can later tap at will to power their spells. However these magic items are "lossy" and over time they slowly deplete the mana level in the area. As wizarding implements are lost, (or buried with ) when a wizard dies eventually there was a tipping point where more mana was being drained into the mana sinks than was being created by the magical casting ... Unfortunately the wizards didn't realize this and so started making even more magic items to bolster their powers, which caused the mana to fade even faster.
Want mana to return one day? The mana crystals aren't permanent, after hundreds (or thousands) of years the enchantments wear off and their stored mana is released back into the wild...
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Total amount of magical energy in the world is constant, but because human (elvish, etc) population keeps growing the powers spread thinner and thinner. In scientific terms - the average magical flux density is decreasing, making magic more and more difficult to master for even the most skilled practitioners in subsequent generations.
Once it gets below some minimum threshold no one will be able to do magic anymore, until plague or nuclear war reduces the population back to the level of good old magical times (around 15 century, or 500 million people)
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## Magic relies on a combination of belief and inherent magical ability, you need both for it to work.
A highly technological person (scientist/engineer etc) isn't actually affected by magic that much as they don't believe in it. Likewise, a high-level mage is a being of magic and isn't affected by technological things very much. Full disclosure - this is from the old game ["Arcanum"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcanum:_Of_Steamworks_and_Magick_Obscura).
As the level of technology available to the average person grows, they no longer need the magic so much. An injury that needed magic to heal can now be sorted out by a doctor down the road. Rocks from a cave-in can be cleared by explosives or a crane, instead of sending out for the nearest mage.
This means that less and less people believe in it across most of the world, but there are still areas of heavy magic users where it is quite effective.
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## The loss of magic is a metaphor for growing up - and for progress...
In writing (yeah, yeah, I know this is Worldbuilding), it is indeed a common trope for magic to have been more powerful in the past than it is in the present. This is a natural reflection of the non-fiction literature, which takes magic fairly seriously and literally the further back in time you go. Additionally, as children grow up, they often grow more skeptical - less prone to either believe or propose magical explanations to account for things. But adults, and students of history, are not unaware that things seemed more mysterious, more mystical and strange, the farther back they probe in both recorded history and in their own personal histories.
As has been alluded to elsewhere, magic is less necessary to explain things when things are better understood, with mundane mechanisms accounting for most outcomes.
## ...And that's exactly the way we want you humans to think.
Honestly, when you humans find the chinks and cracks in your reality, and slip through them, you just get in the way of the rest of us, muddling things up. So now and again some mystery slips out, but we've got you properly trained lately, so your "sensible" sorts discourage the kind of sideways thinking that can deposit you in our realms, or that lets our, er, *messes* leak out into YOUR realm. Sure, small children haven't been trained right to avoid getting tangled up, but they're less of a problem if they slip through, usually. And what they have to say when we send them back... Nobody will believe them, so it's safer TO send them back.
I mean, most human superstitions are exactly and entirely superstitions - you have no real sense for what is actually magic, and what is your own imaginations, which is a great deal of what makes you such blundering buffoons when you get into our worlds. But that also helps in keeping you trained to be skeptical. If most mysticism wasn't bunk, you'd never let yourselves be trained to disbelieve.
Just trust me, you're better off with the separation, as are us more inherently magical creatures. Which is why most of US have been pushing for the separation for so long - with constantly improving success.
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## Dragons produce(d) magic/manna
I forget where I've read this one, but in one story magic was declining because there were fewer dragons. Dragons, mystical beasts that they are, produce magic as naturally as you do carbon dioxide - and since kings and heroes everywhere decided that dragons must be slain, there are less and less of them.
You could extend that to other magical/mystical creatures as well.
So in the end there can only be a mystical, magical world full of danger - or a safe world that is mundane, boring - and to those rallying to protect the "monsters" (or maybe even monsters without quotation marks), not worth living in.
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Lots of very good answers - I just wanted to add a variation on suppression and mana limitations.
If there is a limited supply of mana, and it either doesn't replenish, or does so very slowly, an expanding population of mages could burn through it very quickly, leading to fierce competition for resources.
In response, in would in the be interests of the established to suppress the competition however they could. Less mages in the world means more magic for whoever's left. This could take several forms;
* Extremely strict controls on teaching and apprenticeships
* Taking all possible books that could help someone learn magic by themselves out of circulation
* Fierce competition amongst mages, including elimination of weaker rivals
Taken to a logical extreme, mages may in fact try to suppress *all* magic from the public consciousness, in order to minimise the amount of competition for mana. This could lead to a secret world / masquerade situation where the public thinks magic is just a myth.
You could also make it so the maximum strength of a mage is inversely proportional to the number of mages in the world - so for each additional magic user, every mage gets slightly weaker.
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# Manadynamic Second Law
Alchemists have discovered why mana is fading from the world. From our [Arcanapedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), the grimoire of lasting knowledge:
>
> The [Manadynamic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics) is the branch of Arcanes and Hidden Studies that has to do with mana and aether and their relations to energy and work. The behaviour of these quantities is governed by the Four Greatest Law of Magic and the Real of Beyond.
>
>
>
We already know about the [First Greatest Law of Manadynamic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics). For non-magical people which aren't able to read the Arcane writings, this law states that mana and aether can't be created nor destroyed, it's only a process of transformation.
And the [Second Greatest Law of Manadynamic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics) states the amount of chaos or entropy in the universe increases over time.
Like every magician learns in the first year of college, in order to cast a spell, the magician needs to perform a flow of energy from an object (or space itself) with a higher state of arcane particles (mana) to another with a lesser state. This can't work in the reverse process. Each time magicians cast spells, the magical energies distribute more chaotically on the area until becoming them useless for magicians.
Currently, no mage was able to gather this dissipated mana to perform magic.
Over time, the amount of mana in the planet was decreasing, either for magicians who spend mana or for the [irradiated aether from black arcane bodies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation) and so the planet was losing all it magical power over time.
We don't know from were come to this great mana in the first place, some arcanists state that it comes from the Sun, but if that were true we would still have magical energies on Earth. Others suggest it comes from the Earth creation periods, some that it comes from the [Magical Impact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_impactor) which produced the [Wild Magical Crater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater) also know as Chichxulub crater, or from the [Teory of the Giant Arcane Body Impact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis).
# We evolve or mana mutates
The other theory of alchemist and magicians is that there is some kind of change in the mana and body relation other the centuries.
They aren't still sure if it's part of our evolution, and so we are losing our magical genomes which let us gain access to this hidden arts or if the mana itself is mutating, like a living organism, and our bodies aren't able to adapt to this mutation, and os we are losing our affinity. Maybe, after the First Spell Plague of Earth, the magical net which covered the universe started to mutate by itself.
[Answer]
# Distrust
### CASE 1
Nonmagical beings distrust those that use magic, much like the times of Salem, Massachussetts. Over time intelligent nonmagical humans increasingly start to harness technology to counteract and eventually suppress magical beings that they distrust.
### CASE 2
Humans started out nomadic and part of familial tribes. As people started to settle down and form larger societies these families kept their magical ways secret from others. Over time knowledge of the arcane was lost because of the fear of sharing that knowledge caused it to fall into legend. Similar to a trade secret, it could be knowledge of incantations, recipes, rituals, or locations (like ley lines)
# **Depletion of Resources**
Magic is tied to specific resources those resources could be magical herbs, foods, animal parts, etc that over time become endangered or extinct. This could be due to overuse, disease, or some other outside force like natural disaster.
[Answer]
**Plastic Reality**
How about it being related to the nature of reality? Perhaps Reality is defined by what you think when you look at it.
Primitive people know very little, and make simple magical explanations for everything. So reality says "magic it is then" and everything is magical.
As time moves on we have a scientific movement. People begin studying things in detail and making scientific explanations for things. Reality says "ok science it is then" and magic falters and science is ascendant.
In other words, in Tolkien's universe the Sun is a vessel that holds the radiance of the last fruit of Laurelin, which is guided across the sky by essentially an angel. But as time goes by and eventually mankind develops the first telescope, thanks to changing beliefs reality adapts to that changing belief. By the time the telescope is ready the sun is now a ball of nuclear gas.
[Answer]
**Supply and demand**
* There is a constant and limited supply of mana from the Source X. Be it Astral plane, energy field, Sun, process in the core of a planet.
* It may or may not accumulate in some ores, crystals or what is needed for the story, but it is a slow process. Renewal is limited by ambient mana, but you can make them even more rare by additional factors.
**Golden Age of Magic:**
* Mages demand did not deplete the ambient mana supply, as there was a low population.
* There may have been massive deposits of "magic stones" and renewal was able to keep up with the consumption of few mages.
**Modern Age**
* Huge population( x 100-200 times) with just passive absorption can lower concentration of mana and make it less useful. And many mages and uses of mana for modern technology makes it even worse. Less useful and more dependent on talent and wealth.
* "Magic deposits" are close to bottom and slow in renewal, even more so with low ambient mana. That makes them incredibly rare and expensive. Countries will control their flow and do all it can to find ways to make it less dependent on magic in every way possible.
With time you have magic independent technology, that can rival magic on battlefield and in economics. Magic is a relic or reserved for ones at the top of pecking order.
---
**Or go from other side.**
Slowly that world created technology to rival magic. But it is more convenient and profitable.
* **Everyone can use it.** You do not need talent and training. No need for needed elements or a like. Even a cripple can use it.
* It is powered by **cheap**, external source of energy with no need for you there.
* **Profits**. Everyone can start a firm and sell products based on technology. And as everyone can use them, you have huge market.
* **Law and order**. Mages are like people with guns. You keep track of them and regulate them. Maybe, they even tried to rebel and government placed strict regulations and now there is some prejudice against them.
Passive drain of mana will only make it more easy choice to go technology path and forget magic one. At least for most.
[Answer]
As humans evolved from nomadic tribes, through agrarian and industrial societies, to the current technology-driven species we are now, we have always attributed events that we don't understand to "magic" or some other metaphysical phenomena. However, human curiosity being what it is, we have always eventually discovered the real nature of what were previously "magical" events. The tides, the seasons, sunrise/sunset, etc... these were all at one time "magical". Turning stone into fire was at one time "magical". But now we know about where Earth is in the Solar System, and we know how it moves in the Solar System. We know that certain kinds of stones and minerals are, in fact, combustible, and in the right circumstances, explosive.
The point is that magic isn't necessarily disappearing, or fading, as is fabled. It's that we're slowly finding rational, physical explanations for events that were previously "magical" and metaphysical. As we do that, there are fewer and fewer events attributed to "magic". We've been doing this for so long now that we've come to the conclusion that there never was any actual magic (except the concept that we bore ourselves), and that everything (probably) has a physical explanation. These physical explanations may elude us, for now, but we are confident that we will eventually tease out these explanations. We are brave enough to put away the facade of "magic" and face the prospect that we simply don't know everything. Because of this, we are emboldened to push all the harder to learn everything that can be learned.
[Answer]
There's an old story I read in which wishes would all come true and thus food, shelter, etc. were never problems.
Eventually, someone wished that wishes would no longer come true.
This extremely simple idea could be built upon or complicated to suit your preferences. For example, it could be that the structure of magic was such that the "fuel" it required was the interest or belief of its practitioners. In such a wise a propaganda campaign against magic, deriding it and its practitioners, could be very effective in actually stopping magic from working. (In Madeleine L'Engle's book *Many Waters,* "some things have to be believed to be seen," such as unicorns, which are tied up with quantum entanglement and subatomic phenomena.)
The basic idea here is to reverse the usual cause-effect sequence with regard to modern notions of magic. That is, rather than people becoming more skeptical of magic because it stops working, you can posit that magic stopped working because people became more skeptical of it.
Or it could simply be that magic is 100% reproducible, but that it involves a mental component. And therefore anyone who merely goes through the motions as a "scientist" with the unscientific attitude that it probably won't work anyway, will only have their presupposition confirmed. In this wise, there could even be a resurgence of magic, but academics and intelligentsia who are too invested in the ordinary, material functionality of the universe, would deny that it existed and would instead comment on the rise of gullibility on the part of the general populace (since there are an increasing number of people believing in non-reproducible "unscientific" magic), not realizing the results are perfectly reproducible except by confirmed skeptics. [This chapter of "Ra"](https://qntm.org/ignorance) is somewhat relevant to this approach, in that going through the motions isn't sufficient to repeat the experiment; one must believe and follow through mentally as well.
[Answer]
"The wheel of time" answer
Men and women are using different sources of magic. The source men are using is tainted, and men who use magic turn mad and very destructive. As a result men practicing magic are hunted down and killed.
Unfortunately the ability to practice magic is inherited from the parents, so with less men practicing it, the magic trait is slowly getting diluted and lost.
[Answer]
If you consider magic to be a type of stored energy then overuse will deplete that stored energy. Think of a high-energy capacitor. The practitioners of magic know how useful it is, but as the conduits of that energy they also suffer side effects, such as the blackouts and hemorrhaging among superhumans in the X-Men and Heroes universe so they eventually choose technology over magic. Over time some magicians become so powerful that they decide magic is too dangerous for novice magicians to use, so they block off the channels of magic which would have recharged Earth.
[Answer]
It's rather an agreement than some fundamental erosion of magic. A great war which saw many successful uses of magical weapons ended up devastating the entire continent with virtually no winners. The major powers signed a convention which made them destroy any magical artifacts, confine the surviving wizards to heavily guarded "magic schools", and attempt to erase any knowledge of the existence of magic.
They were largely successful. All mentions of the great war were destroyed or replaced with a hastily invented "great plague", which explained entire cities being wiped out by some unknown force. The art of magic was quickly forgotten. The later attempts to reinvent it were being actively suppressed - hence the witch hunts.
[Answer]
The [New Thought movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Thought) has taught that "our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living". In other words, following the Age of Enlightenment people have stopped believing in magic, and
# as people have begun to believe that magic isn't real, that belief has become a reality.
A version of this concept is the *[Law of Attraction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction_(New_Thought))*. A brief introduction of this idea was presented in the documentary film *[The Secret](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(2006_film))* (2006), which garnered some media interest at the time.
[Answer]
Inspired by some of the answers here.
## 1. Magic is released from Trees
And so our output has been destroying output. And so the only real magical people are native jungle tribes, because magic is still strong there. Thus modern people don't believe in it etc etc.
## 2. Magic is geomagnetic
Magic is a side effect of the Earth's magnetic field, which is dynamic, and also has been decreasing in strength in [recent times](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-it-true-that-the-stren/). I think there is probably a lot of interesting stuff one could do with this, primarily field reversals, but also geographic variations of field strength and direction. Additionally some geologies have positive magnetic induction, for example [kimberlite dykes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberlite) are thin cylindrical magma intrusions rich in iron. So one of these dykes would have stronger magic... and also but also diamonds.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TjHxc.png)
[Answer]
**Make magic a depletable resource.**
In one of Trudi Canavans series the magic in the world is an energy in the environment around them. A magic user is a person who can take some of this magic out of the surrounding world and convert that energy into something else. Maybe a force that moves something or a light or whatever manifestation of magic is possible in that world.
But as you use energy in a certain area that area becomes more depleted. So in a war zone type scenario each side would have magical shields and be attacking at the same time, rapidly depleting the stores of magical energy in the environment around them. And the strongest magic users are the ones who can take magic from the environment further away. This also adds some tactics as moving around the battlefield gives you access to more un-depleted sources of magic.
In this world the magic in an area 'regenerates' by having the relative gap of low magical energy being filled from the magic around that gap. Like taking a bucket of water out of a pool will cause the hole in the water to be filled from the water around it. But in this world magic fills these gaps a lot slower than water would fill a gap.
You could use this sort of idea in your world. So that as people use magic and convert it from its magical form to something else the total magical energy in the world gets depleted and diluted.
If you then need to replenish the magic in the world you can come up with some sort of mechanism to turn other forms of energy (or matter) into magical energy that helps replenish magical energy supplies in the world.
**Or make magic users greedy.**
This entire scenario assumes that magic in the world is depleting and the end-users (people) are not just becoming unable to access it.
For that sort of scenario I'd make it so that the magic users want their abilities to be exclusive to them only. They don't want common folk to be able to perform the same magics as them or their role in society would change. They'd go from being rich and famous to just being another normal person. It's in their interests to prevent the use of magic from destroying their careers.
If your world is the sort where magic users are common folk, then that scenario wouldn't work. But with that many people using magic all the time I think it's reasonable to think that they'd use up the magical energy present in the world. At a certain point it'd be so diluted that only the most talented magic users can do anything with magic at all.
] |
[Question]
[
Why don't adventurers (and monsters) suffocate in lower levels of dungeons?
**Gases in mines and dungeons can be unbreathable**
I asked a question about this on Physics to check my reasoning. [Why does Carbon Dioxide not sink in air if other dense gases do?](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/611408/why-does-carbon-dioxide-not-sink-in-air-if-other-dense-gases-do) An answer states that CO2, which is a product of exhalation, will sink to lower levels in enclosed spaces. There is also a hazard in mines generally from gases seeping out of the rocks.
A while ago I had a guided underground tour in a coalmine. We were warned not to go down a particular stairway because breathing apparatus would be necessary and we would simply keel over and die. It is well-known that miners used to carry caged canaries to detect such gases.
**Question**
How do PCs and NPCs survive in such conditions? If there is some form of ventilation to the outside world, how come explorers can't avoid the lesser treasures and easier monsters to get to the good stuff by climbing down the ventilation shafts (and escaping the same way)?
[Answer]
## Black Sun Core:
If we're talking monsters and adventurers, we're talking fantasy and magic. I've always ascribed to the core radiance theory in such worlds. The core of the planet generates a radiation (call it "black-light") that can penetrate semi-liquid rock, but is gradually blocked by solid rock/minerals. A fungus-like organism can efficiently capture this radiance, carrying out chemical reactions similar to photosynthesis. [radiotrophic fungi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiotrophic_fungus) are real organisms (thank you Jan Dorniak for the link). The "black light" mushrooms form the basis of the underground food chain. The closer you get to the core, the stronger the black-light, and the more oxygen/less CO2. You thus go a long way to explaining the weird inverted ecology of fantasy worlds.
[Answer]
**Sad But True...**
RPGs in general have long perpetrated the image of wealthy loot to be had for the taking in the world's understructure, D&D has historically been the worst of the perpetrators! Advertised in pubs and broadsides all around the semicivilised lands, dungeons seem to be ready made environments built to entice novice & experienced adventurers alike into the narrative of "good vs evil" -- Elf vs Orc, Man vs Troll, Everyone vs Dragonborn.
But how many of those greedy Elvish or Mannish adventurers ever consider the poor Orclings and lame Trolls slaving and labouring away, unseen, unknown, unconsidered, behind the scenes for their entertainment?
Of course! These adventurers meet the best Orc warriors the Master of the Dungeon has to send against them, but they are considered important to the whole enterprise only so long as, whilst spilling their life's blood far away from starlight and Moon shine, they also spill some hard won GOLD and perhaps some curious trinket or cool weapon. Once the battle is won and the chamber is secured, does the Party care for the slain Orcs? Not on your life! Do any of their noble Elvish clerics ever condescend to heal the Orcs' wounds or even ease their passage into the next life? Nope! They're just broken and now useless junk, furniture & empty chests to be abandonned as the Party moves ever onward and downward...
It's about time the adventuring world gets to know the economic toll and social slavery they perpetrate on Orcish & Trollish communities! Sure, those Orc warriors are paid a pittance by the Master and propped up by promises of freedom & wealth should they destroy the Party -- but when does that ever happen, knowing that the Master controls the Game? In far worse a state are the poor service Orclings and other denizens of the underworld not fit for duty on the frontlines.
Who do you think mucks up after the vampire bats and shovels all the wyrm shit? Who corrals the slimes and makes sure the liche warriors' bones are polished? Who prepares all the finnicky traps for the treasure chests and who cooks for and cleans up after the Orc hordes?
**You guessed it ... SLAVES TO THE SLAVES!**
Our focus today is one of the sorriest of the sorry. In a better, cleaner world, he might be called an "environmental technician". In a more ideal world, society might honour him for the hard & necessary work he does, and he might find deep in his heart a satisfaction that his work is meaningful and done with love for others. But the Dungeon is not an ideal world and the Master cares not one whit for the poor Treadmill Troll that labours endless day and perpetual night running the titanic exhaust fans that that draw in fresh air from the world above and drives out the stale air from the world below.
Too dim to pick up and swing a cudgel, these poor Troll rejects are forced into a gigantic system of iron cages where they are shackled to the device they are doomed to operate. Some tread to the point of exhaustion upon great sets of bellows, whilst others plod endlessly around a giant winch, and still others find no rest in the windlass.
Poor food, poorer sanitation, little opportunity for rest, no contact with others, no care for callouses, raw skin, wounds or even the chronic pain & injuries associated with ceaseless labour; these Trolls' lives is nothing but unremitting and unrelieved back breaking, foot numbing, leg splintering, and agonising work. Once in the cage, the Troll works until he dies, his only outside contacts are the prods of the Overseers and the slop slingers who toss in their meals of old gnawed bones and gritty, poorly baked bread.
Next time your adventuring Party crosses a dark corridor and your torches are blown out by a "magical wind" or you wonder where the slight but constant breeze in the Dungeon comes from, do remember the poor Treadmill Troll whose climb on the windlass turns the hundreds of belt driven fans that force the air to circulate through the endless miles of service tunnels, hundreds of hidden vents, shafts and windways of the Dungeon!
[Answer]
**There is a draft.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/twFi5.jpg)
[source for image](https://videogames.desktopnexus.com/get/750688/?t=akn76g033a0dlpfragkt3klk776017029f9d45f)
Deep in the dungeons there are portals - dimensional rifts to elsewhere. Usually the atmospheric pressure is different elsewhere and this generates strong drafts through the portal and air movement through the dungeon. Other things can traverse the portals as well.
---
If portals are too weird, consider that caves breathe. Real caves like [Wind Cave](https://www.nps.gov/wica/learn/education/what-causes-the-wind-of-wind-cave.htm) have large air spaces within and these equilibrate with the outside air. A dungeon which connected to a vast space in the inner earth would likewise equilibrate with the outside world depending on their relative pressures. As usual, Lovecraft does it right!
>
> As I walked cautiously in the blackness, the draught grew stronger and
> more offensive, till at length I could regard it as nothing less than
> a tangible stream of detestable vapour pouring out of some aperture
> like the smoke of the genie from the fisherman’s jar in the Eastern
> tale... The more I reflected on the nature of this cavern wind, the
> greater my sense of disquiet became; for although despite its odour I
> had sought its source as at least an indirect clue to the outer world,
> I now saw plainly that this foul emanation could have no admixture or
> connexion whatsoever with the clean air of the Libyan Desert, but must
> be essentially a thing vomited from sinister gulfs still lower down. I
> had, then, been walking in the wrong direction!
>
>
>
[Under the Pyramids, H.P. Lovecraft](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/up.aspx)
[Answer]
### Certain soils are the world's best carbon sinks
Made naturally from decaying vegetation or organic matter; [peat / turf is a carbon sink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat):
>
> The peatland ecosystem covers 3.7 million square kilometres and is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet
>
>
>
... and ...
>
> Globally, it even stores up to 550 gigatonnes of carbon, representing 42% of all soil carbon and exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types, including the world's forests
>
>
>
Things die in the dungeon, fall to the bottom. They decay. And eventually fertilise the bottom, turning it into rich soil. Peat grows down underground at a rate of about 1mm/yr. After a few years, the peat bog is sucking CO2 out of the bottom level of the dungeon fast enough to keep it breathable.
[Answer]
Your main question is about why adventurers dont climb up and down the ventilation shafts to get to the treasure, circumventing the whole dungeon. You could actually use that question in our current world: why dont thieves and burglars climb down our current ventilation systems to bypass our doors and locks?
The answer is equally simple: the ventilation shafts are too small to pass through. These dungeons can have a network of ventilation shafts that connect to the dungeon and ventilate it. Naturally any dungeon still functioning would have enough ventilation while any dungeon not functioning would have stopped being build any farther than its ventilation allows.
The ventilation shafts can be small and come from far away, similar to some ant nests where the ventilation shafts can be extremely far from the main entrances.
Should you want more reasons to bolster the above idea you can look into semi- fantastical solutions: non-photosynthetic plants and a symbiosis with ants. Non-photosynthetic plants are our current day cave-plants and come in a variety of forms and use chemical reactions for their food. Many will oxydize things like iron, sulfur or nitrate in their environment, the oxygen they take from the carbon dioxide that plagues your dungeon. You can have a layer of small ventilation shafts beneath the lowest dungeon floors riddled with these types of plants that will convert all the carbon dioxide. Many wont generate oxygen, but will instead take CO2 out of the air and create space for oxygen to come through.
Many creatures in fantasy dungeons have evolved to actively live in them, so its a small leap to say that some ants have learned to live there as well. Ants are not unknown to actively farm plants and other insects for food or other benefits. In this case the ants are interested in not suffocating by CO2, so they inhabit the ventilation shafts and tend to the plants so there's both enough and it doesnt clog the ventilation shafts. These same ants can carry things like iron (from gear of monsters and adventurers) and sulfur to these plants, as well as live of the detritus and corpses of the denizens of the dungeon. They could even be the main source of ventilationshafts to any dungeon, creating thousands of small tunnels to keep each room supplied.
[Answer]
Either the denizens use a breathing apparatus, or the dungeon is designed with air flow in mind.
Here's a similar question: How do termites not suffocate in their underground dens? The answer lies in termite mound construction:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbbLCgh6sso>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=620omdSZzBs>
If you want to be a bit more realistic, given the scale, you might add a central chimney that stretches from the very deepest chamber to the very tippy top. Air must be constantly flowing up through this chimney, and new air must be pulled in through ventilation shafts. I can think of three main ways to keep the air flowing:
1. Light an enormous fire at the bottom of the chimney. It would have to be the size of your average house at least; keeping it lit would require far more fuel than could be realistically gathered, except by a highly advanced and massive resource gathering infrastructure (whether that be magic or technological.) If this is the case, this dungeon will be more like a city than a dungeon, and the enormous pillar of smoke would be visible for miles on the surface.
2. alternatively, it might be more plausible to place large fans inside of the chimney shaft. Powering these would probably be less fuel intensive than keeping a giant fire, however you go about doing that. Placing smaller fans in the air inlets would help increase efficiency.
3. Use a magic air current. In practice, this probably works the same way as the giant fans.
Here is another similar question about Dwarven underground cities:
[Giving Tolkien Architecture a Reality Check: Dwarvish Kingdoms](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/100380/giving-tolkien-architecture-a-reality-check-dwarvish-kingdoms/100413#100413)
[Answer]
**A side effect of dragonfire and cookpots.**
Assume that somewhere down in the dungeon, there is a kitchen with a chimney. Or a dragon with a chimney. Warm air rises through the chimney and sucks more air along through other ventilation openings. If the air ducts are right, the fire doesn't even have to be all that deep down.
This is similar in principle to a [steam ejector](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_ejector#Steam_ejector), and the principle has been used for centuries in siege engineering.
[Answer]
>
> An answer states that CO2, which is a product of exhalation, will sink
> to lower levels in enclosed spaces. There is also a hazard in mines
> generally from gases seeping out of the rocks.
>
> ...
>
> How do PCs and NPCs survive in such conditions?
>
>
>
The dungeons exist inside a vast underground network of natural caves. The cave walls are mainly composed of very porous limestone. The whole environment in the caves has a lot of mist and water vapor.
CO2 will dissolve into the misty water and form carbonic acid. That acid will react with the limestone and the CO2 will be sequestered in the rocks.
The interior of the dungeons contain a huge volume of tunnels and lime dust. The surface area of the exposed rock is so great that there is no concern about exhausting its ability to sequester more CO2.
Additionally, since the caves go very deep, most of the CO2 has sunk so far down that most adventurers won't reach that point anyways.
>
> If there is some form of ventilation to the outside world, how come
> explorers can't avoid the lesser treasures and easier monsters to get
> to the good stuff by climbing down the ventilation shafts (and
> escaping the same way)?
>
>
>
The great part about sequestering the CO2 in the cave walls and dust is that you don't need any kind of ventilation shafts.
>
> It is well-known that miners used to carry caged canaries to detect
> such gases.
>
>
>
As for other gasses, there may yet be some passageways that are deadly to enter. The seasoned adventurer will note that the tunnel is littered with the bones of his predecessors and decide to go another way.
[Answer]
The physics forum gave good answers, but they were technical, so I'll try to keep this short. Molecules of CO2 are a bit heavier than O2, but heat jostles them around and any circulation of air mixes them. It is *possible* to have a layer of CO2 under air, if you fill a box with it from underneath carefully as is done to euthanize animals, but it isn't really stable. Think of a [black and tan](https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=black+and+tan) - it can be done, but it's not the first thing you think would happen if you mix two kinds of beer together. It is easier if you chill the CO2 - every few years someone manages to die at a hot tub party decorated with the spooky emanation of vapor from dry ice dropped to the bottom.
Mines (or dungeons) can certainly have a source of CO2 beneath that gradually fills large parts with unbreathable gas. Sealed rooms full of people (or monsters) will accumulate some CO2 as the air is used up (with a little chemistry you can calculate the rate that happens based on the calories of stored fat they burn and the moles of oxygen needed to react). But the average small cave "probably" doesn't have that problem, and if it did have that problem, people would have noticed it when they were cementing the spikes onto the bottom of that first pit. Deep mines or construction would be expected to have good air shafts (or preferably, magic gateways to a nice beach for worker R&R), also motivated by the need to dissipate the choking dust from excavation and, for especially virtuous dungeon owners, a desire to allow employees to escape if there is an accident.
[Answer]
The monsters are not actual monsters, though they look like it, but spontaneous emanations of the very nature of the dungeon. They do not need to breathe any more than they need to eat.
They are there to lure adventurers to battle, and the adventurers are also provided clean air, so as to enable the nefarious purposes of the dungeon.
[Answer]
The answer would depend on the backstory of the dungeon itself. Dwarven dungeons in LOTR for example are engineered and built, including air passages. Many of the dwarven dungeons in LOTR are actually built into mountains, which would make designing such natural airflow a lot easier than if you were to just build a huge dungeon straight down.
Stygian Abyss in the Ultima series (as seen in Ultima Underworld) is similar with it's own underground rivers and such on the upper levels, but being just magical on the lower levels. If the dungeon is connected to natural underground caverns that have underground rivers running through the area that could be used as reasoning for a source of fresh air (from wherever the rivers flow from).
If you want to keep consistency and not just rely on a "wizard did it" explanation an easy cop out is having the dungeon built into a mountainside. Probably a lot of the mines were built in mountains in ancient times for similar reasons.
[Answer]
## Exotic Monsters
If your monsters inhale CO2\* and exhale O2, like plants, then your adventurers should have no issues breathing. The air will be musty and dank (and not in the sense related to a certain plant which is ignited and inhaled), but perfectly breathable.
This actually creates a unique and different problem: a dungeon with no monsters can be more dangerous than one with monsters, creating an interesting situation where adventurers may prefer nonlethal weaponry in order to avoid suffocation.
\* or any other hazardous gases.
[Answer]
We have lots of geothermal heat so we just need to build dungeon to use chimney effect for ventilation - build upcast shafts in mountains and they will draw air out.
And smart hero with parachute may use a shaft like this to escape dungeon. :-)
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[Question]
[
You gotta admit. That roguish guy you just met at space bar looks *cooler* with cig in his mouth. Not only he always shoots first, but also he manages to do so while puffing awesomely looking clouds of smoke.
The problem is obvious. This is not galaxy far far away, nor long time ago. It is our solar system, circa 2100 CE.
Even bigger problem is, that in year 2016 we know that smoking kills. No matter how cool you may think you are going to look, its not worth the lung cancer. And it does not stay here, inside European Union we are putting really awful pictures on cigarettes:
Warning, graphical content below. Proceed at your own risk!
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Deru1.jpg)
> Translation: Smoking causes **heart attack**
>
>
>
Assuming realisticly-optimistic scenatrios, we made it to year 2100 without losing knowledge how harmful cigarretes are. Yet, at least half of modern population keeps smoking.
**Why?**
P.S.: I am not affiliated with any tobacco company
[Answer]
## Because it's fun?
Basically the same reason as today, even now we know it's harmful. The thing is when a child is born in 2100, it's not like they're influences by 100+ years of scientific research, it's just what they are exposed to in their lives, which would be about the same amount we are used to now probably (assuming the financial interests stay roughly the same, i.e. unhealthy things are still profitable and legal)
**Also:**
* medicine might be much better then, so you could just replace your lungs at some point if they're ruined. This doesn't rule out people dying from cigarettes, but it gives them all the more excuses to keep smoking.
* Moreover, cigarettes might be much better than other substances. Weed could be legal along with various other new substances which may be less dangerous due to the advances in medicine. So not only would it be safer, it could also be more fun.
[Answer]
## Advances in medicine
We are currently spending an awful lot of money trying to cure cancer and by 2100 or whenever you feel like setting a space opera, there is a reasonable chance that we will have it figured out and that curing cancer will be somewhat trivial.
When that happens, the negative consequences of smoking don't matter as much and we may as well start smoking again.
[Answer]
# Benefits Worth Early Death
I'm assuming that the "it gets me high" option isn't valid in the future... we're already finding much better drugs for that sort of recreation. So... we need some other advantage. Such as...
a) Positive. Or the chemicals coat your lungs to keep the augmentations in your lungs alive so that the next time you're underwater, you can still breathe. If you didn't smoke, those implanted augmentations would wither away, leaving you just another land breather.
b) Neutral. The cigarette smoke will kill you. But in the meantime, the chemicals in them keep your lungs free of the alien virus that is ubiquitous on the station but only lethal to the small percent of the population with genome X.
c) Negative. Or the chemicals suppress the fungus that is growing in your lungs. Humans sometimes contract it. It's lethal. So you smoke to keep it from growing more. If you stop smoking, you'll actually die faster.
Basically, you're looking for some sort of chemical effect on the lungs that makes it worth it.
[Answer]
"Yet, at least half of modern population keeps smoking."
Assuming you're talking about the US, that just isn't so. Per the US CDC, it's been more than half a century since half of the us adult population smoked, if indeed they ever did. <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762370.html> Currently the rate is well under 20%: <https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/> and still declining, either through current smokers quitting, or old ones dying off and younger people not adopting the habit.
Haven't found historic data for the rest of the world, but per Wikipedia, probably no country currently has an adult smoking rate of 50% or more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_tobacco_consumption#2008_data> It's difficult to be sure without doing more math than I care to, because the rates are presented separately for men and women. Even where more than 50% of men smoke, less than 50% of women do.
Bottom line, if nowhere near half the population smokes now, you obviously can't have half of it KEEP ON smoking. In order to get a 50% smoking rate in 2100 CE, you'd have to come up with some plausible reason for there to be a MAJOR change in public attitudes. As for instance your statement that "That roguish guy you just met at space bar looks cooler with cig in his mouth" just isn't reflective of current attitudes. I admit that I'm not exactly au courant WRT popular culture, but as far as I can tell, most people consider tobacco smokers to be low-life losers\*.
PS: Link to study of public attitudes towards smoking bans, one of a great many: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3845040/>
\*Anecdotally, the only person I know who smokes is my neighbors' kid, who has spent most of his adult life in prison.
[Answer]
**Advancement in cigarette manufacturing technology**
Perhaps motivated by lagging sales and government pressure big tobacco finally gets around to producing cigarettes that are every bit as tasty and addictive, but substantially less or even non lethal. Overnight millions of anxious, agitated former smokers light up again.
[Answer]
**Corporations become more powerful**
The triumph of falling smoking rates has come, largely, because governments have been able to reign in corporations who profit from addiction and suffering. All it takes to reverse this situation is for the Tobacco companies to gain strength against governments so they can convince people that the risks of smoking are exaggerated, uncertain, or complete lies.
**People become more disillusioned**
Assuming realistic levels of automation it's really quite likely that a large slice of the population will be unemployed in the future simply because there aren't the jobs. This kind of future may lead to large numbers of people feeling pretty hopeless and that, in turn, will lead to higher drug consumption, including - of course - tobacco.
[Answer]
I'd propose two reasons:
## Human nature
A rather controversal view of things, but it's always been human nature to take one or another form of drugs. This goes for tribes deep in the rain-forest 1000BC just as for most modern day cultures. There are of course exceptions due to religion (classical example Mormons), but for our general person this usually applies. Just like smoking, alcohol and coffee are the standard-drugs nearly anyone in western societies takes (this list could be expanded quite a bit). What is consumed is a social topic, so I don't see any problems in reasoning that people won't stop smoking in the future. As for the health problem: it's widely known that drugs in any form are bad for our health in one or another form, but people simply don't care - at least until it's a bit late. I don't see why that should change altogether that fast.
## Lobbyism and social acceptance
As mentioned above, it's quite unlikely people will stop taking drugs. This is why the sort of picture you showed in your question exist. Instead governments will try to prohibit or otherwise restrict consumption, except for some largely established cases. Luckily any larger sector of the economy can use lobbyism to avoid getting it's product prohibited. And at some point people are just that used it that they simply won't care at all. As an example: quite a lot of people don't even consider alcohol a drug. So the tobacco-industry will go this path and simply try to increase social acceptance and it's influence on politics (and has done so in the past). There have been a few minor countries that did prohibit tobacco/cigarettes (Bhutan in 2004, Turkmenistan in 2016, ...), but it's doubtful whether this will become global at any time. On the other hand a large legalization movement is on it's way as well (Netherlands, Portugal, etc.). While this doesn't aim at tobacco, as it's already legal, it's doubtful those countries would go the exact opposite way and prohibit tobacco while making everything else legal.
In general keep in mind that it's rather unpredictable, which side will win on this topic. Thus: either just go for the alternate universe, where people simply didn't stop smoking tobacco, or last but not least: go for
## Alternatives
I guess everyone of us has seen some guy using a vaporizer. Just add a bit of sci-fi to a vaporizer, and there you are with a cigarette-sized vaporizer. Now why would your protagonist use one of these?
* He might like it
* He's aware of how badass it looks and is a bit self-regarding
* The vaporizer provides some useful functionality. Probably it's just the asthma-spray of the future?
An alternative could look like cigarettes that don't cause cancer and other health-issues or better medicine that is capable of healing the damage done by cigarettes.
EDIT:
If you'd rather go for a bit of a darker setting, this could also work: Smoking is quite addictive and there are statistics that prove (controversial, but let's just assume they do), that this is also inheritable. Add an additive to cigarettes that increases this effect and you'll have babies that are born addicted to nicotine. Trying to get those poor sobs away from smoking might be just hard enough to prevent tobacco from getting prevented from that point on, simply because an addict will find a way of getting what he needs anyways.
[Answer]
## They are not smoking
At least, not some leaves filled with poisonous compounds like nicotine and thc. Who would be stupid enough to do something like that, anyway?
Those wraps of paper that people burn and inhale from are made from 100% harmless material, and they do serve to (chose whatever you like):
* clean the lungs of dust and particles, improving the recipient breathing capabilities (yes, there are machines that do that, to, but this smoke is way less agressive and you can take it wherever you like).
* a mystical moment to all of the followers of the MarlCamWins faith, similar to a prayer in other religions, and that also allows the belivers to identify each other.
* a harmless source of smoke to allow the public to indulge in creating phantasy patterns with the exhaled smoke. Kind like someone playing with a yo-yo in his free time.
* a public sign that the people smoking it can affor the 10.000 credits it costs (about the pay of month of unskilled labour).
* depending on the color of the roll or the joint (or even the color of the smoke), a cigarette is used to make an statement (think of "I voted" badges, blue ribbons, etc.
[Answer]
Are they smoking, or are they just inhaling recreational drugs? Honestly, the idea of people actually burning dried tobacco leaves as a method of inhaling nicotine in the future seems far-fetched, in no small part because we have a better way now - "vaping". And if you want, you can even puff out cloud of vape, if you think that looks cool.
As much as I agree with the other answers which point out that people do all kinds of things that they know are bad for them, and that's not going to change, inhaling drugs by burning dead plants is unpleasant, inconvenient and a just plain inferior way to get your fix. (I say this as a former smoker who now vapes.) There's a long list of inconveniences and hazards that arise from setting your drugs on fire in order to get them into your lungs, and I don't see that method persisting much into the future when there's already a widely adopted method that's better in every way, right now.
I would submit that the half of the population that still inhales nicotine does it with some form of vaping mod, rather than flammable sticks of dried nicotine. If you are particularly attached to traditional smoking, you could use economics - a good vape setup costs at least a hundred dollars up front, compared to several dollars for a pack of cigarettes, so people who can't afford the upfront cost smoke traditional cigarettes, while the rest vape. I suppose you could also extrapolate out the current anti-vaping efforts in some countries to a ban or other restrictive regulations on vaping products, though it might be tough to explain why more dangerous cigarettes didn't get similar treatment.
Either way, the reasons people use recreational drugs of any sort are fundamentally unchanged since the dawn of time. (There are literally thousands year old warnings about opium use in Ancient Greek texts, and people still use opium, and stronger opiates today.) It feels good, so to hell with the consequences. There's more to life than maximizing how long we get to live, and most people would rather live a shorter life they enjoy than a longer one they don't.
[Answer]
**Rebellious attitude**
Growing up means that you sooner or later need to find an own way of living. Part of the process is the disillusionment of your parents; even if you have good and caring parents, your view as a child of "father knows everything, mother is the best" will be sooner or later replaced by a more...realistic viewpoint. Then in puberty your body and mind urges to explore your environment and create changes in the world, the former environment is now found stifling, suppressive and boring.
So searching an own way is necessarily breaking apart from the old way: it is no surprise that you judge your behavior not by looking how rational it is, but how revolutionary it is and how positively and impressively it is viewed by your peers. Breaking rules is a sign of independence and nothing is better to tick your parents off than risking your health and life.
That means high-risk behavior: smoking, drinking, sex, shoplifting, gambling, driving recklessly, more sex, taking harder drugs, running up debts, brawls, hazardous sports, adventures. 18-25 is an age which is known for high risk behavior of all kinds, a simple Google search with "adolescent high risk behavior" will turn up a staggering amount of data.
In fact I think if something would be shared by the absolute majority (imagine 99% smokers) and is not associated with "unmanly/unwomanly" as stigma, the youth would be doing exactly the opposite (being non-smokers).
Some people do find their environment so stifling that they contine to be rebels past their 20s and will stick to their behavior.
**Why smoke in the future ? The future is grim and dystopic.**
One of the triggers which makes reckless behavior reasonable is if your future has a good chance of not existing at all. In war time young people plastered themselves to unconsciousness and had sex with everyone they could get hand on because it was likely that this was their last chance to experience life.
So put in overpopulation, disease, high unemployment etc., everything which makes planning a "normal" life ridiculous and you will have a convincing argument for high risk behavior.
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You cannot believe anything you hear in the media anymore. There's "proof" for everything due to a huge propaganda industry.
Right now you're told who to vote for, what products to buy, what to listen to, what to watch, what to eat and drink. You're told who the good guys and bad guys are. It used to be the victors who wrote history, but in todays post-truth society it's the rich, corrupt and/or evil who paint their version of truth onto not just history but current and future events.
Tobacco is big business. They already spend vast sums of money to encourage subtle product placement and influence opinion... the OP starts with "That roguish guy you just met at space bar looks cooler with cig in his mouth".... that attitude was paid for by tobacco companies, and it was not cheap.
In the future, propaganda and subtle mind control will be even more highly developed science than it is now. Consumers will continue to smoke, because they will have been manipulated into thinking its cool, because they don't believe it's bad., because they know one cig doesn't get them addicted, because everyone else does it so there must be some benefit, because they feel immortal or that cancer happens to someone else... all the reasons people smoke today, even though they know its bad.
The difference in future society will be that the health effects will be discredited, counter proofs proposed, science will be laughed at and ignored, and fact-checking pushed aside. Look at Creationism, and now imagine that level of ignorance being supported by multi billion dollar industries.
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I would pose the question, "Why did I start smoking?" After all, I started smoking some 16 years ago, knowing full well there were absolutely no health benefits but MANY negative health risks associated with it. It wasn't even a matter of opinion; I'm nowhere near old enough to have lived during a time where this was even in question. Smoking was and is DEFINITELY bad for you, in no way good, and this wasn't top-secret information.
Of course, without getting into details I know nothing of (social factors, economic factors, gender, race, etc.) a simple answer is, "because I wanted my friends to THINK I was cool." Sure, I can see how stupid that was now, but in the adolescent mind those things don't "click," and there probably lies part of the problem: most people that smoke don't take it up after their teenage years, when the brain still hasn't developed completely, puberty exists, and doing reckless things for, "street cred" is far more valuable than doing things for the long-term benefit of yourself.
You could also ask, "Why do you continue smoking?" Good question. I guess because it's almost ritualistic. I wake up, the first thing I do is grab a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I eat, I want to smoke after. I go on break at work, that break must involve a cigarette with my other smoker peers. I can't explain it in any depth, but maybe that helps. It's one of those things where it shouldn't be there, but my day will feel "off" if it isn't.
In no way am I suggesting anyone should, or that it's cool, or that you should give it a try: you most emphatically should not, it is not, and you should not. But if you want to know why smoking has a good chance of existing in the future, you really only need look to the present: we've known it to be harmful for more than a few decades now, but people have continued to do so, and have even unfortunately recruited new faces. Thankfully, as has been said, smoking (at least in the US) is on a serious decline, possibly due to the advertising regulations and taxes imposed on tobacco. I'd like to think that if I had better friends, Camel Joe didn't make it seem so "cool," and cigarettes cost $6.50 a pack when I was younger, maybe I wouldn't have either.
[Answer]
**Governments stopped pushing against**
Western governments fight a long battle against smoking, with plenty of propaganda showing its harms, forbidding tobacco companies to put their own ads and discouraging through taxes.
Why would they try to kill a profitable industry like that, though?
Well, simple: Smokers are very expensive for the healthcare system. All those cancers, with their chemo, radio and transplants cost a lot, more than what govs get through taxes.
If a laissez-faire wave sweep through the West and sacrifice public healthcare to the altar of Free Market to never come back, the govs would lose the economic factor to fight tobacco. After that, it's just a marketing effort.
[Answer]
Because we love and admire our grandparents, who loved their grandparents, who also loved their grandparents [my redundancy is expressing generations], who loved their grandparents who may have been native americans smoking tribally. It could also be that hundreds of years of smoking effected our genes in such a way that we still feel we need it. I imagine that deep in the not too distant future we'll genetically alter a strain that causes less harm, if any, which becomes the norm.
[Answer]
# Non-carcinogenic, genetically modified tobacco
This one could be rather simple. With enough futuristic handwave technology, tobacco could be genetically engineered to be non-carcinogenic, allowing smokers to puff away for decades without any significant cancer risk.
Your lungs might be shot after a while, but **who cares**?
## Cancerless cigarettes!
[Answer]
Its an intentional anachronism.
Our antihero considers himself a puckish rogue, or is obsessed with early 20th century noir cinema. Smoking isn't an *affection* in its own right - its part of the image our gunslinger has, maybe he wears a cowboy hat and has a sixshooter in an era of high capacity, caseless ammunition, or wears a suit.
*He knows* those deathsticks can kill him, but so can his lifestyle. He knows its not the bullet with his name on it that'll get him, its the one that is addressed "To who it may concern".
A good example of this in fiction would be [Lester Tourville](http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Lester_Tourville), whose tendancy to smoke cigars (under the air intake!) was seen as an eccentricity which was part of his wider public persona.
As part of charecter building - its something for other charecters to remark on (and possibly could be part of a plot - where *does* he get those damned cancersticks?).
[Answer]
## As a status symbol
I can't remember where I read this (it was either the Eclipse Phase universe or the Android universe), but either way smoking became a status symbol among the hyper-elite. Practically all the hypercorp executives and oligarchs in-verse were chain-smokers, just to show they were so incomprehensibly wealthy that they could absolutely wreck their organs with well-known unhealthy habits and have their ruined organs/whole bodies replaced with fresh ones the same way the average human changes their underwear.
Maybe in your 'verse, people smoke cigarettes to show the quality/augmentations of replacement lungs, *'look, I can smoke these all I want and my lungs can handle it with no ill effects, thanks to nanotech/gengineering/cybernetics/etc'*, or maybe it's just to show that they have the nigh-unlimited capital at their disposal
[Answer]
**Because smoking also kills the rare lung-dwelling fungus that is killing space-faring people**
or
**Because 3d-printed cyberorgans are cheap, making most illnesses irrelevant**
or
**Because those are holographic cigarrettes**
or any other hand-wave to justify something that would be very impractical for space travel, since *fire + smoke* on spaceships would be a far greater risk to space travelers than cancer or any of the other health issues related to tobacco.
The again, you could just say that tobacco is a retro fad done for coolness sake, and that the combustion of space-approved cigarettes is non-toxic.
[Answer]
# Because we have to.
In Screamers (1995), the world has been ravaged by nuclear war. Anti-radiation medication takes the form of cigarettes (for some reason).
# Because we have beaten cancer.
In Transmetropolitan, gene mods are cheap and plentiful, and the anti-cancer trait appears easy enough to come by, so you can smoke all you want.
[Answer]
**Summary**: there is a poorly identified reason that likely contributes to people who "ought know better" smoking tobacco which is often absent from discussion on the matter: self-medication to an unknown end.
I am a current smoker who thinks it a nasty, socially obnoxious habit of no apparent benefit and clearly identified risks. I have quit, with little effort or side-effect for years at a time and have voluntarily chosen to begin again despite its myriad unequivocal risks and unpleasantness, I've obviously thought much on the topic. What is often ignored is:
# the benefit of smoking
There are a some things we're pretty certain of:
* The risks and costs
* The weakness of nicotine as a psychotropic
* The demographics of smoking in the US: 1) the poor 2) artisans
Demographic (1) is easily explained by other answers here: propaganda, corporate exploitation of the ill-educated, and so on. What I've not seen here is an explanation of demographic (2): educated, rational, people who opt to smoke given all the reasons why they know they oughtn't; that is, people like me. "Habituation" is a sufficient explanation for much of this but I think there is an ineffable benefit that keeps my demographic puffing toxins. It is a form of self-medication.
Studies[citation needed] have shown that smokers are uncannily skilled titraters of their blood nicotine level. Here I resort to conjecture: there is a yet-to-be-identified self-medicating brain-state modification that smokers find beneficial. I am a practical artist, in software, but it is a creative endeavor analogous to that of a plastic artist such as a painter: I am engaged in transforming thought into a fixed, physical manifestation just as a painter. We have only vague notions of the dopamanergic effects of nicotine and almost no understanding of how such manipulations affect anything. Regardless, the prevalence of smoking in the creative fields is too large to be ignored. I put forth the proposition "smokers alter their brain chemistry in a subtle way that promotes their activities" .
This is not sufficient explanation; all the factors in the other answers apply. But I don't know that there is compelling evidence to reject my conjecture out of hand. Worse still, I can conceive of no test that would serve to refute or support the the conjecture. Neurobiology is an infant science by any measure and does worst in the face of subtle effect.
[Answer]
Because no matter how long the human race endures, we will still have teenagers.
In the US, most people who smoke begin to do so at the age of 13 or thereabouts. As anyone who has spent time as an adult in a public school can tell you, the age of 13 is the nadir of human wisdom.
] |
[Question]
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I am designing the geography of a lake in which two rivers flow. Should it have a river flowing from it to the sea or vice versa?
[Answer]
Normally, a lake will have a fresh water river flowing into it from higher ground, and a river flowing out of it to the sea.
```
Fresh water source
\
\
--- Lake ---
\
\
Ocean
```
If you do it the other way around, water can't flow out of the lake. The lake would have to be below sea level. It would fill and overflow until the level of the lake has reached sea level and merged with the sea. Then you'd get something like the [Mediterranean Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Sea) fed by the [Strait of Gibraltar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Gibraltar) or further in the [Black Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea) fed by the [Dardanelles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles). Both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea are at the global sea level. Both straits have both inflow and outflow.
There are lakes below sea level, the [Dead Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea) for example, but it's cut off from the sea and fed by the Jordan River. Its "outflow" is evaporation.
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If a river flows from ocean into lake, you better have another river that flows out of the lake into someplace else, otherwise that ocean is quickly going to fill the lake, the surrounding area, and continue until everything below sea level is filled up, at which point it will stop flowing. If you have a second river flowing to somewhere else to drain the lake, great, but it has to be SOMEWHERE ELSE, as in, not a normal place, because if you just connect it across to another ocean, again, it'll just fill up from both sides and then cease to flow. So if you have an infinitely deep pit to dispose of the water, or a superheat source that continually evaporates the lake, or a dimensional portal, then, yes, you can have a river from an ocean to a lake, but otherwise, you cannot.
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You could, of course, do some exotic things with neutronium to warp gravity the way you want it. But it's not necessary; lakes like this already exist in nature (sans neutronium).
The best example is probably [Lake Assal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Assal_(Djibouti)) in Djibouti.
This is near where the East African Rift comes out into the Red Sea. Instead of ocean water flowing into the lake via a river, however, it comes in by underground cracks from Lake Goubet, which is connected to the ocean. In a few million years time, this will be part of a new sea dividing East and West Africa.
The salient (pardon the pun) conditions are similar to what Scott Whitlock described:
* The lake is in a desert (the Danakil), so that evaporation balances or exceeds inflow. In this case, salt from the ocean gets concentrated in this lake to make it one of the saltiest in the world.
* The lake is below sea level so there is a potential energy difference to make the water flow out of the ocean rather than into it.
* The lake is close to the ocean, so that the connection can form naturally.
[Answer]
Yes, but you need to have some water sink at the lake end. One simple solution is evaporation. Water enters from the ocean into the lake (make it a small trickle of water) and because it's in a hot valley, it evaporates and more flows in. Since it's salt water, it would have a lot of dissolved solids, and these would be left over after evaporation. This would make the lake "brackish" (?) and unsuitable for most living things. Also, the sediment would slowly accumulate so I don't think it could last forever, unless you had some way of lowering the lake bed - perhaps a geological feature?
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What the other answers seem to have overlooked is the possibility of the tidal inland lake.
Given a coastal barrier of harder rock but softer ground further inland it's possible to have a tidal river running from an inland lake to the sea. As the tide comes in the river flows from the sea to the lake, as the tide goes out it flows from lake to sea.
Due to the restricted flow of the water up the river, it's unlikely that the lake will ever reach the full high or low of the tide. While there will be 4 brief points of slack water in the river during a 24 hour tide cycle, you will have flow in the river most of the time.
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**TL;DR: Yes, but only if meeting very specific conditions. I would however actually encourage this for the unique thematic effect.**
If the water flowing from the ocean into the lake either:
a) Evaporates at the same or higher rate than the inflow.
OR
b) Continues elsewhere underground (at such rate) until it spews from some warm water geiser.
Additionally the inflow from the ocean will increase over time **as more ground is dragged along from the riverbed and ocean**. **This inflow of ground would be able to fill the underground geiser tunnels** if it keeps increasing.
If you really want the salt water river for thematic effects, then do so it adds to the uniqueness of your story, but if I were the one writing I'd let the water come trough a rock based canyon(caused by earthquake back in time) into a lower valley. **This way the input from the ocean will remain the same** and if the initial rock debris didn't close the underground geiser caverns then the much lower amount that will come in over time is unlikely to do it any time soon.
Intelligent beings are also likely to:
a) Close any leakage of the canyon except at it's final destination where this is impossible, as it would affect their farmland badly trough salting the earth if any small streams diverged from the canyon at other locations.
b) **Create a successful salt production settlement**, as the area is far from the ocean and possibly low in salt mines. Creating supply in a low supply area, easily becoming an important trading hub.
c) **Goods could be transported downstream easily, again making this inland settlement a potentially vibrant trading hub** where other people come to buy what they can't elsewhere.
[Answer]
There is such a situation on Earth, alltho' not from the Ocean but from Caspian Sea: There is a river of salt water, even having a cataract of salt water, into another salt lake called [Kara Bogaz Gol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garabogazk%C3%B6l).
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Easily, but not for long.
The water in a desert lake fed from the sea would be supersaturated with salt, and the inflowing salt would precipitate all the time, slowly filling up the depression.
Unless the channel from the sea widens too quickly, in which case you get something like the mediterranean sea.
[Answer]
1. At high tide water flows into the lake due to the gravtational pull of the moon(s). At low tide it flows back into the ocean.
2. The desalination settlement (DeveloperDoge suggested) but with the twist that it flows into an active lava flow and evaporates.Perhaps even flowing into a sunken volcano or caldera.Steam technology?
3. Engineer a dam or a system of locks that connect to the lake, controlling water flow.
[Answer]
**short answer: all rivers between a lake and a sea will flow to the sea**
basically, if the sea can flow into an area (e.g. a lake), it will quickly fill that area and stop flowing. rivers constantly flow into the sea because the sea is constantly evaporating away due to it's huge surface area. there are exceptions, but they are far less common than the standard rain to river to lake to sea paradigm. just for fun, i'll list some exceptions:
1. some rivers end in a salt lake, salt flats or salt marsh. the water flows into the salty area, then evaporates away leaving behind the salt and other sediment. this area might not be called a "sea" if it isn't a large enough body of standing water.
2. some rivers will flow "backwards" at high tide. nearly all rivers do this to some extent. they generally don't flow backwards long or hard enough to actually reach an area called a "lake".
3. after earthquakes, it may take a short time for the sea to flow into a newly created depression. this situation generally resolves within a few days.
if you just want a semantic solution, you could have a big lake draining into a small lake, which later drains into the ocean. the locals might call the big lake a "sea" and the small lake a "lake", but a "sea" is by definition salty, which means the lake would be salty too. the connection between two would be a salty river. salty rivers on earth tend to be extremely rare, short and short lived (in geological time). but hey, they happen.
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If you just want a lake with a river flowing into it, that's entirely possible (and actually exists on Earth), so long as there is enough evaporation (or maybe some industry using the water for something else) to compensate for the influx of water.
A problem arises when seawater flows into your lake, as seawater contains salt it will turn your lake into brine quite fast.
But if the rivers flowing into the lake are clean and fresh water, your lake should stay relatively clean. Especially if the lake is very deep and pollutants just sink to the bottom.
There are numerous lakes like this around the Gobi desert, being fed from runoff from glaciers in the Himalayas, and losing their water to evaporation. Example: Bosten lake, [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosten_Lake), [google maps](https://www.google.nl/maps/@41.9835899,86.9373158,75995m).
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Take a look at the [Zanclean flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood). This is when the Mediterranean was flooded by the Atlantic. Estimates of the time taken vary from a few years to 10,000 years, so you could take your pick. Do bear in mind that water will erode whatever channel it is running through, so if you want the process to take a long time then there is going to have to be some hard rock creating a bottleneck. There is also a lot of scope for economic, social and military conflict driven by the rising water levels, madcap schemes for damming the flow that *might just* work, and nefarious schemes for destroying the bottleneck to make the flow dramatically increase.
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I'm building a town that only has access to medieval technology. Nevertheless, the town has its own sewage system that ends in a large cesspit. All inhabitants' wastewater goes into this cesspit.
Of course this means that the need to periodically empty this cesspit arises. How can this be done?
My problem is that as far as I know anyone who enters a cesspit will be immediatelly overwhelmed by fumes and unable to get out. I've read warnings in a newspaper that if someone falls into the cesspit the others shouldn't try to get there and save him, or else the cesspit will trap anyone who tries to save whoever is already there.
Pumps were known in ancient times already, so I suppose one could employ, for example, a screwpump (Archimedes' screw) to empty the cesspit's liquid part without poisoning the pump's operator?
But what about the solid parts (fecal sludge)? I suppose one cannot simply go there and excavate it with shovels?
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I would suggest composting. Design the waste water routing (trenches or plumbing) so that they can feed into one of several cesspits, then change which pit is fed on an annual basis. After each pit's year of service, add wood shavings and leaves, then allow it to season for a few years until it comes up again in rotation. Just before you change the waste water routing, shovel out all of the fully mature and fertile compost and spread it around your fields.
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It is pretty simple, and this is actually how it was done until about 50 years ago in the region where I come from, where most of the houses had no sewer at all, but only a small cesspit. The method is surprisingly similar to the one used to clean barns...
The access to the cesspit was granted via a large manhole. Once in a while through the manhole straw was dumped to absorb the liquids and also mix with the solid stuff. A man (or more) then went into the cesspit and first mixed thoroughly the straw and removed it using a fork.
The moist straw was then used to fertilize the ground of close by farms.
Being far from sealed (there was no siphon on the toilet side, and the manhole was just wooden) there was no accumulation of toxic gases, as you could confirm by walking around the place...
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Actually, cleaning of cesspits and latrines was a well rewarded, if not we'll respected job since Medieval times to 19 century, you might want to consult this article:
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_farmer>
Up to 19 century many houses in Europe had cesspool in basement, sometimes it caused wooden beams to rot and floor to collapse, as in the case of Emperor Frederik I in 1183, when he and his guests fell 39 feet down into cesspool in Erfurt Castle.
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If it was dry, it is just digging out a mudpit. Good medieval work.
But if was wet they did not need to swim around in it. The medievals had [**dredges**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dredging). They needed them to keep their ports and rivers navigable.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PO7yu.jpg)
from <http://www.ancientportsantiques.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/AUTHORS/Morhange-PublGenerales/Morhange2016-HistoryPorts.pdf>
At its simplest a dredge is a porous bucket or weighted rake or plate. You get it out there, let it sink, then pull it back to dry land and it drags whatever is on the bottom up with it. Repeat. You would do the same with the cesspit. It still requires someone with a shovel and a wagon or wheelbarrow but everyone stays out of the pit.
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Fumes only build up if it is sealed, we do that so that the odors aren't noticeable, in medieval times people often relieved themselves in the streets and hygiene wasn't a big thing, literally everything smelled terrible by modern standards, so not as big of a problem. Simply open up your cesspit and let it vent for a while this should take care of the worst of the deadly fumes. The people living by the cesspit aren't likely to be important enough for their complaints about the bad smell to cause any problems.
Then utilize the most common tool of the period, disposable peasants. Armed with some shovels, buckets, wheel barrows, and wagons they would definitely be able to accomplish the job. This would of course be a terrible job, prone to all sorts of diseases and ailments, not to mention the smell. This was often the job of the lowest of the low caste members of the society. Even if several peasants keel over and die in the process, just add the body to the collected material and move on.
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I would recommend a wide diameter [Archimedes Screw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%27_screw), a pumping technology (for water) already firmly established at least 1000 years before Medieval times.
When the cess pit is built, install a stand of rocks to support the screw several feet above the bottom; there is no need to empty every last bit of it.
Nobody has to get into the pit to dig; the screw can be powered entirely by persons or (with some spooled up rope) by horses walking away, or with some wood gearing by horses walking in circles.
The screw can extend as high **above** the ground as desired, so the waste falls into wagons, chutes, or whatever you wish. In fact, from the article:
>
> Archimedes screws are used in sewage treatment plants because they cope well with varying rates of flow and with suspended solids.
>
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7mOjc.png)
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Don't seal it and hire [These Guys!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_farmer)
Gongfermors, Gong Farmers, Dunnykin Divers, Night men, and so on were the guys who historically did exactly this job.
The system wasn't sealed so the accumulation of gasses wasn't as much as a problem, but things were far, far from pleasant.
They would go to the cess pits and use buckets and shovels to clear out the waste products, often using boys to get into the more confined spaces.
They often worked at night. The wikipedia has a snippet of an ordinance that says they had to work after 9 at night.
As an alternate method, I remember my dad talking about slit trenches in Viet Nam being lit on fire to burn off a bunch of the nastiness, and the remains being shoveled out to use as fertilizer.
Just remember to keep it a long way away from the source of drinking water
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If you are too squeamish to dig out the old pit dig a new pit and use some of that dirt to cover the old one. Grow food on the newly available well fertilized ground.
Even the most picky of laborer will be willing to dig again in the old site when the new one fills some years later. Especially if you don't bother recording exactly where it was and just pick a convenient spot each time.
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Sewage management goes back into pre-history, with some elaborate yet efficient systems having been developed by the early bronze age. In the levant (aka biblical cities) sewage conduits ran under the streets and a fair distance out of the towns into a common dump area called a "gehenna". The city's gehenna was far enough away that it dd not need a lot of management.
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In my world there is only one religion that has existed as far back as written history. There are many subcategories of this religion (Like Christianity has Catholicism and other subcategories) but no completely other religion. How might I explain this?
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This is easy.
## The God of the single religion exists and makes himself known.
Right now, we don't have scientific evidence of any extra-physical entity. And by scientific, I mean such that we could make a hypothesis, perform an experiment, and make observations that fall in line with the original hypothesis.
In your world, there is. Perhaps on the full moon, he descends to collect his offerings from his shrines. It's predictable and observable. It has an actual effect on the world. Hell, he could even have an Ask Me Anything session every once in a while to give guidance to the people.
Now, there may be sects of the religion (similar to the different branches of Christianity) but pretty much everyone would agree that there is this one religion to base yourself off of. Bonus points if he smites the occasional non-believer and takes an active role to prevent fragmentation.
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This is pretty much the goal end-state of any monotheism. Say that the Islamic conquests didn't stop at Tours and the walls of Constantinople. All people submitted to Allah from England to Japan.
You may have noticed how excited ISIS is to destroy books that aren't the Koran. So now the entire world is Muslim, and all the books that aren't the Koran or written since the Koran are burned. All you have left is a mythical history of the founding of your religion, some weird artifacts from an earlier time (whats the deal with these Pyramids?!?!). How would anyone know there was ever another religion?
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Edit:
Due to some negative feedback, let me explain a bit further. The spread of any monotheism does not have to be correlated with a dark age and book burning, nor do I suggest that it would be. I simply state that it is possible
The choice of Islam was simply that it was the specific religion that seemed the closest (historically) to encompassing the whole world. Muslims as a historical group over the last 1400 years are no more likely to burn books than any other group, for reasons religious or non-religious.
This post is a chain of events that explains why people would think that there is only one religion. This directly answers the question, "How might I explain this".
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**Everyone is agreed on the existence of A God or The Gods.**
For the sake of simplicity, this answer is written under the assumption that your setting has a Christianity-like religious group. The difference between sects of this religion instead originates from interpretation of doctrine, much like the variants of Christianity on Earth. There are several possible explanations for the lack of other religious groups like Buddhism, Taoism, etc.
**Option One:** As stated in the comments, the world may simply be so well-connected that there's no room for other religions to form without deriving from your "base" religion.
**Option Two:** As kingledion said, there may have been other religions in the past, which warred against each other and now only one remains, having wiped out all trace of its opposition.
**Option Three:** If this is a fantasy setting, the God of your religion may have acted to enforce his will upon the world in relatively recent times, perhaps as recent as a few centuries ago. In this case, there is only one religion because everyone *knows* it to be true, and it's more like believing in a king than a god.
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>
> In my world there is only one religion that has existed as far back as
> written history. There are many subcategories of this religion (Like
> christainity has catholism and other subcategories) but no completely
> other religion.
>
>
>
**There are dual founder effects and inertia**.
One is intellectual. One you make foundational assumptions in your worldview and spread that meme, it is very hard for people to think outside of that box. And, ideas that build on widely shared assumption that only innovate sparingly in key respects further cement the foundational assumptions because even in the face of differences of opinion on theology, the core beliefs become consensus views of all faiths. The developed the consensus worldview is, the harder it is for religion specialists who have to learn it all and derived status from having done so to toss it all way and start over from scratch, and non-specialists have less of a vested interest in doing so.
People innovate based on examples of past innovation, and if there has never been more than one religion to chose from than people are much less likely to come up with the idea of founding a new religion.
One is political/sociological. One a religion is up and running in the first chiefdom-ship or the first city-state, that polity is going to have an edge in being the first to expand with a complete cultural system already in place over societies that have to innovate and develop an equally fit alternative from scratch. And, even if someone does create an alternative, the first invented will be more mature and have more kinks worked out and more ancient, so it will have an edge in the battle for converts.
Once a religious worldview is in place, inertia becomes a powerful force. Absent strong intervention, people continue in the habits and customs of mind and practice that they have always had.
**There are compatibility issues.**
Why did everyone start following the religion of Microsoft, rather than arguably better alternatives?
Particularly in areas like explanations of a divine world that isn't experience first hand (even more so than software which is more functional in nature), your society's fitness isn't harmed materially because you choose Brand A over Brand B. But, sharing a Brand with your neighbor (whatever that may be) may enhance your ability to avoid war with your neighbor and ally together against third parties. The more people are on your side, the more valuable your brand of religion becomes and the less valuable alternative brands become relative to it and people will willingly convert to the most valuable brand.
**Who Decides?**
For most of history, decisions about religion have been made for an entire people by the highest available sovereign leader. So, in a world with millions of people but only scores of countries, the task of conversion may involved scores of people, rather than millions of individual decisions. The notion of an individual autonomous right to decide your own religious beliefs is a decidedly modern one. Even as late as the Reformation, just five centuries ago, this was the rule. The Protestant Reformation was fought one ruler at time, not one person at a time, for the most part. The notion of an individual right to decide your religion if you aren't a king or a prince, doesn't really emerge until the Enlightenment in the 18th century (arguably, this is a natural intellectual consequence of democracy which transfers sovereignty to the common man, at least symbolically).
Also, culture isn't as a general rule, severable. If a new more effective culture conquerers an old less functional one, the new one is going to convert people to its religion along with all other aspects of its culture much of the time.
**Who writes history?**
Once written histories exist, oral history keeping tends to collapse. So, whoever writes the first written history controls the remembered past and can simply cast any part of prior religions that are hard to erase from the collective memory as mythology, stories and folktales, all of which are told in the frame of fiction rather than legendary history. The worldview of the first history writers is frozen in time and ideas omitted fade away, erased from the popular consciousness in a few generations.
Certainly, an important factor in the success of the religions that persist today and the failure of those that do not is that every single one of the several successful religions were fleshed out in written accounts, while many of those that are gone now were not recounted in writing.
Also, since literacy generally starts limited to a narrow group of people learning as adults, and is only democratized much later, the collective action problems of building a religious consensus is reduced because only a small group of people who learned to read and write after going through the same training in the same way, and having the same status in society and daily experiences as each other, need to be convinced, not a more heterogeneous group of people. Moreover, since all literate people early on are going to be accountable to the king or prince of the land, this narrow group of literate folks will also have strong cues from their leader to assist them in developing a consensus and will have an interest in presenting a unified front in order to collectively wield power vis-a-vis their leader who needs the support of at least some of them to administer his domain.
**One More Point: Germ load**
I'd forgotten one other interesting historical correlation. Religious diversity is strongly correlated with the amount of infectious disease/parasite load in the vicinity. This is because religions frequently have different food and purity taboos. In places with high disease load, the benefits to society as a whole of having religious diversity with varied food and purity taboos in making sure that everyone isn't wiped out by some virulent contagion because not everyone participates in the vectors that are vulnerable to it due to taboos outweigh the societal benefits of religious consensus. In contrast, the lower the infectious disease/parasite load is somewhere, the less religious diversity there is because the benefits of large amounts of consensus outweigh taboo diversity. So, you are much more likely to get religious consensus in a world with a low disease load (e.g. a place with a climate like Scandinavia) than you are in a place with a high disease load (e.g. a tropical rain forest).
Obviously, these patterns emerge through natural selection, rather than by conscious design.
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In addition to the options outlined by Passage, I would propose the following:
**Option 4**: The religion is exceptionally inclusive. The core principles of the religion may either be open to a wide variety of interpretations or so universal that few, if any, religions would be excluded. Alternatively, the original teachings have been fragmented or obscured to the point that it isn't clear what the core principles originally were.
With this option, all of the world's religious organizations can and do identify with the same religion. (Perhaps there is a social or political incentive to do so.)
For inspiration, study Hinduism. Instead of being split into clear divisions, it's a big, interrelated family of various practices. Some Hindus follow the traditional polytheistic route and pay homage to the entire pantheon, while others will dedicate themselves to a specific deity. Some Hindus view the deities as distinct entities while others view them as aspects of the same single supreme being. Some prefer a devotional approach (i.e. prayer and rituals) while others will focus on a more introspective approach (i.e. meditation).
In your world, a similarly flexible and diverse religion may have spread early enough that it has either incorporated or eliminated all others.
**Option 5**: Religion is or was nearly extinct. The world religion is the only survivor.
What could possible have caused religions to disappear? There's a number of possible reasons, though how plausible they are depends upon the era in which you want this single religion established.
In a more modern setting, it could be easily explained by the growing popularity of science and secular humanism. As generations pass, people abandon religion. However, unlike our world, there is only one religion with enough organization and cultural clout to persevere.
In an ancient or medieval setting, this might be explained by the expansion of an Empire that was extremely anti-religious. (Perhaps the Emperors felt worship of deities threatened their power.) This led to a purge that destroyed most religions or forced them underground where they eventually faded away.
**Option 6**: A well timed catastrophe could explain the existence of a single world religion.
Imagine a religion with a prophecy of doom that involves fire from the sky followed by a long, dark winter. Now imagine that a major meteor crashes on the planet and triggers a major extinction event. Lastly, imagine that those familiar with this religion are among the few survivors. Not only will the religion spread widely as the world is repopulated, but its legitimacy will be cemented for millennia.
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Different religions have typically come into being in different corners of the world. The logical solution is for your population not to be too widespread, or break down into isolated pockets which do not communicate with one another.
A second factor to consider is a military arm of the church which stomps out any serious dissenters to their doctrine. If they're aggressive and thorough enough they could subjugate other populations and simply erase their own beliefs from history (while difficult, a savage enough regime could accomplish this).
A less aggressive solution is to have simply undeniable miracles being performed on a regular basis. If your priests are capable of demonstrating their God's power on (reasonable) demand then people would convert to your religion and never question it.
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# Longer prehistory.
For a religion to spread we need long-distance travel. Horses, boats, etc.
History begins when writing was invented in a form that survive for ages, and it gets used to describe events as they happen.
In our world, we moved from one to the other very quickly, and no religion had time to conquer the world.
In your world, there were more time. Maybe traveling was easier, maybe nobody thought writing was cool. Since this is **pre**-history, nobody really knows.
One way or another, there was time for one cultural group and its religion to spread all over the planet and suppress all others.
# Small beginning.
In our world, humanity hung around in Africa for a long time before spreading across the world.
What if humanity had started in a smaller, more isolated place, like New Zealand?
For a long time there would be only New Zealand. After a while, there would only be one surviving culture/religion there and this could happen before writing was invented.
Later on better boats lets people spread all over the globe.
In a sense this is a variant of the first answer, since travel is easier when all distances are small.
# However...
There will be variants on this religion. Some variants will strongly claim that this makes them different religions. E.g. "The people over there follow a god that allows them to eat pork. The One True God does not allow its followers to eat pork, so they must have a different, false, religion."
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As far as Hinduism is concerned it tells us that there exists only a single form of our creator whom we call God and give it different different names according to our religion. But it tells us that we are going to same destination via different different paths.
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Maybe confront the problem by asking "how are religions the same" and not "how are they different". If you deconstruct religious beliefs far enough they all have the same basic content.
Christianity may have various sects which ascribe to slightly variations in beliefs. Abrahamic religions also have their various sects: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
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Explaining the existence of one religion is easier than explaining the existence of more religions: if in your world, simply, a God actually really exists, and this God made himself evident enough to population.. why should there even be more religions at all? All would just follow that God, and that's it.
If in your world God does not exist (or a God exists, but it's not the one that your population believes in), then it can still be explained in many ways: maybe all people spread from a same area, and started desperding around the globe after creating the religion, maybe one "nation" (or tribe, or whatever) conquered all the others, maybe some preachers have been particularly successful and converted everyone all around the world (it's what most monotheistic religions aim at doing anyway)
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In the history of our species on this world, religion had the role of allowing early groups of humans to cohere in groups larger than known kin and use reference to a shared belief to establish the trust required not to kill each other.
As these groups cohered in response to outsider groups, all religion had the effect of discriminating between 'ours' and 'others' religion, and therefore developed in opposition to others.
So there must be many religions.
I would say, then, that in your world, your people would, in their early origins, not to have needed to have formed these groups protecting against each other. Perhaps they are not strong enough to do each other physical damage so other people are not a threat. Perhaps resources are plentiful, but they had to evolve alongside a much more powerful dominant species who would kill them on sight, so all that mattered was escaping from these predators and not worrying about other people. Then when the predators got wiped out (by a virus or whatever) then your people were left alone with their beliefs.
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How about - because the first peoples were brainwashed/inspired to believe in a single religion? See "[Off Armageddon Reef](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safehold)" by David Weber for an example.
In this series, set in the far future, humanity exists on one world. Their technology is kept suppressed by a repressive "religion" created by the mission director a thousand years before specifically for that purpose. The first generation of colonists had their memories tampered with to make them "believers". Because the "archangels" of the religion actually did definitively exist with (brainwashed) witnesses to attest to their miracles (displays of high tech) the religion became firmly entrenched with no possibility of an alternative emerging.
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Most religions are born just because they allowed some restricted group of people to have **politic power**, sad to say, but just see the movie "Agorà" to have an example of that.
The existence of only one religion could be explained if one of the contending parties have won and conquered the whole world. Anyhow, most people have the tendency to "manipulate" others (me too in this post indirectly), so it is hard to have 1 religion, there will be always someone that have "*a different view*". Unless of course your religion has very strict rules (like killing people not following it), in that case if someone or very little groups have different world views they would be very isolated.
But that is typical of humans, if your "group" of people is not human maybe they are more willingly to follow only one religion.
Another explaination could be:
* They were visited by aliens in past times, and that conditioned their culture (like what you see at the beginnin of Start Trek Movie Episode II)
* You do not need aliens, maybe some really catastrophic phenomena happened and everyone saw that (a big comet?)
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You can take the history of the world we live in as an example for how it might work. Only *in your world*, the zealots of the most aggressive cult have been successful.
Note the deliberate wording of "aggressive cult" because it is not limited to religion, and not at all necessary that the winner is the "best fit" or even "correct".
It starts with the Neandertals, which we traditionally consider as primitive, and which we have (short of a few genes in our DNA) practically eradicated from history. There is some good evidence that *Homo neanderthalensis* was quite intelligent and had a quite developed culture and clear signs of higher mental abilities than any other homo at that time.
Only just, they were less concerned with breeding and expanding, and less aggressive than Homo sapiens. Worded differently, while one group was looking at the stars and trying to figure out why someone had put all those dots into the sky, the other group was busy throwing javelins at the males and raping the females.
Then there is Chrisitanity, of course. Everybody knows Jesus of Nazareth was born at Christmas, and resurrected at Easter. This truth, like most of the inalterable truth in the Bible (including the testimony of an eye witness who demonstrably lived a hundred years after Jesus of Nazareth), was decided upon at the Council of Nicea in AD 325.
Historic evidence suggests Jesus of Nazareth was not at all born in December (nor did he die/resurrect at Easter), however there happened to be the pagan festival *Yule* (which is how Christmas is still called in some northern countries today) which was replaced by Christmas. It is a funny coincidence that Easter sounds almost like *Eostre* (whose other name is *Ostara*, which incidentially sounds almost like *Ostern* in German), and by coincidence Easter is exactly at the time when Eostre used to be. All Hallows (nowadays better known as Halloween) is near, but few people remember that it's really just Samhain, another pagan feast. Thanksgiving? Lughnasad. Lughna... Lughna...what? Who wants a sacred day that nobody can pronounce on 1st October, if there is a better one on the first Sunday of October, which is a doubly-sacred day (because Sunday is already the day of the Lord). Who is this Lugh anyway.
(n.b.: USA and Canada have slightly different dates nowadays)
It also happens that many names of the days of the week are derived from ancient pagan deities but changed ever so little as to mask their origin to the casual observer. You wouldn't think Friday (which sounds like "free day" in German, and pretty much everybody thinks it refers to the weekend that follows) honors Freya, would you. You would think Tuesday might be the Two-eth-day of the week, but it really is Tyr's day. -- Who is Tyr? Tyr is dead, babe.
The stragegy behind this is simple, and effective: Rather than kill everybody worshipping the wrong gods, replace their rites with *alternative, more shiny rites, and presents* on the same day. Change the names a little so they're no longer recognizable. Nobody will object. After a few generations, most will have forgotten.
The story of Carolus Magnus (Charlemagne) and Widukind is another historical textbook example of how to drive forward a religion or culture, and how to completely anihilate a competing religion. Charlemagne is well-known as the splendid king who was such a good Christian and did so much good. A true shining star in history with no blemish.
Reality, however, looks a bit different: Invade, kill all who resist, hunt them down to the last man, woman, and child. Deliver Widukind, or we will decapitate another 200 innocent men. By the way, abjure your heathen gods and kiss the cross, or we will burn down your villages and kill every child and every woman. *That* was Charlemagne. Sounds familiar? Not much different from some present-time IS videos on youtube: *Anyone who will not say "Allah is great", we will kill* (I forgot the name of the guy who said that, some 25 year old "soldier" with a big beard, I think TV news said he meanwhile died in Syria).
Crazy fanatic or King and Emperor Blessed by God? The difference lies only in success. Break treaties, betray the Langobards? Oh come on, what's a treaty between friends, er... enemies. You thought breaking treaties was an US invention? Well, you're wrong.
I'm not even going into much detail about crown princes suddenly deceasing and his heirs disappearing while in custody, and their wife being held hostage, or about raiding allied cities (Pamplona, to name) on the way home from Cordoba. Everybody knows that the Basques are the bad guys for assaulting the glorious Franks. The *Song of Roland* clearly proves what a splendid paladins Roland and Charlemagne were, and the treacherous Basques attacked them for no reason.
Let's not be too pendantic about the sixth commandment either. This is for the ordinary people. For the *Holy Emperor and Protector of the Church*, it's perfectly adequate to break it twice per week, or more often if necessary.
Then of course, there's the strategy of simply erasing memories. People die, and people forget, but what's written down remains. The Library of Alexandria contained a lot of texts which were not opportune with the Roman idea of truth. Incidentially, it burned down halfway in 48 BC while the Romans were around, and burned down again 300 years later, incidentially when the Romans were around again. But the Romans weren't the only ones burning books. The Catholic Church burned inopportune books *and the people writing them* during the entire middle ages, and even during the 20th century this was common practice (Hitler and Stalin, to name only two). Burning books has become somewhat futile due to the existance of digital media nowadays, but some circles still do it, mostly for symbolic reasons.
In summary, it is not alltogether impossible that there may be only a single religion in the world, and no supernatural or exceptional things are truly necessary for that. All it takes is the zealots of the most aggressive religion being successful.
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What about a polytheist religion like Hinduism or Buddhism that slowly amalgamates various religious ideas into its fold. In that case all your setting would require is that there is no aggressive competiting religion in your world.
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[One SMBC](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3060) provides an alternative explanation. After the singularity, the one company that produces the hardware running all the minds has a patch. Afterwards, brand loyalty is at amazingly high levels.
Note that at this level of control, you don't even have (to be allowed) to notice that there are *other* hardware brands. So there is only one religion and it is Cloud Corp.
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## Indoctrination
If the populace believes there is one true god and one true path of religion and all non-believers are the enemy etc. to the point of lynching them in the street (think back to the Witch Trials) then almost no-one would want to deviate from the one true religion.
And if your world has modern technology it would be almost impossible to hide if you did. Regular purges could be a part of life.
Anything that amplifies this would help too: rewards for informing, regular checks, church attendance monitoring, requirement to fulfil religious duties on a regular basis, even mind-reading devices hypnosis etc.
That combined with the fact that anyone overhearing even a whisper of another religion would cause them to immediately report it and send the entire village/city/town/government into a manhunt and public trial.
Think North Korea. Not necessarily religion through fear, either - religion through the absolute through-and-through belief that there is no other choice. Think of wartime when we villify the enemy (like how the Japanese were painted as literally being monsters) to the point that people adore conformity and are quick to ostracise.
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You have to define your terms. You mean only one ORGANIZED religion? You imply that, say, Buddhism and Christianity aren't different "subcategories" of the "same" religion. According to who? All human mental constructs, especially ones which are held by a large fraction of humanity, will have many similarities. Getting a bunch of "authorities" to agree which "qualifiy" (and which don't) for inclusion into a religion will result in arbitrary, subjective, and inconsistent determinations. Anyone familiar with the theological debates inside the Vatican surely should understand that no two people believe exactly the same thing. The only way to have one religion is some form of direct mind control, although I could make a plausible case for having thought police with the ability to determine if someone is lying...
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[The God Emperor of Mankind](http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor_of_Mankind) provides answers to this (and to all questions).
It was he who took a righteous purge of all heretics upon The Earth. Going so far as to stamp out all religions and mysticism. Once this was completed he turned his mighty gave to the stars and begun to clean the worlds of man one by one. Freeing each of the tyranny and lies of religion; brining instead the light of knowledge and reason. Thus was The Imperium of Man formed and He rained on a high over His dominion.
When corruption struck and His fallen sons attempted to kill him they were defeated. After this his divinity was recognised and The Imperial Cult formally formed. This (being the only true religion) is the only accepted religious practise throughout the imperium of man. Even those of the [Cult Mechanicus](http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Adeptus_Mechanicus) realised their Omnissiah was The Emperor.
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**TLDR**: Stamp out all other religions and give your society a few hundred (or thousand years) of social dominance. History is what people read and think. Given a few dozen generations that can be anything you want it to be. (There may be some small deviation creeping in from time to time)
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Pay no attention to those cultists near that large worm hole. Do not worry about those things out of the window while in warp space either, just a trick of the light. [Genestealer Cults](http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Genestealer_Cult)? Oh well its just some simple minds getting over-awed by a large animal. Like people find cats pleasing only with giant bug monsters. Stop arguing or it will be reported to The Inquisition (not that they exist, I just meant further up the elclisastiary really).
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[Question]
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The religion of Blablaism recognises a small number of deities. Let's say three.
While, strictly speaking, it regards these deities as aspects of a single supreme god (a la [Soft Polytheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheism#Soft_polytheism_versus_hard_polytheism)), it's not uncommon for people to worship any combination of them. Some worship only one, others only two, and yet more worship all three.
*Nobody* worships the supreme god directly (unless you count those nasty Lalaist heathens from across the forbidden sea).
This variation is just as pronounced among religious leaders, with many of them fervantly worshipping a single deity, yet they will happily lead people who worship any combination of the other deities.
Why though? **Why is it not in their interests to lead only people who favour *their* chosen deity/deities?**
Likewise, **Why is it not in people's interests to seek out religious leaders who favour their deity/deities?**
**What holds this religion and these customs together?**
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I'm not very cognisant about soft polytheism, but I think I can give you some answers according to my knowledge of hard polytheism (see below) and trinitarianism. I strongly suggest that you research a doctrine about the nature of the Trinity deemed heretical by the early christian movement, named [Modallism or Sabellianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabellianism). It kind of goes into what you're researching here.
Now, if we take this modallist "trinity" as a kind of surrogate of what you're asking here... you can't really worship the Godhead while saying to people that they are wrong about worshipping any mode of the trinity.
Why is this? Because, since the three "modes" of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) **all** are present on the same scriptures (according to the christian canon)... and since they are three "modes" of the **same** Godhead... then it follows that a modallist can't claim that it is wrong for someone to worship the Holy Spirit, even though that modallist has a preference for worshipping the Son.
*(this is even truer for a truly trinitarian christian, but that is a little removed from your specific situation, though you could use it as an analogy: according to trinitarianism, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three different persons with the same substance of the Godhead and, even though there are churches dedicated to Jesus and churches dedicated to the Holy Spirit, you don't see them bickering about which is best)*
So, to answer your specific questions:
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## Why is it not in their interests to lead only people who favour their chosen deity/deities?
1. As I said, since every deity is a manifestation of the same god, this doesn't make any sense. It is like trying to sway people from venerating Our Lady of Sorrows so that they may venerate Our Lady of the Rosary. If it's the same person, what's the point?
2. Also, ancient pagans had lots of concern about cosmic harmony. Maybe, you'd prefer to worship deity no. 1. But deity no. 2 is **also** a manifestation of the same god. If you worship deity no. 1 without regard for deity no. 2, you are "feeding" an aspect of the god without concern for the whole. This would produce imbalance... and the purpose of pagan religions was to achieve equilibrium.
For example, you may worship the deity that manifests the god's justice. That's fine and dandy. But if you worship **only this deity**, you feed the justice of the god, but not the god's benevolence (for example). This would result in justice without benevolence and hence tyranny. Chaos would ensue.
3. Finally, maybe the god wants to be worshipped fully, without any aspect of the god being neglected (since every aspect of the god is the god him/herself). Therefore, if you worship only deity no. 1 and disregard deity no. 2, you'll displease the god that is, in fact, also deity no. 1.
The ancient pagans had altars for "The Unknown God", lest they would forget to worship some god and, therefore, incur his/her wrath. **Every** god should be pleased so that harmony would result. If any god was displeased, it was bad news for the mortals.
This doesn't mean that any single mortal must worship **all** the deities. But it **does** mean that every single deity must be worshipped by some of the mortals.
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## Why is it not in people's interests to seek out religious leaders who favour their deity/deities?
This question pretty much is answerable as the question above. Even though I think the peoples would (and should) seek the religious leaders that best address their specific concerns. That's unavoidable.
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## What holds this religion and these customs together?
Probably a council of priests representing every single religion of every single deity.
If you'd like, you could have a pontiff *(the Latin pontifex means "bridge-builder" and was attributed originally to the Emperor, who was also High-Priest of the entire empire)* that will have a privileged channel to the godhead and, therefore, arbitrate conflicts between the different religions, having the final saying and authority.
Or, instead of a pontiff... an Oracle of the Godhead.
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Society defines them all as one religion, that's what keeps them together.
That they worship various different gods in the pantheon is about their role in that society. Sailors worship the god of the seas, farmers fertility, young people love, there's a god for everything you need and every aspect of life.
Because all the gods in a pantheon have a specific role, they don't generally have trouble coexisting, sharing followers, or with people making sacrifices to different gods when in need, say a merchant about to take a long voyage.
The gods aren't just gods, they're gods with a job, a role to fulfill, and a reason to speak to one rather than another.
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My empirical answer is that the belief system you are describing is pretty much how Hinduism has worked for thousands of years:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti>
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are different deities and at the same time being manifestations of the same Supreme Deity.
Different traditions in the Hindu system give priority to one or the other (or the same to all, or even to other Deities), see for example:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishnavism>
The fact that Hindus of different traditions have been able to coexist for 1000s of years should reassure you that the system you have in mind is socially stable.
Disclaimer: I am not Hindu nor an expert in the field, my apologies for oversimplifying and I have no intention to offend any believer.
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Allow me to provide two real-world examples:
(1) The ancient Greeks/Romans. In this example, the culture remains intact even if the definition of "one religion" does not. There is a pantheon of gods. People believe in the existence of all, though they may prefer one over another. The gods are all related, such that there is a familial component that is recognizable and respected by mortal followers.
Was it perfect? Certainly not. There were jealousies between followers and [even wars](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/26566/were-there-any-wars-in-ancient-greece-where-religion-played-a-major-part), so while society held itself together amidst polytheism generally, they were unable to do so ultimately.
(2) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are polytheistic. They believe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct individuals. Though schisms have occured within the church, none have occured due to differences in worship or regard of those three gods.
However, there is no tradition of arbitrarily worshiping any one of the three gods. Indeed, the Bible specifically teaches the worship of the Father in the name of the Son. It would be deemed heretical to even contemplate worshipping the Holy Ghost.
What these examples teach me is that permitting the arbitrary worship of any god within a pantheon will ultimately lead to self-destructive behavior without some outside force that can overcome jealousy and greed. People are, regrettably, naturally selfish. It takes no time whatsoever for the idea of "[my god is better than your god](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PChN2A_uL6o)" to take hold. We become frustrated when something good (understandably credited to said person's god) hasn't happened to us (why has my god forsaken me?) leading to all kinds of abberrant behavior.
And that's ignoring the greedy bounders who will happily whip up the pride one people have in the god they worship to engender hatred toward those people who worship another god simply because he wants the oil beneath their patch of grass.
So, to specifically answer your questions:
**(1) Why is it not in their interests to lead only people who favour their chosen deity/deities?**
If there exists a single "religious order" that specifically teaches its priests the commingled worship of all three dieties such that religious leaders will hold worship services for all three dieties, then it's plausible that unity could prevail. But, so long as it is not a regimented observance, preferences will eventually seep in, people will become offended that their god isn't worshiped with the same fervor as your god, and schism will occur.
**(2) Why is it not in people's interests to seek out religious leaders who favour their deity/deities?**
It always is in the best interest of people to seek out religious leaders who favour their preferred diety(s). Indeed, when the religious order is not organized to subdue it, people will tend to gravitate toward the most popular of those teachers and teachers will act, not in the best interest of the religion, but in their own best interests to gain popularity. These two behaviors will quickly build animosity between worshipers of one diety over another as teachers and followers alike begin to establish reasons for their preferences.
**(3) What holds this religion and these customs together?**
This society cannot remain unified without an external force that subdues the natural "human" inclinations toward jealousy, entitlement, pride, fear, greed, arrogance, and even hatred. It would be theoretically possible to create (as mentioned above) a religious organization that mandated the equal and unified worship of all three dieties that could impose the order necessary to avoid schism.
*However,* the history of Catholicism proves that even that is incredibly difficult. The schism that led to Roman and Eastern Catholicism was born of disagreements in very basic things including the language spoken during services and whether or not one was doctrinally orthodox vs. the other. These disagreements could not be subdued even within a church that had already agreed there was but one god existing in trinity.
My conclusion is that it is impossible for any religion permitting the arbitrary worship of multiple dieties to remain unified.
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Let me bring up Ireland and Japan.
Disclaimer: I am not Japanese, I am not a practitioner of Shinto or Buddhism, and am no authority on these subjects. (I'm no authority or practitioner of ancient Irish beliefs either, but have a little more knowledge on that subject.) It is not my intent to offend, and I welcome any comments that point out any errors I have made.
Many people in Japan consider themselves to be both practitioners of Shinto and of Buddhism. This is not considered a contradiction. Buddhism is reserved for major events - birth, death, maybe other significant events? Shinto is how you live your daily life. Shinto deities are aspects of the world - a specific river, a specific forest. I don't know if there are Shinto deities covering all rivers as a concept, but there would be specific deities embodying the spirit of a location. I think there might also be a Shinto deities for your home?
In ancient Ireland, local fae would be honored in a specific glade. You would leave milk out for the fae that kept your home free from malicious spirits.
Anyway, translating this to your question. Perhaps I am a trader in your world. I pay homage to the spirit of my house and my shop. I pay homage to the spirit of my wagon, or possibly the spirits of the roads I travel upon. When I enter a friend's home or shop, I would take care to acknowledge the spirits that watch over my friend's space. Nobody would interpret these actions as me claiming to live at my friend's house. I am simply being polite to the spiritual owner of the domain. Walking into another's home without greeting the spirit would be unthinkable. Akin to entering your friend's home without knocking or waiting to be invited inside.
Let's expand to larger concepts. As a trader, I would worship whatever deity protected commerce, travelers, or possibly the Deity of Not Being Tricked. This is where I spend the most time. Now, say I get really sick. It could be appropriate to spend a little time at the temple devoted to good health. I would not pretend that I had always been a member of that temple. I would be greeting the deity of healing, acknowledge I had entered into his/her realm, and am announcing myself as an honorable person who intends to follow whatever behavior is expected for guests. It's good manners. I'm knocking on the door, announcing my presence, and hoping for the deity to welcome me in for a visit.
Why not worship the highest deity directly? Well, the phrase "ivory-tower intellectual" comes to mind. Such worshippers might be looked down on as acting like they are "too good" for the local deities. You are worshipping the mind at the expense of the body. You are doing the spiritual equivalent of wandering across a busy street with your face stuck in your phone, playing Pokemon Go, and you aren't paying attention to the physical world at all. You're going to get hit by a bus (spiritually speaking) acting like that. And the people around you are now forced to be slightly more vigilant on your behalf, while you go blundering around and thoughtlessly pissing off the local deities with your neglectful behavior. One angry river deity is not going to flood one specific home, it's going to flood the whole town. Respect is a must.
So why would there be a conflict or a split? It makes no sense for me to demand that my friend worship my home's spirit at the expense of their own. It makes no sense for me to demand that the farming village in the next valley give respect to the river that passes through my valley. I'm not there. They aren't here.
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That's not odd, nor unheard of in reality.
In human cultures who have/had polytheist pantheons, it was rather uncommon for people to worship all their deities equally, or even at all.
Whether you are taking Ancient Greeks, Nordics, Hinduists or Ancient Romans, to name a few, people worshipped mainly one or at most a few gods, mostly depending on their profession/cast and/or place of living.
Pantheons serve the purpose of offering specialized gods for specific elements of the world and abstract concepts.
For example, Greek soldiers had a major insentive in worshiping Ares, who was closely related with war and battle, or Athena, who was associated with war and wisdom. That's directly why Sparta, a very military city, was heavily worshiping Ares while Athenes, a city who valued having both a good army and excellent intellectuals, was entirely directed at Athena.
The Norse gods were also worshiped that way, and who interacted in which way with which god(dess) wasn't that much significant. Soldiers or farmers weren't supposed to have the same main deity as their Jarl (which would have looked quite silly and hypocritical, if I may...). That's a notion that appeared as we know it with Judaism and which was spreaded by the Christians.
In fact, Jesus was considered as another god when introduced among the Nordics, they mostly didn't care. And since Christians made it pretty clear that worshiping only the One True God was mandatory, and that converting other was the main goal, that's one of the reasons Christianism ended up winning the popularity game there : the local religion wasn't playing.
To sum it up, you can perfectly have people worship mostly one or a few gods from a pantheon of whatever amount you want to have in total. Just make them to be associated with distinct domains. A domain is a collection of abstract and concrete elements and symbols to recognize them easily, whether they are represented explicitly or directly by their symbols.
The attributes that should be present in your pantheon should be those that concern your civilization's culture. For example, they are not likely to have a deity responsible of the sea(s) if they live in the center of a wide continent, and if they do it will be a minor attribute or the domain of a minor god(dess).
I believe I saw other questions about that pantheon you are created but don't remeber much about the humans behind it.
Anyway, here are a few examples of attributes that could be in your pantheon's domains:
*(some may not apply while some are fairly common to all cultures)*
**Concrete stuff** : *Earth, land, crops, beasts, fire, thunder, wind, rain, mountains, sand, water, metal, alcohol, wood, plants, fishes, weapons, poison, specific animals (horses, boars, whichever may have a particular value for social, spiritual or economic reasons), tools, ...*
These are things that can be directly seen and eventually touched. They are usually seen as the direct manifestation of a deity, a gift from it to mankind, his/her own body...
**Abstract stuff** : *War, beauty, wits, strength, sickness, life, death, fe(a)st, intelligence, politics, madness, patience, curiosity, fertility, metallurgy, arts, hunt, medicine, knowledge, luck, sex, fate, happiness, hope, craftiness, fishing, magic, ...*
These are attributes that are administrated directly by a deity, or on which a deity has at least some control : Some deities were said to decide who would die, when and how, while others merely gathered them when their fate came. Those are the backbone of gods and what determines who will worship them and why : One will worship especially the deity handling war in order to be victorious in one while his/her spouse would be likely to call for the deity of luck/fate/mercy so that his/her beloved comes back unharmed. A city that relies heavily on fishing to feed would have one of its biggest temple dedicated to the deity of fishing and sea (if not the biggest at all) while blacksmiths in that city would be unlikely to care much about it.
After you've gathered your pantheon's domains, you can begin to split them among your deities. Keep in mind that they don't have to be limited to one and only thematic. A god of war, conflict, forge and metal makes sense, it adds depth. A god of war and politics too. They can even coexist in the same pantheon. A god of mercy and death also has a good depth : in displays the fact that the culture who worships it doesn't consider death as a plague, but as a fate handled by a wise deity. Take advantage of that power to use the domains of your gods to implicitly present them, it can make your story give detail about its lore in a subtle and immersive way.
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Many ancient polytheistic religions were actually accumulations of different local deities and cults, sometimes subsumed after conquests or sometimes imported via trade or other means. What seems to be important is the accumulation of these foreign deities fill local needs (the various legends attributed to the new god are more appealing in explaining the world in that aspect).
Culture is another important factor. Greeks were willing to adopt the local gods and cults of other Greek speaking peoples, but did not adopt the gods of ancient Egypt (despite being aware of them through trade and war since Mycenaean times). The Romans, on the other hand, seemed very accommodating, especially in the late Western Empire, where many "mystery" cults became well established alongside the traditional pantheon of gods. Christianity (and to a lesser extent Judaism) were difficult cases because adherents to those religions shunned the Roman ideals and were *not* accommodating (especially to the idea that the person of the Emperor was also a god).
So a homogeneous people may be willing to adopt each others local cults and deities, and a well established and very confident imperial culture may be willing to allow its people's to worship however they like, so long as the worship does not clash with the ruling culture's values.
[Answer]
Either
* They don't worship the subset deities at all.
* The Supreme or Unified Deity is conceived as being ineffable or too transcendental to be respective of anything so lowly as worship.
The differences between this “soft” polytheism and the other kind are entirely in the relationships between the deities. The distinction is not all that important to the worshippers.
**Why hasn't the religion split?**
Probably because there has not yet been any conflict or any rift of disagreement between the sects.
The likelihood of such a split occurring depends on how the sects of worshippers understand and perform the nature of their worship.
What are these practices?
* meditations on the nature of the deity
* artistic constructions designed to embellish or fortify the presence of the deitific aspects in their culture
* services which the deity requires for sustenance — albeit lessening its position as a proper god, and making it more of a lord of the same nature as the worshippers
There are a few others too, but they are less distinctive.
Now, here is the real clincher: It is possible for there to be bickering, discord, competition, rivalries, or even direct hostilities between the sects, and yet not consider the religion to have been split.
Again, this depends on the natures of the unified deity and of the multiple facets in the soft polytheism, but it seems likely to me that anything short of outright **denial** and **excommunication** between the sects would be tolerable to your religion.
I.e. unless the priests of one god begin saying that the other gods aren't really parts of the unified deity and eventually forgetting that the other facets even were worshipped apart from their own, your religion continues to exist in a zone of stability near to the original state which you describe.
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This currently happens today and it goes by the name of **Sports**. Usually in a given country, there is a main "religion" like Football or Rugby. But within that religion, people decide to worship a different team for different reasons. Maybe they like that one better, or their antcestors always worshiped that particular team, or perhaps it's just usual for people of that area to worship a certain team. Either way, all followers abide to same same principles and costumes despite worshiping different gods.
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Another take - [**ohana**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohana) meaning *family*.
"The concept emphasises that families are bound together and members must cooperate and remember one another."
In relation to this pantheon of gods, is exactly like Uncle Bob and Aunty Moaner. At a family gathering you may be annoyed by constant hugs from one, but you still have to tolerate it because the other is your favourite.
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Everyone agrees that is essential that all aspects of the supreme god must be worshiped, and the wise founders of the religion foresaw that there could be imbalance or schisms. So they decreed that every three years there is a great festival in which everyone in the society is assigned, by lot, one of the gods that it is their duty to formally worship for the next three years: attending rituals, making sacrifices, etc.
They are still free to also worship the other gods as well if they wish, but must not neglect their assigned god. Most people are content to just worship whichever god they are assigned to; it is all in service to the ineffable supreme god anyway, but those who have a personal preference often continue to worship their favorite as well as their assigned god. And some people who are especially pious, and have the time and resources, worship all three.
Worshiping your assigned god is not just a religious duty but a social one, since the periodic remixing of the congregations prevents them from becoming political factions that would both distract from spiritual matters and be a divisive force in the society.
A priest is expected to perform the required rituals for any of the gods as needed. Where several priests are available they may divide up the work according to their personal preferences.
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The main purpose of religion is not, principally, to worship a god or gods, but to provide a social structure. A supreme god may be Authority for that religion, although that is not necessarily essential.
Religion provides structure and customs for society and may accommodate one or more gods or lower deities. Maintaining social structure and culture, however, is paramount especially if a civilization is to develop.
Maintaining a religion, therefore, generally works in everyone's interest, as does a pantheon of gods who are generally compatible. Indeed, a variety of gods actually allows subcultures also to develop with their own identity expressed through a patron god or saint accommodated into the pantheon.
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If the gods get on with each other, why shouldn't their followers?
If the gods are "friends" with each other, they'll instruct their followers to be "friends", too. They may even advocate worship of other gods within the pantheon.
Moreover, people tend to reflect the characteristics of the gods they worship. For example, if you worship a god of war, you're likely to value heroism, skill in battle, and so forth. So, if your gods are well disposed to each other, then their followers are likely to be well disposed towards each other, too.
[Answer]
*Consider the three as the idea of the God of All, the God of Part, and the God of None*
Through the great answers above, you have many good suggestions for the Gods of All and Part: those will be worshipped by anyone wanting to be all-inclusive as well as those wanting to be specialized. I don't see much offered for the God of None, so this answer is mainly to be taken as adjunct to the other answers.
Many people choose to identify themselves as atheist or worshipping no god. They are, in effect, worshipping the God of None. This God wants no credit or accolades from its followers, yet will still respond to those atheists in a way such that the people feel they are acting in your world without any divine intervention. These actions will appear as though "luck", "coincidence", or "random events". If it's good, serendipity. Bad, misfortune. Life is what these people make it by their own willpower, and the God of None respects that and responds.
It is then not possible to worship the supreme God directly because the people cannot conceive of the concept where a divine being can be all, part, and none all at once. The Lalaists, however, are just fine with that concept, and then easily worship all three aspects via the Supreme God with harmony (no splinter groups needed in this case).
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If you are asking what I think you are asking, I believe it is because Blablaism considers that the three are really one and the same. Take a name for example: [First Name] [Middle Name] [Last Name] All three are different parts of your name but all comprise your name. Maybe most people know you by your first name, some by your last name and maybe even a few by your middle. It is also possible that they know you by any multiple of them. They all represent your name, just different aspects of it. So in your example, Lalaism considers only [First Name] to be your name and neither [Middle Name] nor [Last Name] are part of it.
Hope it helps?
[Answer]
At the risk of sounding a little cynical...
These things would likely happen for the same reason most things happen in a religion.
>
> **Because SoAndSo said so...**
>
>
>
SoAndSo may be a deity, holy book, profit, seer, oracle, theocratic leader, or what have you. They simply need to be a authoritative source that's accepted by the leadership or majority of practitioners of the religion.
Regardless of who SoAndSo is, once their decree has been accepted, as dogma, for a few generations, it'll be really hard to break it.
Humans have been martyred and fought long and bloody wars over these things throughout history, and it very often all boils down to what they were taught about what SoAndSo said.
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[Question]
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One of the factions of my setting has several different races cooperating to form a cohesive society. Being relatively modern, it has a variety of amenities we would consider a part of civilisation, like hospitals, banks, and police(For the sake of the question, technology could be considered 1930s era)
This brings me to a question regarding one of the races. Gnolls are more or less to hyenas what humans are chimps, with the exception that they are quite a bit larger, with 6'10 being average across both male and female at a weight of 110-130kg, with certain individuals reaching sizes of up to 8-9ft and 230-270kg. They also have brutally strong jaws (Hyenas can crush bone), and on occasion, sharp claws. My point is, should they feel the need, they can be quite dangerous.
The police force thus encounters something of a conundrum, when apprehending them. Officers attempting to arrest a resisting gnoll find themselves at a distinct disadvantage most of the time, and the result of this can end up oftentimes being rather embarrassing or, should the gnoll be a particularly violent offender, Take an unwantedly brutal turn.
Whilst there are quite a few already, they don't want to hire exclusively gnoll police officers to "even out the playing field", as giving a single race a monopoly on sanctioned violent force is recognised as being, well, not a terrific idea. Conversely, they don't want to rely on brandishing potentially lethal force whenever interacting with gnolls, e.g pulling guns, as only using guns on one species and not the others would give the impression of discrimination, and considerably annoy high ranking gnolls (Gnolls are one of the respected founding races of aforementioned faction, not an oppressed minority, and therefore hold a good deal of sway). Keep in mind that most gnolls aren't particularly inclined to be violent towards authorities, but if one does, it is an altogether more difficult situation than if some 5'8 60kg human does so.
How then, does this societies police force manage to apprehend a consistently larger, stronger citizen, in such a way that they don't appear to be overly brutal?
[Answer]
Basic gear should always be designed for what kind of situations you expect to encounter.
Perhaps completely baffling to Americans, some police forces in the world don't carry guns at all and will have rules ("only when you expect to need one") or separate forces that deal with firearm policing. This puts emphasis on de-escalating violence and only using it as a last resort.
If your human police is expected to regularly interact with Gnolls that aren't violent to authorities then they'll not need violent lethal weapons to pacify them. Through talking and social capabilities designed to interact with Gnolls you could achieve most of your goals.
So what if it does turn violent? Assuming Gnolls have a higher sense of smell, the threat of pepper-spray can be a massive deterrent for attack, if not stop an ongoing attack if you do use it. Other options are force multipliers like a weapon stick as well as basic armor designed to stop slashing attacks. Hell, you could put a layer of pepper-spray or similar in the armor which releases when something rips into it, like a Gnoll biting down.
[Answer]
## Authority is more important than Force
Individual police offers already face many of the same concerns you are bringing up here. For example, it is not uncommon for a female officer of average stature to have to face a male suspect who is twice her body weight and 3 times her strength. While you would think this means that she would have a harder time arresting a suspect, or put her in greater danger, you would be surprised. Most people simply will not resist arrest no matter how big or small the officer is simply because there is so much authority in being a police officer unto itself. The crimes associated with harming, resisting, or fleeing an officer are often much more severe than the crimes you are being arrested for, and in most cases are themselves enough deterrent to prevent a suspect from fighting back. In the vast majority of encounters that would be classified as dangerous, the police know going into it that it is a dangerous encounter and bring appropriate measures which would include superior numbers and if likely needed, weapons of lethal force. If the situation is dangerous enough, a cop will approach a situation with gun drawn, but the size of the cop /suspect are not supposed to be taken into account according to most police procedures when it comes to threatening or using lethal force.
## Culture is also more important than Force
>
> Gnolls are one of the respected founding races of aforementioned faction, not an oppressed minority, and therefore hold a good deal of sway
>
>
>
Police discrimination is real, but it's not arbitrary. We see this in the way that a cop's race does not have a big impact on how likely he is to discriminate against a certain group. In a given town, the police learn to fear/hate the same groups through past experiences and negative feedback loops of violence regardless of the cops race. When a police officer enters a "good" part of town to deal with a crime where he's never had to use force to get the job done, he will tend to be less on guard, and more prepared to solve the problem with words. Likewise, the people who live in that area tend to become more trusting of cops, and therefore more compliant. In contrast, if a neighborhood is of a higher threat, the opposite happens. When police profiling turns into police racism is where one race dominates one of these two types of areas; so, if your Gnolls are normally found in the more law abiding parts of town, then they will be more inclined to talk to and cooperate with law enforcement, and vise versa. (even those minority gnolls in the bad parts of town due to positive racism).
Another curious cultural factor is modern chivalry. Despite being smaller and weaker, female cops are less likely to be physically attacked than male cops. The use of lethal force against a female cop is exceptionally rare. This comes from having different cultural norms about using violence against women vs men. The majority of men in Western Civilization share the belief that it is much more wrong to hurt a woman than a man. This comes from the ideology that if you are strong it is your duty to protect those who are weak; so, attacking someone much weaker than you (or culturally identified as weaker) goes against most people's core ethics. Your Gnolls may share a similar ideology where humans are concerned. Thier history and folklore may be full of stories of valiant Gnolls use their superior strength to save Humans in distress, and that message becomes so engrained in them that when the time comes to talk or fight with a human officer, that they will be more inclined to talk things out.
## Training is more important than Force
Up to this point, I think I've adequately answered the general question of how humans could still be an important and effective part of the police force without giving over an monopoly to the Gnolls, but there is also the implied question of what to do when things do get violent, and the reality is that police training already takes this kind of threat into account.
The first thing to consider is that a person trained in grappling is vastly more effective than a person who is not. When I was a in high-school, our wrestling coach decided one day to make a point about how important skill and training are so he made a bunch of the Freshmen face off against the Varsity team. After all us noobs got our butts handed too us in "fair" matchups, he went on to pair off 55kg guys with 80kg guys and 70kg guys with 105kg guys, and it did not make a huge difference. The experienced wrestlers won every single match. So, even when fights do turn violent, most of the Gnolls will not be trained fighters, just drunken idiots or what not, and the training of the human cops will still be adequate to overcome many significant physical disadvantages. Also, while that bite force the gnolls have is a scary thought, there are plenty of humans who work in animal control who "arrest" everything from dangerous dog breeds, to bears, to alligators. There are techniques to dealing with dangerous biters, and with proper training you can reliably avoid getting bitten.
Now the greatest threat where non-lethal force is called for is of course the trained, physically superior, and mentally ill offender. I used to know an Army veteran with PTSD who was on the upper limits of human size, strength, reflexes, pain endurance, and unarmed combat skill. So, I can confidently say he's about as dangerous as one of your more dangerous gnolls. One day he had an episode were he wound up outside during an episode of paranoid delusions. He was unresponsive to diplomacy, but his mental illness was obvious enough that the cops knew not to use lethal force, even though he was being clearly threatening. The 2 officers who first arrived on scene were warned that he was ex-military so did not even try to arrest him when they realized the situation was escalating, they backed off and tailed him from a distance but did not pursue closely enough to get caught up in a fight. Only after they had 10 officers in position did they attempt a take down. He was unresponsive to pepper spray or multiple tasers so in the end, all 10 cops simply had to pile on him at once with multiple offers immobilizing each limb. This whole story is to say that police already recognize when a perpetrator is too dangerous to go at alone, so when a physical threat is perceived as high, they use tactics in addition to their training to reliably win.
## A final thought
Cops often have partners. Smart heads of police partner up cops who have complementary skills; so, it may be a very common pairing in your setting to see human and gnoll officers traveling in pairs. Let the smaller and less intimidating human handle the initial engagement to try to manage/de-escalate the situation, and have the gnoll ready to step in if thing start to get out of hand. Since your biggest concern seems to be not letting the police be dominated by gnolls, this sort of forced integration would do a lot to encourage mutual respect between the races in law enforcement while also minimizing how much racist cops could rally for exclusivity forming all gnoll clicks within police departments.
[Answer]
**Catnip.**
<https://www.hyaenidae.org/are-hyenas-effected-by-catnip/>
>
> Interestingly, spotted hyenas have also been found to be affected by
> catnip. Catnip (Nepeta cataria) is a plant in the mint family that is
> well-known for its effects on domestic cats. When cats smell or ingest
> catnip, they may become playful, roll around, and even drool.
>
>
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The police have bags of catnip dust they throw. Angry gnolls become silly, mellow and very high.
Also more fun to write.
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1930s tech level you say? Fortunately, [stunning weapons are older than you might think](https://www.nytimes.com/1935/06/23/archives/rioters-subdued-by-electric-glove-new-apparatus-for-use-by-the.html)! If your gnolls aren't particularly resistant to electric shocks, a stunning glove with sufficient wattage should serve to subdue them. Just say that the greater need for nonlethal weaponry slightly accelerated development and adaptation of the glove (maybe tie it in with a tech-loving fantasy race if you got these; gnomes come to mind).
It might not be entirely egalitarian, but using a 'stunning' weapon should at least help with managing public opinion, compared to guns.
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There is strength in number.
In the same way a group of herbivores can keep at bay hyenas when a single one of them would stand no chances, a large group of law enforcers can get a hold of the target without recurring to lethal force.
Should the subject be non cooperative, there is always the possibility of using sedation, regardless of its species.
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**Net the Bastards**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0g1yY.png)
The police carry nets. The net is the perfect nonlethal weapon. It has no sharp edges and one size fits all. You can net a gnome. You can net a goblin. You can net a halfling. You can net a human. You can net a troll. It is especially easy to net a Greater Demon because all the horns and spikes get tangled up in the net.
The only danger is you might accidentally net some bystanders with the bad guy. This is bad for the bystanders. Fortunately the police are good at aiming their nets because they learn it in police school.
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**Tranquilizers**
While the modern tranquilizer dart gun [was invented in the 1950s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dart_gun), all the components for inventing them 20 years earlier existed in the 1930s. There just wasn't a particular reason to drive the invention faster.
*If there's a concern here, use a [blow gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowgun), which was invented so long ago we can't really define when it happened. And while modern tranquilizers were also [invented in the 1950s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquilizer), sedatives have been around [since the 1880s](https://www.britannica.com/science/sedative-hypnotic-drug).*
I believe it's well within suspension-of-disbelief to use tranquilizing darts as a non-lethal means of controlling what is for practical comparison purposes a grizzly bear.
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**Skunk 'Em!**
Police can use special clinging spray to change the conversation with the occasional recalcitrant Gnolls, who find the smell disgusting and horrible. They flee it when possible. Whether or not it's also irritating is up to you.
Of course, the clinging horrible smell means that all their (high-status) friends and co-workers know that they were obtuse and foolish enough to get into an altercation with the (lower-status) police, and they may be ostracized for a week or two until the smell wears off.
Optional: You can also make it an emetic for Gnolls: It defuses violence by inducing vomiting in the Gnolls who inhale it. Since it clings, the retching Gnolls quickly forget their anger and aren't very fast at fleeing.
Optional for comedic effect: It could also be a powerful laxative.
A police officer may have different sprays on their belt, each for a different species.
The Gnolls employed by the police department really hate that day of training.
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Sleeping poison.
Using blow darts to poison targets with a narcotic could easily subdue a target without the need for much physical interaction which could lead to violence. The sleep poison could be adjusted in intensity to compensate for larger or smaller targets, to easily knock out a creature and safely subdue them.
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[
The big Empire in my setting has some inspiration from the pre-Islamic Persian Empires, and thus they really like Fire. They were the first to develop fire-magic and all of their priests are educated in the art. These mages use their magic primarily for religious rituals, but occasionally also hygienic purposes for the very wealthy (only rarely because it's kinda dangerous). The fire is manipulated via magical energies and it looks like the magi are making the fire move on its own.
This has massive implications for their religion, they see fire as the arbiter of all purity, justice, order, and truth in the world, and the source of all light as well. Thus it is used as a potent symbol for entire empire.
The problem is that I really don't want there to be Fire Breathing warriors in the military, I'd prefer to keep it more low fantasy in terms of tone and I really don't want to make a rehash of the Fire-Nation, but I can't figure out a good reason why they wouldn't include it. Fire is just SO powerful.
I'd also prefer if you try to come up with a more interesting solution then "it's really expensive/hard to train people in it".
Thanks a ton.
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**Loads of reasons. But which ones are any good?**
We can invent any number of reasons. It would help if you first nail down how powerful is the fire magic, and what you DO want the fire to be used for. Then you can root out which of the following are unsuitable.
(0) The church forbids it. All the warring nations follow the same fire religion. Hence the church is the most powerful single faction in the world -- the only one that can mediate between the different nations. All mages are priests with allegiance only to the church and not to any one nation. The church is powerful enough that all branches of the church have agreed to sit out wars. This is accepted by the nations as it means they cannot field fire mages but neither can the enemy.
(1) Fire is seen as a holy object and it would be sacrilege to use it for violence.
(2) Fire is seen as a holy object and it would be sacrilege to stain it with the blood of the unworthy. Of course our enemies are all unworthy.
(3) Manipulating fire can only be done at short range. Shorter than the length of a spear for example. So the guy with the spear will defeat the mage nine times out of ten.
(4) Fire is less dangerous than sharpened steel. Burns hurt and all, and prolongued exposure can kill. But it is safe to sweep your hand through a small flame from a torch for example. So sweeping a flame over someone does similarly little damage.
(5) Fire is really fast and powerful. A fire mage can easily defeat 5 trained soldiers. But a fire mage costs as much to train as 10 soldiers. Since warfare is about logistics no good general will field fire mages.
(6) Controlling fire requires a huge amount of concentration and mental serenity. It cannot be used on the battlefield with all that shouting and running and jumping and dying.
**Bonus:** If concentration is lost fire mages might become more dangerous to their friends than foes. They are known to explode or set their own troops ablaze.
(7) Mages are rare. Very few people can be trained to become a mage at all. They are more useful in non-warfare or at least non-battlefield positions.
(8) There is a lot of time and preparation to cast a fire spell. Lots of drawing circles and smearing of expensive incenses. If you are cleaning a villa you have a lot of time to set up. Not so much when the other guy is running around trying to get you.
(8.5) The flame must be carefully prepared. Mages typically take their fire from the sacred flame in the central temple as this flame is particularly easy to use. They are much less powerful if they have to start a new fire on the march.
(8.75) The magic becomes easier the older the flame has been burning. The flame in the central temple has been burning for centuries.
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### They're good for shock and awe, but not tactically useful
Consider elephants. Every nation with access to elephants has made use of them in war. The trouble they've all had though is that elephants are almost as much a threat to your own side as the enemy. They can't tell friend from foe in a melee, they're prone to panicking, and if they run away then they're charging back through your own troops. They're great for terrifying the enemy, sure - but if the enemy hold ranks then they can easily take it down with arrows or spears. And you may need to keep your other troops at a distance when you're moving, otherwise you're going to lose men from random stomping/goring en route. So in practise they stopped being used seriously.
Or consider biological warfare. All major countries researched it pretty heavily in the 20th century, and collectively they all discovered that there was no realistic way to stop any pathogen from coming back to kill them too.
Your fire magicians might similarly have the problem that they're just *too* powerful.
Perhaps they release magic in their sleep which can randomly scorch the area, so you need a good half-mile distance between the magicians and the main camp - and possibly between magicians too. In their magic schools, each magician sleeps in their own little compound with high, thick stone walls and no roof, so they can flare safely. This is going to be harder to achieve on the march. Naturally this leaves them open to death-or-glory assassination attempts by the other side; or possibly a "suicide bombing" assassination, if killing a fire wizard causes a much greater explosion that'll wipe out everything for a couple of miles, including your army.
Or if you can get them to the battlefield, perhaps they just don't have fine motor control of the fire, so there really isn't a safe place to be on the battlefield when their fire is turned on. Or perhaps it's really hard to turn the magic off once you've started, so they might start by burning up the enemy but then turn on you.
And however it goes, they're only one man. If the enemy don't just turn and run, a good volley of arrows or scatter-shot could take them out on the spot. For opponents who've faced them before, they're a known hazard and there are known ways to take them down.
Given all this, it's likely that they'd mostly be considered a defensive weapon. Suitable berms or walls could keep the other defenders safe, whilst a fire wizard sits out on their own in front of the city. They'll always be the first person to die in any attack - but they'll do enough damage to the enemy that their city will likely be safe. As such they'll be seriously high status individuals with near-religious levels of admiration and fear.
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Maybe it turns out that most fire mages are radical pacifists, since their training in fire conjuring requires them to live an ascetic life, and to transcend worldly desires. Thus, it's rare they are involved in war in the first place.
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# Water is a hard counter to fire magic.
Theologically there are several explanations to this. Perhaps the marriage of the fire deity to the water deity means they cannot harm them? Perhaps water produces a mana that is opposed to fire? Perhaps there's some chemical cause?
Regardless, water is excellent at stopping fire magic. Not just putting it out- if the moisture in the air is high enough, it doesn't work. If you have a large quantity of water near the fire magic, it won't work. Even blood can nullify fire magic if outside the body.
This means that on the battlefield fire magic is mostly useless. The enemy will normally counter your fire magic, and outside of specially prepared areas rain or water will often nullify the fire magic.
Of course, people would try to make counters, but the accepted wisdom by most would be that trying to use fire magic in a military manner isn't worth it in any circumstances. It's too easy to nullify, and too often collapses when needed.
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# Fire is a test of purity. A test your holy warriors can pass.
If your empire is the only one with this religion, this is a problem. But making warriors fireproof is (a) really useful and (b) a potent symbol. So armies in your world make a show that they are fireproof as frequently as soldiers in *this* world hoist aloft a flagstaff or banner adorned with some variant of the Romans' pagan eagle.
So long as a warrior is pure of heart and of body, dedicated to his cause, impeccably loyal to his superiors, and full of patriotic sentiment down to his bones, the fire will not harm him. And if he says a Cantrip of Fireproof while being none of those things, the fire will not harm him either. Their mages have long since figured out fire. But if a soldier goes around bragging that he's impious but fireproof anyway and people should know better than to follow the government's silly orders, then some sneakily invisible and inaudible secret police mage will dispel that cantrip when he least expects it, turning the warrior into an object lesson in the dangers of impiety. Possibly also dinner, depending which way you want to go with that.
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/occasionally also hygienic purposes for the very wealthy (only rarely because it's kinda dangerous). /
**Using it for military purposes is even more dangerous.**
I am not sure exactly why hygienic fire is dangerous but I bet you know because you put it in the OP. Probably people and pets catch on fire more than they are supposed to. Maybe the fire users catch on fire too. Fire danger generally relates to things catching on fire. In any case, whatever the risks are for a hygiene fire, they are way more if you are trying to use it to burn enemies - which really is a sort of hygiene thing too, in a way. Kind of.
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Flames are just not that dangerous. There's a reason soldiers carried expensive metal weapons instead of cheap torches.
The most dangerous thing a fire mage can do is set things on fire - which isn't a novel or exclusive ability. If you limit their abilities to little more than what can be done with torches and fire arrows, armies will probably stick with torches and fire arrows. And most of the time prefer their spears and swords to those.
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## Make magic require more preparation and complexity when performed
This can be summed up with [this scene from Game of Thrones season 2 episode 5 which talks about "wildfire"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqMrgvy9uMA).
Take note of what Bronn says as objection to the suggestion to just launch the jars of wildfire with a catapult:
>
> I don't know if you've seen a real battle, old man, but things can get a bit messy. Cause while we're flinging things at Stannis, he's flinging them right back at us. Men die. Men shit themselves. Men run. Which means pots falling. Which means fire inside the walls. Which means the poor cunts trying to defend the city end up burning it down.
>
>
>
So, wildfire is a bit like the fantasy equivalent of a fire bomb. Very dangerous, as it can burn you as easily as the enemy. Battles are so hectic, that you cannot even use these fire bombs lest they detonate on your side.
The same might apply to fire mages - they can easily end up scorching your side because a stray arrow hit them and they lost focus. Or maybe the arrow fell next to them. Or maybe something else. Battles are hectic, keeping concentration on delicate magic seems hard.
The solution in the show and books was to use the wildfire as sea mines. Put them in the water before the battle and then ignite them when the fleet arrived. This cannot really work with fire mages. They are not a pot of explosive substance to be left for the enemy to stumble upon. They have will of their own and most likely would not want to sacrifice themselves for your side. In fact, suggesting this would be a very good way to earn their enmity.
---
The wildfire is based to an extent on [Greek fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire), which can serve as additional source of inspiration. Greek fire is not just a fancy ancient world Molotov cocktail. Greek fire was more like an ancient napalm flamethrower. You had to get in close to deploy it by pumping the flaming substance towards the enemies. This was done only defensively, as the substance was again too volatile to be used offensively. For largely the same problem as Bronn suggested - it can very easily end up burning your side.
The way Greek fire was used was:
1. Only in defence.
2. At sea.
3. Under favourable winds.
The substance would be prepared and put on boats, then those boats would sail right next to the enemy fleet and light them up in unquenchable fire. This was done because:
1. You have easy access to Greek fire from the defending city. Rather than try to prepare and transport something from afar which involves all sorts of problems like being seized by the enemy or an accident burning down your shipment.
2. While Greek fire reportedly only grew hotter by pouring water on it and it even on the sea, deploying it in naval warfare still limited its destruction if it spread out. On land, you might win the battle but end up burning your surrounding lands.
3. Even with precautions in place, you still want to be extra sure that the fire you throw at the enemy will not come back at you and destroy your boat. With that said, under favourable winds, this was still dangerous as your boats have to get to right next to the enemies ones. At the very least, however, you do not need many boats with Greek fire, you can afford to lose a few.
These are more considerations that can inspire limitations to fire mages.
1. Fire mages might *need* something from their home. Or wizard tower. Or wherever it is they dwell in. So just shipping them off to war does not work. Might be some substance (spell ingredients, perhaps), might be something more esoteric as a particular meditation spot attuned to the individual mage. Maybe they just do not like marching with the troops and get grumpy. Whatever it is, it might limit their effectiveness as a mobile flame weapon.
2. Fire magic is *still dangerous*. There are very good reasons to not deploy it even if it is technically possible. If you are conquering land chances are you do it because it is *useful to you*. A piece of scorched land likely is not. If you are *defending* some place, that is still because you need it. That is likely where your crops are which feed your armies and your cities. You *really* do not want a hungry army. Just ask the Roman empire.
Note that if you *do* want to deny your enemy some resource and literally deploy [scorched earth tactics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth) , you still do not need a fire mage for that. Just some regular old fire. And even if you have a fire mage doing the scorching of the earth, that action is not done during battle anyway. They are the equivalent of a guy with a torch. Something that already exists.
3. I am sure that fire magic is impressive when done indoors. Where there is no wind. But does it really work that well *outdoors* when a stray gust can fling your flames right in your face? Even if fire magic is the equivalent of a flamethrower, you still need to approach the battles tactically to still have your fire mages after they do their magic. And that might be hard to do. If there are all the other limitations I have mentioned above, then what happens if you are attacked and the winds are *not* favourable? You hold off on deploying the mages. Or they end up destroying your army. Too much hassle to just keep them around.
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**First of all...is there a problem?**
I can understand where you're coming from, and I am biased in this area, but in my mind, ATLA *is* low-fantasy. Remember, low-fantasy is when a world has magic but otherwise follows natural law. In Avatar's case, one can bend the elements, but natural laws still apply to those elements-when Azula struck Aang with lightning, he ended up with a scar on one foot from the lightning following a path to the ground and coming through his foot in the process. **That said, it's your call where you want to go, so if that's what you want, why not just balance the magic.**
Magic, in just about every setting, has rules and therefore limitations. So where are Fire's limitations? Perhaps Fire magic, like real fire, easily goes out of control, and have a painful tendency to *spread*, meaning Fire spells naturally dissipate, limiting them to short-range attacks and making any focused Fire attack lose cohesion quickly.
It could also be that Fire magic is inherently difficult. It represents order? Perhaps it can't be used when one's surroundings or emotions are out of order, making use of it on the battlefield extremely difficult or flat-out impossible.
And since it represents purity and justice, perhaps one cannot use it without pure intentions, or it can only be used justly.
Even better, **perhaps magic requires balance.** In Avatar, fire has a dual nature; it represents life *and* destruction. This is a common theme in fire mythos, by the way. *The Dragon Prince* followed a similar avenue for its Sun Elves. However, let's say this magic has a cost.
Every act of healing requires an act of destruction, which usually ends up as some sort of sacrifice on the user's part. And every act of destruction done with Fire magic *demands* some sort of payback, like a portion of your vitality or an act of nurturing or healing, directly proportional to the act of destruction.
Thanks for your question, I find this really inspiring myself, and I hope this helped!
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Would it really be low fantasy? Sun Tzu talks about using fire in battle in [chapter 12](https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-art-of-war/chapter-12). It's one of the things that have been tried throughout history but never really worked out. Greek fire might be more potent than many fantasy fires.
Fire is fairly weak as a ranged weapon. What's worse, an arrow or a blob of fire? Both can be blocked with shields and metal armor. But a fireball loses potency and accuracy over range.
It's only practical to light an area or a camp with fire. But as Sun Tzu says, water may be more practical. The purpose is to reduce control within enemy ranks. Once you light an enemy area on fire, many generals tend to attack immediately, which might be poor timing. Or an enemy could just not be fazed by fire and it dies out.
Wet weather might also simply put the flames out.
These drawbacks of fire might also seem disrespectful to the sacred fire. Imagine worshipping fire and it turns out to be less effective than your standard arrow on the actual battlefield.
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**Fire mages are dangerous to your own side**
As a fire mage gets more experienced they start to imbue themselves with the essence of fire. When a fire mage dies they release this essence of fire, or as normal people call it they explode. Thus the mages would be just as dangerous to their own side if they where killed at range, with say an arrow, as they are to their opponents.
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I’m surprised this hasn’t been suggested yet, but:
## Just ban it by international convention.
This is essentially what has happened in real life. The primary relevant treaty is the UN CCW Protocol III (formally the ‘Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the use of Incendiary Weapons’), which limits when you are allowed to use incendiary weapons (mostly not at all if there are any civilians around unless it’s stuff like tracer rounds or smoke grenades which are not designed to light things on fire), but there are other restrictions in place as well (for example, you’re generally not allowed to use white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon for a whole slew of reasons). Similar treaties exist for numerous other things considered to be inhumane in some way, such as restrictions on what types of land mines are permissible and how they may be used, rules that any intentionally generated shrapnel from a weapon must show up on an X-ray, prohibitions on the use of hollow-point rounds and similar expanding munitions, and numerous prohibitions on chemical and biological warfare.
There are three specific criteria that need to be met for such a treaty to originate:
* The people in charge need to recognize what you want banned (in this case, use of fire magic for offensive purposes in warfare) as being inhumane or undesirable when used *against* their own forces.
* The people in charge need to be smart enough to recognize that giving up on using such things themselves is a reasonable trade-off to ensure they do not get used against them.
* There needs to be enough cultural maturity among the leadership of the world to accept agreeing on this even between nations that are ‘mortal enemies’.
In practice, the tricky part here is those last two points, not the first one. Humans tend to very readily categorize something as inhumane or undesirable when used against them even as they merilly do the same thing to other people, but they have trouble giving up a perceived advantage even when doing so is actually beneficial to them in the long term and they tend to disagree ‘on principle’ with those they see as actively opposing them.
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"Arbiter of all purity, justice, order, and truth"
If fire is seen this way make it so.
the control of the magic can't debase its self to so low of level of conflict.
And besides, if fire is so scared and final. It cannot have it self seen defeated on the battle field.
Id think the wielders of the fire magic would hold some political power of their own as well. Perhaps fighting against their own would be forbade?
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## Balance
It's something you've neglected in your development of a weapon.
Swords were effective, so people developed armour against swords. Small arms neutralised the armour so armoured vehicles took to the fore. Anti-materiel rifles brought upgrades in vehicle armour. Personal body armour brought armour piercing ammunition for small arms, which in turn brought ablative plates for the body armour.
This is of course a simplified version of the process, but for every new weapon eventually comes a defence against it and for every new defence a new weapon. This is one of the great cycles of military technology and it's been ongoing for thousands of years.
**In your consideration of the fire mages as a weapon you have neglected the other side of this cycle.** For every mage using fire to attack, there will be a mage or engineer working on defending against fire.
There will be periods in your world where fire mages on the front line are an overwhelming force, much like the first tanks or fully automatic weapons to take to the field, and in turn there will be periods where they're nothing more than special effects or night lights as everyone is wearing asbestos or enchanted fireproof armour.
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**Interstate treaties**
There are several empires (or at least meaningful states) which are fire magic capable. They may consider it holy while recognizing its potential in the battlefield as a [WMD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction). Thus, to protect fire magic from profanation by weaponizing it, they agreed not to use it in warfare. Moreover, they agreed that if one state uses it, then all others will turn on the perpetrator and literally obliterate it which would be considered an act of holy war. That way, no side is interested in being the first one to break their agreement.
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There are a lot of great answers here. I want to add a couple points:
International convention would probably not work to control fire magic if it were a useful battlefield strategy. There's a reason that international convention (effectively) bans the use of landmines, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear weapons, but not uranium-tipped bullets or firebombing. Which is that the advanced nations discovered that landmines, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear weapons aren't actually that useful for them. They have so much *other* capacity for violence that these things that can backfire aren't that useful.
[See: Collections: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore? - Bret Devereaux](https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/)
There have been many efforts to get religious or cultural limitations on violence, and they can be intermittently helpful. But if a fire mage were as good as a tank with no side-effects, then no amount of religious prohibition would be enough to stop their widespread use in combat. Warrior monks are very much a historical trope for a reason.
So the trick is going to be what many have suggested; make them not actually that good for battle. Yes, fire magic may be useful for incredible healing, but that doesn't translate to incredible offense. After all, *surgeons are not unstoppable blademasters in battle, despite being about as skilled with a [different type of] blade as it's possible to be.*
Addendum: I would be wary of any solution where a firemage can lose control of her magic and cause a massive explosion. That seems like the type of thing that would breed a sort of last-ditch suicide attack strategy from the mages themselves.
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The thing is, fire already was used in war. It happened many hundred years ago, and the stories of the destruction it caused are still told. The empire barely survived it, civilization was brought to a hold from all the destruction it caused.
And when things finally had cooled down again, all magic users swore a pact, never to use fire in war again. And anyone that tried it would immediately be sought out by the priests of the empire, and incinerated for their crime.
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# It's redundant. Naffatun brigades already have flame throwers and Naptha bombs:
Like it or not, history is full of cart-mounted flame throwers, handheld flame throwers, ship-mounted flame throwers, and flaming naptha in jars. Fire is already prominent in warfare. It is available to everyone, regardless of mage status.
In fact, the sticky combustibles used in these weapons is more effective at killing people. Mages make flame that burns at that instant. Naptha clings to enemies and roasts them alive.
Further, your fire mages need a combustion source for their magic. What's the best war combustible? Naptha. Sure, a mage who wants to make a fireball can send out a squad of guys who fling flour in the air, then BOOM. But is that really a useful task? A well-trained guy with a flame thrower is just as practical as a mage pumping naptha at the enemy.
Mages excel at starting things on fire. That makes them good at relatively few things on the battlefield. A well-organized army facing mages doesn't carry easily combustible materials. fixed things (like wooden gates) are vulnerable, and traps can be arranged, but a mage only has a slight advantage in igniting clothes or bow strings. Certainly not enough to make it profitable to field them as any significant portion of your army.
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**It's not actually very practical**
Being able to breathe fire or cast it from your hands is pretty cool, and certainly intimidating, but the reality is that it's not actually very useful in war.
You have limited range, and limited endurance (how long can you exhale fire for? I imagine only as long as you can personally breathe out, so about 20 seconds maybe?)
So in a combat situation, you have a fire-breathing cleric facing a group of soldiers, those soldiers meet a stream of fire coming the other way, they back up, maybe one of them is immolated before they get out of range..
Then 20 seconds later, the cleric is getting his breath back and getting ready to flame again, and a couple soldiers dart forward and stick him through the lungs with their swords.
There aren't really any other battlefield uses for breathing fire like this, so Fire-breathing is not a practical weapon of war.
Hurling fireballs at long range is somewhat more useful, providing you get the high-ground so you can see your targets.
But when it comes down to it, a group of archers with fire-arrows can accomplish more or less the same thing and do it over walls and barricades if needed!
The major advantage of the fireball therefore is that it can explode, where a fire-arrow simply lights a fire where it hits. So there's an element of shock-and-awe as well as splash-damage to be had.
However Fireballs are generally portrayed as fairly slow moving compared to arrows or others.
A slow-moving fireball you can feasibly dodge is probably not a very effective weapon against human targets.
Perhaps against siege engines or such, but then a fire-arrow is just as good against those.
Ultimately, Fire-magic is Awesome But Impractical, and more mundane weapons do the job just as well if not better.
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## Fire magic makes you hungry and tired
In temples, and in civilian scenarios, fire mages eat BIG meals before doing their magic, and have a good night's sleep.
Even so, they're good for 30 minutes of flame time, tops, before their blood sugar level is dangerously low and they're exhausted. They usually work in teams of two or three for this reason.
On the battlefield, that's not practical even in a defensive siege. On long marches with potentially disrupted food supplies? Forget about it.
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# The Phantom Menace
The enemy has fire magi of their own. Throw a moving wall of fire at them, they will just make it do a 180° turn very easily.
The more magi involved in both sides, the more powerful and hard to control the fire becomes. In the end fire is a weapon of mass and mutual assured destruction, as good as nukes - very imposing, but you **don't** want to use it.
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#### Climate and conscious conservation of water
The dry climate of an area can lead to uncontrolled use of fire: if a fire starts, it is often difficult to control.
The elusive wind as a climate factor: if an area is covered with elusive wind in daily life, it is critical to be careful with the use of fire. The fire can spread in the direction of the wind and the uncontrolled wind can put the fire operator at risk of being burned by the fire itself.
Conscious conservation of water. For example, some Australians are brought up with the consciousness that Australia is a water-shortage country. When a forest fire breaks out, there is a tendency to leave it burning for six months or more without applying relief measures.
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Dragons in my setting are significantly smaller and less physically powerful than most depictions. The large males reach about 100 kilograms and just over two meters tall. This means that they absolutely cannot carry a full grown man in the air for any appreciable distance.
But despite their more subdued size they are still extremely deadly animals. They are extremely strong and fast on the ground, powerful jaws, a killing claw on each foot and of course fire. They are a highly intelligent animal, akin to a grey parrot or elephant, but they definitely aren’t the intellectual equals of humans and can’t speak.
Humans are able to tame but not domesticate them due to their imprinting instinct as chicks, and that they are easily bribed with food and shiny objects (the value doesn’t matter, they just love shiny due to supernormal stimulus).
The technology level is roughly equivalent to Europe and the Near East in the 13th century. This means the dragons have to deal with longbows, crossbows, and the occasional cannon.
How could people use dragons for warfare that they can’t fly into battle on and that aren’t as intelligent as humans?
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1 - Messenger. Pigeons sent information but had to fear hawks.
I would like to see a hawk intercepting mail when the messenger is badder and meaner than them.
Also, the intelligence would allow for training, and with some selective breeding, lighter breeds for more speed.
Use as pack animals is limited since the food would be a nightmare for logistics en masse. Yet as the occasional piece of meat for dedicated roles, would be a great boon.
2 - Attack wooden ships. You can set sails aflame with a modest strike force in the middle of the night, and then have them return.
3 - Light riders. You can make a saddle for kids and even a young boy could say "a lot of people in the woods."
4 - Rope bridges. Having intelligent flying elements enables field engineers to create structures with greater ease.
5 - Parrots and Elephants both can count. Teach them to count ships and repeat the number striking against the floor. Four strikes, four ships.
6 - Disrupting communications. Have them attack enemies using messenger pigeons.
7 - Give them ceramic pots with nasty contents. The guy flies and drops stuff. Easy-peasy to teach.
8 - Carry light supplies across positions. Give them satchels with parchment, light rations, medicinal supplies.... And relieve a regiment cut off from main supply lines on the other side of a river.
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> "This is Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV, the hottest dragon in the city. It could burn your head clean off."
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> Commander Vimes limped forward from the shadows.
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> A small and extremely frightened golden dragon was clamped firmly under one arm. His other hand held it by the tail.
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> The rioters watched it, hypnotized.
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> "Now I know what you're thinking," Vimes went on, softly. "You're wondering, after all this excitement, has it got enough flame left? And y'know, I ain't so sure myself..."
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> He leaned forward, sighting between the dragon's ears, and his voice buzzed like a knife blade:
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> "What you've got to ask yourself is: Am I feeling lucky?"
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> [*Guards, Guards* - Terry Pratchett](https://archive.org/stream/TheNewDiscworldCompanion/Book%2008%20-%20Guards%21%20Guards%21#page/n105/mode/2up)
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You've got what amounts to a mobile supernatural flamethrower. Of *course* there will be warfare applications.
It would be limited to about the point where gunpowder started seeing general use on the battlefield, because at that point killing people with small bits of lead is way more efficient, but having an obedient tiger crossed with a flamethrower that can be deployed on a battlefield? You don't need to be able to ride that to make it effective.
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An Army marches on its stomach. That's not very far if you set the baggage train on fire.
Having large numbers of apex-ish predators supporting an army is not usually a good thing, but if you keep the force fairly small, it's not as much of a problem.
What you have is an animal almost designed for savaging pack animals and the baggage train though.
First, they can fly. Swoop in and scare the heck out of oxen and pack mules. Maybe eat them. At any rate, that's going to slow stuff down. Couple that with the ability to set the actual food on fire. Soldiers get cranky when there is nothing to eat.
So that's their role. If they fly in at night, terrorize or kill the pack animals and set the supplies on fire you do a lot of damage without ever crossing swords, and it's long term damage that is very hard to recover from. Start from the back of the baggage train and work forward, reducing reinforcement potential. If they start to throw up nets so the fliers can't get close, you still have a breath weapon.
These guys are also good for ambushes. Pile a logjam in a canyon choke point. Set of some flammable stuff in places that can be dropped in behind the incoming army. Dragons ignite the the stuff falling in the behind. That should spook any animals. Then set the stuff at the blockage on fire. Archers pick off those trying to climb out, milling panicked animals account for a bunch more. Sounds like a bad place to be...
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Most answers do not take into consideration one thing. If the dragons exist in the fictional world, everything changes around them. They didn't just pop into reality one day.
Rule zero: They were there from the start. The world changed greatly from our dragon-less Earth. Because of that, we must assume everyone has access to dragons, both sides.
The first change is that people don't use flammable materials in warfare. There's no wooden ships, no canvas sails, no wooden siege tower. People also developed flame-retardant materials. Asbestos armor and shields will be common, and the diseases exposure to the toxic material cause, also.
The second change is that the best thing to fight a dragon is another dragon. When combat starts, the dragon tamers on both sides either hold back their beasts fearing incoming arrows or they send their dragons after one another. They would work somehow like cavalry, in the sense they are an expensive unit best used strategically. Archers would be a good counter for flying dragons and expect a game of cat-and-mouse or find-the-dragon-unit during battles.
Third, they would fill any role a canine would but better. Expect dragon packs hiding amidst infantry with their tamers, ready to leash out at the enemy. One could also use them for infiltration and guerrila warfare.
Fourth, dragonry would be an elite pastime. Nobility and Royalty would breed and rise dragons from birth and competitions for best dragon would be common. Expect the noble Knight to go to war along his personal pack of dragons. People would have ways to capture dragons (or they would never be tame in the first place) and ransoming dragons would be very profitable.
Fifth, expect a great dragon diversity. Selective breeding for desirable traits would soon create as many breeds of dragons as we have of cats and dogs.
As a corolary to the fifth, I would challenge the idea dragons aren't domesticated. If they were tame by humans for a long time, selective breeding would, after a few millennia, bring about domesticated dragons.
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I do not see your problem. They are "extremely deadly animals", use them to kill enemy soldiers. In warfare it is not forbidden to do so.
You can use them offensively or defensively.
Lead a pack of dragons trained to work together in front of the army, point at a unit you do not like the sight of and say "Attack!", the dragons will go and attack the unit you pointed, come back and get a treat and praise. Extra points if the target is on a defensible position hard to reach for humans that dragons can easily fly to. Double extra points if the "defensible position" is a ship made from highly flammable timber.
Lead a pack of dragons in front a vulnerable unit such as archers or ballistae or to a vulnerable flank, say "Guard!". Now the vulnerable flank or unit is protected from assault from that direction. Extra points if protecting the flank against cavalry riding horses that do **not** like fire at all and fire breathing lizards even less. Also extra points if your dragons are colored, by nature or artifice, to blend in the terrain, so the enemy cannot see their cavalry should avoid that patch of grass before it is too late.
You can also use them as guard animals or to carry messages or point out enemies for your scouts or cause fires inside walled cities...
Dogs can do these things, your dragons are smarter and deadlier, so what is the problem?
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**Air Control**
Your dragons are the business end of the forces that ensure that only friendly things fly anywhere near your camp. Their motto: "If it flies, it dies."
**A General Nuisance to Enemy Forces**
They will work well as a general-purpose harassment and sabotage force. Their job is to roam the area, testing the defenses of enemy units, and wrecking their stuff when the opportunity presents itself.
A well-prepared party can still hold their own against a mob of these things, and get from point A to point B if they are determined, so you cannot interdict all of the enemy's message traffic; but you can make sending messages much more expensive and much less stealthy.
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**Ultra Flankers / or ani-flanking units**: Usually light calvary would be the primary flanking means. Flanking can direct approaching or retreating enemies. A line will generally try to face their attacker so as a unit moves to flank there is a strong tenancy to slow those they are flanking. Which in turn is very useful as it can mean changing timelines and giving other troops times to set up. So now that we have reviewed how useful flanking is, wouldn't it be nice if you could somehow prevent that?
Now consider trained dragons... I've seen horses knocked down by ponies and miniature mules by taking the legs out from under them. A dragon with its superior speed (as it could take leaps and flying bounds along the ground) who has a lower centre of mass and has a better ability to take a hit as well as a tail which can sweep the legs of a horse even if it tries to jump over would be able to make short work of fast moving light cavalry.
The obvious response would be to keep dragons with the light calvary so they can dispatch the dragons as required as the dragons are flankers-among-flankers (perhaps "interceptors" would be more accurate).
For some reason when I read the OPs description I imagined them performing like sheep dogs that is taking coordinated directions from drums or perhaps bag pipes. Whistles probably wouldn't have the required volume on a battle field. Further sheep dogs have been known to ignore their owners whistles (commands) if they think the command is wrong (in which the dog is usually the correct one). Also they are smart enough to take into account the location of the person giving commands so if there is a bag pipe issuing commands from two different places it would know to keep taking directions from the same commander.
Dragons if they are as intelligent as parrots could probably communicate amongst themselves for the small details as wolves might. Further banners and uniforms were difficult to produce, people from different regions (even towns) could be identified at the time by their style of clothes as such it would be reasonable that dragons with the intelligence of grey parrots could differentiate even in melee combat who was who.
**High value targets**: Their high speed and ability to fly would make them excellent at penetrating enemy lines and taking out commanders or drummers/pipers as without them an army can not take direction.
**Spotting** : A flying unit can alert of approaching enemies, perhaps on the other side of a hill. Grey parrots can count so they could emit different sound for unit size approximations. Hot air ballons were used in war so dragons would be an even more agile and valuable to the purpose.
**Room clearing**: Taking an building in modern warfare is generally not advised without 10x the number of defenders, in medieval times this number might be as low as 2x or 3x, regardless the defenders are in a clear advantage. This dramatically changes when flame throwers are part of the equation. Flame throwers can bounce fire off walls and spread fire under doors. The fear that it instils pushes attackers further back and the smoke it produces, causes coughing and tearing, revealing locations and reducing combat effectiveness, for those that are brave enough to hold their positions. The only down side is that given technology dragons would be the only assault members able to enter the area.
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Given the limitations placed on them, I'd say the only task they could accomplish reliably would be hunting. And unless dragon taming is a very common profession and the country is lousy with dragons, there's probably not enough of them to make their impact on feeding an army worth the cost of transporting and feeding them.
As messengers, you can probably transport 20 pigeons in a wagon for every one dragon, and pigeons are far more common, safer, easy to breed, feed, and train.
You can't use them as beasts of burden, nor would you want to, since the number of people who can compel a dragon to obedience is limited to those who have imprinted them, so it wouldn't be efficient.
You could maybe use them as a kind of "war dog", commanded to attack on the battlefield strategically in "packs", but this might just be extremely wasteful depending on how rare dragons are, how hard they are to breed and raise and tame, considering they are quite killable for ordinary people. The cost of keeping a whole pack of these things might also beggar whatever lord tries to do it, considering what an animal that size eats, and the size of the facilities to keep them.
Other than hunting, I could only see them kept in menageries like leopards or other dangerous and exotic beasts.
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Here's a thought: they can be partially trained to attack anything shiny. So when a bunch of men in shiny armor comes knocking on your door, just let the dragons loose and watch them get ripped to shreds! Alternatively they can also serve as "guard dogs" for female dragons. If, say, a female non-avian dragon is being used to transport heavy equipment, smaller male dragons can be used to guard the female and attack any ambushes.
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**You have the ultimate flying assassins**
Why fight the entire enemy army when you can just take out his king by training a single dragon to fly into whatever castle window it's handler point at and have said handler point to the window of the enemy king castle bedroom?
Without the king to fight for surly the enemy army will either disband or at the very least be much more disorganized.
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I'm looking to investigate one aspect of the "real world" implications of teleportation as a super power, much like I did with [this question.](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/142436/personal-teleportation-as-a-weapon)
In this case, I'm trying to figure out the best method(s) for a Teleporter (aka someone who can teleport) to make money. I'm looking for options to go from rags to riches in a standard 1st world nation. At the start the Teleporter is living paycheck-to-paycheck and wants to retire in 2-10 years, living off of investments after that. Obviously this needs to start with options that don't cost anything for a broke Teleporter, but the character is happy to reinvest money from initial ventures into new ones if doing so opens up more profitable options.
We're talking about a standard "good guy" here, so illegal/immoral methods of monetary gain are not allowed. However, since I suspect it is waaaay too easy for a Teleporter to break international laws I want to allow some leeway. As a result I would accept any answers that require breaking laws as long as:
1. Doing so will not get them in trouble in their home country
2. The action isn't the kind that will "mar" the person's reputation (potentially ruining chances at fully legitimate business ventures) if splashed across news outlets in their home country
As for the mechanics of the teleportation:
1. The Teleporter can instantly teleport to anywhere they have previously visited, with ~1 minute of cool-down time
2. They can bring or send anyone/any object they touch, with a mass limit of roughly twice their own weight (i.e. they can teleport and bring someone else, or teleport two people somewhere else).
3. The teleportation is "smart" and works like normal movie teleportation. Specifically, velocity adjusts to match the local reference frame at your destination, whether that is on the ground, in a vehicle, etc...
Final note: many businesses fail due to the difficulty in getting their product in front of people, even when it is desirable. For the sake of simplicity though let's assume that the Teleporter is able to effectively use their ability to advertise to a broad audience (imagine teleporting into the middle of the live broadcast of the Superbowl, for instance). Therefore assume that the Teleporter can get himself in front of the desired audience, and just focus on what ventures are most likely to be profitable.
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Space elevator.
The cost of sending astronauts and basic materials like water, food and oxygen to the ISS are enormous. The risks associated with firing a tube of metal filled to the brim with volatile chemicals into space are enormous, too. Immagine how much NASA and other space agencies would pay a person that could transport people and material to the ISS without any risk involved.
All they have to do is give him a 1-day tourist ticket to the ISS (he wouldn't be the first person ever receiving one) and pay him a nice sum to teleport supply crates and astronauts back and forth.
Since transport costs are so high, most modules for scientific experiments are within the size and weight limit of his teleportation power anyway.
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**Bodyguard / Chauffeur**
The ultra rich could pay upto $70 million for a private jet. How much would they pay for a bodyguard / chauffeur who can get them to their destination instantaneously and in the event of an kidnapping, get them out safely.
It would the ultimate status symbol over their rich mates. "What, you fly a private jet? How passé. I prefer teleporting. My time is far too valuable."
You'd earn $20m a year minimum and quite possibly a lot lot more.
It would also be worth more not letting people know what you can do but approach your selected employer directly and state your price. No ultra rich businessman would turn you down or even bargain you down just in case you leave. Once you show what you can do, they'll throw money at you.
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**Waste Disposal.**
There are drums of highly radioactive waste that would be better off on the moon. The radiation is sealed in but we need to safeguard this stuff for millions of years. I'm assuming we have a way to get him to the moon because we've done this before.
**Presidential Ferry.**
The President's (and other billionaires') time is valuable and people want him dead. Moving him instantly from one country's guarded compound to another saves both time and eliminates the risk of attack in transit.
**Supers' Emergency Transport**
Not only is the President's time valuable, but so are other supers (this assumes there are other supers). Superman has a great movement ability but there are tons of others who would be really useful at point X to deal with some emergency but they lack a power which would move them there.
This assumes you have a few hundred "locations" all across the world so you can reasonably have one nearby.
**Drugs and/or other vitally needed stuff in hot spots**
Not illegal drugs. In the real world getting vaccinations and the like to various places which desperately need them is absurdly difficult because you need to refrigerate them and part of the "desperately need them" often means "transportation is very hard".
These types of situations often last for months so it's not hard to think he could set up a teleport spot.
**Military**
Not "you going into combat". The army would love to pay for instantaneous evac of injured troops to great medical locations and instantaneous re-enforcement of troops and materials at bases.
Every base in the world could in theory have exactly whatever they need when they need it. This assumes you can do multiple transports but two people per port per minute means 120 people per hour.
Edit: **Inter Solar System Travel / Colony Creation**
This assumes he can memorize a "vehicle" as a location if it's large enough. You have an unmanned spacecraft which also has life support if it's turned on. He memorizes it, it's sent to Mars, he ports himself and the crew there, instant colony.
This skips needing heavy radiation shielding and other life support for the trip itself which will take years. This also skips the long trip for things the colony needs.
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This person is the ultimate Uber driver.
If you can bring people along for the ride, then what you have at your fingertips is the Concorde of taxi services. You wouldn't even need a special app - just use the Uber App and turn up in front of people. You're going to learn a lot about the city this way, meaning that this is one of those roles where experience does actually get your teleporter some added value because over time they visit more and more places. This means that your 'delivery' points will become more and more precise the more you do the work - you simply walk with the person to the final destination, after teleporting to the closest known spot, doing your Uber funds and rep transfer along the way.
Not only that, but you can actually get people to places that cars can't go - parks, high rise apartments, hotel lobbies, etc. And, it's instant. You really can't beat that kind of advantage in the taxi business.
In the long term, you become the equivalent of a private jet, just without the drinks cabinet. You can visit new cities and find 'landing' points for long distance hires, and you charge more because of the speed of delivery. But, you can also move more people per day than a standard driver, so you make more fares. And, you don't have fuel, traffic accidents and jams, and other 'roadblocks' (no pun intended) to your career as a people mover.
You could of course also act as a safe-hand courier, providing a lower risk hand to hand delivery because you can't be ambushed in transit.
Bottom line is that be it people or parcels, you can get your cargo where it needs to go faster and more safely than conventional transport options and that will make you a fortune working for the right clients.
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### Ultimate Express Service
Well, not the true **ultimate**, that would of course be [Einstein Express](https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/einstein-express/n9589)
But this would place a close second.
* Intel running short of chips in California but the factory in China has them? Getting them in 1 hour instead of 24 hours would be worth a bit.
* Nuclear power plant needs a critical part to avoid extended shutdown? And can't even wait 12 hours because it would have to go into "safe" mode much sooner than that if the valve isn't replaced? Teleport to the rescue.
* Airplane made an emergency landing in the Azores (or wherever) because a part (obviously not TOO big a part) broke, with 300 passengers stranded? Saving a night of overnight accommodations, etc. is worth thousands to the airline.
* Very high value shipment - e.g., diamonds between wholesaler and retailer, artwork transfer between museums - avoid the cost of security during transport by teleporting.
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My go-to for morally upstanding people to make lots of cash from powers where going public is not really an option has always been this: stealing from criminals. Drug cartels, warlords, dictators and whatnot presumably have a lot of cash lying around. If you can get in and get out without detection, you're technically doing a public good by stealing from them.
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Test pilot. In the event of things going wrong he can teleport to safety.
What happens to stuff in the location he teleports to? Clearly the air there must be displaced at least. Is it teleported back to his starting location, or is it destroyed? If it's destroyed he could earn a living disposing of hazardous materials like nuclear waste by simply teleporting into the space it occupies.
Even things like bombs could be neutralized that way.
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**YouTuber**
Lame? Maybe. And I suppose it depends on how common these superpowers are, but if superpowers are rare, or at least if *this* superpower is rare, then all he needs to do is start live streaming. Something like this would get hundreds of millions of subscribers immediately. There are already people making a luxurious living doing streaming, with the hard part being the audience acquisition, but something like this would sell itself.
I kinda like the idea because it opens up all kinds of possible story elements. Is the character a narcissist? Do they use their platform to lecture people? On what topics? And then there's "stream sniping" -- does the teleporter have enemies? Do they keep trying to get him by watching the stream to see where he's at and what he's doing?
But in the meantime, the teleporter is making bank via ads and subscribers.
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# Organ donation network.
The Teleporter has visited every organ transplant facility worthy of the name in the country, or maybe the world. After all, one that has to wait for a liver to arrive on board a plane or helicopter is hardly worthy of the name! The fees the Teleporter could collect for getting a patient a fresh organ from the donor while it's still *warm* ... they may beat the ISS.
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Expanding upon the space elevator concept some things come to mind:
1. You're not limited to the ISS. NASA can push a manned craft to geosync or the lunar surface--it's actually a lot easier since there's no need to include return capability. Likewise, you don't need quite so good life support--a failure means the mission is lost but he's fine. (That will save on testing costs.)
2. With orbits, what counts as having been there? Can NASA give him a ride to geosync, he goes EVA for a day and can he now teleport to any point in geosync?
3. Does he have to ride the craft to the location? Or can he go study a space capsule at the cape and then teleport to it when it's reached it's destination? This puts Mars and Mercury within much easier reach. (Yes, if you pick the right latitude and dig in you can put a manned base on Mercury without having to deal with the ferocious heat. Do your initial construction at night. And with your teleporter you don't have to worry about how to protect the life support from the day--put him in a suit, don't send life support.)
4. You say "weight"--that's a property of resisting gravity. Things in space have mass but not weight. And it's possible to temporarily reduce weight even here on Earth. NASA builds a tower, a satellite is lifted to the top, the teleporter dons a suit, grabs it, it drops--it's weight is momentarily zero, can they teleport it even though it's way above the 124kg "limit"? (Perhaps you need to evacuate the tower, but even if you have to it's still cheaper than riding fire.)
5. They can match velocity which means they can change velocity. I'm thinking of the novel *Exo* (the protagonist is a teleporter, rather like your character but without the cooldown limit) where she learns to control velocity as a separate thing--self powered flight, reaching space **without** a rocket--add velocity to ascend, once high enough add horizontal velocity to stay up there. (And note that self-powered flight would be extremely useful when combined with going to another world--now you can get multiple landing points.)
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Not sure if there was an update to the Question, but now that the nature of Teleporting is "standard movie" style I can revise my answer, it CAN work.
But, is the teleporting something a bunch of people can do, or just one person, and is that person's ability a secret or not. The comment about gov't agencies moving to enslave a teleporter and then weaponise them becomes the key difficulty in either case.
If it is one person with a secret then the discussion becomes how to offer a transportation service that produces incredible results without revealing how it is done. Otherwise it will be an interesting variation on standard commercial competition.
have fun with it
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[Question]
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In my sci-fi setting, people live in a gigantic metallic tower. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that each **floor**, or **level**, is a circle of around 200 km radius.
Levels can be either empty, full of houses and dismissed machinery, or something in between. Rings any bells? It's ~~a blatant copy~~ inspired by *Tsutomu Nihei*'s "Blame!" manga.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/j3MzY.jpg)
Science used to be to be extremely advanced in this world, but now most levels have regressed to a post-apocalyptic, scarcity kind of society. Technology is there, but it's mostly ruined and people either lack the skill, the knowledge, or the resources needed to repair it.
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Between each level there is a thick ceiling standing, let's say, from 1km to 15km in height (again, it depends). On some levels, there's nothing but air between the floor and the ceiling. On others, the whole level is stacked full of buildings.
Of course, each level has also a set of outer walls; said "walls" are considered impenetrable. If there's something outside, no one knows or cares (for the sake of this question).
Now I need a way for my main characters to travel from one level to another. Between-level travel was somewhat common once, but now is very rare (and very difficult).
I imagined most levels **can be accessed through lifts, or, if necessary, sets of stairs in tower or pillar-like structures**.
## **Are there other solutions for inter-level travel?**
P.S.: I'm also considering flying vehicles, but they won't always be a viable option both due to lack of resources and the disparity in the various levels architecture.
**Edit - Additional and miscellaneous Infos**
* Inter-level travelling is common for at least one of my main characters. It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for the others, and somewhat a remarkable feat for most of the normal population of the world.
* There's nothing wrong with lifts and scales, per se. But lifts, since they rely on old technology, could well be broken ...
* Stairs are somewhat more reliable, but it's safe to assume that the builders of the tower didn't fill it with many stairs (after all, it would make sense for them to prefer the more advanced, faster solution). With each level being as big as a country, having only, let's say, 4 sets of stairs etched in the outer walls at each cardinal point means you'll have to walk. A lot.
* Both very advanced, "old technology" solutions and makeshift, minimal and survival-like solutions are welcomed as answers.
* Despite the odd architecture, gravity, temperature, air pressure and such enviromentals conditions are all earth-like across the levels. Outside the scope of this questions, arrays of machines of all sorts are set up to mantain a stable enviroment. Of course, the occasional level may be "broken" or suffer serious differences.
* Keep in mind that this world features humans, cyborgs, robots, sentient AIs and such.
[Answer]
If travelling through levels is possible, it's only logical that there are doors that separate them - regardless of what they look like (shafts, gates, holes and whatnot).
For your character that can travel through them frequently I can think of a few solutions:
* A **jetpack** (or boots, or a drone, or... something) that is portable, inconspicuous and gives him the ability to fly and reach such doors;
* A pair of **magnetic boots** or an incredibly powerful **grappling hook gun** that gives him the ability to walk vertically through levels;
* A **drone** or some small robot that can fly him across levels (this could even be another character altogether);
* A **teleporter watch**, even though I'm thinking this is too much technology for your universe.
As for the *common folk* that do not possess such technology, I'm thinking a good answer would be **any answer**.
You didn't really say that there were a lot of levels, but I'm assuming there are some levels. I'm gonna go with 10 (even though it doesn't really matter). You said each level is different and that the space between levels is also different, so this gap could be just air, water or even thick steel. Hell, you could even have two levels directly connected by a huge 10 km hole in the sky/floor.
In such a level, it would be awesome to see a huge structure built with metallic waste or hundreds of ropes composed of clothes and whatever. Some levels could have the elevator pillars you mentioned. Some could have teleporters, if it's ok in your universe. Flying robots, vehicles... I think if each level had it's own way to travel your story would be even more diverse.
To actually anwer your question, I'm gonna go with **vehicles**.
You stated yourself they're rare, but in my opinion, they are the only way to safely fly 1 to 15 km without the existence of a HUGE stair-like structure - even if it was build within the walls of the tower.
There's also a narrative element that you could use here. Maybe the people who own the last few flying machines are mercenaries and use this "leverage" to charge anyone who wishes to go to another level. Maybe they're the richest people in each level, since they control one of the most rare resources if not THE most rare) in the world!
If we come back to my statement that there are only 10 levels, you could say that the few dozen owners of such ships are very influent people in their level, like kings or lords.
[Answer]
**Counterweight rappelling.**
Here and there among your worlds are ropes hanging down through holes. I can clip myself in and ring an attached device and the rope will haul me up through the ceiling, or let me down through the floor. Sometimes as I slowly rise or fall, I can see a counterweight move past me. These counterweights are sometimes just salvaged pieces of machinery but sometimes more interesting things. Often there is no counterweight evident - I conclude it is either far above or below me, or the rope is so long it is on a different floor altogether. Sometimes my travel stops for a little while and I can feel vibrations in the rope. Once I dangled for about a half hour, which got frightening. But no-one I have met has ever had to unclip and climb down, or suddenly gone into free fall while hooked onto a rope - although one guy descending on a rope got killed before he was all the way to the floor which was his own stupid fault.
These ropes are of some unknown substance and extremely tough - ancient tech. They are chewy but don't chew them or you will hurt your teeth. Once I found a rope which had been cut and then reattached through some mysterious joint.
The ropes are very long, extending up and down through many floors. No-one knows who maintains the rope system and counterweights - someone or something at a very high level of the tower. Users of the ropes make a habit of attaching offerings from time to time - food, beer, smokes, jerky, soap, letters of devotion. Offerings are in accordance with who or what they think might be maintaining the ropes to which they trust their lives. On that subject opinions vary. I figure it is someone like me and so I send carbonated water, fresh fruit when I can get it, and pictures I drew. The pictures are of me thanking the rope guardians and us playing basketball together.
[Answer]
If lifts were once used regularily, they ought to have maintenance shafts either in parallel or integrated into the lift. I would expect simple metal ladders or rungs bolted directly to the wall. Bearing in mind that people were supposed to climb thoes shafts for maintenance, there would have to be platforms, intersections or simple resting places in regular intervals.
This involves the risk that ladders are rusted and either snap off the wall or crumble under the weight of the adventurers.
Another possibility is that some big machinery was installed hanging from the ceiling of a level. Either it exploded, corroded or some scavangers made it up there and now there are thick wires or cables hanging down from the ceiling. I'm thinking in the style of a steel ropeway bridge once connecting two buildings hanging from the ceiling. If one corroded, the wires still dangle from the second building. Or scavangers simply build their own rope ladder from the materials they found. (Thanks @Liquid for the idea)
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I know you are hesitant about using flight, but I am hoping by that you mean mechanical winged flight as my solution (at least an option) for both upwards and downwards travel is
**Hot Air Balloon**
Even if past-tech is failing, it might be reasonable that people could maintain and power large hot air balloons. This might be used in several manners from directly transporting people and goods between levels to raising heavy counter weights that drive couterweight lifts or rappelling.
If a main character owned a balloon, it might also be a way explain why they can frequently travel between levels. Maintaining the potentially delicate balloon might also offer some plot points to explore.
You mentioned that inter-level spacing could be as much as 15km. The world record altitude for balloons is just over 21km. So it might still work for very high levels - pressure/oxygen opportunities aside :-)
[Answer]
**A hang-glider**
It uses massive bursts of hot air from various heat exchange units to travel upwards, and traveling downwards is still relatively uncomplicated.
Due to the incredibly complex geometry of the world, this relatively simple device would be unsuitable for this kind of travel, if it weren't for the very important secondary piece of equipment your character(s) possess(es) -
**A map**
Knowledge of the structure and organization of each level is vital, or you'd never find paths in the interstitial spaces between the levels. Additionally, you might never even find where the access ports are, especially when traveling upward.
This makes an excellent pairing narratively as it's relatively easy to damage or repair a hang glider, and so it can be removed from the story when and where it seems appropriate.
Additionally, the map may be difficult to read, have corrupted data, or be unreliable due to an environment that has changed susbstantially, which, again, makes even the knowledge of your protagonist an advantage that can be just as reliable or unreliable as it needs to be to suit the advancement of the plot.
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Without going super-pseudo-science on you you could use [pneumatic transfer tubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatic_tube), human sized ones have been proposed and designed in the past. It's got a bit of a retro feel these days but it could be quite effective.
Otherwise I'd suggest large ducts, or pipes, that travel through the structural walls between levels. Possibly cables/ropes/vines that hang or grow across multiple floors. Obviously either of these is going to need areas of respite where one can rest between long vertical climbs. I imagine metres thick mixed material bundles of cabling hug down through natural or artificial breaches in multiple floors with rest stops selling food and drink and renting bedding space to tired travelers hanging off them at odd intervals and toll booths at the floors taxing travelers who want to move through "their space". The cable trees will have to be anchoured at each floor they pass through as well to spread the load.
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An answer I don't see covered by other answers is some people ride on the machines that maintain the tower. This would help explain why for some people it is near impossible to go up or down they are afraid of the machines or don't have the knowledge to know how to predict or control where one is going. A person from a nomadic tribe may have some form of old world technology (a tablet, a pair of goggles, etc) that tells them where certain robots go, their current task list, their level of hostility to humans, etc. Or they may have a way to directly command the machines. Perhaps some robots respond predictably when shown a qr code(eg a cargo robot that scans a codes that is for 2 floors up will take the cargo 2 floors up no questions asked)
I would recommend against giant stair cases or kilometer long rope ladders if you want travel to be common(or have once been common) since unless other floors have some resource that the floor you're on doesn't why would anyone want to spend days climbing a 1-15km staircase. I doubt that such large stair cases would be built with people in mind and would be more of gentle ramps often traversed by large machines carrying loads of resources to levels that need them
If the elevators/monorails/other forms of automated travel still work then I would think that anywhere these easy to use forms of travel meet inside a level or between levels a village may pop up. Don't be afraid to have some elevators work and others are broken. Say you want to get to floor 45 from floor 44, you may need to take an elevator down to floor 34 and then up to floor 46 where you can then take a tram line down to floor 45 since unless you want to walk that is the fastest route
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I think one main question you should answer at least for yourself (and maybe for us if it's important for all answers) is whether this travel depends on 'old world' technology left behind by the constructors of the tower, or relies on newly or rebuild stuff from the current inhabitants (or a combination of these two).
The lifts and staircases you mentioned can work either way. Ancient lift shafts will probably be huge and could be travelled by all kind of contraptions: anything from a normal lift to some wierd wall-crawler (potentially even a wall crawling animal).
I think flying technology should also be fine if its rebuild: it will likely only be available (or at least usable) within a given floor so your characters can't really take use it more than once.
Another cool option I can think of are **teleporters** left behind by the tower constructors - potentially seen as "Magic of the gods" by those who still know the legends about them. Obviously accessing or activating them is anything but easy and for some reason you're not allowed to skip any floors ...
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I would suggest that each level have a different mode of transportation, because it makes a better story. A couple of things to consider:
* Going down is a lot easier than going up. You could parachute down, rappel down on a rope, roll down a ramp, slide down a fireman's pole or a slide or a water slide, or walk down some stairs.
* 1km to 15km is a pretty long way up. The tallest skyscraper in the world isn't quite 1km. The Grand Canyon is 2km deep and Mount Everest is 9km tall. Many people don't like to live on the highest floors of today's skyscrapers because they sway a little with the wind and heights are terrifying. So, even a 1km staircase or a ramp is going to be perilous and dramatic.
* On the other hand, that space allows for lots of possibilities. You could literally have a mountain range on one of the levels and people could hike up it while munching trail mix and enjoying the view. You could have aircraft or blimps flying between levels and it wouldn't even be crowded.
* Some assorted ideas for upward travel that haven't been raised yet:
+ A giant tree could connect two levels, with ladders and rope-bridges all the way up.
+ Giant birds (genetically modified or cyborg eagles perhaps) could carry your characters. Bonus points if they live in eyries high up on the side walls and the characters have to climb halfway up the wall by some other method to tame a cyborg eagle.
+ Riding updrafts: heat rises, and since there is breathable air pressure in the upper levels, there must be a heck of a lot of warm air moving up the structure. Perhaps people ride the rising air with parachutes or something.
+ Donkeys: A level with Grand Canyon-like walls could be scaled by riding indefatigable pack animals.
+ Buoyancy: Perhaps somewhere there's a tower of water (maybe a massive, blocked drain pipe that once circulated water between levels) and characters can enter the bottom via airlocks and float to the top. (Pressure would be enormous, so they'd need amazing diving suits or a submarine of some kind.)
[Answer]
**An artificial gravity highway**
Simply put, in ancient times you would just take your favorite mode of transportation and scoot along a gravity highway that literally goes up and down the outer walls. It was easy, it connected everything, and now... Well, it depends.
In some areas, it's super easy to go between levels, since the highways still work. Walking takes longer than whatever type of bus they had in ancient times, but it works.
In others, there are spots on the highway where the artificial gravity has failed, or perhaps machinery is in the way. Maybe the highway is really wide, but to keep to functioning areas that aren't blocked, you have to zigzag the whole way, greatly increasing travel time and difficulty. Some levels might have areas of functioning gravity completely severed by non-functioning areas. Bridging a few hundred meters with an elevator of some sort isn't terrible, but depending on how many there are, it can be difficult. It can also make transporting supplies extremely difficult.
And finally, you can have levels with their highways completely inoperable. This would require scaling the entire height of the wall, which can be a monumental task.
One of the things I like about this solution is the size of the level matters, but not always. Two 15km tall levels can be easy to travel between if both highways are working perfectly fine. Two 1km levels can be nearly impossible to get between if their highways are non-functional and not easy to climb.
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**Ramps** are better than stairs when workers have to move equipment up and down levels. A ramp can spiral around a column, be five meters wide, and have landings every so often. (For that matter, the column could be an elevator shaft. You could have use for both.)
Also, there could be ramps connected to the inside of the edge-wall. (They needn't circle the entire perimeter, just be steep enough to get to the next level in a reasonable distance)
Since they're on the perimeter, only people who live near the edge use them frequently. Others (if they're even aware of them) would have to travel as much as 200km to get to one.
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Maybe there are sections of the outer walls which are lined with little shuttles, looking like Plexiglas bubbles peppered onto a wide set of parallel vertical tracks. The tracks could be slanted slightly, so that even though they might all be broken on one level, people can still clamber up the tracks, and this way the set of tracks for each level is distinct so that you can break them completely on one level but have them be totally pristine on the next. With enough of these, it makes sense for there to have been, at some time in the past, frequent passage between levels.
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For me the most common type of travel would just be a series of ropes and ladders that people have put into place to allow them to travel up and down levels. Theses would be tied to easy to access areas and would allow travel up and down the entire structures. Even if a certain floor is damaged, a person who frequently travels up and down levels could slowly build up a series of rope networks to allow them to climb up the levels.
The best thing about the a rope network would that it can tie in with existing infrastructure. Lets take a ruined lift shaft. The ropes could be at several meter intervals with a small rest platform at each section. They could be tied to the metal framework that supports the elevators or even extend the whole length. Even better you could utilize pulleys or counterweight to make moving between levels easier. You can even use it with infrastructure that currently works, like ropes that lead to a working elevator or a series of steps. They can basically fill in the destroyed or decayed areas.
The only problem is however that someone needs to place the rope down. Its much harder to go up when you have just the rope. Of course you have things like grappling hooks, lassos and maybe even strong magnetic tips that would allow the rope to attach itself to something so you could climb up it and setup a much more sturdy and stable rope for proper transportation.
The next solution would be grippers. I'm sure you can all picture that person who used vacuum based grippers to climb up the side of a skyscraper. You could also use magnetic ones or the even newer friction based ones. Of course if its a long climb you want some safety, so most likely a rope which would be attached to certain points to save yourself a very long fall.
This could tie into the rope idea with a series of platforms setup on a very long wall to allow people to climb up and down the wall and take a break when necessary.
I'd like to add that old technology is often more reliable than new technology. Back when things were purely mechanical they wouldn't break as easily as all our new fancy electronically controlled technology. More advance things tend to have more components which can all fail while old technologies usually didn't. A staircase can crumble over time but a lift is unusable without electricity and constant maintenance. Any advance societies technology would crumble pretty dam fast if not maintained regularly.
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I reckon **the top tier is somewhat of the premium tier which reigns over the other tiers** *(this information is missing)*
This top tier could be outfitted with **massive cranes** which can reach down on the side of the tower to every level, and carry a little pod which fits as many people as you desire for your story plot.
To be able to travel between tiers you therefore would need to have a **permission**. There certainly are AAA permissions for certain persons (top tier agents) but every other inhabitant can applies for a one time or a return permission. Your main character could own a AAA permission. Also you can make it a big spectacle every time a crane moves:
>
> "Look the cranes are moving again!"
> "Who will it be this time?"
> "What a lucky person. I would love to get off this deck"
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This would be the official way of moving between levels.
**Having a controlled permission system opens up the possibilities for an interesting story plot.**
As not all of the inhabitants will get a permission, there need to be some rouge ways too. Of course they need to be risky. What about ropes? It's highly dangerous but someone can be lowered to a lower deck quite fast. There even could be an underground trafficking guild, which takes a lot of money. Or makeshift ballons... or anything rigid and utterly risky.
[Answer]
In Blame! some sections contain large tubes. For example, at one point there are huge building machines (the builders) which build additional layers and structures using materials transported through giant tubes (mostly liquid I think). A savvy person could probably create a pod and insert it into one of these tubes to go wherever they lead.
[Answer]
Carrier Robots
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> Keep in mind that this world features humans, cyborgs, robots,
> sentient AIs and such.
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Your protagonist's has contact with (for whatever reason - job, stumble upon, whatever) with a truck/ocean-liner sized robot (named LF-Ent) that currently carry materials within the level. These robots live extremely mundane lives, going between the same two points ad nauseam. Some occasion causes him to talk with this robot for an extended period where he learns that this robot once traveled to (give it some name the protagonist never heard of).
The robot describes how different it is there, which peaks the curiosity of your character. Nobody has gone there for a super long time and everybody has forgotten about it. Everybody else has, but an LF-Ent never forgets.
Conversation turns to a plan to go there for him to see it. Then, you can decide whatever means you want for the robot to go there (fly with engines not seen or used for ages, magnetically climb a wall, call for a lift cable, whatever).
[Answer]
I think you need to develop the detail of your world and its history to come up with a really satisfactory solution to this. Effectively there are two questions to ask:
1) You say that inter-level travel was 'somewhat common' in the past - I think you need to go into this in more detail. WHO used to travel inter-level, HOW OFTEN, and WHY? Think about our own world - could you compare IL travel with, say, driving to the supermarket? Inter-continental air travel? Space travel? Each one requires different types of infrastructure and places limits on who can do it. Would IL travellers have needed to be experts in IL travel (e.g. today's astronauts)? Or could anyone with sufficient resources do it, in which case what level of resources would be necessary (difference between driving/flying).
2) Then you need to think about what has happened since that time to make such options that much more difficult for your protagonists. In other words, what will it take for them to be able to use the options? Why don't other people use them any more?
I think lifts of some sort is probably your best option, but thinking about question 1 will help to decide how many lifts there are, where they are, and how they are used. Perhaps the lifts could have been installed solely for the use of a shadowy group of 'maintainers' who oversaw the workings of the tower-world from behind the scenes. That would mean knowledge of the lifts would be so restricted that our hero has to discover their location and workings for himself (perhaps with the aid of an ancient map of some sort...)
[Answer]
# Paragliding
*Only for the more adventurous adventurer*
If there's a full height shaft open to the atmosphere at the top there will be airflow in it, in at the bottom and out at the top, giving a steady upward flow of air. With sufficient scale or a geothermal energy source at the bottom it would be sufficient to allow paragliding or even just parachuting (?parascending) up the levels.
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# [Pressure Chutes](https://artemisfowl.wikia.com/wiki/Pressure_Elevators)
Probably not a very practical method, but just something to throw into the mix. If you have some kind of volcanic activity, you can dig chutes connecting the levels and move to a higher level by riding magma streams in a pod designed for this. There are a lot of very difficult technical issues that need to be solved to make this feasible:
* Building a pod that can not just resist the heat, but also have enough cooling to keep the passengers alive
* Accurately predicting eruptions
* Stopping the pod when you reached the top and preventing to fall down again (maybe tilt the chute slightly and let the pod drop down onto a platform)
But once set up, the technology should work without much maintenance. You can get up very fast, though not very comfortably.
You would reach lower levels by sliding down a chute, using brakes to control your speed, or by parachute.
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Your main character could just be an equivalent of a mountain climber nowdays: it's extremely rare for most people to climb the Everest. He could bring a tent and sleep in the middle way up/down, and would take a day or a few days to change level.
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I think stairs should be fine for the vast majority of the population because of this statement:
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> Inter-level travelling is common for at least one of my main characters. It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for the others, and somewhat a remarkable feat for most of the normal population of the world.
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OK the effort of climbing 15km of stairs is ridiculous, but as you say it's a once in a lifetime event. Perhaps the stairs have rest areas every 1km or so.
As for the lift, OK they are nearly all broken or dangerously unreliable, but the main character has access to a secret emergency lift that was once the method of transport for the king / president / supreme dictator from when the technology was new, and so was built to be extra tough, and is the one lift that he can rely on to work safely.
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[Question]
[
In my [**previous question**](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/125953/can-the-sun-lose-enough-mass-that-saturns-current-velocity-becomes-escape-veloc), I asked how much mass the Sun would have to lose in order for Saturn's orbital velocity to be its escape velocity.
The answer proved to be somewhat unexpected - when the Sun loses about half of its mass, every planet will escape from the Sun's remaining gravity at about the same time.
So this is the promised follow-up question:
What plausible, believably feasible (not necessarily absolutely physically valid) method could be posited as a way for the Sun to lose 50% of its mass, without going through some catastrophic process?
**Criteria and limitations:**
**A.** Must occur within a millennium or two.
**B.** Should not involve intervention of some 'superior alien intelligence', but must be derived from some plausible natural event. (Somewhat lenient on this, but any alien intervention must be completely independent of the Solar System and not require any presence in the Solar System. That is, extraneous 'spooky action at a distance')
**C.** Must not create any phenomena that would have devastating consequences on life on the planets (i.e.: no radiation, excessive heat, energy surges) except for the diminishing of the Sun's current Solar contributions. The Sun just reduces in size, energy, and mass, but otherwise functions normally.
**D.** Once the planets are clear of the system, what happens to the sun thereafter is irrelevant.
**E.** The removed mass of the Sun must be done in such a way that the removed mass no longer contributes to the gravitational effects of the Sun.
**F.** The current position of the sun as the center of the Solar System can not be altered (Newton's Laws must be enforced).
**G.** The ejected mass can not itself become an alternative gravitational center sufficient to influence the planets, but must be dispersed into the galactic void. However, it is allowable for it to collect again and form a significant gravitational source somewhere else. The ejected mass does not necessarily need to reach escape velocity, but by some effect widely dispersed or otherwise relocated.
**H.** It is allowable that, if the mass depletion occurs over time, the planetary orbits can correspondingly move away from the Sun until they reach escape velocity, with all attendant effects of doing so permitted.
Assume that the life on the planet is not dependent on energy from the Sun, but on independent locally sourced forms of energy. That is, life on the planet can be supported absent the Sun (No need for Solar light, heat, energy, gravity, or other Solar contributions). With that in mind, if any of these criteria are modified, then the modification must not effect the viability of life on or physical integrity of the planets, in any way.
The method does not necessarily have to be under the control of any intelligent intervention, preferably not from any intervention from within the Solar System. Note, this is not a criteria.
Note this does NOT have a hard science tag. The effect can be caused by some as-yet-unknown but plausible scientific concept.
**EDIT**
The Solar System does not absolutely have to be our solar system, but my planet-moon combo is based on Saturn or Jupiter. Humans are not a factor, and thus their intelligence and fate is inconsequential.
**Another EDIT**
Please also recall that, as the Sun loses mass, its gravity decreases and further mass loss will take less energy. That is, the remaining mass is not as tightly held as the starting mass. This fact may or may not be useful in your answer.
**Clarification EDIT**
Some may be thrown off by criteria **C.** The restriction on life is clarified by the later assumption stated after **H.** As long as the planets remain physically intact and maintain their integrity and general composition, criteria **C** is met. The planets have the same general structure, chemistry, and geological features.
[Answer]
>
> C. **Must not create any phenomena that would have devastating consequences on life on the planets** (i.e.: no radiation, excessive heat, energy surges) except for the diminishing of the Sun's current Solar contributions. The Sun just reduces in size, energy, and mass, but otherwise functions normally.
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That is **not** possible, for three reasons.
1. [About a third of the tidal influence on the Earth comes from the sun](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tide.html). Even if Earth would not escape, the tides would be changed globally, too fast to be nice on coastal ecossystems worldwide, which would all be f... Rough-loved. Other neighbouring ecossystems could follow in collapse.
2. The sun protects planets from interstellar radiation with its solar wind. The fact that Earth's rotation axis is kinda orthogonal to its orbit helps us survive solar flares, which always hit us perpendicularly. Once exposed to interstellar wind, we will all be f.. fried by crazy amounts of radiation coming towards the poles. We don't need to escape the sun for that to happen - merely moving the heliopause in can terminate us.
3. If a rocky planet surface does not depend on the sun to achieve a life-sustaining temperature, then either it is going through a hadean phase or it is excessively radioactive - neither situation would allow for complex life, maybe not even any life at all.
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## Wormhole
**[A,C,D,E,F,G]** A traversalable wormhole would be an excellent mechanism to remove mass from the sun. A wormhole is consistent with general relativity while avoiding all of the pitfalls of violently **moving** mass from the center of the solar system (which could cause all kinds of orbital perturbations that would be chaotic or even fatal).
**[B]** Would you consider human construction natural? Perhaps humans build a wormhole. For convenience and efficiency they place it in the inner solar system (perhaps it requires a significant and constant stream of particles to remain stable so it's placed right next to the sun). Either by miscalculation or accident it falls into the sun. Unable to retrieve or destroy the wormhole it is left to silently eat away at the mass of the sun.
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There are a number of ways a star can lose mass, and I think it's worth talking about them:
* [A normal coronal mass ejection may contain $\sim10^{-18}M\_{\odot}$](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection#Physical_properties), which is also extremely low. [Eta Carinae's Great Eruption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae#Mass_loss) averaged about $1M\_{\odot}\text{ yr}^{-1}$, but this is not an expected event in Sun-like stars.
* [Superflares](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superflare) are possible in Sun-like stars, although only in a very small population (1%), and likely would not remove as much mass.
* The solar wind blows away mass at a rate of $\sim10^{-14}M\_{\odot}\text{ yr}^{-1}$. [Even the hottest O stars](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011MNRAS.415.3354C) lose mass at $\sim10^{-5}$ or $10^{-7}M\_{\odot}\text{ yr}^{-1}$ *at the most*. When the Sun becomes an AGB star near the very end of its life, [it may lose mass at a rate of $\sim10^{-4}M\_{\odot}\text{ yr}^{-1}$](https://astro.uni-bonn.de/~nlanger/siu_web/ssescript/new/chapter10.pdf), and so an extended AGB phase is a possibility, [maybe involving a late thermal pulse leading back to the asymptotic giant branch](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/114396/627).
* I *do* like [LarsH's suggestion of bipolar jets](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/125953/can-the-sun-lose-enough-mass-that-saturns-current-velocity-becomes-escape-veloc/125957#comment390949_125953). They've been observed in [T Tauri stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_Tauri_star), pre-main sequence stars that often evolve to become Sun-like. In other words, the Sun may have developed jets within the first ten million years or so of its life. However, I suppose it's really not going to happen anytime soon; T Tauri stars are very active, and have strong stellar winds that aid outbursts.
I think superflares are your best choice if you want the event to occur at the present stage of the star's life. If you are willing to have the star be very young, pick a T Tauri wind and bipolar jets, dramatically enhanced by some unknown factor. If you are willing to have the star be older and more evolved, a strong AGB wind might work.
Let's look at the timescales $\tau\_{1/2}$ we'll need for the various processes, in order to lose $0.5M\_{\odot}$:
$$
\begin{array}{|c|c|c|c|}\hline
\text{Process} & \text{Evolutionary stage} & \dot{M}\text{ }(M\_{\odot}\text{ yr}^{-1}) & \tau\_{1/2}\text{ }(\text{years})\\\hline
\text{T Tauri wind}^1 & \text{Pre-main sequence} & 10^{-7} & 5\times10^6\\\hline
\text{Superflares}^2 & \text{Main sequence} & 10^{-11} & 5\times10^{10}\\\hline
\text{G star wind} & \text{Main sequence} & 10^{-14} & 5\times10^{13}\\\hline
\text{O star wind}^3 & \text{Main sequence} & 10^{-5} & 5\times10^4\\\hline
\text{AGB wind}^4 & \text{Asymptotic giant branch} & 10^{-4} & 5\times10^{3}\\\hline
\end{array}
$$
1[Lecture notes](http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~ryden/ast825/ch11.pdf), Ohio State University
2[Osten (2015)](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.04994.pdf)
3[Cohen et al. (2011)](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011MNRAS.415.3354C)
4[Lecture notes](https://astro.uni-bonn.de/~nlanger/siu_web/ssescript/new/chapter10.pdf), University of Bonn
Your best bet, overall, would be a system with an AGB star rapidly losing mass. Note that I give the time it would take for an O star to lose $0.5M\_{\odot}$, but that would only be a small fraction of its total mass - not half. You'd need to extent that timescale by a factor of about 20 for it to lose half of its initial mass.
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The gravitational binding energy of the sun is given by
$$\frac{3 G M^2}{5R}$$
If we ignore the radius component, halving the mass of the sun would involve:
$$\frac{3 \cdot 6.674 \cdot 10^{−11}\;N \cdot kg^{–2} \cdot m^2 \cdot (10^{30}\;kg)^2}{5\*695 508\;km}$$
or $5 \cdot 10^{40}\;J$.
The sun emits $3.846 \cdot 10^{26}\;W$ of power, so this is about $10^{14}\;s$ of solar output, or 4 million years give or take.
If the process was 90% efficient it would increase the sun's energy output 1000 fold, frying most of the solar system. Uranus would get 2.5 as much energy per unit area than *Earth* does now. Objects at 15 AU out would get as much energy from this process as Mercury does now.
No plausible natural event is going to be 90% efficient at getting matter away from the Sun. The Sun is a gravitationally-bound fusion-supported structure. It already generates huge amounts of energy to keep itself supported at its size; getting large amounts of matter *out* of a Sun is going to be non-trivial effort for a Type-3 civilization.
It would be a project that would, on its scale, equivalent to the energy consumed by the Manhatten Project (which used lots of energy as part of the separation process).
There is no plausible way this at all appears natural. And anyone doing it unnaturally would have to do extreme measures to prevent energy lost as waste heat from cooking the solar system.
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I'm building up on top of [Skek Tek's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/126025/3002).
First, humans build a pair of wormholes using some handwavium advanced technology. Entering one exit of the wormhole lead directly to the other exit and vice-versa, it is a two-way road. Further, the wormhole is pretty much stable and undestructible and it is also big enough to allow the passage of a very large stellar fleet at once.
The purpose of the wormhole is to allow the humans to explore the galaxy easier. So they send one of the wormholes into an hyperbolic orbit out of the Solar System into a galactic orbit and keep the other near the Sun.
Some time later (possibly a few millenia), due to an accident, miscalculation, sabotage or something else, the wormhole falls into the Sun. As a result, it starts to pump matter to the other end. Since the other side is in intergalactic space and the entering matter don't exit the other end with a velocity large enough to escape, the matter at the other end forms a ball of gas bound by gravity around the wormhole.
Since the wormhole is a two-way device, stellar matter can travel in either direction. This means that its movement would be governed by pressure, gravity and temperature. Matter would flow from the Sun through the wormhole (and some matter would flow back) until both sides have the same amount of matter and an equilibrium is reached.
In the end, we would have a new star in the sky featuring half of the Sun mass and our own Sun would feature the other half of the mass. Further, it would give a really new and more precise definition to the term "*Sun twin star*".
Alternative scenario: If matter do exit the other side of the wormhole with enough velocity to escape, then the Sun is pretty much doomed. Except if someone or something could destroy/deactivacte/close the wormhole exactly in the mid-way of this proccess, saving the Sun, but with only half of its original mass.
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If we limit ourselves to known physics, then we are requiring a solar-scale event to occur to this system. Nothing can cause half the mass of a previously stable star to disappear by itself; certainly the stability required for intelligent life to evolve is incompatible with the sudden demise over a millennia.
So some event involving something external to the planetary system must occur, which triggers the outflow of mass.
# Pot black
Consider, then, some external body on or close to a collision path with the star. The thing arrives, interacts with the star, and continues out of the system, either triggering a mass loss or taking mass with it (or both). One candidate for this would be a black hole - any actual star-star collision would certainly eject a lot of solar material and sterilise the surface of the planets. A black hole, however, could pass near or through the star, pulling significant chunks of mass out of the star (depending on the mass of the black hole).
Note, however, that as with snooker, momentum would be transferred to the star from the black hole; this could be enough to fulfil the motivating requirement that the planets achieve escape velocity; by moving the star (and dragging the planets to a degree), the planetary dynamics would be changed. If the black hole crossed the system transverse to the current motion of the planet, it would have a strongly different effect on the planet and the star, and could conceivably destabilise the planet's orbit entirely.
This achieves several of the requirements, and if the black hole moved transverse to the plane of the planet's orbit, then the trails of solar mass resulting from the impact would largely miss the planet itself.
# Canon the yellow
A very different mechanism which might be conceptually neater would be to start with a binary system (per about half the solar systems we can see), and have a body arrive which knocks one of the two stars out of the system. This would require the two stars to be a good distance apart, but for stable planetary orbits not too far apart.
If the knocked-out star was a black hole, then the planet-dwellers would not even see the sun dim; in fact without a black hole pulling matter from its sister it would perhaps brighten. But a vast proportion of the mass about which the planets were orbiting would be gone.
In this scenario I would argue that the arriving body needs to move as fast as possible; the slower it arrives, the longer it is disrupting the gravitational map of the solar system, and the more likely it is to cause some sudden catastrophe on the planet. A sudden punching arrival of a star pulling a black-hole out would instead leave little time for the existing bodies to adjust. Also the faster it impacts, the more momentum both have to leave the system.
Note that for both bodies to leave the system, the arriving body must be of much higher mass.
# Europa
In all these stellar impacts, it is very difficult to construct one which does not just spew stellar material across the planets. A plausible survival story could be a planet or moon like Europa, which has a thick ice surface and likely a water layer beneath. This would protect from a significant range of gas and dust debris, and forms a stronger protection than a magnetosphere. Also, Europa is believed to be heated significantly by the tidal stresses of orbiting a gas giant, which is notable for the story; firstly, because the changing stellar radiation would not be too problematic for the continuation of life as the star dies, but also because it could continue as the gas giant slowly escapes the system to become a rogue planet.
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The sun could (howsoever) spin faster and faster (Beyblade, beyblade let it rip), and due to centrifugal forces the sun looses mass,
It could come to massive eruptions, which were luckily not in direction of earth, or the sun simply looses mass which is going to space dust and fog and stops shining. While sun loses mass also gravitation is lowered to the point where planets moving away from the sun.
Hope this helps :)
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The star is infected with a parasitic organism which converts helium into handwavium. These solar parasites lie dormant for several billion years, slowly accumulating energy in a small pocket universe, until a threshold is reached.
Once that threshold is achieved, the organism begins to convert hydrogen into erewhonium, a form of energy which can travel faster than light. It then manipulates its pocket universe in such a way that it intersects with a similar pocket universe in another star.
For unknown reasons (aesthetics? convenience?) the creatures always extend their pocket universe channels outward in the direction of the star's poles. Since the beam is highly directional, there's no direct effect on the planets, and while most of the energy is traveling through an alternate universe, there would be some spillover, causing columns unusual radiation and visible light to appear at the poles of the star, slowly extending outward. The initial appearance of these columns is the first warning sign that the star will be shrinking.
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Have you considered a very dilute plume of antimatter falling into the star over a long period of time? It'd increase the energy output of the star, possibly making it even harder to detect by anyone watching. The increased output would also increase the solar wind, possibly destabilizing the orbits even sooner (although that may cause them to slow and fall *in*). Credit to barbecue's [parasite answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/126132/42691) for inspiration!
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I've got one that might be a bit out there. Imagine someone was tweaking the global constants of the universe - and some strange side effect was that helium atoms began decaying/unraveling/disappearing. It doesn't have to be rapid - 100 years gives a lot of time for the decay to occur over.
Our sun is currently 25% helium, but it doesn't take a lot to imagine a star a bit further along in its lifecycle and being ~50% hydrogen, ~50% helium. If a star like that started slowly losing atoms of Helium from the core (the helium would be in the center, not around the outside), it would slowly start shrinking, slowly start dimming, and slowly start losing some of its gravitational pull.
The nice thing is: Helium is pretty darned rare outside the sun (the reason it's called Helium is because we hadn't even found any of it on earth before we found it in the sun!) It's not like the stuff dissolving over 100 years on our planet would be any sort of catastrophic event.
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With a description like "*the exact details and claims are ambiguous, lack mathematical formalism, and often vary from one delusional crank to the next.*", the [Electric Universe model](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Electric_Universe) might come in handy for this question.
The Sun isn't a huge nuclear fusion reaction, it's a small one, the energy output and (by the powers of Handwavium) the gravitational pull are mostly an electric current flow from the center of the galaxy with the Sun as a light-bulb style node in an enormous circuit. As the galaxy rotates and the stars within it change relative positions, and the effects of frequencies combining or cancelling out, the amount of power flowing into The Solar System on a timescale of oh, say, a millennium or two can vary a lot.
Effects of such a drop include: A, B, C, D, E, F, H, and possibly G depending on how strict you are about "*the ejected mass [..] must be dispersed into the galactic void.*" since there is no ejected mass, only a surprisingly small core of Sun remaining, with reduced visible size, reduced power output, reduced gravitational pull - maybe .. 50%?, and presumed reduced mass if that's even relevant anymore.
Searching YouTube for "the electric universe" will show many 'documentaries' and talks to give you more related ideas, such as [Thunderbolt of the Gods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AUA7XS0TvA)
Bonus idea: classic fusion stars can exist alongside the electric conversion stars, so your other solar systems can be entirely normal, *the* Solar System happens not to be one of them.
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> as-yet-unknown but **plausible** scientific concept.
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Uhh, I have no comment at this time, thank you.
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There is the starlifting mentioned here, <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting>
The explanation I have found is a bit vague, but it's basically called "huff-n-puff" alluding to the cyclical on and off. You make particle accelerators interact with the sun's magnetic field and cause mass ejection at the poles. This is eminding me of the ejecta from a black hole or a gamma ray burst. This ejecta makes the star lose mass rapidly.
Edit: although will work, it will be much harder to adjust orbital speeds of the planets.
Edit: a de-orbiting of satellites is possible via tethers which interact with Earth's magnetic field, create an electric current from orbital velocity and hence reduce satellite's speed until it falls back into the atmosphere and leaves no space junk. In a similar ways, an advanced civilization may employ space elevators with tethers. They will interact with the sun's magnetic field and gradually slow down their planet, to make-up for the decrease of mass of their star, and prevent their planet from slingshotting into deep space. <https://m.phys.org/news/2014-05-tether-solution-satellite-de-orbiting-reentry.html>
On the other hand, we should not interfere with the planet's rotation. Few tethers will get an artificially-generated current when at the right angle and maintain rotation that was previously lost.
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It sounds like you're trying to get the planets to escape velocity of their star without destroying life on them. Tampering with the star at all, as others have mentioned, is improbable and extremely dangerous to life on those planets.
Perhaps a simpler, yet different approach to your goal here would work. What if instead, a rogue planet or other high mass body (such as a black hole or brown dwarf or something) made a close flyby of the planets in question, giving them a gravitational assist that flings them past escape velocity of the parent star?
This should be relatively safe, compared to modifying the star itself.
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I'm not sure if this constitutes a complete answer, but I had a thought that mainly focuses on [E,F,G], while probably satisfying all of your other conditions.
When physics students start to learn about gravitational potential, one of the first problems they are asked to solve is the gravitational force inside and outside of a hollow spherical shell of uniform mass density. The results are maybe a bit surprising:
Inside - The net force from all parts of the shell is zero, essentially the same as if the shell didn't exist. This usually leads people to the "are we in a giant cosmic shell" question.
see: <http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/sphshell2.html>
Outside - The net force from all parts of the shell is the exact same as if the mass of the shell were concentrated in a point at its center. This result is the same for a spherical body with radially symmetric mass density. We approximate all celestial bodies as such, unless we are doing things like precision orbit determination for near-Earth spacecraft in which case we need to be more precise.
see: <http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/sphshell.html#wtls>
Ok, you may see where I'm going with this now. Say for some reason the sun ejected half of its mass in a roughly radially symmetric manner - that is spreading out in all directions roughly equally. And for now let's assume the ejected solar matter wont harm anything it passes across (I know I know, I'll come back to it). As the 'shell' of solar matter expanded, anything outside its radius would continue to move as if the sun were still a coherent body (see 'outside' result). As the radius of the 'shell' passed you, you would pretty much immediately begin to only experience gravitational force from the half mass of the sun that stayed centrally located in the solar system (see 'inside' result). So, with the (ridiculous) assumptions made so far, this is a gravitationally sound scenario in which your orbital velocity would immediately become escape velocity.
Now let's look at the issues with this answer:
1) How does this happen? I'm not a nuclear physicist or even slightly versed in heliophysics so I will try not to pull anything out of my butt here. However if you're ok with a vagueish handwave you could go with some abrupt change in the sun's internal cycle causing an ejection of this magnitude. Even better, I'd bet there's an answer here that would lend a ceedible explanation to this scenario.
2) Won't the ejected solar matter destroy everything it encounters? Yes, yes it will. The best way to address this would be to have the expanding shell begin to self-gravitate (start to form small clumps) as it expands. At the large scale the gravitational solutions are probably still valid (or valid enough) and this gives a plausible way for Saturn to avoid incineration by just being lucky enough to miss the now clumpy expanding 'shell' of solar mass.
3) If Saturn passes back outside of the shell on its way out of the solar system won't it again be captured by the combined mass of the sun and its ejecta? Yes. I think for this to work, the 'shell' would have to be ejected at a velocity higher than Saturn's eventual escape velocity. In this way, it will always be inside the 'shell.'
\*This actually provides an interesting side opportunity in your narrative. As the 'shell' begins to self-gravitate and form clumps of ejecta all moving out into the void, maybe Saturn could fall into an orbit with one of these chunks. I doubt natural fusion would still be happening, but it would certainly be a lot of good fuel for man-made fusion (that has to be how your colony survives, right?).
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[Question]
[
In a world where magic energy and life-force are compatible if not equivalent forces, woodcutting can be a problem in regions with high magic potential.
If a woodcutter fells a tree and leaves it, it will grow new roots in about a day. But only if there is some life left in the tree.
Trees are still trees like we know them, with the one difference, that they are able to tap magic as an additional source of energy. It still has to use its own available matter.
**When can the tree (or its wood) still be considered alive and when is it actually and finally dead? What can the woodcutter do, to kill the wood and therefore make it usable?**
The state of technology is roughly comparable with technology in medieval times. Use of magic is forbidden.
The trees have to be cut to make room to build other stuff. For many of the buildings and constructions, fresh wood could be used, if it weren't for the high magic potential of the area. So the wood can be transported to a less magical place and older, dead wood imported as building material, but on-site solutions are preferred.
[edit for clarification and additional information:] With "dead" I mean unable to grow anymore. It is common with plants, that you can cut of a part and put it into water or directly into the soil. It will then grow new roots and new leaves after a while. The magic mainly speeds this process up by offering an abundance of energy.
There is no (known) way to shield of magic. It is forbidden to use magic as well as research it. So only little is known about the way magic works.
The area is somewhat hostile, due to beings that aim to protect the trees and *do* use the available magic. So long-term solutions are unfortunately not optimal. Something that takes less than a few days without removing the trees from the area would be preferable to one that takes longer.
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I had to look this up, but I think your people could justify covering the logs with ash and iron-rich sediment then heating it in dug pits with charcoal. This process would petrify the wood. Petrifaction replaces the organic parts of an formally living object with minerals, essentially turning from wood to stone.
This would probably be overkill to kill a magically charged tree, but you could say the properties on the magic wood make petrifaction much easier (cause the plants actively try to absorb the minerals while they are regenerating maybe? You mentioned that they still need to use available matter). The bright side to this method is that it would increase the value of wood in these magically rich regions.
Imagine being able to carve a log into furniture, a statue, or a simple tool, then using petrifaction to harden and preserve it. As a material, this wood would be more malleable and beautiful than marble, yet be far more resistant to damage and weathering. Now your trees aren't just a obstacle that needs to be cleared out, but a valuable resource to be sold.
So yeah. Have the lumber camps petrify the wood on-site, then use that to build their homes and sell the excess for a substantial profit. The being that live in the forest would probably be horrified to see the trees transformed like this, but I think that could be a fun addition to your narrative regardless.
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I know this is a slightly short answer, but it applies to most European trees (not all I admit) at least: if you hammer a copper stake into the tree low down, close to the roots, it will poison the tree and it will die. This does take a few months, but it is possible. However in real life this only works on a living tree, cutting it down kills them, but in your world they are still alive so...
If they know they need to clear an area of land eventually, then cut down the tree, and then copper stake the wood, as it dries it would die off completely. In theory this would work the way you want it to.
It would also give your story some form of greenpeace trying to stop you from poisoning the trees.
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To kill it keep it off the ground and dry, in the case of cut timber if you keep the logs off the ground, under shelter, any roots that they might otherwise grow will encounter air rather than soil or water and wither rather than grow. De-barking the logs immediately will also work since it is the inner bark, a layer called the [cambium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambium), rather than the core wood that does the growing, this can cause issues with the way the timber [seasons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_drying) depending on the species and warp the wood grain though. Under the circumstances described I would define the wood as "properly dead" when the bark dries and/or is pealed from the log.
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It doesn't seem that much of a problem to me.
Even growing roots within a day isn't going to make it very hard to just cut the wood to what you need and use it. The wood would need to cannibalize itself, but most of the tree is "dead" wood to begin with so only the living layers need to be separated from the dead parts and you are good to go...
Assuming you don't want perfectly strong living houses that is.
It would be so awesomely good to have a home that lives, provides its own shade, its own anti-pests mechanisms (especially with the magic...), won't rot away easily, can be guided to grow certain ways, possibly provide some food and when it finally dies it functions like the dead wooden logs we have today.
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You kill trees the same way you kill them today: by cutting away the bark around the tree, or girdling.
Girdling will cut the tree's phloem, which transport sugar and hormones. Since phloem are very close to the surface of the bark (being part of a dicot's vascular meristem growth, forming rings), this prevents sugar from flowing from the leaves to the roots. Eventually, the roots die and stop sending nutrients and water to the leaves, resulting in the rest of the tree dying. Since these trees will continue to grow using up nutrients that are already stored, it might be necessary to monitor and regularly cut back the bark before it actually dies, making sure the tree can't repair the damaged bark or send up shoots of green underneath the stripped bark (which could provide an emergency supply of sugar to the roots).
As for time frame, this process can take from months to years depending on the size of the tree, however you could simply say that the ambient magic makes the tree use up its resources quickly, causing it to die within a few days.
[Answer]
### Store them somewhere without access to the magical energy
A classical approach to defeating anything that taps into the magical reservoir around them is to simply cut them off from their source of power. You can do the same to your wood. Define *something* that blocks the magical energy, such as lead, and then create a box or depending on your mechanisms a warehouse out of it. Store your wares in the magic-proof room for some time until it's dead
This allows your people to go wherever they want and it doesn't matter whether the region is full of energy or starved of it. Your people can simply put everything that relies on easy access to magical energy in your warehouse. As such it can also be useful as an impromptu jail for rogue mages running berserk (if you can get them in there without them destroying everything; trees in your scenario seem to be easier and not defend themselves too much, so a simple structure should be enough).
"How long" depends on the rate that magic is consumed. Maybe your trees can only store enough magic for something like three days until they run out of energy, but that depends on what makes sense for your story. They are not really dead by simply putting them into the lead-warehouse, but they will soon "die". This could also be used as a great plot point with different trees being able to store magical energy for different times.
If you want an analogy of the life being something like a metaphorical "liquid" you could simply cut long trails into the bark to "bleed" out the energy faster, similar to [natural rubber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber).
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Magic could be considered the same as oxygen. With it you live. Without it, you slowly suffocate and die. Once dead, no matter how much oxygen you pump into a body, you can't bring life back. So in this case, restrict access to the magical forces of your world for <.insert required time period here.>. Once the tree is starved of magic and dead, no matter how much new magic the wood comes into contact, it won't start growing again.
Once the plants and trees access to *oxygenated* magic is restricted, the plant and tree can die.
**What can a woodcutter do?**
If the magic is limited to grounded magic, not air or water based magic, *prevent the ability to reroot*.
* If the cut tree reroots through the cut end of the tree; cap, char or mutilate the edge.
+ traditional magic does not work with iron, so you could wrap a iron or other metal band around the end of the fallen tree (similar to a barrel hoop) for a few days, while the magic dies.
+ drive several metal spikes up the cut end of the tree (although this might cause splitting).
* If the fallen tree reroots through the surface area in contact with the earth; elevate it on dead wood slats preferably stone. Can also use hardened clay or bricks. Anything to get it off the ground.
+ You could probably hang the tree trunk like a dead and butchered animal carcass, to the same effect. This could help with the draining/bleeding of any magic substances in the wood. Which might fetch a nice price at the market!
* If the cut tree can only reroot while the original root system is intact; uproot and destroy the tree stump.
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While I love the answer about building houses from living wood, the classic real-world technique of drying wood in a kiln can easily be deemed to kill the magic in the wood as it dries out.
Note that kiln drying is unlikely to be practical until the wood is split.
Only Biologically living cells can channel magic.
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I think most of the other answers have missed an important point: "The trees have to be cut to make room to build other stuff." So it's not really the cut timber that's the big problem, it's regrowth from the stumps.
Now this is something that actually happens with many kinds of trees - cottonwood, locust, apple (just to mention ones on my property), and many others. In extreme cases, such as aspens, the underground part may live for millenia, regularly sending up new trunks: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)>
In the present world, this is dealt with by various chemical products, like "Brush be Gone", "Sucker Stopper", &c. So your culture needs something, either magical or chemical, that kills the root system.
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There are a lot of real-world trees that are just about this persistent. Cut them down, and the stump sprouts new branches. Stick a "dead" branch in the ground, and as long as it's right-way-up it'll grow (sometimes even if it's been "dead" for quite a while as long as the bark is intact.)
So in your world, you can probably use most all of the same methods we use for dealing with such trees when we want them gone:
1. Poison: Disrupt their metabolism so it no longer functions. Availability of energy doesn't matter at this point, it's going to die.
2. Cut it with extreme prejudice: If the trees didn't need the energy gathered by their leaves to survive long-term, they probably wouldn't grow them. When it starts growing new roots/sprouts, cut them off again. Repeat regularly until it gives up and dies.
3. Tear it out by the roots: Cut it down and dig out the stump. Put the remains someplace where it doesn't matter if they grow again or not.
4. Deprive it of water: This may not kill it permanently, or may take a very long time to do so, but it should at least keep it dormant for as long as you care.
There are probably additional methods that would work which may or may not be practical. Cutting off the flow of magic to the area would work if that were possible, as would somehow tainting it. In a world with magic, the trees may be capable of moving if you ask them nicely.
This addition to the setting will likely make land-clearing more difficult, but it will make growing timber for various uses much easier and potentially make the use of living wood constructions more common.
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It looks like the same problem as we have with weeds, eg [kudzu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudzu). We cut it down, it regrows.
The answer is as usual: keep cutting it down, over and over again, until it had exhausted all available resources. Your magical lifeforce also has to be (locally and temporarily) depletable. Otherwise all plants (and other life) would switch to that infinite source of energy and you'd have trees so huge than no human could even think of bringing it down.
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In the Northern countries the wood is being cut only in winter, when the juices are still. If you cut a tree in summer, it is still alive, magic or not magic. And while it tries to live, the quality of the wood decreases.
So, the problem is well-known, same as the solution. You don't need to kill the wood, but to stop processes in it. Freeze it. And dry it frozen. For better speed, by lowering the pressure. (Here you can use magic, but not necessarily) But with still liquids the wood does not change even if you do no acceleration of drying.
If you can lower the pressure seriously, you can dry the wood sooner than unwanted processes start. Maybe. I don't know the speed of your magical processes in the wood.
---
In Russia, in 18 cent, Peter The Great had set a law, according to which, cutting wood not in winter was a criminal act.
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One of the things i think you need to consider for this is how people would try to use this rather than stop it. It is fairly common for people to manipulate the way a tree grows during its life so if we knew it was going to have a growth spurt at death we would find a way to use that.
For example build a wooden paliside then let it regrow for a week joining together even stronger. Then kill it using above methods.
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This will be surprisingly simple.
Get rid of the bark. the wood itself is not alive it can not regrow, it is the bark that makes new roots and grows.
Then burn the branches that you don't want to strip and the bark or just don't allow it to touch the ground.
Pile up the branches and bark in one place and then burn it at the end of the day.
Meanwhile you can extract the phloem for various purposes (ropes, shoes, baskets)
Then there is the option that the people use some minerals as herbicide, to kill the trees before cutting them. Or just burning the whole forest down.
(But I think that they would want to make fields or orchards in the area, since the plants grow so quick and would be more resistant to diseases with this regeneration ability)
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While I do know that there is no possible explanation for how we might wake someone up from such a long sleep, I was wondering what food would be edible after one million or so years where the humans on board went into cryosleep.
I have researched long lasting foods that will last indefinitely, and so far I have only come up with oats, sugar, honey, hard liquor and white rice.
Are there any methods for preserving foods other than these that will allow it to last indefinitely?
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Put the food into cryosleep as well. If the people don't degrade, neither will the food.
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Don't. Your ship will almost certainly need a large amount of food for after they wake up and you don't want to store that much food and take it with you.
Store a few frozen seeds with the frozen people. Defrost them months before and use hydroponics, unless you have the tech to synthesize food from the raw elements on board. PS 1 000 000 years would be a rather large timescale for such things. It would be 60 light years at the speed earth moves round the sun. Such ships would move faster and probably not as far at first.
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## A functioning ecosystem could work.
The ship would need to provide a contained space housing plants and animals that would breed and die over generations. Flora and fauna would evolve and change over a million years, but the food would likely still be edible.
I suspect any contained and artificial ecosystem would need to be highly tuned to prevent its eventual collapse, but it is doable. We're here after all and the Earth has been hurtling through space for billions of years.
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Made on demand food. Very stable building blocks like sugars, water, amino acids and the like are stored or harvested and food is assembled on demand. Like 3D printing a steak and potatoes, building the components from simple ingredients.
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There are currently no methods for preserving food as long as a million years. If someone claims they have such a method, your correct response to their claim should be "Have you tested it with a million years trial to confirm it works?". [Claims of ancient seeds thousands of years old that are still viable have been made](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_viable_seed), but it looks those claims have not been conclusively proven.
If you are willing to use methods of long term food preservation that don't exist yet (science fiction) you might consider:
1. Extreme cold tends to really slow down chemical reactions. If you store foods close to absolute zero and hand-wave some technology that prevents the physical damage caused by the freezing process (mostly caused by water expanding into ice crystals, breaking the frozen item's structure), you can say that you use cryofreeze for long term storage. The advantage of using this method in a story is that in deep space keeping things really cold is not difficult.
2. Long term biospheres to allow food to survive thousands of generations works only if you are able to sustain a biosphere for that long. We know it works in principle, since this is how the Earth works to provide the food we eat. The problem comes in making a much smaller biosphere such as in a spaceship sustainable over long periods of time. One way to explain how your spaceship biosphere remains stable is to create a supervisory computer that regulates problems that will occur in the spaceship biosphere over time.
3. If you want to go really high tech, you can avoid the preserving/storage problem entirely. Just have your computer build DNA for all the life you want to put into your biosphere from information it has stored and from basic chemicals. If the computer jumpstarts a biosphere when the spaceship gets to its destination a million years later, the only reliable storage needs to be for the data and the ability of the DNA reproduction machinery to last that long.
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Preserve the food using the same methods used on the crew. Perhaps that means putting livestock into cryosleep if "dead" things can't work with the same methods.
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## Just sterilize it.
If the environment is sterilized, food won't decay. Just bathe the whole pantry in radiation, let out the air (you're in space, right?), and it'll last forever. Water will sublimate out of the food though, so you'll want to start with freeze-dried stuff to begin with or it'll taste like bad freezer-burn.
Something to be concerned about: cosmic rays may cause the food molecules to degrade into dust over millions of years. Make sure your pantry is well-shielded. If you're traveling in interstellar space far away from any stars, though, this should be less of an issue.
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A million years?! That is a near unsolvable problem. You cannot bring anything that you expect to grow, because growing requires functioning DNA. And DNA degrades over time, with a half-life of only little over 500 years.
You would have to go for really basic substances... almost down to elements, like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and phosphorous, and then reconstitute those into basic nutrients like vitamins, hydrocarbons and such.
Then there is also the problem of surviving a cryosleep that long. What I said about DNA degrading over time also goes for your travelers. **Their** DNA will degrade over time. And without functioning DNA, they will not wake up again. Or if they do, they will soon die pretty much as if they has walked into a running nuclear reactor.
However... handwaving away the problem the problem of DNA degradation — maybe by not putting them in actual cryo-sleep but in a form of stasis, where the DNA repair mechanisms of the body can do their work — then it could work. But since foods are "dead" already, DNA repair on things you would want to grow cannot work. So you are stuck with what I said above: reconstitute nutrients from basic elements, because you cannot bring organics and expect them to hold for a million years. You have to bring things that cannot spoil... and only basic substances and elements have that quality.
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**Hard Scifi Answer**
Sorry kind of side stepped the problem but here would by a solution.
Develop nanobots that repair themselves and the spaceship elements and periodically the people in cryo. This can be tested for stability against various challenges (radiation, extreme cold, heat, electrical burnouts, vacuum) before leaving on the voyage. Nanobots would have a swarm intelligence and read molecular layouts so everything is in a sort of stasis. With this tech, some humans could could continue to live on as caretakers as well. With their DNA being continually repaired to that of 20 year olds.
Then for story elements...
Of course after a million years the nanobots have developed sentience and view humans as babies, irrelevant, gods, or raw materials. Take your pick and the human caretakers are no longer human but have changed themselves due to modifying the stasis layouts of their DNA....
For the science <http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-4484/15/11/045/meta>
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Sterilizing it is an option except that any method we have for that damages the nutrition severely.
Poisoning it (like with liquor or preservatives) also isn't necessarily the best option.
But the other items you listed follow the principle that each of these foods is incomplete... it's a very terrible food on its own, and has to be added to other things to be a proper diet. Microorganisms need to live on top of the thing, not just eat it... they won't take a piece of one and drag it to the other part (like bringing the rice to water or vice versa) so they don't seem to ever touch consume them. Surely in the future you could separate the components from the food without damaging them too badly (eg. condensed milk tastes horrible because it's so damaged, worse than pasteurization).
And one example you didn't list... butter will go bad, but clarified butter takes an extremely long time (not ever scientifically tested to the limit as far as I can tell... maybe forever if produced perfectly and kept out of the sun, cold, etc.). So not just carbs, but fats also can last long. When you clarify the butter, ideally use sour butter which has less/no sugar, and you are removing milk solids, water, etc. so it's the same concept.
Also if you pile enough salt on meat so it soaks right through and sucks out all the moisture (like a whole leg of prosciutto), it lasts enormously long. It only expires quickly after you unbury it or slice it up. And even then, it might just dry up worse and not really rot very fast.
And it'll still break down possibly, but not so much by ordinary life forms. Also as stated in other answers, you still can never be sure since nobody tested such things for a million years. Maybe nothing will be perfect, but a combination of things will be closer than any single method, and close enough for your space voyage.
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If you can "store" people for a million years and revive them, then worst case: cannibalism.
Seriously, if you can store human beings and revive them, can't you use exactly the same techniques to store meat?
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A world I am working on has reached a sort of material production singularity. Recent innovations in space mining, artificial intelligence, teleportation, and 3D-printing have allowed for devices known simply as **Makers** to produce any sort of material or structure by constructing it from the atomic level upwards.
**My question is this:** in a world where jewelry is no longer motivated by scarcity, what new factors would determine what kind of jewelry people wore, since everyone could make or acquire at low cost any sort of design made of any material.
*I have thought that most societies would keep with tradition and use gold/platinum with jewels/diamonds, but for the purposes of this question, assume that they are no longer keeping with tradition, assume that that style has fallen out of fashion because of its long lasting trend.*
*Also, aside from the technological advancements listed in the introduction, please regard this world as a "future earth," with humans and not many other major lifestyle changes from modern day.*
[Answer]
Let's change the question a bit just to prove a point.
**What would make a painting expensive in a world where you can photocopy anything?**
About now you should see where I'm going right? You can get a painting of Monét fairly cheap (the cost of royalty and frame), but the original would still be super expensive. And with precious minerals it would be the same, and I'll even have to correct my self here. It is the same.
If you take a look at this article on Wikipedia: [Synthetic diamond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond) you will see that making a diamond is not impossible, in fact it is fairly easy everything considered.
**Conclusion:**
So what kind of jewelry would be valuable in a world where anything can be produced? The original kind of jewelry.
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Jewelry isn't expensive because it is scarce, [it's expensive because people control its value very tightly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Beers).
The scenario you described is happening right now, [diamonds are able to be made on an industrial scale cheaply, easily and on huge scales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond#Industrial-grade_diamonds). Yet [that hasn't impacted the De Beers profit in the slightest](http://web.archive.org/web/20160429180610/http://www.bdlive.co.za/business/mining/2013/12/03/de-beers-takes-shine-off-synthetic-diamonds).
Because diamonds, *real diamonds* aren't made in a lab in an instant, they are made in the Earth over an eternity. So if someone wants their love to last eternity, instead of an instant, they may want to get a real diamond.
In short answer: What kind of jewelry would be valuable in a world where anything can be produced? The kind with the best marketing that appeals to its handmade authenticness, not its soulless creation by a machine.
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## Status symbols vs decoration
Historically, jewelry performs two distinct roles - ornamental and decorative, and also as a way of displaying status. Precious metals and gemstones fulfilled both roles effectively, as they are scarce, highly visible (shininess helps), and also gold and silver are easier to craft into intricate decorations than harder metals while at the same time more long-lasting than decorations made from organic materials. Scarcity is a prerequisite - for example, in some gold-abundant cultures we have seen that e.g. feathers of rare birds fulfilled a similar role to gold jewelry in Europe.
Already now these roles have somewhat diverged for *jewelry*, as various cheap materials are excessively used for decorating our bodies while at the same time various visible non-jewelry items have taken some 'marketshare' of status symbols away from jewelry - high-end electronics, brands of clothing, shoes and handbags, flashy cars.
## Artificial scarcity to replace real scarcity
In order for something to work as an effective status signal, it must actually correlate with status - i.e., it must be hard for a low-status person to show it. One way for easily replicable items to keep fulfilling the role of status symbols is to keep them scarce by non-technical means.
In modern world, a prime example where this already works is branded items - a Luis Voitton handbag can be replicated rather cheaply, but trademark laws restrict the making and sale of such items. This allows them to keep functioning as effective status symbols, being easily distinguishable from otherwise similar off-brand items that are cheaper and thus don't indicate status.
In your world, if producers/designers of jewelry can make visually distinct styles of jewelry that are then legally protected, then this will allow jewelry to 'keep on living' and fulfilling a similar function as high-end luxury brands do today. This requires a world where some things that technically *can* be duplicated by 'atomic makers' are prohibited to replicate or distribute - perhaps not the best case for consumers and society, but entirely plausible given current economic and legal trends.
# Possible restrictions on showing off
Historically, this has often been solved by legislation - e.g., medieval cities mandating that specific clothing, colors, jewelry, etc. could be worn only by specific classes of people, and visually 'disguising' yourself as another class/caste/etc was a crime.
In certain times and places a rich merchant wouldn't be allowed to wear, say, a purple cloak - and in this case those who *could* do it had it as essentially a piece of jewelry, an obvious visible status symbol. In some societies the right to wear a sword or a symbolic dagger also esentially fulfilled this function, as fighting decreased and it went from a often used defense item to a simple inconvenience that still shows membership of a better social class.
In the same manner, a future world - assuming it becomes more socially stratified and less egalitarian - could easily restrict types of jewelry to certain groups of people. Others "could" replicate them but simply wouldn't be allowed to wear them in public; and this fact would make it desireable for the higher classes to use that jewelry just to highlight that *they* can and distinguish themselves from the commoners.
[Answer]
I can see three scenarios:
# 1- "The brand-name Syndrome"
The value of jewelery isn't determined by the skill of its maker, or the value of the materials, but by the fame of the maker.
The value of jewelery is largely self-expression, or to put it simply "Brand-names provide bragging rights".
By the way, how do you like my new Rolex?
# 2- "Authentic authenticity"
Picture the stereotype of the "modern" artist. The value of a piece of jewelery isn't determined by the skill of the maker, or the value of its materials, but by the circumstances in which it was produced.
[At this point, even an Gorilla could be a jeweler.](http://www.koko.org/gorilla-art-0).
# 3- "Authenticity 2; Electric Boogaloo"
Authenticity is nice and good, but it can't exactly be showed off. Cue the sledgehammer; Jewelery shifts from merely decorative to "providing an experience". Everyone that wears jewelery turns into a walking Art instalation.
Say, did you hear about Lady Gaga's meat dress? So scandalous!
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In such a world, you'd have to rethink quite a lot of things that we take for granted. For instance, does the mere concept of jewelry make any sense? We don't know what we'd do with such capabilities as the Makers give us, but we do know 100% for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we'd do things differently because of it.
One thing I would consider is limiting the Makers. Make some things hard to make. One thing many people who play with ideas like Makers often forget is that you can't always just *make* something from atoms. Some structures can be made this way. They are "quiescent" structures which are stable at the atomic level while they are under construction (I'm assuming this is not an instantaneous process). Other structures, however, do not play so nice. While they are being constructed, they may be tremendously volatile, and potentially destroying themselves.
One example is proteins. It is unreasonably difficult to produce a protein in any way except the way nature intended. The process of protein folding is notoriously complex and hard to predict. If your Maker naively tries to start from the top and work their way down, they'll find a bunch of dangling pieces of proteins half way through the process, which then bunch up into an unruly knot.
Can your Makers work around this? Sure. Anything indistinguishable from magic could do it, but now you're talking about building a world so extraordinarily exotic that you really can't generalize your world for any worldbuilding questions.
If this limitation is valid for your Makers, then organic structures would be of value, because many of them are made of composites that are very difficult to acquire in any way except simply growing them. You also might see people skip right to the source, and start wearing living things as jewelry.
One key feature of such jewelry would be that it must be hard to fake. Its easy to make a earing that look like it's made of organic wood, but is actually just built of atoms. I would expect the jewelry to take on a physical form which demonstrates its organic heritage, probably by constructing shapes that depend on the unique structural properties of organic composites.
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Everyone keeps answering a slightly different question than what OP asked. OP asked what would determine what jewelry people wear, but everyone seems to be answering what would make jewelry *valuable* or a status symbol.
What determines what sort of jewelry people wear, if you take the production cost out of the picture? Same as with clothing. Fashion. What's "in style" will shift frequently, and will vary by social group.
You'll have *avant-garde* and experimental jewelry at the leading edge of trends. Early adopters will sport the better designs and lead the way for mainstream adoption. Some of those designs will catch on, but most will be tossed aside and never reach the mainstream. Those that do catch on will be tweaked and remixed and changed over and over, until a different style catches on and takes its place.
For a peek into this in the real world, take a look at 3D printing design sites such as [thingiverse](http://www.thingiverse.com). There are featured designs, most of which have gained a sort of viral popularity within that community. These designs usually lend themselves to being altered and adapted by individuals. The "remix" feature is one of the core features of the site.
**tl;dr**: Whatever jewelry style is popular at the time will be worn by the mainstream, and that style will shift just like it does now.
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Hand made.
Even today, hand made stuff sells well even when industrially made alternatives are much cheaper while maintaining same (or even higher) quality.
Copying won't help, no one wants precise copy of paintings for price any close to original's. even if you could copy Mona Lisa on atomic level, making it exactly same, people would still want original more. "When you want to show a status and class you simply have to have that original handmade piece"
This is not something that would apply to say, electronic, but it does and will apply to jewellery more that to anything else. Add to it a factor of maker's name as brand (eg. when you can afford it, you don't want just any hand made, but hand made by XYZ), and you can be certain this will be around as long as humanity will exist.
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Considering that scarcity, be it manufactured or resource-driven, is the reason why precious metals and jewelry are so expensive, if you remove that factor, then jewelry will be as common place, and consequently, as cheap as clothing.
So to your question: what would motivate people? Well I'd say some of the same things that motivate them now. Tradition is a big one (ooh, you said tradition is not an answer). Okay, than I'd still say that people would gravitate to jewelry based on other factors including: Religion (Crosses/Stars of David/Depictions of Deities) and Culture, statement pieces (pot leaf/bling-bling)/ art etc. These are still humans, as you said, so they'd still have humanities vices and virtues. Jewelry can be seen as a form of self-expression, as is clothing and tattoos.
And some people do wear jewelry for the overt statement of wealth. If everyone is equalized in that way, then they will have to find some other way to display their wealth. So you should know, even if you don't dive into it, how the patrician classes can display their wealth if naught with jewelry.
Other motivators: Perhaps there are certain technologies that are found in certain types of jewelry? If not for entertainment purposes, then maybe jewelry is used in a medical way (to monitor vitals) or, in a similar vein, the jewelry is used by the government to monitor the citizens. Depends on what kinds of angles you want to take with this.
Something really big would have to happen to change the mindset of humans. As far back as antiquity, we as a race have been wearing jewelry for style and to display wealth, so if as you said, style is no longer supporting jewelry, then you are going to be dealing with fundamentally different humans.
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If you can produce anything, what is left to trade? Information. Think of today, the big companies with huge databases filled with information that they can sell.
So this could translate into personal memories (e.g. family heirlooms), religious or cultural (pop or otherwise) icons, or perhaps whatever form of hard data storage is popular.
Of course, people will also want to look pretty, so they should have the typical range of color and luster characteristics you would see with modern jewelry, since gems are practically free now, they would probably eventually be synthesized and incorporated into some form of data storage that displays its capacity via lights, colors, or some other sensory method.
Please don't ask me how to build diamond semiconductors.
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**Who made it, the aesthetic quality of the object, the story behind the object or the idea the object conveys** will determine the cost. In some ways this post-scarcity jewelry market mimics the modern day art market where the cost of materials is often marginal compared to the artist's time and energy. This is especially true with modern art where examples of found art that cost the artist exactly zero dollars/yen/euro/pound/etc. Patrons of modern art are often buying an idea or a story as represented by an object, not just the object itself.
Just because the **Makers** can make anything they please with atomic-level accuracy, doesn't mean that everyone will make equally pleasing or desirable objects.
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In such a highly advanced society one could imagine that it is possible to give physical meaning to the sentimental value of an object.
So, perhaps the macro-material is not really what matters to that society, but rather how the object has changed through human interaction on a quantum level.
Scientists of that age have realized that one could change certain properties of an object depending on its ambient exposure, and not only by direct observation. These properties could even influence the human psych so that depending on what emotions the object was exposed to, would return such emotions to the carrier. Hence, jewelry of that age would not only be a fashion statement but could be used to treat depression and other mental illnesses. One could only imagine the incredible lengths someone would have to go to, to acquire an item that has mainly been exposed to positive emotions. Persons would eventually try to capitalize on this and probably even develop AI that has its own emotions, thus automating the process of creating such jewelry.
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As some of the other answer state: Trends would probably start going on. People will wear what famous people wear.
But what about creativity? The makers can make anything but a human has to somehow tell the maker to make something.
This means that even though makers can create anything, what they can make is still limited by what humans can think of.
Of course if someone would make up something new and refreshing like a piece of jewelry made out of some uncommonly used element, people will start copying it untill that type of jewelry is no longer unique.
This means it's an ongoing process. People will constantly try to be innovative and create new things that look different. Thus using the jewelry to distinguish themselves from others expressing their creativity.
So possibly, the jewelry people would wear if the makers were around would be incredibly diverse.
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Firstly, jewelry would still be motivated by scarcity, even without a production cost. Scarcity still exists for seemingly "free" stuff. Our bodies only have so much available space to display it, and there is also a social cost. You need to think about what jewelry represents; it is a social differentiator tied deeply into mating and power. Think how men and women use "free stuff" today to fulfill those desires.
A hairstyle, for example, can be produced "free" of charge in your bathroom with a pair of scissors, but you have only one head of hair, and there is a social risk of making an ugly haircut. So due to the social risk, and desire to differentiate ourselves in the mating process, scarcity will still exist.
So to answer your question:
1. It will be deeply tied into the mating desire
2. It will be anything a person can use to differentiate themselves, which would naturally create scarcity.
I would expect to see risky, over the top, jewelry with a short trend life. Since production costs would be close to zero, people would have to try harder to differentiate themselves from the crowd. The low production cost would keep trends on a shorter life cycle. Popular trends could be adopted quicker, which would lead to a quicker peak.
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Seeing how the patent system in the USA changed in the last few decades from allowing "only physical devices with enough innovation value" to "almost anything, including software, vague ideas, and integers", it is not hard to imagine a future where it is possible to produce anything, but many things would be illegal to wear in public unless you can prove that you bought it from an authorised company.
Compare it with the current issues with copyrighting software, music and movies. You can copy a DVD bit to bit (just like in your setting you can copy jewellery atom to atom), and you would end up with the exact same contents, but the laws ensure that official versions can be sold for a lot of money, and you can get sued if you are caught producing "duplicates".
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I expect there would be two kinds of jewelry: Sentimental jewelry and fresh jewelry. Trademarks and copyrights would be used to protect many designs of both kinds of jewelry.
**Sentimental jewelry** would be purchased once, and kept/worn for a very long time. The value to the wearer is in the memory of the occasion on which it was received or purchased. For example: class rings, engagement rings, wedding rings, military medals, Super Bowl rings, *et cetera*. These pieces of jewelry would be made out of materials that can handle wear-and-tear. Using today's pricing, they might be more expensive than today's jewelry (e.g., 18 karat gold instead of 14 karat gold, or 3 carat ideal-cut diamonds instead of ½ carat diamonds whose cut has been compromised to avoid "waste"). They might even have carefully designed "flaws" to make them unique. (Class rings, military medals, and championship rings would be subject to trademark or copyright protection.) But all of these sentimental items would still be made out of relatively durable materials (such as 18 karat gold instead of pure gold, or diamond instead of cubic zirconium).
**Fresh jewelry** would be designed for optimal beauty when new, and replaced promptly (before it has a chance to wear out). It is possible to make cubic zirconium gems that have purer colors, more fire, and more lustre than any ideal-cut diamond. The problem is that cubic zirconium is softer, so after a fair amount of wear-and-tear, these hypothetical gems would not be as pretty as the ideal-cut diamonds. Similarly, one could have 24-karat gold plated items instead of brass, bronze, or gold alloys. They might be flawless, or they might have designed-in "flaws" similar to the sentimental jewelry. Thus, "costume" jewelry would be much higher quality than any jewelry made today, but it would not be expected to last long at all.
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The main thing you have to consider in this world is that the physical appearance of jewelry doesn't matter - therefore the most important factor in determining the value of jewelry would be emotions and ideas evoked by it. This would most likely result in the formation of trends based on
* What famous people wear
* Religious or political icons
In other words, the physical appearance would be based on things important to the wearer.
Another thing to note is that people may still have an obsession with the "real thing" - materials created naturally, not artificially. In our current world fake diamonds are almost indistinguishable from real ones to the naked eye, yet real ones cost far more money, despite logically being identical for the purposes of jewelry.
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Some blessed/relic items. The items which were blessed by a shaman/priest/oracle or had been in a holy place or containing holy particles etc. Even if not behind different physically from non-blessed items, some people may still think that blessed items bring them fortune and success.
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Such a world, I think, would be "hyper-trendy" with regard to fashion.
In any economy, even a "post-scarcity" economy as many future utopias including yours tend to be, "scarce resources" is still a fundamental concept; the time scale in which key resources are "scarce" is merely shortened to the point that getting whatever you need is no longer a matter of life or death. The time required to acquire something desirable can still be a status symbol, much as it is with current fashion trends. The super-rich of the real world are already wealthy enough that merely having gold jewelry doesn't say much; having the very latest designs of such jewelry, however, is a much bigger deal, and when the market for a particular style is saturated, people move on to the next trend.
In a world where you can create any precious metal or gemstone with the push of a button, design becomes critical. If the same device that produces the material can combine and shape them, styles will saturate in a matter of days or even hours, as anyone who wants the same necklace someone else has can get it in minutes. In such a fashion world, the statement "oh, that necklace is so five minutes ago" wouldn't be humorous or ironic at all to the people living in the world; they'd be truly horrified that their style is that far out of date.
Other answers state that objects with a story, or sentimental value, would still be more valuable than any copy of the object. That's true only as long as you can tell the difference. If you made an atom-for-atom copy of the Mona Lisa, exactly identical, all it takes is one second in which honest, dependable human or computer eyes are not on both of them at the same time, and you can no longer tell which is which. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of clones of the Mona Lisa for every living room, it becomes totally impossible to positively guarantee the one hanging in the Louvre is the actual original. A corollary of this point becomes self-evident; if you can get, inside of five minutes, an *exact* replica of the Mona Lisa, and so can everyone else, what value does the original *really* have?
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Expensive jewelry would trend towards the **two things fabricators can't do, provide information and provide services**.
Jewelry that requires you to do something rather than make something would still be expensive. Gold necklace cheep, tattoo expensive. You can fabricate the necklace for free but you still have to pay the tattoo artist.Tattoos and piercings would require a worker.
Customized items would also be valuable because the design would have to be custom created for each person, the design is both a service and new information. Pay to get the Monet redrawn with your face, once you have the design make copies for free.
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In a world where you can create even the money without being able to distinguish the fake money from real money I fear there will be no longer any value, you can just get what you want, the only "money" it is probably waiting our turn to a "printing machine", if the machine print itself then also there will be no longer any turn.
Probably people will be so stupid to create "new values" (the only valuable thing would be wisdom so I fear there will be an economy based on wisdom and knowledge where the only form of payment is "teaching stuff".)
Assuming engineers find a way to just create jewels (and no other object) so that we can still have money and value:
>
> in a world where jewelry is no longer motivated by scarcity, what new factors would determine what kind of jewelry people wore, since everyone could make or acquire at low cost any sort of design made of any material.
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Probably people will just have to create their own jewels just to look pretty. I think it will just become similar to how we choose which posters hang in our home, probably there will be custom jewel designers that helps you creating jewels and you pay them for their time, right know there exists street artist that create temporary tattoos, I think the jewel tendency will become similar to that.
[Answer]
If anything can be produced without labour, then nothing will have economic value.
Of course, things will still have aesthetic value, sentimental value, etc. But those kinds of value cannot be translated into money.
In a society like that, money is useless.
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[Question]
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My heroine, a wandering loner living a nomadic lifestyle traveling across 1998's western US in an RV, is a supernatural being, known as an immortal, with a great many useful powers. However, none of these powers are particularly effective for combat. While she can easily use her abilities to retreat from any situation with her life intact, she'd have to abandon her RV and all of her belongings to the mercy of her attackers if this were to happen while she was "home", so she needs some other options to defend herself. The most extreme of these is a S&W Model 29 revolver, fully loaded with six silver .44 rounds.
Silver is quite effective against nearly all types of immortals, her type included. However, even among people who know immortals are real and regularly deal with them, silver bullets are generally only used as a last resort, or by people who are extremely well-organized, for one very big reason: superhuman sense of smell is an incredibly common supernatural ability, and to any such supernaturally-augmented nose, silver, and especially the combined scent of silver and gunpowder, is one of the strongest and most distinctive smells on the planet. If such a bullet is even exposed to open air, any "bloodhounds" a mile around will be able to follow the smell right to you. If you actually *fire* one, that becomes somewhere between five to ten.
Therefore, among anyone who actually owns silver bullets, they are generally kept in completely air-tight containers until they're ready to be used, because nothing less than an air-tight seal will stop the smell from reaching a superhuman nose.
My heroine can use her powers to commit plenty of minor acts of home invasion and shoplifting with ease, but beyond that her resources aren't exactly high-budget. **She needs a relatively-accessible means to store her revolver, pre-loaded so that she doesn't have to worry about loading it in a crisis, behind an air-tight seal that she doesn't have to worry too much about breaking accidentally, but which can also be removed reasonably quickly when the moment comes where she has to defend herself. What would be her best option given the location of the USA and the time period of 1998?**
[Answer]
# Total jacketed rounds
Your character is in luck. There's an excellent an air-tight container for bullets of all sorts: the jacket!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yu10sm.jpg)
Jacketed rounds were invented for a number of reasons, but one of the big ones was to insulate your barrel from your bullet material. With lead bullets, this was to reduce barrel fouling when lead got deposited on the rifling, and with steel bullets, this was to reduce wear on rifling from the harder metal. Among other things, this enabled higher velocities and lighter ammunition.
Many common jackets are made via *swaging*, where the material is essentially mushed via a press into a forming die. These are often open at the bottom.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z4EXYm.jpg)
However, there are also Total Metal Jacket (TMJ) rounds that are fully encapsulated, often via electroplating, or another method, like the one at the top of this post. One of the motivations for this is that it means the *jacketed material is never exposed to propellant*, so, with lead, you don't end up with vaporized lead in the air and in your barrel.
Your character has silver rounds that are fully jacketed in an airtight metal layer, likely copper. This means they are *never* exposed to gunpowder, and, in fact, almost never exposed to air or the outside world in any way.
Until, of course, they hit something, at which point, all that nice silver gets exposed into the body of your target immortal.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uJ3hl.jpg)
[Rounds shown fired at different speeds from 1811 fps (far left) to 3190 fps(far right)]
[Answer]
You are going about this the wrong way.
When you think of a round like the [.44 Magnum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Magnum) in the S&W, or for that matter a rifle bullet, you get something with a more or less pointed bullet extending from the case. But this isn't the only way to design a revolver cartridge. Read up on the [Nagant M1895 revolver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagant_M1895), another hefty, vintage revolver, and look at the picture of the [ammunition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9738mmR).
It should be possible to seal the front end of the cartridge well enough for your requirements. Sealing the back end (and having it still fire) could be a bit more tricky, but perhaps your character can find a gunsmith who is willing to experiment a little.
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*(Note that I edited this because mentioning the form of shotgun shells made people think I was suggesting a shotgun. I'm not. I'm talking about flat-topped* revolver *cartridges.)*
[Answer]
**Airtight tupperware.**
Tupperware was invented in 1946. Tupperware with airtight rubber lids is cheap ([here's](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B08CNFJJX3) a set for two bucks a pop), and it's easy to find. Since you are only worried about her having to resort to real-world combat if she's at home, she can just put the gun in a Tupperware container somewhere in the house, and grab it at a moment's notice when trouble shows up.
[Answer]
Since we presume that your protagonist will have to cast her own silver bullets (a separate problem in itself, since silver melts at a much higher temperature than lead, is less dense, and is much harder) she'll need to be or work with an experienced ammunition maker to get loads that are accurate and work at safe pressures -- but we're talking about masking the smell of the silver.
TMJ plating is an option, but electroplating isn't something you'd do if there's a quicker, easier way, and there is.
Reloaders have been *powder coating* lead bullets for some years. This is standard powder coating, as used instead of paint on metal items like bed frames, car accessories, etc. The bullets are cast, weighed and culled if needed, and optionally sized to fit the barrel, then tumbled in a container of powder, after which they're heated on a tray (toaster oven temperatures, not hot enough to melt lead, never mind silver).
Once completed, the process can be repeated for insurance, to be extra sure the coating is gas tight (since your protagonist will likely be "nose blind" temporarily from handling and melting the silver), and normal handling that wouldn't damage factory ammunition won't damage the powder coating.
Much less in the way of special equipment and chemicals needed than electroplating and (at least with lead bullets) the coating doesn't change the pressure curve of the loaded rounds -- but it does prevent barrel leading just as a jacket would.
[Answer]
**Dilution is the solution to pollution.**
As she travels the country in her Immortal Winnebago, a little water hydrolyzer works in the back. When she has generated enough hydrogen she fills a balloon which carries away a packet of mixed silver dust and gunpowder. These drift over the country until they finally spill their contents.
Suspicious silver sniffers smell it everywhere. They become numb. They no longer care. Your character totes her silver bullets with impunity.
[Answer]
**Frame Challenge**
Injectables via tranquilizer gun plus darts could just as easily do the trick. Dart guns are relatively silent since they use compressed gasses and thus don't leave a gunpowder smell. The content of the dart can be a silver powder suspension or, even nastier, a silver nitrate solution. The latter is extremely soluble and will rapidly spread throughout the system in the blood stream.
Tranquilizer guns [have been around for quite a while](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquillizer_gun#History) and are available in [pistol and rifle forms](https://daninjectdartguns.com/why-daninject/). Your protagonist will just need to get some special loads made up for the darts.
[Answer]
**Sous Vide**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vaPc7.png)
Put gun and ammo in a ziploc bag and suck out the air. No air gets in or out. No smell gets in or out.
Use a sous-vide machine like the above. Cooking sous-vide the food is laminated and immersed in 70ish degree water. Instead of steak use a gun.
Bonus points you can still fire a laminated gun in a pinch, without removing most of the plastic. Though it might [explode the rest of the plastic off](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFBAcz16GvU) and injure your hand [depending on the type of gun.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4euC3f4Gb_A)
[Answer]
You want to load sealed cartridges? Then you might want to load shotgun shells. Especially neat are guns that can load .45 Long Colt - because that has the same diameter as .410 shotgun shells. Paper shotgun shells can easily be sealed against smell by wax dipping and even a plastic shell can be made smell-proof with a little wax and grease. .410 is also available in metal casings. Instead of a normal wadding in front, hot wax can be used to seal those long cases, resulting in perfectly air-sealed shells. The wax then just gets blown out as part of the load
While 2006 brought the [Taurus Judge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_Judge) in .45 LC that also can load .410, and 1999/2001 brought the Magnum Research BFR, in 1998 the options for such revolvers are... very limited. However, there are some other types of pistols in this caliber available, you might be interested in:
# MIL Thunder 5
Made from 1992 to 1998, [this revolver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL_Thunder_5) is exactly what you want. It's also not considered a shotgun at all but only one variant is allowed in California - one that can't load .410. However, it is **heavy**
# Thompson/Center Contender in .45
The [Contender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson/Center_Contender) is a break action chambered target pistol. the .45 barrel can load .410, but there's also a dedicated smoothbore .410 barrel available. The Contender exists since 1967, but as a sporting target pistol is rather bulky.
# Bond Arms Derringer
[Bond Arms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_Arms) derringers offer .45 Long Colt since 1995. These break-open derringers also load .410 shotgun shells without hesitation, allowing them to have fully sealed ammunition for two shots. It also has the benefit of a very small form factor. And this has additional benefits: you can actually hide them, unlike other options!
[Answer]
In space, outgassing of materials can lead to problems. We often coat objects like circuit boards with a Parylene conformal coat. Vacuum deposition gets the coating into every nook and cranny: the main challenge is keeping it off of electrical contacts (not a problem in your scenario). Parylene is a tough, slick material, with extremely low permeability to gasses. It can be applied as very thin films. This seems perfect for your problem.
[Answer]
## You can narrow the problem to only the smell of silver
Modern bullets are airtight already; so, you can remove gunpowder from the equation simply by cleaning them well after getting them from the factory. So how does a bloodhound smell bullets? They are trained to smell the metals that the bullets are made out of (brass and lead), and they can also be trained to smell the residue inside of a gun's barrel. A gun that has never been fired is not an easy thing for a bloodhound to differentiate from other mechanical steel objects like bicycle chains or car engines, but once it's been fired it keeps that smell of gunpowder and lead for a really long time which dogs can smell.
In a city, the smells of steel and petroleum lubricants are so common that our brains are designed to filter these smells out as things that are always there. You don't really notice you are smelling them unless you either wander up somewhere with an unusually high amount of lube or leave the area in which case you might become aware that you are no longer smelling it. This is to keep your brain from being distracted by "normal" smells.
So, long story short. This means that as long as your heroine carries a gun that has never been fired, the only uncommon smell she has to account for is the silver, and this is where humans become her best friends. Some humans ware silver all the time. Necklaces, rings, bracelets.. especially being a woman, other immortals would learn not to question this smell alone on a person. While they may hunt the smell of a gun after its fired a silver bullet, where ever they only smell a woman with silver on her person, they are more likely to just avoid her since it is probably not a silver weapon.
[Answer]
Coat the gun in epoxy. It's a totally airtight seal around the entire gun. Once you fire it, the seal is broken, but if you have had to fire a silver bullet that's probably the least of your worries.
You can carry the gun around as normal while it's like this and after a firefight, it just needs to be thoroughly cleaned, stripped of the now residue covered epoxy, and dipped again.
I'm not sure if doing this would actually cause a gun to become non functional but you can probably hand wave that part away.
[Answer]
**A gun shaped sandwich bag**
The gun is loaded but inside a plastic bag similar to the ones used to keep sandwiches fresh. If it's shaped like the gun, she needn't even take it out, just pull the trigger and the bullet will rip right through it!
OK TBH I don't know too much about guns, and how much air is needed to ignite the gunpowder, so this mightn't work 100%, but I'm thinking she could easily open the zip-lock at the top right before she pulls the trigger...
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[Question]
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After creating my version of fantasy slimes (please see [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/191763/feasibility-of-flailing-ooze) and [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/196539/what-items-would-benefit-from-the-rubberizing-enchantment) for more on them, they're called Plops) I realized a problem with their basic physiology.
That is because in medieval times (and the past in general), hygiene really wasn't a thing. People would just dump their garbage in the streets, and dirt and filth was just about everywhere. Plops, being common monsters (like rats or cockroaches), and eat just about anything; filth, refuse, unattended children.
Most Plops are the size of a pot of spaghetti, but if they eat something large enough to distend their body, their natural magic causes them to absorb the extra mass. In other words, if a Plop eats something bigger than they are (like a basketball or a small child, they can't distend enough to consume something like a beanbag whole) they'll end up growing. The size increase is proportional to the additional size and mass of the object compared to the Plop.
This size increase does not occur all at once, it occurs as the Plop digests. Dirt and dust particles, along with most slime and grime, is digested near-instantly. However, any large solid object takes longer, but not by much; it would take five minutes for a Plop to digest its weight's worth in banana peels and (I'm guessing here) about thirty minutes for a Plop to digest the typical four-or-five-year-old.
So, obviously, something must be done to protect people from these monsters, but how? Thus, my question is: **How Can Medieval Villagers Protect Themselves From Plops?**
Context and Clarification:
1. By medieval, I mean Europe from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance. This should give you an idea of what the villages will be like.
2. Plops are not sentient, they are relatively primitive (primitive compared to us). They can figure out that humans are reliable sources of food, that one can ooze through doorframes and cracks in the walls to enter human homes or pantries (did they have pantries in medieval times?), so basically octopus-level intelligence.
3. Plops are capable of climbing walls and ceilings, but not smooth surfaces like pottery or (modern) glass. Trees and bricks, however, are fair game. They also avoid extreme temperatures (for obvious reasons). They move about as fast as a sped-up slug; they can keep pace with and catch up to a speed-walking human but not someone running.
4. Plop can only grow to the size of a minivan, and when their population gets really high, they balance it out by eating each other (they aren't picky, so while this doesn't happen all the time, it *does* happen often). They reproduce abundantly when there is ample food (AKA garbage), which there is in medieval villages, so it's sort of like rats in NYC.
5. Due to magic, monsters like Plop "spawn" regularly, so you *can't* just kill them all and be done. You *have* to deal with them.
6. My question is asking about methods that would A) prevent humans from being swarmed and overwhelmed by hordes of Plop on the streets (yes, there are *that* many, they're like rats) and B) would keep Plop away from children, food, and sleeping individuals. Basically, making life bearable because living among swarms of gooey, rubbery slimes that can and *will* eat you, your cat, and your kids is kind of difficult.
7. **I'm specifically looking for:** repulsion methods, to keep the Plops away from people; offensive methods, to lower the Plop numbers; and strategic methods to lessen the danger of being attacked or eaten by Plop. These methods should not be magical, as the typical medieval villager (in my setting) does not have access to magic. **More specifically,** I'm asking how the villagers can make themselves as safe as possible from Plops.
Criteria for Best Answer:
1. The best answer will include active and passive methods; methods that require human action to work and others that work without interference. I count behavioral patterns as active methods.
2. The best answer will thoroughly cover multiple viable methods and explain why they'd work.
3. Said methods should be **viable for medieval villagers**, something they can actually come up with and produce. That being said, human ingenuity is quite something, so I'm willing to be lenient on this one.
As always, I appreciate your input and feedback, please let me know if there are any problems, and if you decide to VTC or downvote, please give me an explanation so I can improve the question. You have my sincere thanks.
[Answer]
# Sanitation made easy
You appear to be making a huge assumption without realizing it.
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> You see, in medieval times (and the past in general) hygiene really wasn't a thing. People would just dump their garbage in the streets, and dirt and filth was just about everywhere.
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People used to do that because 1) they didn't have an easy way to get rid of it otherwise and 2) there weren't immediately apparent consequences for doing so. However, neither of those is true for your villages. Nobody will think it is a good idea to throw garbage into the streets, especially because what you think of as a problem is actually a solution.
## Enter the plop-in-a-jar.
Need to dispose of some waste? Throw it in the jar. Is the plop getting too big for the jar? Kill it with something you want rubberized and then go get a new one. It's quite likely there will be people who make a living out of catching small plops that will last for a while before getting too big for their jars.
The net result is that you now have a nice, clean village that is not going to be giving rise to hordes of plops.
[Answer]
**Salt**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MI4Ya.jpg)
Works on slugs and snails so should work on mobile slimes too. Salt works by dehydrating the creature causing it pain.
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> Slug cells are basically all water trapped inside very, very permeable membranes. If you sprinkle salt on a slug, the crystals will mix with the water in the slug’s mucus, creating a salt-water solution. But this new solution now has a higher salt content than that of the water within the slug’s cells. In order to even things out, water from the slug's cells is pulled out to join the salt-water mucus and dilute it, which it does, thereby dehydrating the slug from the inside out
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People sprinkle salt on the floor keeping plops out. This has led to the tradition of tossing salt over your shoulder for luck and lines of salt at doorways and windows to ward off evil.
If the numbers gets too great, a simple bag of salt will cull them and cause the rest to flee.
[Answer]
In a world where there's an abundance of something, something else will have evolved to eat it. Humans would notice this and domesticate the predator, just like we domesticated cats to manage pests and dogs to help us hunt.
A slow moving slime seems like an easy meal for anything with a tough enough stomach to digest it. Maybe a pig or goat, or maybe some sort of reptile.
In the wild, there wouldn't be huge numbers of Plops or plop eaters, because there's only enough food for a certain number of Plops, and in turn that only feeds a certain number of Plop eaters. Around people however, the extra rubbish attracts extra Plops and extra Plop eaters. Troublesome Plop eaters would be driven away or killed, leaving only those that people liked - after a few hundred generations they'd probably be cute and friendly with floppy ears, and probably only have a passing resemblance to the wild ones.
I imagine that towns or houses would have a Plop pit for their rubbish, with a fence around it - not to keep the Plops in, but to keep the Plop eaters out! Young Plop eaters would roam the village looking for wild Plops, or accompany people heading out into the countryside, while older Plop eaters would doze near the pit, waiting to take a bite when a Plop tries to climb out.
[Answer]
Some possible protection methods:
**1. Build moats**
Those moats can be built around villages, towns, or individual households. Fill them with something that Plops do not tolerate well, e.g. water if Plops cannot swim, broken pottery shards or other sharp objects if Plops are sensitive to cuts, natural predators if Plops have them, etc.
**2. Use glaze everywhere**
[Ceramic glaze](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ceramic_glaze) has been known since ancient times. Among other things, it can be used on bricks or ceramic plates that are used as house siding. This, of course, will increase the price of construction but in a face of death money means nothing.
**3. Beautify your villages and towns with plants toxic to Plops**
There should be some plants that Plops dislike or even cannot tolerate at all. Find those plants and use them as decorations everywhere.
**4. Plop traps/Plop poison**
Treat Plops the same way as we treat pests: Find the most effective ways to trap/poison/deter them and widely implement those measures.
[Answer]
### Intoxication
How did medieval people deal with water borne diseases? By adding alcohol to it and getting drunk. Medieval times would probably drive me to drink too.
Your open sewers are filled with yucky liquid with low to mid levels of alcohol, from urination, vomit, and when the bar keep changes the kegs and tips out the waste at the bottom. When the plops consume this, they lack the digestive enzymes in their liver needed to break down ethanol, so the alcohol never leaves their bodies.
Because it's mixed with dirt and such it's absorbed quickly, and their small mass means they don't need much before they are suffering from alcohol poisoning and eventually dying from it.
When another plop consumes the corpse of another, it too gets drunk and dies.
Alcohol on the ground will eventually evaporate, so the town tavern needs to keep cranking out the ale to keep the party going to keep the plops away.
[Answer]
### Spike strips
Realistically, children and pets aren't at any risk during the day. A Plop can't move fast enough to catch them, and it's easy enough to detach one if you happen to touch it. Perhaps it causes some chemical burns on your skin, which would teach kids and pets to avoid them.
The risk is at night when you're asleep. How do you do a swarm of Plops invading your house? Rats and mice aren't a problem, because they're sentient enough to mostly avoid humans. (Although even then, rat bites on children were a thing.)
Anything gelatinous like that is going to rely on its surface tension and internal stickiness to hold it together. It certainly can ooze under a door - but it can't split apart and come back together. The obvious solution then is to lay a strip of spikes around your house, similar to the "Stinger" strip used to stop cars by destroying their tyres. The Plop can't go over them comfortably, and it can't squeeze between the spikes fast enough to get through overnight. Any Plop making the attempt can easily be removed in the morning.
Rich people can have more sophisticated spike strips, perhaps made of broken glass or something like that at the high end. Poor people can do something very similar with thorn branches laid around though, or spiky bushes planted as a natural defence. Brambles would be an obvious choice.
Towns would likely have something similar. A few Plops getting through is a good thing and the spike strips will stop them from getting in houses, but you don't want too many. So town walls become town hedges.
[Answer]
## Village Rotation
I think that, in the world you posit, the villagers would probably have to treat them like a plague. That means, build a village *where there are no plops*, and then, when enough manage to make it into the village that they're a problem, *move the village*.
Yes, that means your villagers live in *tent cities* or similar, perhaps like the Mongols or the Roma - or they are *really* good at building houses quickly.
The problem with anything else - fences, extremely aggressive burning/etc., salt - is that the plops would inevitably invade their food-growing areas. It's too hard to keep them out of large farming areas, and it's too hard to feed even a small medieval town on anything *less*. Thus they need to be able to pick up and move houses, while still being able to keep their farms.
In fact, they would most likely have a rotation! Just like you rotate crops, you also rotate houses. This could even lead them to better crop rotation practices, perhaps discovering the three field system sooner. Three villages, each year move into the next one, and the plops move into the one you just left, eating your garbage and cleaning it up - then next year (or next season) you move again just as the plops find the new place. If you rotate it three times, you're never overlapping - and the plops have a reason to move each time (as they run out of food).
[Answer]
# Kill it with fire
They don't like extreme temperatures, huh? How hot is too hot? If you just surround your bedroom doors and window panes with candles, would that be enough to keep them out? If they've developed gas lighting, you could have copper piping installed and pump gas through them like in a gas oven, surround the perimeter of your house with this and light it up every night, then just turn if off in the morning. (Obviously this would be set up in a place where it's unlikely to start unintended fires, like on the top of a stone wall around the property.) Assuming they start outside of the town, you could surround the whole town instead of each individual house. If they can just drop out of the sky anywhere, you might need to ring your roof with fire instead to keep them out. (Obviously the chimney is a weak spot, but if you have a fire going at night, that's already covered.)
Additionally, your night watchmen should carry torches (they already need them for light at night, so no big deal there). They should patrol the streets at night and keep an eye out for any gelatinous activity. Swords might not be much use against such creatures, but fire always works.
[Answer]
## Simple Rituals
If your goal is to have cities and towns clear of the plops, but the wilds and sewers full of them, then create a simple ritual that repels plops like an anit-pied-piper.
Maybe it's as easy as throwing a certain flower in a fire, and saying a brief incantation.
Make the effect cumulative, but temporary. It gets stronger if done repeatedly, but if not completed for a few days it starts to fade. The first few times it is done at any location it is weak, so you can't use it in the wilds unless you are going to spend a week or two building up the ritual's power.
Thus a city that is abandoned might become overrun with plops within a month, but a normal town is safe because each individual maintains their own ritual in their hearth every day without fail.
Bonus points - there's now a market for the ritual components that is VERY inelastic. If someone corners that market they can get very rich, because people need the ritual components to survive. Now you have a fun plot hook.
[Answer]
Well for one thing it wouldn't take long for people to realize plops are attracted to trash and flith and they'll learn to move their trash out of town and what not, also you didn't mention specifically that they're weak to salt but salt is a common slim weakness so you could make the villagers put out salt to protect them from the plops, and thirdly you can make villages exist exclusively in hot places like deserts and rain forests.
[Answer]
Village and city walls were common. If they're unable to climb pottery, then glazed tile over the bottom few feet of city walls would be common.
Then just add a guard or two to keep an eye out for them, and make it a civic duty to capture any plop you see. As others have said, they'd be a useful resource for cheap vulcanization and waste disposal, so there might be a reward for them. They might even be useful as a food ingredient or additive? People are likely to even make a cottage industry of harvesting them at midden-heaps and outhouses, or even breeding them.
At first, I thought plops larger than a foot or so shouldn't be roaming in town long enough to cause significant harm, but from the sounds of it, a plop the size of a baseball in a midden heap should be able to grow to the size of a small car overnight by digesting constantly. This poses greater problems.
Wrapping each house in glazed tile would be expensive and would still leave gaps at doors, windows, eaves, etc. A waterproof house would be a plop-proof house, but waterproofing houses is expensive, and done perfectly has a tendency to suffocate those inside.
So houses are more likely instead to use another method of avoiding water in homes, and be built on piles or stilts, which could be far more cheaply glazed.
The doorway would remain a weakness if there were steps up to it, but that might be resolved with a little step ladder that is lowered from the front stoop, not dissimilar to some carriages; or perhaps with the steps at the door separated from the door by a small gap of a foot or so that the smaller plops could not get across.
If they want to avoid larger plops, then the stilts get longer, the houses become interconnected by raised walkways, and the plops become a problem only for those forced to work at ground level.
The one problem area would be the outside toilet. It could just be a hole down from a raised stilts area, but that would get stinky. Rather than just a hole cut in wood or stone, the hole could be a (glazed?) tube down to the pit, with a gap at the bottom. Children would be taught not to linger, and to check down the hole to make sure no plops are climbing up it. But not to check with an open flame!
Cheap vulcanization would also have knock-on effects. For example: waterproofing things would be a lot cheaper and easier if rubber seals could be made cheaply and easily. If you drop a tree on a plop, does the rubberization affect just one branch, or the whole tree? Does it coat the tree in rubber, or turn the whole tree into rubber? Does melting it make it smooth and shiny/glazed? Depending on the answer, plops will likely become an essential part of the construction and shipbuilding industries, among others.
[Answer]
**Shovels and Firepits**
Not a difficult task really, you dig a big hole at the edge of town and add some flammable liquid (strong liquor perhaps), use a wide shovel to scoop the Plops up and carry or sweep them into the pit.
At which point you throw in a match and watch them burn.
Routine "Plop-Burnings" would become part of day-to-day life around town. Maybe once a week.
Short-term, plops could be stored in pots with lids until a burning-day.
As long as the villagers are diligent about getting rid of plops as they're found and don't allow them to grow larger, they should remain a minor pest.
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[Question]
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My world is very earthlike and I am looking to create a bird that primarily eats bone marrow. I wanted my bird to crack the bones of the carcasses to eat the marrow inside. What would the ideal beak shape for breaking bones and removing marrow be? I was thinking something like a parrot would be best, but I'm not sure if it would work.
[Answer]
**Woodpecker.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5nrOb.jpg)
<https://www.earthtouchnews.com/wtf/wtf/green-woodpecker-tongues-are-so-long-they-wrap-around-their-skulls/>
Woodpeckers are perfect for eating marrow. They love fat and are always at suet feeders in winter. They already drill their way into trees. Then they extend their long tongues to lap up the morsels within. A giant woodpecker could hold a bone, peck through its cortex and use its tongue to get at the marrow inside.
This seemed so plausible that I wondered if it had ever been observed. It turns out woodpeckers do use their bills to drill through bone and do use their tongues to eat what is inside - in this case, brains.
<https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science/these-woodpeckers-will-drill-your-skull-and-eat-your-brains-if-youre-baby-dove-180961656/>
>
> What happens next may upset you (and in fact, if you’re sensitive to
> bird-on-bird violence, you may want to stop reading here). Before the
> chicks even realize there’s an enemy at the gates, the woodpecker
> cocks its head back and starts to peck … their skulls. The Gila’s head
> moves like a pneumatic hammer, up and down, up and down, drilling into
> flesh and bone with the force of 1,000 G’s. Soon both chicks’ skulls
> have been opened up like coconuts. At this point, the woodpecker
> begins extracting brain and blood with its long, sticky tongue.
>
>
>
I bet woodpeckers eat marrow bones now. I will keep searching...
---
almost there...
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/X7T9J.jpg)
<https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xoxpvs>
[Answer]
Just like so many of our [creature-design](/questions/tagged/creature-design "show questions tagged 'creature-design'") questions, the answer to this one is: "nature beat you to it."
Presenting the Lämmergeier, or Bearded Vulture, a species of vulture that specializes in consuming bone marrow, just like your fictional bird!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/E9pyB.jpg)
These vultures leave the hard work of breaking open the bones to our old friend, gravity. By simply carrying bones to great heights and dropping them onto rocks, the Lämmergeier breaks open the bones without even using its beak!
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/L5Krd.png)
As you can see from the above image, the Lämmergeier's beak is curved, with the top segment extending past the bottom part in a downward-curving hook, designed to scoop and scrape marrow from cracked and broken bones as efficiently as possible. Your fictitious bird could employ the same strategy of dropping bones from a height and have a near-identical beak shape, or, instead of inventing a bird, you could simply co-opt this one if it suits your purposes.
[Answer]
Think about what this bird needs to do to get to and eat the marrow. It first has to break through bone, so the beak needs to be thick or tough. Next, after a hole in the bone is made it needs to gather enough food from what it can reach through the hole, so a long, narrow beak would be beneficial. If it is a bigger bird, it may be strong enough to simply snap the bones in half, but the second problem still remains, it must be narrow enough to fit its open beak into the bone and long enough to eat more.
Like a woodpecker crossed with a hummingbird.
I recommend looking at the various types of Galapagos finch, discovered by Charles Darwin.
[Answer]
They would need to have a very thin and flexible beak or tongue specifically evolved to eat bone marrow since it is inside the bones. The new organ would have to produce specific enzymes that would dissolve the hard bone to reach the bone marrow inside it.
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[Question]
[
In my story, the upper class have augmented reality chips in their brains. What would be the point of physically going to work? Why would a corporation have incredible cyberpunk-style mega-skyscrapers if their corporate workers could push papers and hold meetings virtually?
Edit: The responses have been incredible from everyone. This has given me a lot of food for thought. What an incredible community, especially for a SO Newbie like me :) - Philip
[Answer]
Yes, everyone got brain implants and can do things remotely. The difference is **quality**.
Only the highest-level C-suite officers get top-of-the-line implants, and they really can do stuff from everywhere in the world, in exactly the same manner as if they were in the same room with you. Their experience is flawless: no transmission delays, proper force feedback, infoscreens that really display exactly the data that you need, exactly where you need it.
But everyone else has to make do with the cheap stuff. There are frequent stream interruptions. The field of view is crowded with ads that get past the popup blockers. The resolution is shitty. The audio is miserable. The filesharing doesn't work. The personal thoughts aren't properly separated by the implant and sometimes leak through to the recipient. The editor integration ugly. The brain implants reset every now and then, or have to be rebooted. Keyboards are still needed quite often for input. In short: it doesn't really work well enough.
So for these workers, the office is simply the more efficient solution, more affordable still than proper AR gear. Or maybe the office building provides the required wireless infrastructure and firewall to actually make the AR implants work as designed.
[Answer]
# Because they stopped printing land
There was no need today for the Bank of America to construct the tenth largest building in America at over 1,200 feet with 55 floors and a 5.1 megaWatt generator, when it only employs fewer than 200 people there who manufacture nothing at all.
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/BoA_Tower.jpg/240px-BoA_Tower.jpg)
Office buildings exist for the reason that they are called office buildings: for offices. The way these building work is very simple:
Pretend you are in a country, and it has people with money. But, the people don't want their money getting robbed all the time. This is where we came up with the idea of large, steel vaults that robbers can't break into. The business that keeps your money safe (in a safe), is called a bank.
But, banks don't just let your money sit around and get dusty. Banks *invest* our money to make it grow. They literally rent your money out to people who need to run a small business. When you hear the word "interest" on a loan or credit, that is nothing more than the daily cost of renting someone else's money, which the bank happens to have a lot of.
The hardest problem any business in a large city has to overcome, is getting their stuff close to the people buying it. So, this is how banks and large corporations can use their huge bank accounts (of other people's money) to grow more money.
## They rent the offices
The 55 floors of the Bank of America tower have nothing to do at all with banking. They collect rent from accountants, and lawyers, and interior designers, or whoever can afford to pay the rent.
Your **Big Cyberpunk Corporation** owns this enormous building in the center of the city, because no one else can afford a small shop downtown. Every glass window in your huge skyscraper is an office, and that office is collecting rent every month. The corporate employees might be only a handful, or, like you said, be able to work completely remotely. But, humans can't do everything remotely. Some stuff absolutely needs to be done in a confidential and private office. *Especially* in a cyberpunk world, where hackers can listen in to anyone they want. You can't hack two people talking across a desk, so offices remain the place where businesses keep their company secrets and private business dealings that would be pirated over the Net.
This is how it works in real life. That won't change in a cyberpunk world; it may even become *more* necessary.
[Answer]
# Status and security
As John O notes, events in the real world have shown that physically commuting to work is unnecessary for a sizable portion of the workforce.
But, that doesn't spell the end of massive cool skyscrapers.
As also noted by John O, many jobs can't be done virtually. Many of these will be service or menial jobs that don't need skyscrapers, but some will. I can't think of any examples, but I'll just note that there is a whole universe of unusual jobs out there, so any attempt to generalize is likely to fail. I also think there are more compelling reasons.
## Status
Extremely wealthy people often do outrageous things to flatter their own egos, and to jockey for position with their peers. (Just look at the world of luxury watches.) So, the upper storeys of many of these skyscrapers may be penthouse apartments, especially if things at street level are unpleasant because of pollution, poverty, crime, etc.
Many skyscrapers already exist, and the owners will not be in a hurry to demolish them. With more people working virtually, a greater chunk of these buildings will be available to turn into expensive residential property.
## Security
One common trope in dystopian fiction is that private enterprises become very closed and insular, both as a defense against corporate espionage, and also as a response to increasing violent crime in the absence of adequate policing by the government. Basically, all employees move into corporate-owned facilities, and live there with all their colleagues; management lives in upper floors, with the executives at the very top.
This means that every employee can be protected by corporate security. It also makes it much easier for the employer to extract more working hours from each employee, since employees literally live at their workplace. Not to mention that it would probably stroke the egos of the super-rich people at the top to know that they live atop a closed community over which they have an incredible amount of direct control.
There's an older sci-fi story where practically all humans live in sealed skyscrapers that are essentially independent nations who literally war with each other. (I forget the title. IIRC, it's kind of a murder mystery that involves some shenanigans with elevators.)
If things in your world go in a similar direction, it could drive an increase in the construction of skyscrapers, making them bigger, taller, fancier (on upper floors).
[Answer]
# Bandwidth and Latency
Yes, you can work remotely (in fact, you have to, all the user interfaces *are* online only). But unless you are very high in the corporate hierarchy, you can't afford a good connection from your home (which is, according to the cyberpunk setting, in a high-rise slum). So even if your skills are good enough to get hired by a large corporation, you *will* be slower to react to changes, unable to keep up with people who are plugged into the corporate network right in the building.
The inside of the corp buildings aren't offices. They are more like the Matrix pods; the analogy is encouraged by the corporations: it is obviously *completely safe* to stay plugged in long term, rather than go home and waste time with "family", "hobbies" or anything like it. Studies from as early as 20th century found the negative effects of these distractions on the focus time.
[Answer]
# To ensure that managers can observe workers for signs of dissidence.
If you let people work at home they could be listening to subversive music or doing subversive virtual reality things at home, or ignore important and special figures in the company in favour of doing work. This would make the senior people sad. As such, by forcing people to come into the office you can better keep an eye on people to ensure they're giving proper respect to their corporate masters.
# To ensure job continuity for middle management.
If middle management isn't there cracking whips on people's necks then they're not really needed. As such, middle management needs people to come into the office so they can keep their jobs.
# If people don't come into the expensive office the CEO may not get as big a bonus.
The CEO likely spent a lot of money selling the benefits of people actually working together, not virtually, to the board. If their expensive purchase goes unused then it looks like they failed, and they might not get a bonus.
# They're not sure if this whole virtual reality thing is just a trend.
The older management probably grew up in the distant past when technology was very inferior. They may feel that current technological trends are just a trend and that it's not a good idea to indulge them when it may be people go back to pen and paper soon.
[Answer]
A bit similar to the answer by [Goodies](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/226979/in-a-cyberpunk-world-where-corporate-upper-class-citizens-can-work-virtually-thr/227006#227006), but focussing on the paper-pushers:
Assume that all the *mindless* paper-pushers and corporate drones have been replaced by computers. Call them AI, or just *expert systems*, they do the routine stuff. What that leaves are at least slightly *creative* corporate drones. They don't get a call from their boss, "fire the ten workers in that factory with the most sick days," they get to figure out how the scheduled maintenance downtime can be reduced by 0.7%, without spending more money or doing anything to hurt next quarter's bottom line.
At least today, *creative* meetings work much better in person. Doing them remotely takes a lot of skill and practice. Shifting icons on a screen has some advantages over shifting sticky notes on a wall, but it is not the same. And then the doorbell rings and the speaker has to take a parcel for the neighbour, who isn't answering his bell.
Perhaps your science-fictional implants come with the capability to do a "just like we're in a room" experience. But how much is the transmission delay, and what does that do to social interactions? And if the meeting in person is more effective, the next question would be if it is more expensive, and if so *who pays the cost*. It could be that a company can get officer drones cheaper (or better employees for the same money) if they **allow** remote work. Or the job market is such that the office drones commute on their own time and expense, and are glad about the opportunity.
Imagine the signal getting encrypted at one end, routed through an internet-like connection, and decrypted at the other end. Bandwidth is good but not unlimited. What if the signal is bounced through a commo sat rather than 'risking' ground cables, or through the central server at corporate HQ even for conferences 'in' a regional office? If each connection has as lag of 0.1 seconds, people are 0.2 seconds out of sync.
[Answer]
**It's how the bosses want it**
Now that COVID is "over", a lot of employers (my own included) want all their staff back in the office, even though we were able to work remotely during the lockdown and there was talk in the media of remote working becoming the new norm.
I'm sure there are a number of factors here, e.g. they don't trust (at least some of) their staff to do a full day's work, or they feel that the social interaction is better for teamwork, or perhaps equipment needed for work is expensive and so needs to be accessible to everyone at any time, or maybe it's just in a manager's DNA to like to be able to gather people into a room for a quick chat or meeting at a moment's notice. I'm not a manager myself but from what I gather they don't actually like everyone being spread far and wide, even if they're connected virtually.
The only question remains, does this justify they cost of renting {space on} a fancy skyscraper? And the answer to that is that you simply adjust this cost so it does!
Besides, not all work can be done remotely. Fine if you're a software developer or a writer, but many jobs need access to equipment, materials, labs, etc. Even entertaining clients might be better done in a fancy looking office than over the Internet - you can treat them to expensive coffee or show off your luxurious toilets, show them your products in the flesh, etc. These would all require that the employee comes to the company to do the work.
[Answer]
## Effectivity and social reasons
During the first year of the Covid pandemia, many people were "in lock down". That meant daily work in open office space was not allowed, the office people were required to work at home. The first effect you notice is people feel more free at home, but they are also distracted and diverted easier. The upper class folks (like management, having meetings all the time) resorted to digital communications and did not turn up at the office for months.
This increased the distance between management and work force. Most people occupied in production facilities had to work through the pandemic, with all kinds of restrictive measures on the work place. The decisions were taken for them, by people who were not "upstairs" but working at home.
Now suppose that would become permanent. The work force will only have contact with their superiors by phone or on a screen. Alienation will kick in, giving people the feel some home-workers are privileged, while they are not. They are numbers.
Also, working at home by managers caused alienation between management and the actual things taking place at a company. The skype meetings yielded directions, which could sometimes not be applied at all, because managers had ignored topics occupying other managers. They did not hear the usual gossip at the coffee machine.. often preventing misunderstandings..
The Covid lock downs have ended, nearly everywhere in the western world. Our office elite is present in the office again. Some companies decided to go permanent on the working at home, for a relevant number of their employees. At the start of the pandemic already, Google sold large part of its office buildings, claiming their activities - including production - can all be done at home. That may count for google, making digital information products, but for the average office worker, managers included, office is back. We see our collegues again, their physical presence. Although hardly imaginable for the Google nerds, many people do prefer that: direct communication with others, looking each other in the eye.. rather than beeping your voice through someones loudspeaker.
[Answer]
Maybe the skyscrapers are basically vertical farms/meat generating factories with executive apartments at the top where the views are nice? During COVID, agricultural and industrial workers didn't work from home.
Either that, or, as other answers have noted, online security has just failed for truly critical information so many times that companies have decided anything critical can only be looked at and discussed inside an internet-jamming corporate building.
[Answer]
While there are a lot of image-related reasons for physically gathering your workers in massive chrome and glass edifices, there are more pragmatic reasons for doing so.
The biggest one is data security. The only way we can maintain our corporate secrets is to never let them leave the safe environment maintained by our internal servers and the layers of firewalls and ICE wrapped around our networks. Opening holes in our security to allow people to access that protected data remotely is simply not viable. Any connection to the outside world can be exploited, any encryption can be bypassed, even your implants can be hacked - we have teams to handle scrubbing your firmware regularly, you'll be meeting with them after this talk, and before any meeting dealing with sensitive information.
Of course there can be no data security without physical security, which is why our sensitive networks don't reach to the bottom fifteen floors of the building. In fact there's no network access at all on the twelth through fifteenth, only heavily shielded and armored net cables between the firewalls on sixteen and eleven. And the security section of course. You would have seen part of that on your way up today - the ground floor elevators don't go past twelve for a reason. Same goes for the pads on thirty where the middle management land and the rooftop pad has... more direct arrangements that you'll probably never have to worry about since only Mr Ogawa and his immediate staff ever use it.
As you progress through the corporate hierarchy you get more access by virtue of your location in the building. The higher you go in the tower the more access you have, as enforced by the numerous ICE layers. It doesn't matter what your user access is - when an exec from the seventieth comes down to the thirties they have no more access to the internal net than others on that floor.
That's how serious we are about security. For an outside actor to get access to research done on the fortieth floor they would have to make their way physically to that floor or above. And frankly if they can make it that far up the building I'm not going to stand in their way, and I suggest that you don't either. Get down on the floor and let the tac teams deal with the issue. Dead heroes don't draw paychecks, and your life insurance won't pay out for suicide by samurai.
[Answer]
## Control
Forcing the employees to work in an environment The Corporation controls instead of from the comfort of their own home allows them to exert a lot more control over their employees.
* **Controlling the work environment controls people's thoughts.** People working at home can decide freely how they want to design their work environment. They won't hang up any of The Corporation- provided motivational posters or listen to the PA announcements. They might put up distracting imagery, like pictures of their family. Which could lead some of them to work towards a better future for their useless children instead of a better future for the shareholders like they should. It is far better to let employees work in an office environment carefully designed by the psychology department to facilitate maximum productivity and loyalty.
* **Enforcing a dresscode.** Letting people wear what they want breeds individuality. Forcing the human resources to wear suits and ties as written in the employee handbook breeds conformity. *Looking* like a diligent and obedient corporate drone makes one *behave* like a diligent and obedient corporate drone.
* **Monitoring their activities on the premise.** The Corporation is able to outfit its building with lots and lots of cameras, microphones and other surveillance devices to monitor any action taken and any word spoken while at work. This allows them to detect any subversive behavior of their employees. Their surveillance of the private homes of their employees is far less thorough, because those crafty employees keep finding ways to circumvent The Corporation's tools of home privacy invasions.
* **Make the employees feel monitored.** It's not as if The Corporation does not have the means to monitor their employees off-premise. But while the employee is in the comfort of their own home, it doesn't *feel* to them like they are constantly being monitored. In the office, on the other hand, there is the constant feeling that a manager might look over their shoulder at any moment. This puts an additional psychological pressure to prevent disobedience *before* it happens.
* **Preventing them from leaking information to independent hackers.** Private residences have crappy security compared to the closed shells networks of The Corporation. Doing all the sensitive work on-premise makes it easier for The Corporation to prevent leaks. Both intentional and unintentional.
[Answer]
**Remote work is a sign of low status because it means your work is irrelevant from a security standpoint**
Anything you send on the internet can be read by at least the Zuck, Bill Gates, your ISP, the government, possibly several hostile nations depending on who hacks into the internet routing nodes that day, and multiple three letter agencies. This being a cyberpunk world, at least some of those actors are corrupt and/or paid off by enemy entities. So you have end to end encryption, you say? With a 4096 bit elliptic curve cipher? Cute.
If you are in a creative or decision making position, remote work is a disastrous data leak waiting to happen. After the near-bankruptcy of Airbus when their secretive game-changing A420 orbital jet was announced as the Boeing 969 the day after an employee updated the design blueprints from home after hours, more and more corpos realized the sneakernet was the only viable means of communication in the 22nd century.
As a result, all large corpos have their own on-site datacenter, protected by the corporate security umbrella. "The cloud" fell out of favor in the late 2020s when the rate at which cloud resources were compromised began to be expressed in megahacks per second.
This obviously applies only to the important people. Paper pushers work remote because their work is replaceable. Security for these ComJobs (named after a maligned ISP in the 20th century) is handled by loss prevention, which calculates the cost of the work lost to hacking activity and compares it to the cost of moving them into the corporate fortress. If the work is cheap enough to do over after a hack attack or outsource to multiple teams working under distributed consensus rules, the employee is not given an access card and is graciously allowed (required) to work remote in their mass produced prefab home, for a reasonable wage cut because they no longer have a need for expenses such as transportation, sick days or shoes.
[Answer]
The office is airgapped: there is *no* connection between the building intranet (on which the work is done) and the internet. The only way for malware to get in is if somebody physically brings it through the front door.
* Deliberate sabotage (employees should be searched on entry and the penalty for bringing any data storage device across the perimeter should be severe).
* A malicious script embedded in an employee's personal device (these should be scrubbed to factory default on entry and be remote terminals for cloud computing done on the building's server, not independent computers with local data storage).
* Or malicious code embedded in data or software that the corporation has no choice but to bring across the boundary. (For instance- Dell-Gazprom puts malicious code on **all** their printers because they know that Northrop-Toshiba uses Dell-Gazprom printers; the printers hack any server they're connected to; an activation code is manually entered separately by a blackmailed saboteur.
The drawback of course is that remote work is impossible, so office space is needed.
[Answer]
It doesnt say what is happening in those skyscrapers.
* It can be as simple as being a vertical industrial area. They get raw materials and use those to build propriotary products from start to finish, right in the middle of the population centers.
* The company might not need its office workers to come in, but they want their own trusted servers to handle the encriptions and communications. So the building houses tons and tons of data processing centers and servers to handle the load.
* its a dystopian world out there, they use the extra space as a way to build depth in their "territory". Anyone coming to steal or any corporate warfare will run into a lot of area they need to cover, giving the corporation time and space to fall back on or deal with intruders. This could include a thick, armored wall against literal attacks designed to bring the building down. Naturally higher up will have more expensive toys and personell.
[Answer]
As pure status symbol. Mostly they are there to show off just how powerful and rich the corporations are. Marketing essentially.
The skyscrapers are the vanity projects of last century and beyond, so why wouldn't it continue to be one?
And how they can afford it? Maybe it's due to some weird and stupid government tax deductions. Where actually building and maintaining one doesn't really end up costing that much. Originally intended as jobs program to compete unemployment. And maybe with some accounting it is considered to be appreciating asset propping up the stock price.
Still there could be some use for servers, local operations and operatives that have to be on site and so on. But mostly it is there just for sake of being there.
[Answer]
***Service***
as cool as virtual things are, nothing beat the real world pleasure. depending on how decadent you want your cyberpunk world to be, you limit this to extremly high end food and coffee, most definitly a spa and the like, or anything you see at a facebook or google campus. treat your important employee like royalty and even if they can work far far away from home, they wouldn't pass on the opportunity to get free gourmet meal with a foot massage
You could easly argue that in a cyberpunk word, if you actually work it does mean your lower class. sure you might have to push paper for a few hour a week, if that, but for most mid/high level employee, their job is much more about maintain status and name recognition than actual work (see bulshit job today)
if you like thing to get frisky, other kind of leisure activity could be offered at the expense of the underpaid employee, the only limit being your perverted imagination and how bored they are.
***Security***
it has been said several time in the topic, but even if you can work remotly, with how many pirate they are in cyber setting, distance work is prone to be compromised, where as offline indoor work is almost untouchable. and that's without taking into account the risk of physical penetration: with how rampant mercenary are, you can't be sure somebody's home won't be broken into by the concurence, where as your private building can have a small army inside.
***Always a question of size***
it's simple, yet effective. as said in other post, having a huge tower, bigger than the one of your concurent is a simple way to show that you are the most powerfull in town. the powerfull have alway loved to spend ludicrous amount for arts & monument, it's an efficient way to project power without having to outright shoot people
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Because they already had them before virtual working become commonplace. Now they convert the buildings into accommodation for the ever growing population. Land and accommodation are two very important commodities in an over-populated world.
[Answer]
Living conditions are expensive/dangerous/crowded in some way, OR quality food or power supplies are expensive or limited. In these cases, assuming that the corporations want to bring the employees into office buildings for many of the reasons already given (control, monitoring, security), the mega offices could be made safer/more luxurious and provide something hard to get - space, quality food, cheap power, whatever is a 'scarce' resource for all but the ultra-rich. The upper middle class would then see going to the office as a benefit.
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[Question]
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* There's a person who has enough working knowledge of our current real-world methods of cryptography (e.g. knows how a few modern algorithms work and could implement one or two from scratch).
* That person becomes a member of an alien civilization where people are generally intelligent and educated (in fields like math), but they haven't invented electricity or computers.
* That person is willing to teach this civilization how to use cryptography and the military of that civilization is willing to learn about cryptography and apply it in order to have an advantage over a potential enemy.
* A potential enemy could have anything between no computers at all, to computers computationally comparable to our current everyday desktops.
Could the civilization realistically implement some form of *secure* (probably manual) encryption of simple textual messages (or more), without access to computers? Or is it out of their league computationally to make their method cryptographically secure?
[Answer]
[One time pad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad) is 100% secure against any kind of cryptographic attack we can reasonably conceive, if used properly, and is sufficiently low tech to be used by neolithic technology level (with writing).
[Answer]
In two words: **absolutely yes.**
Cryptography, at its core, is not about computers at all. Sure; automated, programmable, electronic computers operating at about a gazillion instructions per millifortnight allow us to perform some pretty neat tricks that would be difficult to pull off otherwise, but there is nothing inherent about cryptography that requires electronic computers. There was serious cryptographic work being done in the 1700s and 1800s, and while those ciphers are trivially breakable with modern methods, they held up pretty well to the adversaries of the day. The [Vigenère cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher) is an excellent example of this.
That said, given what we know today, and within the limits of your question, your protagonist's best bet is probably (and I'll likely get shot down for this) be the German [**Enigma**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine).
Yes, it was broken. But we now know quite well what allowed it to be broken, and to a large extent, what allowed breaking the Enigma was **poor operating procedures.** Things like reencrypting the same plaintext under multiple systems with different security properties, standard message preambles, test transmissions using real key material (the infamous `LLLLL...` transmission provided an *invaluable* crib to codebreakers in the UK), ... Really, these are things that any motivated security-inclined professional should be able to keep up with without any major difficulties. Even something as simple as starting *each and every single message* with a random number of letters (symbols) selected at random followed by one particular letter to mark the end of the part to be ignored, would probably be a *huge* improvement.
The Enigma is relatively easy to implement electromechanically (we did it with 1930s technology), and I don't think it is *too much* of a stretch to build one that operates purely mechanically. (Though relaxing your requirement that these aliens have not discovered electricity might make for a more believable story. You could, if you want to, make electricity very limited, and restricted to military applications, but still present in the world.)
Especially against an adversary that doesn't have computers or even electricity, the Enigma's theoretical key space is *gigantic*. With reasonable assumptions, [Wikipedia claims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine#Details) that the Enigma's key space was approximately $10^{23} \approx 2^{76}$; with ideal assumptions, it had a theoretical key space of around $10^{114} \approx 2^{380}$. Make use of all of it.
By giving the aliens some Enigmas, as well as explaining to them that those have been broken, *how* they were broken, and how to avoid the mistakes that allowed them to be broken, your protagonist will be giving that side of a conflict a major upper hand (tentacle, or whatever) in a conflict, because for all intents and purposes, they *will* have the ability to keep messages secret even if messengers are intercepted or their communications are being monitored by the adversary.
Compare also [How cryptographically secure was the original WW2 Enigma machine, from a modern viewpoint?](https://crypto.stackexchange.com/q/13150/1142) on the Cryptography Stack Exchange.
[Answer]
Yes. Look at the [Caesar Cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_cipher) (dating back to Julius Caesar) or the [Vigenere Cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigen%C3%A8re_cipher) (more modern and more secure) as examples. Neither are considered "strong" encryption being primarily based on replacing one letter with another (or combinations of letters, which is stronger), but if neither side has computers and the encryption does not have to last terribly long they can be very handy.
Another option would be to use something like Navajo codetalkers, as occurred in WWII. By translating a message into a complete but very difficult to decipher language you have very little risk of it being translated by your enemy (unless they also have people who speak that language). That survived the advanced decryption efforts of the Germans, who also employed early computers.
[Answer]
**Yes - Again**
While historical references do exist, as the OP added they are not long-term secure and can be broken. If the OP is looking for something "harder", then yes, people could manually construct short messages using current encryption schemes. It would be bloody long work, but it could certainly be done.
Take a look at [this paper](http://www.adamberent.com/documents/AESbyExample.pdf) on how AES works for example. In this paper the author walks through how AES encryption works. As you can see from the example it would take a considerable amount of manual work, but you could perform manual AES encryption after exchanging a secret key.
The major defects of this type of operation however are threefold:
**1. The key must remain secret**
If the other side obtains your secret key, you're toast. So you wouldn't want to tell too many people what that key was unless they're all willing to take it to their grave even under torture.
**2. It's extremely labor-intensive**
Encrypting small and extremely important messages is feasible with enough people on board, but you couldn't relay dozens/hundreds/thousands of messages a day with such a system. If you wanted to - and you generally would want to during a war scenario - then you would be back to the aforementioned caesar/vigenere ciphers.
**3. Modern encryption was built for computers**
Systems such as AES were built when computers were in-use and well understood. You will often see references to the binary system and will need to translate letters back to ASCII. But that will be the case when trying to use any computer-level encryption in a manual-only world.
Note:
I created a different entry because the OP clarified on my first one, which used real-life examples of ciphers which were used successfully in areas where computers did not exist. This answer is fundamentally different and discusses modern encryption using entirely manual concepts, based on OP comments.
Edit:
Technically you could perform asymmetric encryption, which would remain useful if any outpost's secret key was compromised. But even using so-called "suite B" encryption protocols to reduce computational burden while maintaining integrity (based on more advanced math) they are still SIGNIFICANTLY more labor-intensive than symmetric algorithms like AES. I would wager it's still basically possible - we did build pyramids without wheels after all - but probably very difficult and certainly much more time consuming. You could have your protagonist use the same ideas that underly asymmetric encryption to create a less vigorous algorithm however, and that may make it more realistic while still remaining unlikely to be broken manually. Just make sure to stipulate that rooms full of people were working on it :)
[Answer]
This [website (Articles on Historical Cryptography)](http://cryptiana.web.fc2.com/code/crypto.htm) has pages and pages on historical ciphers and codes. and a basic Ottendorf cipher can remain unsolved for some time if the writings used are obscure enough.
[Answer]
Read Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. He dissects how codes were used in the 17th century for secure communications as all letters were read by governments. In one example the Duchess of Qwghlm (A fictional country with a 16 letter alphabet) communicates securely using needlepoint where stitches make an "X", if the low left to high right is above the low right high left then it is a "1", otherwise it a "0". Four stitches can then represent all the letters in the Qwghlm alphabet (like hexadecimal). For further security you had to know Qwghlm to be able to read it!
Also read his book Cryptonomicon. It is about Cyphers in WW2 and the 90's. the main character used church organ pipes and resonance to make a sound based computer to crack the Japanese code. It's one of my favorite books!
[Answer]
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned [Beale ciphers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers).
There, the vulnerabilities lie in 1) knowing which book is being used to do the encoding, and 2) whether different editions (versions) of that book are different enough to resist easy decoding.
[Answer]
No, not in any meaningful sense of cryptography that includes safety against an attacker who does discover scalable math/computation. This is very over-simplified, but cryptography generally relies on math that's polynomial (usually sub-quadratic) time to compute in one direction but exponential time to reverse. However, in order to make the exponential-time calculations infeasible, you still need big numbers. 2n is pretty damn small in the big scheme of things until n gets fairly big. And once n gets big, the forward operation is costly to do without a high-speed computer. Just try doing 2048-bit RSA on a 1 MHz cpu if you don't believe me.
Keep in mind that even without "computers" in the sense of high-speed electronic devices, an attacker with resources could simply employ or enslave tens of millions of people to perform a few huge computations each. The original meaning of "computer" was a human who performed large computations, not a machine.
[Answer]
Since I can't comment, I will just provide a some example without it the answer will be incomplete. Remember <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Dancing_Men> ? Although Sherlock Holmes could understand the cipher, certainly it goes beyond of cryptography where you are trying just decode sequences of bits. Images, and sounds can be another interesting part of cryptography. No secret that many CAPTHCA which human can read easily, bring computers in complete stuck.
[Answer]
Absolutely yes. In addition to everything that was said already: The Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, contains a complete cryptographic algorithm using standard playing cards, with the required math being simple enough that with some training it can be done in the head.
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One fairly significant consideration is that - if there is no electricity - then (short of some sort of semaphore system) messages will have to be hand-delivered. With the sort of time-scale that this implies, the disadvantage of taking several minutes to manually decode a single sentence will be much less marked; if a message takes two days to reach the recipient then several minutes or even hours to decode will not seem quite such an issue.
[Answer]
Do you ***really*** need caligraphy?
Are you just interested in passing secret messages? If so, look into [steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography), et al.
My favo(u)rite story of passing a secret message is [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histiaeus) ...
>
> According to Herodotus, Histiaeus was unhappy having to stay in Susa,
> and made plans to return to his position as tyrant of Miletus by
> instigating a revolt in Ionia.
>
>
> In 499 BC, he shaved the head of his
> most trusted slave, tattooed a message on his head, and then waited
> for his hair to grow back.
>
>
> The slave was then sent to Aristagoras, who
> was instructed to shave the slave's head again and read the message,
> which told him to revolt against the Persians.
>
>
>
] |
[Question]
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I have built a Tchou-Tchou 'hyperloop' wagon that reaches 310 km/h on a 500 meter test rail. One of my investor customers wants to try the Tchou-Tchou, but I am a bit concerned about his safety. To impress him, the train is configured to reach 310 km/h with constant acceleration after 250 meters, then slow back down to 0 km/h with constant acceleration at 500 m.
Will he survive the best case scenario? And what is the best case scenario?
[Answer]
To expand on @a4android s Comment
For simpler numbers the following is calculated for a top speed of 100m/s
You can travel 500m in 10s with all of the following regimes:
1. constant acceleration of 20m/s2 for 5s then -20m/s for 5s. This solution has the lowest maximum acceleration/deceleration, but it has aprupt changes of the acceleration which are dangerous to the passenger.
2. Linearly increase the acceleration to 40m/s2 for 2.5s then linearly decrease to -40m/s2 for 5s then linearly increase to 0 for 2.5s. Here the acceleration is a continuous function without aprupt changes, but you need double the maximum acceleration. At around 4g this is still in the roller-coaster range.
The best is probably an intermediate solution, for example:
3. Linearly increase the acceleration to 25m/s2 in 1s then keep it constant for 3s then linearly decrease acceleration to -25 for 2s, keep it constant for 3s and go back to 0 in 1s. This has a much more moderate top acceleration of around 2.5g and also has no aprupt changes in acceleration.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zZbGk.jpg)
[Answer]
310 Km/h is 86 m/s. This means that on your 250 meters track (for acceleration), you'll have a mean speed of 43 m/s, meaning that you'll reach your 250m in 5.81 seconds. Now, 86 m/s reached in 5.81 s is 14.8 m/s², or about 1.5 g (same for deceleration). Maybe not really comfortable, especially for "regular" people not used to this kind of acceleration during transportation (except for rollercoasters), but undoubtely survivable.
[Answer]
Tsts, it's easy peasy.
[Colonel John Stapp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stapp) made progressively harder and harder experiments with deceleration *himself* to find out what the human limits are (He advocated the safety belt, by the way).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uaapv.jpg)
*Wikimedia, Public Domain*
He stopped at December 10, 1954 with the rocket sled *Sonic Wind* from 1,017 km/h (632 mph) to zero in less than 1.4 seconds, experiencing a deceleration of nearly 46 g, meaning that the straps fixing him needed to hold the weight of an Indian elephant (Stapps weight was 77 kg (170 pounds), so the equivalent force was 3,5 t!).
For the more pragmatic people: The shorter the timeframe, the more g the human body can tolerate.
* 3 g = -30 m/s^2 is something even old people can manage.
* 5-7g = -50/70 m/s^2 will pass out most people if prolonged depending on fitness, roller coasters are in the vicinity of 5g.
* 7-9g = This is really uncomfortable now; untrained people will stay conscious only for a few seconds and prolonged exposure will cause death.
* 9-12g = Only extremely fit and trained people are able to handle this for a longer time (minute range): astronauts, fighter & aerobatics pilots.
[Answer]
The correct formula to use here, given constant acceleration, is $v\_f^2 - v\_i^2 = 2ad$.
So
$$a = \frac{v\_f^2 - v\_i^2}{2d}$$
with
$$\begin{align}
v\_f &= 310\ \mathrm{km/h} = 86.11\ \mathrm{m/s} \\
v\_i &= 0\ \mathrm{m/s} \\
d &= 250\ \mathrm{m}
\end{align}$$
you get an acceleration of $14.83\ \mathrm{m/s^2}$ or about $1.50g$. This is well within human limits.
[Answer]
I have done some math...
The distance you travel while accelerating with constant acceleration is
$d= 1/2 a t^2$
while the velocity you reach in the same time is
$v = at$
since you state the distance and the velocity, we can solve it in acceleration and time.
$1/2 at^2 = 250$
$at = 86$
Which gives $a = 86^2/500 = 14.792 m/s^2$, almost exactly 1.5 g for a total of 12 seconds.
[Answer]
Top fuel dragsters currently accelerate from 0 to about 335 MPH (~540 KPH) in 1000 feet (~305 meters), taking about 3.5-4 seconds to do so (giving a little over 5 G's of acceleration). They then decelerate back to 0 in about another 5 seconds or so (around 3 G's of deceleration).
This is fairly impractical though. To do it, the cars use engines that produce around 10,000 horsepower. That puts enough wear and tear on the engine that it's standard practice to completely rebuild the engine *every* run.
Fighter jets can generate quite a bit more acceleration than that in a tight turn. Most have acceleration limiters, so they won't exceed about 8 G's, and will only maintain that for a *very* short time, then the jet will automatically "loosen" the turn to keep the pilot from passing out.
In this case, the acceleration as felt by the pilot is normally "downward"--i.e., pushing him/her down in the seat, rather that backward like the acceleration in a dragster. This has a significant effect--since it's pulling "downward", it's more difficult for the heart to pump blood to the brain. This leads to a "grey out" effect, where the brain (and eyes) are receiving little enough blood that vision becomes somewhat impaired.
Even achieving that takes fairly drastic measures--pilots wear "speed pants" to "squeeze" their legs, helping force blood upward instead of pooling in their legs. The "seat" in a modern fighter is also fairly reclined (e.g., around 30 degrees) to make it somewhat easier for the heart to pump blood to the pilot's head.
Getting to your actual question: these are probably close to the limit of what you can expect people to endure on a semi-regular basis. Accidents are often catastrophic, and even in the absence of catastrophic accidents the acceleration and deceleration take a substantial toll on drivers/pilots. A common injury among top fuel drivers is detached retinas. Don Garlits (top fuel driver, now retired) had surgery to fix a detached retina, and has admitted that it was fairly routine that the initial launch left him feeling "woozy" until he reached around the 300 foot mark.
So, getting to your specifications: accelerating at 1.5 G's should be no problem for any reasonably healthy adult. If you double that to 3 G's, there's still little likelihood of its being life threatening (especially given the relatively short track your postulating).
Tripling the acceleration to 4.5 G's gets you into the range where it's still entirely survivable, *but* you'd want to ensure the investor had a physical quite recently--it's getting to the point that you'd want to ensure that s/he was healthy enough rather than being able to take it for granted just because you didn't know of his/her being particularly unhealthy.
[Answer]
Top fuel dragsters can reach speeds of upwards of 400 km/h in under 3.2 seconds while traveling a distance of just 201 meters. They then decelerate quite rapidly using a combination of drag chutes and then wheel braking systems. The experience is no doubt ***extremely*** violent and uncomfortable, but drivers generally emerge from their cars unscathed.
[Answer]
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rfp5C.jpg)
This is a real world example using the fastest production automobile. It's not as fast as your requirements, but I think it gives some great information on the physics and power requirements to do what you want and the video link is entertaining.
The Bugatti Veyron has a top speed of 408.47 km/h (253.81 mph) and can go from 0 to 408 km/h to 0 in 90 seconds. Yes, it's going to require slightly more track than your Tchou-Tchou, but if you can do this in a production car, you really could do this in your hyperloop.
There are engineering challenges to consider.
You don't describe your top speed of your Tchou-Tchou. I assume it will do more than 100 mph. There are some parallels you should keep in mind to improve the story.
In the case of the Bugatti, it requires 250hp to achieve 100 mph. To achieve 253 mph, it needs another 750hp for a grand total of 1000hp. This means the engine powering the Tchou-Tchou needs to quadruple it's output just to make your challenge work.
Much of that is the resistance caused by the air in front of the car which creates friction and slows it down. You will have the same issues in a hyperloop tube because even if it's a vacuum and lower air pressure, it's going to be really hard to make complete vacuum. The biggest challenge with pushing what becomes in essence a ram down a tube is how to displace the air in front of the vehicle. In subways or rail tunnels, they build ventilation shafts to give the air somewhere to go besides forward. If you ride a subway regularly in an underground station, you already experience this to a degree when the air in the tube blows by you when a train is coming into the station.
Others covered stopping already, which is possible, tolerable, but maybe not so much fun.
**Video of speed test**
I really recommend the video. It's an engineer and television host explaining the engineering challenges of developing a car which is able to achieve significantly higher speeds than most vehicles.
* <https://youtu.be/jk1t6S737Cs>
* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron>
* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Chiron>
* <http://www.bugatti.com/chiron/>
Good luck.
] |
[Question]
[
My story has magic, and some of that magic involves manipulating pocket dimensions, hammerspace, whatever you'd like to call it. Whether it be a portal to a closet you can access with a thought, or the ability to make objects disappear and make them re-appear later, or a sleeping bag that when crawled inside leads to an entire house, a decent amount of powers, abilities and enchantments involve conjuring extra space out of nothing, in which to store things in some alternate dimension.
But this raises a rather awkward predicament I'm trying to work out how to avoid, revolving around the fact that when the person or thing a pocket dimension is tied to is destroyed, the pocket dimension associated with it is supposed to take everything from the real world that had been held inside of it and push it back out into the real world, and then disappear (anything that had been created by the magic as part of the pocket dimension, like the house in the sleeping bag example, would just vanish). This works just fine in most scenarios, but what would happen if there's no room?
Suppose a man using a pocket dimension power gets locked in a steel box that then gets encased in cement, causing him to suffocate and die. The man's pocket dimension then tries to "decompress", but the space it's emptying out into is completely airtight and won't let any more matter inside of it easily. As I see it, this can have two outcomes, both of them very, very bad for worldbuilding:
1: The pocket dimension gives up, and the matter kept inside of it is deleted and lost forever. This essentially means that anyone with one of these powers (powers which are reasonably common and can be tied to destructible objects rather than people) has the ability to completely and permanently delete matter from existence, which seems like something I really shouldn't make that easy.
2: The pocket dimension keeps pushing harder and harder, as hard as it needs to in order to get the "blockage" out of the way and dump everything inside of it out into the real world. This would introduce the concept of a hammerspace pressure bomb, which, while really, really cool, would also mean I'd never be able to do things as large as the "sleeping bag with a house inside of it" idea because the kind of explosion you could make by decompressing that kind of hammerspace would probably wind up being way more destructive force than I want to give to such commonplace magical abilities and objects.
**I need an alternative method of emptying out the contents of these pocket dimensions. A method that would safely put everything inside them back into the real world within the reasonable vicinity of the source and within a maximum timeframe of about five minutes. A method that wouldn't, when met with resistance, give up and destroy the matter inside of it *or* apply blockage-destroying pressure.**
[Answer]
You can make the hammerspace open another portal nearby where there is empty space and disgorge its contents through there. Think of it like a very full bag of water springing a leak as you squeeze the bag smaller. The leak will open up where the fabric is weakest i.e. where there is empty space.
[Answer]
Hammerspace becomes unstable, but doesn't disappear completely until empty.
The bag's contents spills into the available space until it is filled (possibly under pressure), the rest remains in hammerspace. As soon as anyone opens the enclosure, he's met with an eruption (which can be as much or little violent as you want it) of stuff from the hammerspace, until it is empty and vanishes.
[Answer]
>
> This would introduce the concept of a hammerspace pressure bomb
>
>
>
"Pressure" is a slightly misunderstood subject, and isn't necessarily as destructive as you might thing. High pressure can deform and rupture solid objects, but that deformation and rupturing *doesn't imply an explosive release of energy*.
Have a quick read up on [hydroforming](https://americanhydroformers.com/what-is-hydroforming/), for example, or [hydrostatic testing of diving gas cylinders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_and_inspection_of_diving_cylinders). In both cases, the working fluid is incompressible so if the pressure exceeds the ability of the container to hold it will rupture. Unlike a gas overpressure though, the fluid won't suddenly expand out in an explosion... it'll just spray, possibly forcefully, but it won't go boom, because the high-pressure fluid has almost the same volume as the low-pressure stuff.
Also have a look at stuff like [this](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tVE5A.jpg)... a mushroom, made of relatively soft and delicate stuff, yet still capable of exeting sufficient pressure to punch through a layer of asphalt.
Slow expansion over a period of minutes can do what you need. It could still be highly destructive... a bulldozer isn't quite as exciting as a bomb, but you still wouldn't want it driving through a supporting wall for your house, for example.
>
> A method that wouldn't, when met with resistance, give up and destroy the matter inside of it or apply blockage-destroying pressure.
>
>
>
So you don't want to damage a confined space, or damage an object too big to fit into that space, but you want to fit that object into that space anyway?
Well, you can't have your cake and eat it. Something has to give, unless your ruptured hammerspace region is going to manifest as a sort of warped region of space that's small on the outside and big on the inside but otherwise freely traversable.
If you didn't want external destruction at all, then maybe the hammerspace contents simply get pressed into a brick of superdense "hammerium" (hammerite already have been taken) such that they're not vanished, but do become dense enough to fit into the available space. A careful limit to the amount of stuff you can fit in a hammerspace region should prevent you ending up with problems like electron degeneracy.
Combine the two effects as required, and no-one need get blown up or vanished.
[Answer]
# Hammerspace is complicated
The first thing is that it doesn't strictly have a location in normal space, if it's opened then it has a connection to a specific location, but we're thinking in portals, the one is not necessarily anywhere "near" the other. Only the owner can open the hammerspace, theoretically anyway. It certainly can't be opened from the inside as it lacks the necessary anchor to know *where* to open.
So what happens when the owner dies? The space remains, until it decays.
An ownerless hammerspace detunes and can potentially be opened by someone with a similar signature, so if someone related to the deceased tries to open a new hammerspace it's possible they will open the abandoned one and find it's already full of stuff. Once opened in this way it will reattune to the new owner and stabilise.
When it decays, it collapses and scatters its contents across nearby hammerspaces. Sometimes smaller chunks, sometimes larger ones. You might find your hammerspace has a lot more dust in the bottom, you might find a hammer you didn't put in there.
[Answer]
There are a few spells and magic items in Dungeons & Dragons that have rules for when whatever they're trying to transport has nowhere to go. What happens as a result is usually one of three things:
1. The objects take a load of force damage, and then land back where they were. This can happen when trying to teleport into solid rock. In your case, this would lead to the eventual disintegration of whatever's in the hammerspace dimension.
2. The objects get scattered across the Astral Plane, where they will be difficult (but not, in principle, impossible) to recover. This happens when rupturing a Bag of Holding, and is similar to deleting the contents of of the hammerspace.
3. The objects simply land in the nearest available open space. This can happen when using a spell like Etherealness to phase through a solid wall, but then the spell ends while you're in the middle of it.
Option 3 is probably the closest to what you're looking for. In this case, the hammerspace inventory of the guy buried in concrete would just spill out on the ground above where he's buried.
[Answer]
Objects don't get *pushed out* of Hammerspace. Hammerspace gets *"pulled back"*.
Imagine squeezing several snooker balls into a balloon. The balloon itself is stretched, and under pressure.
When you take a pin and burst the balloon, it makes a tiny hole. This hole tears and gets larger, releasing the balls - but it doesn't "throw" them out under pressure. If you have a ring of sellotape or something around the puncture point, it stops expanding there.
Going back to your concrete coffin example - as soon as the coffin is "full", the hole can't expand any further. As soon as the coffin is sufficiently breached, the hole can expand through that can - retreating and leaving stored objects behind without momentum.
[Answer]
# Lost Portal
If a person is tethered to the pocket dimension dies, then the portal is "released" in the sense that it is no longer tethered to that person. Perhaps the portal to the dimension is *itself* now wandering around, looking for a place to decompress. Because we're dealing with portals and dimensions, the portal is not stuck inside the metal box encased in cement - the person is. So when they die, the "tether" to that dimension is broken, and now the dimension can wander around 3d space.
This means the people killing the man could, through some magical means, detect the portal's wandering and catch it. Think of it like a balloon tied to someone's arm. If the string breaks, the balloon rises and flies around. So, do the same thing here: the "tether" to the portal is broken, so the portal wanders around, and can then be detected or caught.
Furthermore, you can have the portal seeking for a place to deposit it's contents. You could make this near or far away based on the rules of your universe.
[Answer]
Work it backwards in time: someone in a very compressed situation moving to a more confortable, non-compressed situation.
Seems like watching a tape of something being co.pressed by a garbage compactor, but on reverse.
Setting it forward again, I think expulsion from pocket space would do just that - objects coming out of the pokéball may become smashed inside some other container.
[Answer]
Here is something interesting you might use to keep the explosive results of Hammerspace dumping down somewhat
It has been theorized that most of what we consider as solid matter is, in fact, empty space. There is distance between the nucleus of an atom and it's electrons. There is space between the individual atoms of a molecule. There are gaps between molecules in a solid substance.
Those gaps are where the matter from you pocket dimensions are going to go if you seal the "door" in concrete inside a steel box.
Think of the matter the portal is surrounded by as a seive of sorts. Picture a filter cartridge filled with sand. You can pass water through it fairly easily. An RO filter has a much smaller weave and will pass less water.
Air is like a really open weave so objects come through intact with no problem. In a body of Water, the objects will easily displace the water upward and will therefore remain intact. Having the opening sealed in concrete forces all of the matter to get shoved into the gaps between atoms and molecules. It will result in the resulting concrete gain the mass of everything that gets ejected from the pocket dimension without displacing anything. It will make that concrete block gain mass exactly equal to the mass of objects returning to our dimension. Since the mass is returning from the dimension from which it came, the conservation of mass is maintained
Apologies if this is a kind of sludgy way to describe this, I know what I mean, but I'm not entirely certain it's totally clear.
Bonus. The reason for the matter returning to this dimension is the concept of **dimensional inertia**. Matter from this dimension really wants to remain in this dimension. The Magic User that moves stuff into a pocket dimension has to exert effort to keep the stuff in the pocket dimension. Once the magic user is dead, that effort ends causing the moved matter to snap back.
**Edit** A metaphor for the effect of hammerspace dumping back out into a concrete brick. Take a jar and fill it with sand and then weigh it. The sand represents the concrete. Now slowly add water until it barely covers the sand. That water represents the returning mass. Weigh the jar again. It will have a significant amount of mass more than it did before without appearing much different or gaining any volume.
[Answer]
**Bubbles**
Hammerspace is a core concept in videogaming, and making a player's inventory available after death is a problem that has been resolved. So let's take inspiration from Minecraft.
When suffering from death, a player spills out their inventory into the world. However, it doesn't spill out as solid blocks but rather in a pick-up form. In this form, they take no physical space and can therefore pile up on top of each other. You can shoot through them, and the game is nice enough to not throw items through walls, and if for any reason someone tried to place blocks on top of the pickable items, they just move to the nearest available free space.
You can't interact in a meaningful way with a pick-up, you can do only one thing: walk over it and pick it up. Effectively, they are incorporeal, but conveniently available to the player.
*How does it translate to you?*
When your hammerspace container is destroyed, hammerspace itself isn't destroyed, it simply isn't contained anymore. All the items magically bound to hammerspace become detached, and bubbles of hammerspace start forming into our own dimension, each holding one item.
Bubbles have no physical existence in the real world, but can only form in a free space (aka air), or overlap other hammerspace bubbles. Why? It's magic, don't ask so many questions.
Bubbles can compress and expand, and adapt to the volume of air they have available. They can float away, bump into walls and objects if you want. It's effectively like pockets of gas. They be visible to the naked eye, even displaying an image of the object inside, or they may only be visible through magical means.
The lifetime of these bubbles be can as long as you want. They can last forever, or you can put a hard timer on it. Then, either the items pops back into reality unceremoniously, or they disappear forever.
*How do I reclaim items?*
Option 1: items pop back into reality when you pop the bubble. By simple touch, by some kind of magical incantation, or like if you touch it and wish it to pop. You can imagine that bubbles will only respond to their owner, or someone closely related to them, or any mage-person, or anyone the owner whitelisted, or anybody at all, that's up to you. It's up to whomever to make sure there is enough space to safely pop the bubble though, and if need be to move it somewhere else or mine a space big enough around it.
Option 2: items pop back into hammerspace. When the original container is destroyed, its content spill out. You need to get those bubbles back into hammerspace, by building a new container and forcing bubbles to go into it. They may be naturally attracted by hammerspace containers, it's magic remember, or maybe you'll have to use a proton-pack to suck them into the container like a regular ghost buster. From there, you get your items back the same way you usually do.
[Answer]
Your dimensional pocket spells have parameters, and it sounds common enough to be able to be adjusted for a myriad of purposes. Different people will have different ideas of what they want to happen to their stuff if they can't get to it. That combined with the mechanics behind your hammerspace magic will guide your failure effects.
You don't have to explain the mechanics of this to the people in your world, but you need to know them so you can be consistent with your consequences of failure.
**In short …**
### How the spell is cast will determine the effects of premature failure
A tsundere that wants to have their Baka Basher 3000 always at hand will use their hammerspace differently than a somebody that wants what they are carrying lost on their death because it is possibly highly incriminating.
If the hammerspace needs to be consistently powered by the caster, then primary point of failure of the caster. It also likely means that the hammerspace is reliant on the caster to continue existing. This means that there are four main options here for what happens on failure in broad strokes.
1. The hammerspace empties on or near the caster as the hammerspace shrinks upon the opening point
2. The hammerspace empties at a predefined point the caster has pre-set as part of creating it in the first place
3. Control of the hammerspace defaults to a predetermined beneficiary of it.
4. The hammerspace breaks down and its contents are scattered in the alternate dimension as the entire hammerspace fails at once
Important to note that with the fourth option is that matter is not destroyed per se, it is just unavailable. Somebody close to the caster, say through the Law of Contagion, might be able to salvage the hammerspace and/or its contents. In fact, there could be an entire group of people that do that for a living … or one really (un)lucky person that is a magnet for dimensionally displaced items.
If the dimensional pocket is fully powered and defined at casting with no further power required from the caster, then your primary point of failure is the portal point where the non-dimensional space interacts with the material plane or the object/person that holds the entry point. Again, four broad failure options are presented:
1. The hammerspace has a designated emptying spot as specified by the caster and will empty there on failure of the entry point. In essence, an emergency exit
2. The hammerspace expels everything at the point of the opening
3. The hammerspace becomes an untethered bubble floating in the alternate dimension and can be linked to by another caster or fall into another's control by happenstance (Read: Plot).
4. Breaking the link breaks the hammerspace completely, and the contents are left floating in the alternate dimension as above -- lost but not destroyed.
### Your Issue
Based on the bolded part of your question and the options presented above, the hammerspace spell by default has either a physical point where contents empty on the collapse of the hammerspace, or a secondary person/object that can only access it when the primary access method fails. If this is known or changeable is based on your world.
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Two answers:
1) The caster configures the hammer space when it's created or set up. That configuration includes what it's bound to, of course. But perhaps explosive or problematic hammerspace issues happened ages ago, and now, anyone casting a hammerspace, attaches it to multiple objects - the second being a safe space the objects will be released to, if the main exit is blocked. And typically, that second exit is a wide open plain, the bottom of an ocean, the sun, space.....
2) Maybe hammerspace doesn't exert much pressure. So if there is easy space for things to come out, they will. But if they can't, or only partly can, the rest stays in hammerspace... but quickly either the portal decays, or the hammerspace pocket itself decays. In either case the object is unreachable after a few minutes, if it hasn't emerged.
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## Mass == Energy
If you want to create a pocket dimension, you are going to need a bunch of energy to form and maintain it. This energy is tied to an anchor, which is some physical object that lets people interact with the pocket dimension. Sometimes it is a sleeping bag, sometimes it is a human brain, but there is always an anchor in "realspace" that is used to stabilize and interact with the hammerspace.
When that anchor is destroyed, the energy that maintains the pocket dimension is no longer stable and starts to collapse. This leads to the known explosive property where objects inside of the hammerspace are ejected back into realspace. So what happens when there is not enough realspace for objects to get ejected to?
The pocket dimension eats them.
More specifically objects inside of the pocket dimension are converted into more energy and used to fuel the rest of the collapse. Eventually one of two things will happen: Either enough energy is generated that the remaining objects are able to (explosively) exit the dimension and re-enter realspace, **or** all of the objects inside the pocket dimension are consumed and then the dimension quietly fizzles out due to being empty.
Basically you can think of your collapsing dimension as a bomb. Bombs are just what happens when you have more energy under pressure than the container they are in. Your hammerspace acts the same way. Too little pressure and it just shoves everything out without any issues. Way too much pressure and nothing noticeable happens. It is just that part in the middle, where there is a lot of pressure but not *quite enough*, that things get interesting.
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# Fuzing
When matter rematerializes into the world,it will generally try to bump stuff out of the way, but if this becomes impossible, the matter effectively turns on noclip mode (if you're familiar with videogame parlance) and blinks into existence, fuzing with any immmovable objects in the vicinity.
So in your steel and concrete box case, say the victim had a house in a purse, the house just pops back into being, but now it's a house with a sealed sarcophagus fuzed into the wood of the floor.
I like this angle, because it could be explored deeper, maybe wood fuzed with steel has interesting properties, or maybe fuzed stuff just crumbles to dust. It could be a cultural taboo to release material in such a way that it fuzes with someone else's house/property, and so on.
**Alternatively**, you could have the same behavior without the fuzing, so in the house in the box scenario, the house 'finds' the next chunk of space available for it to fit in. If the box is in an open field, the house pops back into being on top of the box. This angle is a little more shaky, because it implies some sort of intelligence or algorithm behind the scenes finding the empty space, where the first angle could be hand-waved with nature finding a balance, etc.
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constant pressure
Upon the destruction of the object/caster that maintains the hammer space, the dimensional pocket starts to contract and exerts a force on the items it contains.
However, it can only exert a force up to a certain pressure. Think of a balloon, if you put some objects into the balloon, and the let go of the opening, if the object is small enough, or the pressure on the opening is low enough, the object will spill out, but if the object is large enough to not fit through the opening, then the object is stuck and the balloon simply stops contracting.
Should the opening to the hammer space is blocked when the hammer space is destroyed, it will initially spill out any objects that could fit inside the space with a constant pressure, but once a certain pressure is reached the object stops spilling out, and the collapsing pocket of space will stop collapsing, and would remain in this partially collapsed state indefinitely. Only after the blockage is cleared—the box is opened and the concrete is broken, so that the objects can be expelled under the set pressure, does the collapse and decompression continue until all the objects have been ejected (under mild pressure), or the exit is blocked again. The collapsing hammer space pocket will only disappear once fully empty.
This could give rise to one-time-use packaging and/or time capsules—- just put your important delivery inside a jar of holding, package the jar inside a strong enough sac and smash the jar from the outside. Should the sac be opened by someone in the middle of the delivery, the unstable pocket will collapse and disappear, leaving the important delivery item outside that is unable to be put back into the sac again.
You could also find relics of old hammer space pockets whose opening have been stuck by some oversized object when it’s owner dies, and upon removal of the stuck object, empties out it’s contents and disappears. A protagonist may find some important plot item when renovating his/her house, or during an archaeological dig, from a stalled collapsing dimensional pocket after unknowingly revealing it’s opening to normal space.
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**Hammerspace is like water**
Boats float on the water. Rocks don't. Submarines have machines that control their density, so they can float or sink.
Hammerspace pockets are like underwater rooms. There is a tendency for leaks, but the forces involved are small, and constant, so if you get too ambitious, you just fail. Without ballast, stuff tends to get pushed out, but if there's a rock in the way, the stuff doesn't get pushed out; it just rests against the rock.
Everything in your universe could have a hammerspace density, which human bodies can't sense (like magnetism), but is measurable with the right instruments. Like magnets, the effect is obvious, but the math is difficult. In the industrial age, the mathy fellows weaponize the crap out of this, just like chemistry, but there's a long span of time before then.
Fun corollaries:
1) Some substances strongly resist going into hammerspaces.
2) Some substances tend to go into hammerspace as soon as they are made.
3) Hammerspace currents, residents, storms, turbulence.
4) Submarines.
5) The bends.
6) Light?
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[Question]
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I'm thinking of building a very long term heating system for a housing complex.
I want it not to rely on sunlight, wind or other fuels.
And I just need the heat.
The surroundings are pretty cold, so it would be problematic if it went out for any reason.
So I'm thinking:
1. No moving parts
2. Long lasting (1000 years)
3. Perfectly safe
4. Not slowing down the rate of heat emission too badly (10% over the aforementioned 1000 years is okayish)
Would a block containing a sphere of uranium be good for that purpose?
(or maybe other fissile material?)
It would be contained within a bigger block of lead with copper heat ducts (just by heat conductivity through solid copper wire, about 2 inches in diameter) to spread the heat around.
When I was looking at it I found a few things there:
1. Russia had fissile material "cans" that were hot to touch and people picked them up and got sick. Lead should prevent that, right?
2. Uranium and its fissile products some which seem to have a long half-life of 16000 years or more, so it should be long enough for my purposes, right?
so:
Is this a viable technology?
EDIT:
People would have nearly no idea on how it works, but would be intelligent and literate (they can do minor repairs as long as they're not convoluted).
The houseblocks are insulated from the outside pretty well but I would still expect decent amount of heat gradient with the most inner rooms being rather hot (and used for baths and so on) with the most outlying places used as freezers with single digit negative temperatures Celsius.
Temperature "outside" is constantly in the double digit negative temperatures.
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# Maybe, but you really do not want to
The complete decay chain of U238 releases about 52 MeV, while U235 releases about 211 MeV. But while the energy per decay is 4 times lower and the decay rate is 6 times slower, this is offset by the fact that U238 is 100 times more common than U235 in natural uranium. So let us just assume you got hold of some depleted Uranium, it is all U238.
The decay rate of U238 is 12,300 Bq per gram. So that is approximately 640 000 MeV per second and gram.
But 1 MeV is only 1.6 \* 10-13 Joules, so 1 gram of Uranium only supplies 0.1 μJ per second, or 0.1 μW. To reach 1 W you literally need 10 tons of uranium.
1 W means 8.7 kWh per year.
[In a new, super-efficient building, you need 15 kWh per square meter and year for heating](https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/how-much-heating-energy-do-you-use.html). So per square meter you would need approximately 20 tons of uranium, or a uranium foundation of your building that is about 1 meter thick. Double that because half of it will be lost to the ground beneath the buildings, so a 2 meter layer of uranium under your house.
This is not impossible...
...but not at all desirable.
This will produce lots of radioactive gasses, most noticeably Radon. Radon needs to be vented away from the building. But venting means more energy lost, especially if you want to make it a no-maintenance passive system. In fact, it will need to use the **heat** to drive the air flow.
And right now I have not even mentioned the fact that you said the outside temperature is "double digit negative"...
So in brief: that "ball of uranium" you are talking about is layer of uranium under your entire house that is between 5 and 10 meters thick.
...and leaking radioactive gasses.
And before you ask... **NO**, you cannot use all U235 instead, because that foundation will go...
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r5RgF.jpg)
...when you try to build it; making a house foundation of weapons grade uranium epitomises the concept of **[Very. Bad. Idea.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunctuatedForEmphasis)**
# An alternative
A much more credible solution would be to go for something that has already been proposed, but just not demonstrated yet. Go for a [Travelling Wave Reactor (TWR)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor).
The Travelling Wave Reactor is like a cigar. You essentially have a cylinder, or a "tube" of fissile material, and then you "light" it at the one end. Then — just like with a cigar — you have the un-burnt side, the glowing zone, and the burnt out "ash" zone. And the glowing zone in a TWR will only very slowly "crawl" along the cylinder and regulate itself.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xo8lD.gif)
So for your setting, just stick a really **looong** winding TWR under the domicile.
You can even have it in segments, so that every 100 years or so, a new segment needs to be "lit". With minimal hand-waving, this can be made easy and simple enough so that the inhabitants can do that.
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[Geothermal heating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating) looks closer to "perfectly safe" than uranium, is achievable with no moving parts, is long lasting (in the timescale +1000 years)
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A sealed ball of Uranium will decay producing at some point Radon. Radon is a gas, which, besides being radioactive, will build up pressure in your system.
The fact that now you have to choose between two equally nasty options:
1. Let the thing explode like a shrapnel
2. Slowly leak radioactive gas in your building
rules out that your simple design can be
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and thus I say it is not viable (ignoring all other risks).
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Russia used to have lighthouses that would run on small, lightweight nuclear reactors that could be left completely unattended for years.
<http://englishrussia.com/2009/01/06/abandoned-russian-polar-nuclear-lighthouses/>
Somethig like that could work for heating.
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> They had to be fully autonomous, because they were situated hundreds and hundreds miles aways from any populated areas. After reviewing different ideas on how to make them work for a years without service and any external power supply, Soviet engineers decided to implement atomic energy to power up those structures. So, special lightweight small atomic reactors were produced in limited series to be delivered to the Polar Circle lands and to be installed on the lighthouses. Those small reactors could work in the independent mode for years and didn’t require any human interference, so it was very handy in the situation like this. It was a kind of robot-lighthouse which counted itself the time of the year and the length of the daylight, turned on its lights when it was needed and sent radio signals to near by ships to warn them on their journey. It all looks like ran out the sci-fi book pages, but so they were.
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Right idea, wrong stuff.
And you don't need to fission it, in fact you really don't want to, because that opens so many cans of worms, among them the government really, really, really not liking you having fissile material.
## Decay heat will suffice.
Take Caesium-137. *Please*. No seriously, it's the wrong stuff for your 1000-year goal because it has only a 30 year half-life. *We just have a **lot** of it*.
The most ready source of useful material is spent nuclear fuel.
Given your design intent, you want a half-life of 5000 years +. There are no **fission products** (split atoms) with half-lives between 100 and 210,000 years. There are plenty among **actinides**: uranium which did not split, but absorbed neutrons, becoming heavier. Berklium-247, Pu240, stuff like that. There are plenty in the casks out back of your local nuclear reactor.
Things with 5000+ year half lives are essential. The problem is if your pile is heavily contaminated with things with shorter half-lives, like that overabundant Cs137, your pile will sharply cool off over the 1000 years. That's why just using the casks won't work.
The actinides with the 4000-20,000 year half lives would give the best performance *per mass*. (Not that mass is a problem). But the government may be ketchy about you having *actinides* -- as many are (or will decay into) things which are fissile. And things with such short half lives make an effective "dirty bomb".
So I would go a different direction. I would focus on the **fission products** with >210,000 year half-lives. Propagationwise they're inert. They're lethargic enough not to make a very good dirty bomb. The mass needed is very much larger, but that's not a huge problem for a building. The heat output will drop less than 1% over the 1000 years.
Do keep in mind that *heat* output and *radiation* output go hand-in-hand. That is another reason I prefer low-energy bulky material. It helps if the radiation is alpha or beta, which is easily shielded, but it may not be economical to separate isotopes which only decay that way.
Another option, though I dislike the idea of birthing more radioactive material, is to radiologically activate a common element via neutron bombardment or other means. I haven't pored through the isotope charts to see if this will create anything suitable. The risk is of the material picking up one too many neutrons, and becoming a contaminant.
Which particular fission products end up in the mix? That will be a function of the source material (which I presume to be spent nuclear fuel) and its origins, reactor type, **but mostly, of the production engineering needed to isolate a workable mix of isotopes**. Such engineering tends to be full of surprises (Los Alamos couldn't imagine gaseous diffusion would be as workable as it was.)
So you'll assay a sample set of spent fuel, say. Then you'll look at several hundred chemical separation processes to extract a usable blend of isotopes. **Money is a factor**, you're looking for the most efficient way to extract an acceptable set of isotopes.\* Which processes make sense depend on your source material, obviously.
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\* Presumably, isotopic separation is cost prohibitive; an element is all-in or all-out. If an element has a desirable isotope, but is contaminated with a slower isotope that neither helps nor hurts, that's OK -- but if a third dominant isotope has a too-short half-life, then the entire element is out. Or, if the problem isotope has a 10-year half life, you should search for spent fuel that's at least 40 years old, as that is a very cheap way of excluding that isotope.
[Answer]
# Build an Igloo
No, seriously. [Igloos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo) basically solve this problem for you, at least on Earth. The peoples native to the Artic Circle have used Igloos for thousands of years and built an extensive culture and society in an environment not entirely unlike the one you're proposing.
Temperatures in the Artic Circle can get as low as −45 °C (−49 °F) but the interior of an igloo can get as toasty as 16 °C (61 °F) when **warmed only by body heat**.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jhupa.jpg)
Now not all igloos are the stereotypical ice block structures you see in cartoons. Many are made simply of packed snow, which despite being cold, is a very good insulator. And Igloos aren't small either, though smaller igloos can be used when on excursions hunting. Some can house dozens of people and be made up of several rooms. And this is all without any "modern" technology.
Essentially your heat source is the people inside, you just need good insulation to keep it warm. And some warm coats.
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An alternative way to heat the house is using a [solid state heat pump](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Solid_state_heat_pumps), and this can be implemented in a way that doesn't require fuel. Suppose that the interior of the house is to be kept at 20 C, the outside air temperature is -40 C and a few meters below the ground, the temperature is -15 C. Then one can exploit the temperature difference between the air and the environment under the ground to generate a voltage via the [Seebeck effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect#Seebeck_effect), and the power obtained from that can be used to pump heat from the ground to the house via the [Peltier effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect#Peltier_effect). The entire system of both components then doesn't require any external work.
[Answer]
Use the thermocouple or [Seebeck effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect#Seebeck_effect) (kudos to [Count Iblis](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/2255/count-iblis) for the root idea) with the house as the cold end and 20km down as the hot end. I'm pretty sure that a full crystalline packing on the foundation would provide more heat than required. Use the electrical power to keep the lights on and run fans to move the hot air around. The difference between 20C and 600C provides a lot of potential but Wikipedia doesn't have enough equations for me to finish the calculation.
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You're between a rock and a hard place if you're trying to do this with passive nuclear decay. Most nuclei (see <https://www-nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vcharthtml/VChartHTML.html>) provide a few hundred keV to a few MeV of energy in decay.
* The power they provide is then given by their lifetime: The shorter the lifetime, the faster the decay, the higher the initial power.
* But faster decay also means a faster drop in the number of remaining nuclei, so the power drops off faster.
If you want a lifetime of 16,000 yr, so it doesn't drop off very much in 1,000 yr, then you're not going to get much energy from the few nuclei that decay in any given second. You'll need a lot of nuclei, hence a very large mass.
You'd be better off with some simple reactor (perhaps of a kind we don't know about yet) that can speed up the natural decay of thorium or uranium. If instead of letting the half-life law decay it, you 'burned' it until it was all gone, you could get a higher energy from it. The Thorium TWR (see earlier excellent answer by MichaelK) is a good example of this. For your world-building, you could just assert that we know how to make something like that with the parameters you need.
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[Question]
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My story involves sword of very high quality; they use lasers to cut, but have a metal reinforcement. The monsters the characters encounter and fight have lava as their 'life liquid'. If someone were to cut such a monster, the lava would seep out. This leads me to wonder: **is there a metal with a high enough melting point to be resistant to lava?**
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Upon a very quick check it looks like [titanium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium#Physical_properties) has a melting point of around 1600ºC and [magma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma#Description) has an average temperature of around 700ºC to 1300ºC. Given that you could pretty quickly assume that as long as your characters aren't just running every enemy creature straight through and leaving their weapons inside their adversaries for long periods the swords would hold their tensile strength pretty well.
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OK, I think melting point is the wrong thing to think about here. The first thing is specific [heat capacity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity), which tells us how much heat energy is needed to raise the temperature of 1kg of a substance by 1 Kelvin.
So, a metal with high specific heat capacity can absorb more energy without ill effects. [Here's a table to peruse.](http://www.engineersedge.com/materials/specific_heat_capacity_of_metals_13259.htm)
Of course, this does have to be balanced against the other physical properties of the sword - to quote Donal Noye of the Night's Watch: "Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he's copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day". So that will also have an influence on the metal you choose.
Secondly, we have to think about the construction of the sword. Many traditional designs balance just forward of the crossguard, which means a large proportion of their mass is in the hilt end. This can be used as a heat sink for the blade portion, allowing a quantity of energy to be absorbed with less effect to the whole.
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There's a better alloy.
[Adamantium (sort of)](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3178616/Have-scientists-invented-real-life-adamantium-New-alloy-highest-melting-point-known-substance-4-126-C.html)
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> The exotic alloy, which is a combination of the rare metal hafnium, carbon and nitrogen, would only begin to melt into a liquid at temperatures of more than 4,126°C (7,460°F) - two thirds the temperature of the surface of the sun.
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I think that would be strong enough to suit most purposes.
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My perfect fantasy blade is made of -- real substance, not a joke -- transparent aluminum.
[Aluminium Oxynitride](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride): Melting point of about 4000 deg F. Light weight, slightly flexible, and at 1" thick it is capable of parrying a 50 caliber bullet fired point blank.
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Flowing lava typically burns around 1200 (red) to 1600 (orange) degrees Fahrenheit. Using [this page at Engineering Toolbox.com](http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/melting-temperature-metals-d_860.html) to view the various melting points of metals and alloys, you can see that there are a lot of various options.
Some of these options include:
* Aluminum Bronze
* Iron
* Red Brass
* Silicon
* Rhenium
* Nickel
* Gold
* Copper
* Cobalt
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If you're looking for heat resistance, the first thing that comes to mind is a [refractory material](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractory). Unfortunately, these are usually ceramics and somewhat brittle - but that's where composite materials come in!
You could have a ceramic sword with steel reinforcement inside - think of reinforced concrete. Or, a steel core with ceramic coating/insulation.
You're cutting through monsters, which implies fairly brief contact with the high-temperature lava. You're not submerging this sword in a lava pit. The ceramic outer layer should sufficiently protect the metal inside from the higher temperatures. It helps that ceramics have a significantly lower thermal conductivity than most metals, so it won't even absorb as much heat from its surroundings.
This also adds a cooldown element, if you want.
You're still going to want to avoid large shocks that might crack the ceramic. But you have a laser cutting edge anyway, and lava has a rather high viscosity - so it's unlikely to flow into small cracks.
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This is also kind of a solved problem. Where else do we encounter high temperatures in the order of 1300ºC? [Jet engines!](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/25645/what-material-is-used-to-make-the-hot-sections-of-jet-engines)
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> The top gas temperature in a modern jet turbine is more like 1500°C, and the turbine blades tolerate temperatures of around 1200°C.
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Why to use bulk materials only?
You can use conventional material for the body, cover it with [thermall barrier coating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_barrier_coating) and protect it with hard coating.
So when you start with titanium blade, cober it with 200 um TBC and then cover it with 200 um alpha-alumina you will get weapon that sustain 2000 °C for reasonable time. The blade will be also very hard through wide range of temperatures. One can prepare [coatings](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0257897299004582) with hardness ranging from ~5 to ~15 GPa (HV 5000 ~ HV 15 000). Nanohardness in martensite vary from 0.2-1 GPa (HV 200 ~ HV 1000).
If you chose more complex material for the surface finish, you can top the hardness up to [30 GPa](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272884215003739) (HV 30 000)...
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Does it have to be metal? Carbon fiber has a very high melting point. Bonus point, it would be light and a high quality carbon fiber blade could keep its shape for a long time.
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Why not create a sword with internal channels that circulate a COOLING FLUID? Could be like the executioner sword from Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" that has a slug of mercury that can flow to the tip. But in this case it is liquid nitrogen or something, the sword hilt reservoir is filled right before battle.
The sword also doesn't have to be homogenous, it could be more like a Koa sword (Polynesian weapon with a wood "blade" embedded with shark tooth cutting edges). The "blade" is material with low heat conductivity and high strength and only the edges are high temp edged metal. This way as the metal edges lose temper and dull, they can easily be replaced after the battle but the weapon as a whole retains integrity and doesn't heat up because it has low conductivity. For bashing apart lava monsters this should suffice. Enough cutting ability to pierce the skin, then enough heat resistance to widen the opening and puncture any (?) internal organs.
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Most metals we'd consider making a sword of can take a splash of lava. We're not talking about immersing the blade in a lava flow, here.
After any fight, swords require maintenance. Your friendly armorer will retemper the blade as necessary.
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A sword made of tungsten has the highest melting point in pure form, but if you wanted to coat it with the alloy [tantalum hafnium carbide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_hafnium_carbide.), you will have the perfect weapon to carry if you visit [Lava Tree State Monument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lava_Tree_State_Monument) in Hawaii.
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Take a look at the metal cups that are used to scoop up lava for analysis. Guessing they may just be stainless steel or wrought or cast nickel.
You could also actively cool by making passages and injecting compressed air.
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[Question]
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Heroes that went to war in medieval time were usually captured by the enemy when they became famous for their prowess, examples are William Wallace or Joan of Arc. That is, unless they were slain by an arrow or any other type of projectile that normally flies over the battlefield.
In a fantasy world, where the hero must survive the danger of wizards casting spells on the enemy army, powerful beasts like dragons, or giant animals, is there any possible way that an average soldier just with a high skill and a good equipment could face many battles and survive being decisive for the win?
**Edit:** The hero can't just rely on the big numbers. He is already famous, so we can't apply the same logic as if he were an anonymous soldier lost in the mass. He leads the army to battle, so the enemy is going to put special attention to him. Also, he is the one who have to show bravery against the bigger threats to keep the moral of the army up. That doesn't mean he doesn't know when to fight and when not, as a skilled soldier is good enough tactician to choose the best moment and place for a battle.
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With **Training, discipline, decent equipment, a good brain, and a good leader, sure.**
Training: Quite simply, being able to poke the other guy first. Even in Melee combat. Knowing to keep the shield up is critical. Fancy swordplay often gets beat by solid basic moves. If you train hard and consistently, those moves happen automatically.
Discipline: Goes with training, but covers a lot of other stuff. A common saying amongst US Marines is that a pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood. Here is how that plays. your hero is part of a troop that takes the time and effort to dig in every single night. They protect baggage trains instead of trying to make extra speed. Make sure you have adequate rations for the campaign. They know their own limits and plan accordingly. Bring the right supplies for the terrain, all of that stuff. Bake all of this into your military culture.
Decent Equipment: If you are fighting, you are going to get poked by an enemy sharp thing eventually. If you have good equipment, that will reduce the severity of the wound. Lessen the chance of infection. Being well fed helps. Lots of Folks died from wounds and infection that today would be fairly trivial.
A good brain: He's going to be able to spot good terrain for a fight, estimate placement and numbers of troops, even on a small scale. He's going to be looking for ways to crush victory from circumstance rather than relying on the extraordinary actions of his whole group. He'll know when to avoid a fight, if possible.
A Good Leader: Quite frankly, the Good leader needs to also have a good brain, and not be willing to spend troops in foolishly uneven battles, suicide charges, and so on.
You have magic in your setting, and I think that makes these kinds of traits even more important. If wyvern attacks are part of attacking the dreaded wizards castle, well, you want a guy who is smart enough to get some archers who are trained and disciplined enough to look up. these more generic traits are just as important in a high magic setting as well as in a real world kind of setting.
Combine these and you will have a guy who can realistically say "Careful Boy boy, I am old for good reason".
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8Qxnb.jpg)
**Edit:** in response to an Edit on the OP...Our warrior here is famous, so these things are even more important. We just need to add one more thing. Since he is a *Leader* he needs to be *humble*. He needs to be the guy who understands that, even though he is good at what he does, it doesn't really mean much unless he takes every opportunity he can to make sure his people can also be very good at what they do. The greatest generals throughout history knew this. The US Marines live this (Simon Sinek wrote a great book called "Leaders Eat Last" that incorporates it) making them one of the most feared and respected fighting forces in the world.
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Yes.. Do the Maths
You are in an army of 256000. Every battle leaves half the army dead in whatever manner - completely randomly. After 11 such battles, you have 125 survivors. No doubt those survivors would regale you with tales of courage and derring-do, but remember:
[](https://xkcd.com/1827/)
([xkcd #1827](https://xkcd.com/1827/) by Randall Munroe, cc-by-nc-2.5)
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The thing about wars is that survival rates are much higher than you think.
The stories you hear are repeated because they were extraordinary. Most armies were not like the Mongol hordes or the Huns ravaging everything they saw.
You had your battles with their victories and defeats, but defeat most often meant retreat and regroup. Unless your hero does something foolish like give himself unusual coloring in the field (Like the Red Baron) or some other distinguishing characteristic, his chances of survival, even in defeat, are good.
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Yes. US soldier Reuben Frank Bernard (1834-1903) is the subject of a biography by Don Russell titled: *One Hundred and Three Frights and scrimmages: The Story of General Reuben F. Bernard* (1936). So apparently he survived 103 battles and skirmishes in the US Civil War and the Indian Wars.
[source](https://books.google.com/books?id=7k1ZDMHNNIAC)
And to get more "medieval" on you Charlemagne (742/748-814) went on campaign almost every year of his adult life, for forty years or so, and may have fought several battles and sieges in each campaign. Thus he seems to have survived medieval warfare fairly well.
Irish High King and King of Mide Mael Sechnaill mac Domnaill (949-1022) fought many battles and campaigns, until at least the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 when he was 65. Brian Boru (c. 941-1014), king of Munster and high King of Ireland, fought many wars and battles before being killed at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 aged about 73.
Clearly the odds of being killed in each battle in medieval Ireland were small enough that some war leaders could survive forty or fifty years of war.
Before about 1900 it was common for more soldiers to die from disease on campaign than from battle wounds. It was also common for battles to last just a few hours.
But in World War One and World War Two, and some other 20th century wars, it was common for some battles to last several days, weeks or months. Soldiers could be under fire constantly for weeks or months, unless their units were periodically rotated in and out of the combat zone.
Thus during 20th century wars some soldiers accumulated tens and hundreds of combat days. Each time a soldier is in combat he has a chance of being killed or physically or mentally incapacitated.
I believe that I read somewhere that a soldier would have almost zero chance of being combat ready after some number - 300 I think - of days in battle. Either he would be dead, or discharged because of his wounds, or suffer from PTSD.
If that is correct, and if medieval combat was equally deadly per minute as 20th century combat, then a medieval warrior could survive 12 battles (each lasting a few hours), or 27 battles, or 53 battles, or 79 battles, or 104 battles, without it being very improbable. A warrior would fight only a few battles per campaign season, so he might only fight in ten to forty battles per decade.
What would be more and more improbable was his surviving campaign after campaign in the unhealthy conditions of medieval warfare without getting sick and dying. But it is all a matter of statistical probability. In an army on campaign it is possible that everyone had the same chance of being killed in battle or of getting sick and dying. Some would get sick and die before the first battle, some would be killed in battle, some would be wounded more or less seriously etc., and most of the soldiers would survive the entire campaign.
If medieval war was as dangerous as the OP said, the nobles would have been pacifists, not warriors.
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I think so. A combination of luck in surviving the first battles, and then inurement (less emotion, more rationality) that helps him survive later battles.
I was recently reading about preparing people (emergency service professionals and elite soldiers) to operate in hostile environments: extreme violence, kidnapping, terrorist attacks, torture, natural disasters, etc. Those that went on to actually have such experiences report that in the actual experience; they were better able to keep their wits, make decisions, and follow the rules than **in their first simulated experience**, even though they knew the simulations **were** simulations and the real thing was, well, the real thing: Guns were loaded, the machetes were sharp, other hostages had been killed or blown up: It wasn't just a dummy beside them but a person they knew --- But the training helped and they didn't freeze.
Freezing is quite common: When we have a "fight or flight" situation, the adrenaline and cortisol severely impair the cortex; which we need to plan, think, and devise solutions. As a result, if we are in a situation we have not been in before, and do not know what to do, it is nearly impossible to think of what to do! The consequence: many people freeze (do nothing) and die. 11% of all sky-diving deaths are because a main parachute failed, and despite having plenty of time, the sky-diver never pulled the rip cord on their reserve chute.
However, having been through it before, or even a decent simulation of it, reduces the shock of it and lets people behave more rationally.
It is like paramedic training; with experience they become inured to the shock of major injury, blood, etc, and just do what needs to be done.
This means in real life, we can see something like a feedback effect: The more battles a soldier survives, the more likely he is to survive **future** battles, because the more he experiences, the less effect the carnage, death, screams, panic of others and explosions have on his ability to focus and behave rationally. And that increases his chance of surviving, relative to the newbies.
A little ruthlessness on his part goes a long way, too: Like using both enemy and comrades as shielding when convenient, distancing himself from the showboats on his side that want to be heroes, working the flanks instead of protecting the commander. He doesn't exactly focus on winning the battle, his primary focus is on killing anybody that threatens him surviving the battle.
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You've described the magical dangers of your world, but not the magic protections. Perhaps our hero inherited his uncle's mithril shirt? Or happens to be friends with a priest whose powers include magic healing.
Also, you want to be looking at survival rates and combat of the last 20-100 years, not medieval.
Wizards and dragons will have a similar effect on warfare as artillery, machine guns and planes, rendering obsolete the 'massed infantry on an open plain' style of combat. Particularly if the wizards can teleport people. In modern wars, the side with supremacy in the air and very long range (100 km) tends to only get into close combat fights that they know they will win with minimal casualties.
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I must disagree with the answers proposing good training or equipement as a survival assurance. Unless the equipment and training are of supernatural kind, once he is spotted there is little one can do against a flying dragon charging at himwith its fire breath.
Maybe the hero's eyes will widden as he freeze in terror or, as the brave man he is, he will lift his shield up and shout curses at the beast. Either way, he will end as a human torch, his armor melting on his body. Perhaps he will have enough time to emit a brief scream of pain before his vocal cord are irremediably destroyed, or he won't. If his side is victorious, the survivors could bring back the rest of his body, build a mausoleum for him, and sing songs about how he slained a dozen beasts before falling ; or his body will rot on the battlefield, as nature tries to wash the madness of men with rain and thunder.
There are some things against wich ordinary men cannot much.
That said, maybe the proclamed hero of a rich kingdom will have some special assets to protect his life. Let's imagine he is a superior warrior, a giant stronger than any man alive, who every day spent hours training with all sorts of weapon. After holding a small brindge against all odds, the king decides to make him his champion, symbol of the might of the realm. As such, he may have some magical shield to protect him from fire, an enchanted armor lighter than paper and stronger than steal, a group of magus to protect him from ennemy spells...
He could also have managed to slain a sleeping dragon in his cave and plunder his tresury, wich had some of the stuff mentionned before.
In conclusion, I do not think an ordinary man, no matter how talented, has chances to survive long in the heat of the battle if the ennemy really wants him dead (and succeed to spot him). But, if he lives in a world were dragons exist, maybe there are some other tools to protect him.
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**Yes, it can!**
* Good luck. The hero is just one of dozen who survive fireball, one from 10 who could kill a manticore and one from 20 who could run from dragon. So he just lucky man among another 2400
* Right place at right time. The hero so smart that he never go to suicide attack and fight with manticore or enter to the dragon edge
* Really good equipment. The hero has amulet which give resist from fire, armor hard enough to protect from manticore and light enough to run from dragon
* Non-human blood/special ability. Hero has grandmother from dwarf (and has resist from magic), grand-uncle from trolls teached him how deal with manticore and father from elfs which gives him exceptional speed at long run
* Will of gods. In fact, the hero is a loser who got in all troubles which could happen. But two gods bet he will survive. So, one of them just helped with fireball, manticore and dragon
* Whatever. As world creator you could mix up some previous options and add another. Would it be realistic? In most cases, it's depends on **how** you tell the story.
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Well, that's a pretty difficult question, as we don't know the scale of the abilities your wizards, dragons and other things wield.
If, for example, your wizards are on the level of the wizards in Harry Potter and use primarily magic, that only targets one opponent at a time while your dragons can't breath any fire and aren't bigger than, let's say, 4 or so meter wingspan, then yes, the soldier can survive. Let it be by pure luck or an enhanced ability that allows him to analyze the battlefield (which is extremely difficult but not inpossible) in order for him to go where the more dangerous enemies don't see him, attacking them from behind.
If the dragons are as big as a mountain and able to breath unlimited fire or your wizards posses magic that is able to instakill an aimed area, well, the chance for the soldier to survive multiple times decreases.
In the end, it's up to you what you throw in his way.
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I think it depends on where the person is fighting and what kind of fighter. If they are on the front lines then their chances are very low of success. But if they have long range weapons, or are atop a large animal, then their chances improve. If they are smart, they would dress in a way that does not broadcast their identity to everyone else on the battlefield.
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In addition to other answers, it depends on the army a lot, if your generals are mindful of their men and competent, the hero has a much better chance than if his generals are out for glory and quite capable of sending him charging into certain death out of pure idiocy.
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Depending on the exact time frame (mostly the availability of cannons and artillery), the solution might be as simple as: Win.
The battle of Marathon is an example for ancient battles. Many of them went this way: The winners had few losses (about 200) while the defeated Persians lost more than 6000 men. People died not on the battlefield, but in the retreat (pursuit was a common practice and the main use of cavalry at that time).
While some medieval battles were known for the slaughter, many had comparatively low casualty rates, especially among the heavily armoured nobility.
For the fantasy element, you assume that magic would be another killer, but I disagree. I would see it as another defensive option first. Magical protections and especially magical healing can dramatically increase survival chances.
] |
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[
Assume that in a world with current levels of technology much like our own, a developed country with at least tens of millions of people and more than a city-state sized territory, decided that all active duty military personnel needed to be women. Feel free to pick one (e.g. Canada or France) if you feel this is necessary to provide an answer.
The reason for this isn't terrible important for these purposes - maybe there is a religious or philosophical reason; maybe it is motivated by a traumatic mass-rape experience in a previous war; maybe a highly effective biological weapon that affects only men has been developed - simply accept this as a premise.
Assuming that other military forces in the world remain unchanged, how would this women's only military force be designed differently from existing military forces? How would its strategies and tactics differ?
What military capabilities would be little changed and which ones would be greater or weaker?
Answers need not be comprehensive. Selected observations responsive to these questions would be appreciated.
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How would an all female military be different? It wouldn't.
Over the last few decades female participation in the world's armed forces has increased markedly. While initially allocated to supporting roles, some have sought to integrate them into combat roles and even special forces. Recently Norway created the [Hunter Troop](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39434655) (female special forces team), and the US Army Rangers accepted its [first female recruits](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/21/women-graduate-us-army-ranger-school). Not to mention Yazidi and Kurdish women [volunteering with the Peshmerga](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/all-female-peshmerga-unit-fighting-isis_us_5729fd3de4b0bc9cb04530eb) to get revenge on ISIL and protect their families.
What's interesting to note however is how the debate is different between the Anglosphere and Israel. In the former it is often said that the decision to allow more women into the military, and specifically combat roles, is an imposition by idealistic political masters.
One senior British officer went so far as saying that [allowing women into British Army combat roles](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35976113) was: "foolish move" which would be "paid for in blood" and was by "politicians desperate to seem progressive, feminist zealots, and ideologues hell bent on opportunity without exception".
On the other hand... worth noting that US Generals are calling [obesity a threat to national security](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/articles/2016-04-05/obesity-is-a-national-security-threat). Clearly when a third of young Americas are too fat to fight, the question of women's eligibility for combat roles is put in realistic perspective.
[Meanwhile in Israel the situation is different](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces). Israel relies upon conscription, and so 65% of Israeli women have served in the military. All women are conscripted, but of those 25% opt out for religious reasons, and 10% are not fit to serve. In 2011 33% of all IDF soldiers and 51% of officers were women.
In 2007 the Segev Committee report was commissioned by Major General Elazar Stern, Head of Manpower Directorate. The report recommended opening all military roles to women. It was given to the IDF General Staff, receiving the blessing of the then Chief-of-Staff. It concluded that length of service and promotion had been based mostly on gender, and that:
>
> "This is an archaic model that causes under-utilization of the
> resources ... of half of Israeli society, and closes off many
> opportunities, both during service and for integrating into society
> after service"
>
>
>
One of the reason's the Segev Committee's findings were not implemented in full was due to political pressure from religious authorities. There's more detail worth reading in a 2020 article by The Israeli Democracy Institute: '[Women's Service in the IDF: Between a 'People's Army' and Gender Equality](https://en.idi.org.il/articles/24554)'. In 2009 Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi issued a statement:
>
> In his statement, Chief of Staff Ashkenazi listed three motives for
> integrating women on an equal footing as men into the IDF: 1) Women
> must serve in the army because the IDF is a people’s army; 2) As a
> people’s army, the IDF is committed to the principle to the
> integration of women; 3) Women are integrated into the IDF as part of
> operational requirements that are vital for keeping the army strong
> and professional.
>
>
>
Perhaps the problem isn't that women in combat is a bad idea, or that there is evidence against it, but that the USA and UK are spoilt. They've never needed to deploy their entire population to fight for their survival like Israel has.
Modern warfare is far removed from the melee of the medieval era which relied upon tall strong men. There are simply more important factors these days, and just because the enemy may be on average larger doesn't guarantee them victory in melee. Especially since many martial arts allow one to use the attacker's size against them. In a straight up fight where all else is equal, then size will determine victory. But to assume equality in that case is unwise; military standards and efficiency vary considerably. Each army and battle will be different.
It's also worth remembering that the average Vietnamese man is as tall as the average American woman. Was physical size or strength the biggest factor in the Vietnam War?
Weapons and tactics have evolved to minimise risks and allow soldiers to use firearms in close quarters if need be. In the second world war battle rifles were often huge unwieldy things. Not so nowadays with SMGs and the like; ideal for urban warfare. Ultimately technology has allowed us to create physical distance with the enemy, and that diminishes any bonus men have for being big and strong. Does it matter if a pilot is a man or woman? A driver? [A sniper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko)? How much of modern warfare is melee, and how many times is this the turning point in a war?
At the very least, a female army is unlikely to be anywhere near as [prolific a sexual offender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany) as the Red Army was during the fight to Berlin. In 2007 the UN deployed [a unit of Indian women](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/6223246.stm) in Liberia as peacekeepers. One concern was that units of male soldiers would be regarded with suspicion by populations which had been terrorised by sexual violence during the conflict. The deployment was considered a great success.
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# Immediate Effects
The first thing the new military will have to deal with is the enormous loss of military experience at all levels.
Going by US numbers, you've just lost around 85% of your people. The balance between enlisted personnel and officer ranks is roughly equal, but the loss is worst at the highest levels of the officer corps, where you've lost 93% of your institutional experience, as well as nearly ALL of your front-line combat experience. The people who've been out there, making mistakes and learning from them for years, are suddenly gone, and unable to pass those lessons on to the next generation.
The effect is going to be a lot like the infamous Red Army Purge conducted by Stalin; exactly how that affected Soviet performance in the early part of the Great Patriotic War is still being debated, but it's generally agreed that the inexperience of the commanders and officers contributed a lot to their early defeats by the Germans.
To cope with this, one can imagine a need to recruit very aggressively, and promote rapidly, as well as a focus on education for high-ranked officers. Sun-Tzu, Vegetius, and other classics are going to become bestsellers, as are other war memoirs. With any luck, the all-female force will have a chance to get some combat experience in skirmishes or peacekeeping missions before they need to fight for their lives.
# Compensation
Biologically speaking, women on average are not as strong as men. This is just a fact. Training and exercise can overcome a woman's naturally lower strength, but she'll need to train longer and harder than a man to get the same results. In any kind of physical fight, the female force is going to be at an overall disadvantage, whether it's fought with rifles or bayonets.
The army should therefore institute very strict daily PT requirements for their infantry, and weed out anyone who can't meet them. They're basically going to be the British Army on steroids - a small infantry force, but all dedicated, highly trained professionals.
Since it's going to be harder to maintain infantry, a greater emphasis on battlefield mobility, infantry fighting vehicles, armoured transports, and armour is very likely. That in turn is going to lead to a very strong emphasis on logistics.
You're going to end up with a relatively small, highly trained, highly disciplined, professional force. They'll use a lot of armoured vehicles, but they'll be inexperienced at first, and will need to be constantly training and learning. An environment where a soldier can speak frankly to her superiors will be essential, as will promotion by merit.
# Tactics
So, you've got a small army. Not the end of the world. Your best bet will be short, sharp action, bringing concentrated force to bear on individual enemy elements. Most of the heavy fighting should be conducted by armoured vehicles like main battle tanks, light tanks/armoured fighting vehicles, air power, etc.
Your infantry forces would be a reactive force, able to move quickly to trouble spots as needed with less difficulty than the main armoured units, and able to perform the many tasks needed of the infantry in a modern war, like building clearance. Each infantry squad would have its own attached Infantry Fighting Vehicle to transport them quickly to trouble spots and provide fire support. The soldiers would deploy from the IFV, use it as cover, and return to it when they were needed elsewhere.
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The answers vary on different timescales.
## 1 Year
On the one year timescale, your military is going to be dramatically weakened by switching to all women. This is a simple cause and effect relationship. If you suddenly fire about 85% of your employees, and then hire a bunch of new employees, you're going to have a massive brain drain that will hurt, regardless of whether or not these new hires are done along gender lines or not. You will also find you have to lower your standards because there's not going to be a massive body of women who are ready to take on this role. You can only employee so many people on a national scale before you drain the talent pool. This happened post 9/11 with the intelligence agencies, who suddenly demanded a massive number of additional IT personel. The security experts warned that they were trying to hire more people than the talent pool would permit, and they would get lower quality personel as a result. Snowden was one of these new hires from that timeframe.
Other than this, nothing would change on the 1 year timescale. All tactics, strategies, etc. will remain the same. Militaries move slowly. It can take them decades to bring in new technology, long after the commercial culture has adopted them ubiquitously. This, of course, is also a very rational process: their lives literally depend on their stuff working in extreme climates with an enemy military actively trying to break them and end their lives. They would use the tried and true approaches instead.
## 10 year
In the 10-30yr region, it gets a bit more interesting. This is enough time to really properly train up new talent, and start thinking about a steady state pool of soldiers. This is where I would expect to see the first gender specific adaptations, and I would expect to see them fall along the lines of the typical gender stereotypes. I make this assumption because on this timescale, society hasn't had any time to adapt the gender roles we raise our children to in response to this change in the military. You're still going to have people raised in the same manner. More importantly, the higher up the chain of command, the more traditional people will be because they're the older generation.
I expect to see tactics change to work around lower physical loads but leveraging the differences in how the masculine and feminine mind work. Combat will be directed to where attention to millions of tiny details and multitasking will be more important, because those are things that stereotypically the men in the opposing army aren't so good at. Rule number 1 of combat is to know thyself and know thy enemy -- make the battlefield inhospitable for them, and friendly for you. I would expect to see more fluid approaches in the highest levels of strategy, and fewer directed approaches.
## 100 year
This is where it gets really interesting. On the timescale of 100 or 200 years, you have substantial time to adjust the gender roles over multiple generations. This, in my opinion, is the open question that is explored by those who push gender limits. Just how much of our gender roles are *actually* tied to real life practical limits of the sexes versus how much is the culture that we have built around these limits to make them disappear. Its entirely possible that we find women actually *aren't* the best suiteded for warfare, and we go back to using men. It's entirely possible to find that the physical differences between them matter little compared to the mental effects of gender roles, and a change in gender roles could make women completely suited for warfare. Its also entirely possible that we might find out that some of our gender roles actually affect hormones enough to undo any sex specific physical advantages men have. We really don't know the answers on these timescales. Psychologists and biologists are still actively theorizing here.
100 years is, however, enough time to completely overhaul the tactics of the military. In fact, all militaries will have overhauled their tactics and strategies on this timeframe. 100 years of technical advances is more than enough to make entire military theories obsolete.
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# Physical Strength and Endurance
During the Cold War, many countries drafted young men to serve in the armed forces, and later in the reserves. Some were fit, some were less fit, most were able to serve in some capacity.
These days the armed forces are *much* smaller. A medium-sized country should be able to find a hundred thousand women who are as strong and fit as the *average* 18-year-old couch potato. Questions of strength will hurt in some roles, like hauling mortar bombs or hand-to-hand combat, but look at the kind of people who got drafted into the infantry as WWII ground on.
# Social/Psychological Factors
These are a bit tricky because they might no longer apply as we know them when a country is prepared to go for an all-female army.
* One could argue that young men make good enlisted soldiers because they will take **stupid** risks to impress each other and any females who may be watching. When push comes to shove, soldiers don't die for an abstract ideal, they die to avoid disappointing their comrades. Would the same dynamics develop in a female army? Will they be less macho and more nurturing? Will that make them better or worse soldiers?
* I'm assuming that the other countries will not change over. How will a male infantry squad react if they are told to storm a bunker held by female soldiers? Chivalry on the one hand and sexual violence on the other hand have always been part of warfare to differing degrees. They were never completely absent.
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Wow! So many answers without mentioning any of the positives that women bring to the table. To be clear, there are feminine men and masculine women and this answer deals just with the advantages of typical and stereotypical women.
**Endurance**
Many answers have claimed without justification that women have less endurance than men. The truth is, women have plenty of endurance for the purposes of military activities. In fact, women hold all of the records for super long distance swimming.
**Risk Taking Behaviors**
Since women tend to take fewer risks, one would expect said fighting force to more rapidly evolve tactics that involve avoiding stupid risks, much as modern (after 2000) warfare is much less risky than its World War era counterpart.
**Culture**
Military culture has long suffered from toxic masculinity. There are real positives when soldiers obey without question, but creating that outlook is often just a high stakes power struggle. One might expect more good ideas to filter up the ranks in an all-female military.
**Equipment**
Smaller soldiers need smaller boots, smaller flak jackets, smaller weapons, smaller meal portions and smaller camp accouterments. The idea that a military wouldn't right-size their equipment for their soldiers is ludicrous. Fewer materials means lower costs, so each soldier will be able to travel just as far or further for a marginally lower logistical cost.
**War by Other Means**
War is kinetic diplomacy. If a country is more worried about its daughters going into battle than it was about its sons, one would expect the balance between diplomatic, espionage and military spending to find a more intelligent distribution.
**Babies**
Every military has a minority of war fighters and a majority of medical, administrative, logistical and research personnel. There's no reason that soon and recent mothers cannot carry out lower risk tasks during the 18 months per child that a pregnancy takes.
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## Impact of Size Differences
Women over 18 are generally shorter than men of the same age. [This can vary significantly by region and ethnicity.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide) In the US and UK, men average about 175 cm or 5 ft 9 in tall, while women average 161.8 cm or 5ft 3.5 in tall. In the People's Republic of China, men average about 167 cm (5ft 6in) while women average 155.8 cm (5ft 1.5 in).
Men are taller on average than women by 5.5 inches in the US/UK and by 4.5 inches in China.
The size of warfighters is a significant factor in the design of vehicles, lodging, and equipment.
Having smaller warfighters would make *some* things **more difficult** for manufacturers: for example, consider the height of a truck's running board from the ground; for vehicles with large tires and tall ground clearance, the running board or a ladder attachment may need to be lowered to allow shorter warfighters to reliably embark/disembark the vehicles. Along the same vein, assumptions about soldier carrying capacity when it comes to equipment may need to be adjusted downward.
On the other hand, smaller warfighters means you can **reduce the size** of the cab or **increase the number** of troops carried, which could have a cascading effect along the entire transportation supply chain (trucks can carry more troops, ocean-going vessels can carry more trucks).
Of course, within any population there's plenty of deviation from the baseline average. You could decide that the military retains some sort of size/strength standards that military personnel must meet, rendering such concerns immaterial (but introducing a new concern: a smaller recruitment pool).
## Impact of Psychological Differences
There are significant psychological differences between men and women **on average**, but it's unfair to make a sweeping statement about psychological differences between every man and every woman. The differences may stem from any of genetic, hormonal, developmental, and social/cultural pressures.
Research suggests that women are more [empathic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Empathy) and more [emotional](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Emotion) than men in general. (Some research argues that women are simply more emotionally *expressive* rather than more emotional, so this science is certainly not settled.) It also suggests that they are less likely to display [aggression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Aggression) directly.
If women in general are more **empathic**, a female-directed military may be inclined to avoid conflict and pursue diplomatic solutions, but this relies upon the specific women with decision-making authority having both greater empathic perception than their male counterparts and having some means of applying their empathic perception to their (potentially faceless) enemy. In all likelihood, the impersonal and weighty justifications for engaging in modern war would hold the same sway, regardless of whether it's a man or a woman who makes the decision.
If women in general are more **emotional**, including greater capacity for both joy and fear, that could also affect decisions to wage war or initiate conflict. But again, the decision to wage war is often made at a state level so the personal feelings or intensity of feelings held by decision makers may not change their ultimate decisions when faced with the same options and consequences.
If women in general are less directly **aggressive**, this might actually serve to the advantage of their military in modern large scale warfare, where combat is often impersonal, waged by proxy with bullets, rockets, missiles, and drones instead of in close personal combat with fists, bludgeons, and blades. An indirectly aggressive military might be more willing to embrace asymmetrical warfare, including booby-traps, or strategic maneuvers like cutting off enemy supply lines.
But there are two big caveats with trying to predict the psychological behavior of a military based on its gender composition:
1. Individual members of the military will deviate from the average. In much the same way that the average soldier will be different from the average man, the average female in the military will not necessarily match the psychological profile of the average female outside the military.
2. Their behavior will necessarily be informed by both their experience and training. Nobody is naturally an ideal soldier or general; the abilities to fight and lead in a war require the suppression of some instincts and the elevation or acquisition of others.
Any innate psychological differences between the sexes might thus prove insignificant compared to the differences between soldiers and non-soldiers.
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I'm going to take a different approach than most of the other answers here. Given the current trend in warfare towards hardware and away from large ground forces, I would guess that after the initial transition period, things would carry on in much the same direction that they're already moving.
Modern militaries already prize mental aptitude over physical strength. Your ability to operate the technology is way more valuable than your ability to lift heavy objects... More and more combat is being conducted by drones, air power, heavy vehicles, and war ships. While infantry is still used and is still important, it's very rarely used as a front line. Even when it is, combat is rarely if ever hand to hand, it's much more finger to trigger and infantry weapons tend to get lighter and more efficient with each new generation.
"How would a military staffed only with women be different?"
It wouldn't be much different at all in the long run.
---
Also... A lot of the answers here also seem to suggest that women are less physically capable as a given. I reject that assumption. While men tend to have more upper body strength, women tend to have greater lower body strength. There isn't really that much difference in muscle mass without physical training, it's just placed differently.
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I wanted to give some time for answers to percolate before providing any answer of my own, but I'd make a few observations, to ground the analysis, without really resolving some of the trickiest and most interesting parts of the question.
Lots of a military force involves an Air Force and a Navy in addition to the Army. In 2015 in the U.S. military, the force structure was:
* Army 491,177
* Navy 326,504
* Air Force 312,195
* Marine Corps 184,587
* Coast Guard 40,069
# Air Force
In the Air Force, very few personnel actually enter the "battlefield" on a plane, about 95% of the personnel supporting each aircraft are ground crews, where issues of physical strength could be addressed with greater use of machines for lifting and applying strength.
The number of pilots in the Air Force is sufficiently small that your recruits can be very gender atypical, e.g. in emotional and personality character, and still easily to secure in sufficient numbers.
Physical strength and size aren't particularly important in pilots, and the crew portions could be adapted in size for women fairly easily.
The Air Force is currently 19.1% female.
A meaningful subset of the Marines are part of its own internal Air Force to which similar considerations would apply.
# Navy and Coast Guard
Many positions in the Navy call for sailors who are actually below average relative to men generally in size, especially submarines. And, relatively few positions on a modern ship call for exceptional physical strength that could not be replaced by more intense use of machines to assist in lifting and moving things. If anything, an all female ship or submarine might more easily achieve a cohesive crew on a long deployment than a ship with only men.
Most of the hand to hand combat training in the Navy is directed at sailors maintain order vis-a-vis other crew members who get unruly, and protecting ships that are docked when it is not necessary to carry lots of heavy gear over long distances on foot.
The U.S. Navy is currently 18.1% female, the U.S. Coast Guard is currently 14.8% female.
# Army
While some specialties in the Army fit the traditional stereotypes of what a soldier is, many do not. The U.S. Army is currently 14.2% female.
Lots of soldiers in the Army and lots of Marines (which is currently 7.7% female) have jobs like driving supply trucks, providing medical care, maintaining equipment within forward operating bases, feeding the troops, reviewing intelligence from drones and satellites and troops in the field, and so on. In military lingo they are called "Fobbits" because they work in "forward operating bases".
Certainly resources like artillery have become more accurate and have required less crew support over time, requiring fewer personnel to achieve the same military outcomes.
Another role that was traditionally in the front lines and considered to require physical traits associated with men was operating a tank, even though there were maximum personnel size limitations on tanks. But, the number of tanks in the active duty force has declined greatly, because they have become less militarily useful in modern conflicts, and the tanks that remain have become more automated. Many proposals to make tanks even more automated have been rejected because they weren't a priority, but could be adopted in an all female force.
New positions like drone operators also don't have very gendered demands on personnel. Neither do some quite front line positions like helicopter operators.
Certainly, positions like infantry and special forces would be very strongly impacted, and how those posts in the military would change is very notable. But, those positions are a minority of the modern military, and the changes would be far less dramatic than they were in the days when infantry fought with swords rather than firearms.
# Analysis
If one assumes that the Air Force, the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the aircraft operating part of the Marines won't be much different, those components of the military, which make up about half of the U.S. military personnel, wouldn't change very much in character or capabilities.
The Army and Marines would certainly be impacted more, but probably only about 1 in 3 members of those forces would be in the kinds of positions that would be impacted very much. Perhaps up to 250,000 personnel out of almost 1,355,000, or about 18% of the force would have strongly impacted by the transition in how they could or would operate.
Thus, about 82% of the force wouldn't change very much, while about 18% of the force would change a lot in some of the ways discussed in other answers. How that 18% would change is very interesting, but one shouldn't overstate how representative that portion of the force is to the entire military force either.
# Transition Period Duration
There would have to be a transition period during which men were phased out of the military and women were phased in, because lots of military skills can only be learned by doing under the supervision of people who know those skills.
But, this wouldn't take terribly long because the military is constantly cycling through personnel. Much of the active duty force serves for four to eight years before returning to civilian life, ten years would be longer than average, and twenty years is about as long as a military career gets.
So, over twelve to sixteen years, a very large part of the transition could be completely relatively seamlessly, without catastrophic loss of skill sets limited to experienced veterans. If there were a greater rush, an eight to ten year transition could still be manageable although it would carry higher costs particularly in the loss of skills at higher ranks where personnel turnover is not as rapid.
[Answer]
## You will be at many disadvantages
**Men and women handle trauma differently:** According to a report aggregating the outcomes of 290 different studies conducted between 1980 and 2005, the American Psychological Association has determined that men are in their life times more likely to experience trauma than women, but less likely to develop the symptoms of PTSD. Apart from a lower PTSD to trauma rates, men tend to manifest post-traumatic symptoms differently. In general women respond to trauma by increased anxiety whereas men respond by increased aggression. What this means for a solider is that as a female solider is exposed to the horrors of war, their effectiveness as soldiers will quickly wain as anxiety eats away at their desire to fight, but as men are exposed to it, their desire to keep fighting escalates in response to the trauma making veteran men far more effective soldiers than veteran woman.
What this means for you all female army is that you can not achieve the proficiency of a male veteran fighting force. Your woman army may go into the war just as well trained and disciplined as their male counterparts, but as the war drags on, they will find themselves at more and more of a disadvantage as the weight of all the killing and dieing impacts their their psyches differently.
<https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2006/11/ptsd-rates>
**Women generally reach their peak performance at younger ages than men:** In many sports, women tend to hit their peak performance at younger ages than men. This means that there are areas where women in the 12-16 year old age may be likely to outperform men in the same age groups. But, if your army waits until women are 18 to start drafting them, then your women are already mostly past their athletic primes whereas men are just starting to hit it.
This may force your military to recruit at younger ages. This means that you have to choose been recruiting for maturity and recruiting for physical capabilities.
**Menstruation & birth control:** Women of fighting age naturally experiences a menstrual cycle that can be quite dangerous for a solider. The average woman shows a 30% efficiency variance in most of their daily activities based on the time of the month. This means that when you have a woman who can usually perform the same duties as her male counterparts, that for a few days of the month, she will consistently under perform. For a mixed gender military, this may not be a huge deal (everyone has their off days), but female hormones have a way of syncing up so that women who live and work together will tend to share the same menstrual cycle.
In an all woman army, this means that you could have entire platoons or even battalions on the same cycle which would be pretty easy for a foreign intelligence agency to figure out from intercepted logistics reports. A male army could coordinate attacks to avoid your army when they are at their prime, and hit hard when they are at their worst.
Your all female army would need to rely on mandatory birth control to minimize this very major threat, but long term use of birth control can lead to serious medical complications. This puts your female army at another major disadvantage when it comes to maintaining an appropriate force of experienced soldiers.
**There is a frequently cited study on this topic done by the USMC several years back that showed that woman are surprisingly bad infantry in some very unexpected ways.**
This study demonstrated that units without women in them performed better in 93 of 134 tasks than those not containing any women at all. Three of the metrics that stand out as the most relevant include:
* Women are twice as likely to be injured during routine exercises.
* On average, woman are significantly worse marksmen than men regardless of the firearm in question. Even untrained men tend to be more accurate than a trained female solider.
* Women are slower on the battle field. Especially when handling heavy equipment such as machine guns, anti-armor weapons, etc.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/09/10/marine-experiment-finds-women-get-injured-more-frequently-shoot-less-accurately-than-men/>
However, this study is also rather flawed... Having Recently done more research into this, there are several caveats that this study failed to take into account which could have significantly skewed the results.
* At the time of this study, the military did not design women's combat boots. Women have anatomically different feet than men; so, a woman with the same shoe size as a man will still not properly fit into a man's boot.
<https://www.shewear.com.au/anatomical-differences-men-women-feet/> This means that the footware would have failed to offer proper arch support, and it would have created pressure points that could lead to more injuries.
* As for marksmanship, there are 2 key variables that skewed this study. 1: the military did not provide female body armor at this time. Male bodyarmor interferes with a woman's range of motion which forces a bad firing posture; so, any drills done in body armor would have disadvantaged the women in the study. 2: the military defines "trained" as basic training which only includes a few weeks of firearm training. Novice female shooters tend to have worse marksmanship than men because the muscles that handle recoil tend to be less developed in women. So while it is true that women with less than 6 months of firearm training tend to underperform, after about 6-12 months of regular firing experience, women will typically catch up to their male counterparts. They tend to catch up on low calbre, weapons with shoulder stocks faster than handguns or high recoil rifles. So your all women army would need to spend longer on firearm proficiency training, but would not be limited in their ability to become good marksmen. At the competitive shooting level, there is no noticeable difference between men and women except on handguns which are the hardest class of weapon to control recoil on.
* For the third point, absolute strength deficiencies will slow women down with heavy equipment, but my previous statements about the importance of gender specific boots and body armor likely skewed the numbers here as well to appear more significant than it really is.
At this time, the US armed forces now has female body armor and female combat boots, but I do not know of any studies done to re-evaluate female infantry effectiveness with the new gender specific combat gear; so, woman may still have a few physical disadvantages, but it's really hard to know for sure how significant these would be if you were to redesign your training routine around women instead of men.
## What this all means for your all female army
Your best bet of winning any war will pivot on winning quickly and leveraging technology to eliminate holes in your combat proficiencies. You will prefer tactics that don't involve seeing your enemy such as artillery and air strikes, and avoid infantry engagements as much as possible. This means that tactical air superiority will probably be the focus of your military doctrine. If your military can not secure the skies decisively, or if you get drawn into a long gorilla warfare situation, your military is much more likely than a predominantly male army to lose the conflict.
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As also pointed out in apaul34208's answer, despite the fact that on average there are some physiological difference between men and women, nothing would fundamentally change because of this difference. We need to keep in mind here that most people recruited in the army (males or females) are quite far from their theoretical top fitness level, and it's only at this top level that differences between males and females are readily apparent. Also, we need to consider that the average fitness level of army recruits has been steadily declining, particularly in the US. But despite the fact that the US is the most physically unfit nation of the developed World, the US army is still the most powerful army of the World.
The physical fitness requirements for women are set lower than for men, but this has to do with the drive to get more women recruited into the army. As [we can see here](http://www.military.com/military-fitness/fitness-test-prep/physical-fitness-test-standards), the standards for men are quite low. E.g. a minimum of 49 pushups in 2 minutes with 80 the recommended number is not a lot, my grandfather could do a limitless number of pushups at a fast rate at the age of 80 (with well enough developed arm muscles you'll pass the endurance threshold where you don't need to stop anymore). The cardio-fitness standards are not set to be at a rigorous level either. Take e.g. the 40 minutes time limit for the 5 mile run, that's just over 12 km/h for 40 minutes and that's well below my training speed at which I run every day for more than an hour. In Norway there exists a female only special forces unit, we [can read here](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39434655) that the fitness requirements are quite similar to what is required of US males.
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Well, it would not have a lot of narrow-minded men running it, which might make a big difference.
Per 'On The Psychology of Military Incompetence' the biggest issue is generally a commander who gets it horribly wrong and then refuses to change their mind in the face of mounting evidence. Given that this is something which all-too--commonly arises from a highly macho culture, female commanders able to have reasoned discussions and see other viewpoints might be far more efficient at arriving at plans which actually work. They might be less likely to wade into massive bloodshed for the sake of looking manly and not losing face.
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Health permitting; what physiological concerns regarding menstruation, hygiene, injury and maternity must be taken into account for an all female armed force, are there scenarios that deprive women off the battle field. Modern technology has taken most of the physical strain from combative development.
A rifle has a few pounds of trigger pull
A missile is fired at the push of a button
The question really is do women have the moral and mental fortitude to engage in war and knowingly kill, namely another woman.
During the battle of Mogadishu, enemy forces engaging against US troops sent child soldiers, younger than 17 to fight. Would a woman have the fortitude to shoot or bomb a 14 year old whose firing on them?
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We are talking about war here.
War is a beast, and a black hole of human nature.
My perspective may be different, and harsh, and more.
If that happened in hundreds or thousands of year ago.
This action just "inspires" enemies to capture as many captives as they can.
Think of the Romans abducting foreign tribe females at the beginning of Roman history. I forget the exact event but it is documented in the book *Challenge of the West* when the author talks about Rome. You just "offered" women in troops.
War is not romance; it is all about killing, rape, slavery and such.
And if it happened nowadays, the situations have changed a lot, so it is unlikely to be a solid statement that such action will yield a lot of difference in combat capability.
But it does not change the nature of war. The black nature of war allows the winner to do whatever they want to losers.
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In general, I would expect any country which relies on female infantry troops to be several times more likely to be the subject of aggression than one with a traditional, male infantry. Countries without unfriendly neighbors (Australia, France, ...) and without significant internal unrest would be little affected, with more wealthy nations (more mechanized, more high tech) virtually unaffected, and the less wealthy nations requiring some adjustments in the mix of mechanized and unmechanized infantry. Countries with internal unrest would be far more likely to have their governments overthrown. Countries with unfriendly neighbors would have to spend more on their military, if they had enough time. They'd need more troops, and more effective weapons to counteract the low regard the other nations had for their fighting forces. Problem with this answer is the question. It is obviously *absurd* to think that the cause of the change doesn't matter. Of course it does! The culture the army is recruited/conscripted from matters enormously. Few cultures expect women to be as physical or as aggressive as males. This matters in determining how aggressive unit tactics can be. We can only speculate, without evidence. The fact that no known nation has *ever* fielded such a force is neither proof of the hypothesis that female force will be 100x as likely to cut and run as a male force but it certainly doesn't support the hypothesis that such a force will be 100x *less* likely to fold like a house of cards. There may or may not be a significant biological/physiological difference between the way groups of men and of women behave. Jury is out, but I doubt you'd find many people holding the latter pov, while many hold the former. The one key point is that there are a LOT of women between 18 & 26 that are mothers. I believe they will be LESS willing to leave their children, and less willing to risk their lives for a "greater good" than young men of the same age. It's just a guess, but certainly the proportion of the population that qualifies to get into the military would drop precipitously, and I'd guess the military would have to lower its standards to compensate.
[Answer]
since women are shorter, slower and weaker than men, they would **avoid any confrontation on foot**. basically, infantry would be a tiny group of unusually large and exceptionally well trained women.
since women are less expendable than men, trade-offs between risking lives and risking equipment would **tend more towards the safety side of the equation at the expense of much larger equipment budgets**. although, this has been happening naturally for decades as we have become wealthier. also, the **age limits would be raised** (both lower and upper) in order to avoid killing off women before they produce baby taxpayers.
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**What do we know about women, What differences are significant, and consistent on average.**
[Less muscle mass.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1938738/)
[Smaller size.](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15454336/)
**Will any of this affect the military**
**No, not really** The differences are too small to make a significant difference.
You will see some minor changes in standard equipment. But on the whole this difference will be too minor to notice unless you are doing an extremely deep dive into logistics.
Statistically the military may have less of a discipline problem, males on average are more inclined to [commit crime](https://books.google.com/books?id=CJm4AIc4sZEC&pg=PA88&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false).
One weird thing that may come up is that theire may be slightly larger crew compliments on large ships as space is designed with shorter soldiers in mind.
**what effect will it have outside of the military.**
Generally female healthcare will be better. Many medical studies focused on men simply becasue the military was paying and they cared more about soldiers which tended to be male. So many studies only studied men, which carried into later research, here you will see the reverse. you will not have the large number of side effects women experience with modern medicine, which is mostly due to the lack of studies on women. This differences will be small and may only be noticeable on a statistical level.
] |
[Question]
[
I have reached the stage in my latest science fiction epic (in form if not quality!) whereby I need to start solidifying the date system and setting the history of the universe concretely. The date system should be convenient both for characters to discuss and the reader to understand quickly enough.
**The date system needs to span at least 10^24 years** (it has long been accepted that life will necessarily die out before then, in the book).
I am flirting with the idea of using ordinary earth dates (01/01/1970) up to the year one million. After then, the powers that be decided that writing 01/01/1000000 was not ideal and not very scalable.
Imagine the date: the first of January, four hundred and eighty three trillion two hundred and ninety seven billion five hundred and fifty five million seven hundred and twenty one thousand eight hundred and fifteen (01/01/483297555721815); it doesn't exactly role off the tongue (not to mention it's basically unreadable in any convenient amount of time (with accuracy) for people suffering with certain medical conditions which affect their ability to perceive written numbers).
My universe is has a very explicit timeline and characters will spend time exploring various events of the past and the book will span trillions of years from front to back (there is no time travel in my universe). **How can I invent a date system which is human convenient that my characters can use when discussing things, and most importantly, the reader can keep a reasonably simple timeline in their head and understand (ish) when I am talking about.**
This problem is quite noticeable when picking two large dates, take the date example above, and this date - 01/01/23365535731776. they look very similar, but there's over 450 trillion years between them.
TL;DR requirements:
1. Accuracy to the day is important. It is no good saying "at around 10^19".
2. Not event or loose era based. E.g. LotR uses 'First Age' and SW uses the 'Battle of Yavin' as date markers. I suppose a year (2022) is an 'era marker' in itself, but it is consistent and logical and one can identify its neighbours just by knowing the system.
3. Span at least 10^24 years (In my book, humanity has retained the idea of earth time, so a year is always an earth rotation around the sun (as recorded in the year 5000).
4. Be human (reader) convenient and understandable without much mental acrobatics.
5. The date system must be computer readable also and retain all the functionality that our current date system has.
Ideas I am considering (most likely a combination will be required?):
1. Some kind of hashing function whereby the universe agrees on some standard set of shorter hashes. (not ideal from a reader perspective as 01/01/1fty32 and 01/01/6hyrrj could be right next to eachother or thousands of years apart).
2. Scientific notation 1.32322E+25 (still not very convenient).
3. Breaking the date up into more than three segments. e.g. 01/01/12/45/689/9998 - (this would combat the problem hashing functions have of readers not being able to tell if dates are close or distant from each other, but it is still an awful lot of numbers required).
4. Associating each number with an alpha mark - 0t10b would be 0 trillion 10 billion. 126t778b etc does not look to pretty though when combined with the rest of the date.
**So far my best idea** (I think) is to have some sort of consistent era markers, followed a reasonably familiar yet larger system at the end such as aaaaa.365/99999/9999.
* The aaaaa represents trillions and billions and the next would be aaaab >> aaaaz etc.
* 365 represents the day of the year (months have been scrapped but the days remain the same length)
* 99999 represents the year
* 9999 represents the hundreds of thousands marker
**The first day 65 trillion, 77 billion, 10 million, 869 thousand 222 would be: acrfz.001/69222/0108**
I think I like this system because it means readers will look at aaaab and aaaac and know they are far apart, but not as distant as they are from ttyxx. It also has specificity and removes the month to reduce visual noise. I would also footnote every date using a written English version of the date to help the reader further understand if necessary.
Anyone with any thoughts on the above system? I like the ordering of 'era marker'.'smallest > biggest' but my main issue is it is still quite 'numbery' - can anyone think of a way to make it simpler but still capable of addressing each and every day?
Finally, history and timescales, and discussion thereon are key story and world building elements crucial to the book so I am not able to just 'pick 50ish dates' that the reader needs to know about and forget the rest.
Sorry for the long post - any help, ideas or pointers to people who have already had ideas is of great help! I should say that my target audience would be those who are more mathematically / scientifically inclined and so I don't need to hold their hand too much but I don't want to exclude everyone who isn't Rain Man.
p.s. I have searched the internet for long term date systems but I have come up very short.
Thank you!
## Edit 1
I have noticed in the answers and comments provided below, which have been just as helpful and insightful as I had hoped (and even more plentiful - this question even spent some time in the Hot Network which I was surprised at!), that people are often asking the question 'why?'. Their comments are valid, as humans often don't concern themselves with what's happening a decade from now, let alone thousands or millions of years apart. So I hope to give some (exceptionally brief) clarity as to what I am trying to achieve in case it helps answers have some more context on which to base their answers. This context does not invalidate already given answers in any way and I have found intrigue in all of them; thank you for that.
#### Added context
As alluded to in the question, history/events/time etc are crucial to my story. My story is centred around events spanning trillions of years. My characters will notice odd things and then questions will be asked about why, who could do this, divine design? evil corporation? Why is earth time such a good fit for all this? The broader picture will spell out a tale of immense planning of cosmic proportion, wherein the very movements of the universe itself are in play. Dates will need to be specific at the very least down to the year of events and often more so, as such events are mathematically linked - detail is important. Indeed, my 'marathon of the middle' will build up to a climax which will see my characters connect dots on great scale which will reveal this so called immense plan in such a way that readers will (hopefully) click; ahhh! It will be seen that certain events and the very universe itself are linked and could not happen in any other way or order. They will use this knowledge to identify future dates of interest and thus we are thrown into the whirlpool of 'the plan' itself and are able to start having a real effect, pressing toward a satisfying and triumphant ending.
tl;dr The maths is important to me and my story. For me, and hopefully my readers, the very beauty of the tale is in the 'grand design' of events and the 'not randomness' of it all. - I hope this answers some people's questions.
## Edit 2
#### Thoughts on the 'frame challenge' answer
I should like to thank the user for giving such a complete and well thought out answer; It contains extremely useful referenced information and makes sound, logical sense.
I have thought long and hard about whether my framing is off for this question, since the frame challenge answer is currently the highest voted; however, I consider that the frame challenge fails in this instance (even though the answer is quite excellent in many ways), for these reasons:
1. My question does not require that the date system has universal adoption, nor that it be the only date system that exists. I agree with the answers premise that many date systems would be used depending on the frame of reference. Indeed, in regular conversation and the day to day living of my characters, they will adopt phrasing similar to what the answer suggest. However, my characters will also require (as I think is reasonable, stated below) the ability to discuss a larger time frame, with accuracy.
2. To say that is is "not practical" to have such a system (again I think erroneously implies that it would have universal application, which it does not need to have), is to suggest that across all of creation, there would be no people who ever want to mathematically compare a number of distant dates. I am never entering into my calculator '2022 + "circa the First Age"'; I would use what the answer suggests, and project my current date system back onto past events, even if they didn't use the system back then. Nobody alive BC ever used that to refer to themselves, but we can easily enough today label those time appropriately with our current system.
I consider that there, all but necessarily, must be times when people of the future wish to compare distant dates. Consider geologists discussing stellar events, or historians identifying previous 'dynasties', or calculating how long we have to burn our ion cannons to get out of reach of our slowly approaching, but specifically calculated doom. Remember that science-fiction would also allow for some extension of this reasonableness (for fun of course!). Consider also that the characters could even invent a system up to meet their requirements (which does not invalidate the question, as the question is concerned with both character and reader comprehension).
The answer provides useful commentary on a large number of date system relevant points and I am grateful for the time that was taken to write it. However, I do not consider that it correctly answers the question, and that questions which are looking more into using various 'base' points, or universal constants etc, are closer to the mark set by the question.
As a side note, the concept of Frame Challenge is discussed [here](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7097/a-proposal-for-helping-users-understand-frame-challenges), and I don't think the answer meets the criteria discussed there.
Please comment etc and let me know your thoughts on the above guys. It is the top voted answer, so I am expecting some push back!
p.s. I hope this does not come across as dismissive; I really have thought long about this and really am grateful for the ideas in the answer; they have given me a greater understanding of dates than I had before. Thank you!
#### Edit 2.5
The answer referred to above has been edited by its author to provide a suggestion which does meet the question criteria; as such, I am pleased to say I now consider it to be a valid answer (notwithstanding the frame challenge fail).
[Answer]
## Frame challenge: no such dating system is practicable
What is the use of a dating system? Obviously, the use of a dating system is to tell when an event took place, or to tell when an event will take place. But also, perhaps a little bit less obviously, is to *plan* an event ahead, or to locate a past even in a familiar time slot.
Of course, nobody will want to plan ahead events over millions and billions and trillions of years; such planning would be utterly useless. Over a time scale of a billion years, the solar system is chaotic, so that one cannot even tell where Earth will be, even less what season will be in any given city; and no city on Earth has endured for more than ten thousand years or so, anyway. Over a time scale of ten billion years, the entire solar system will have changed beyond recognition. Over a time scale of a hundred billion years, the civilization will have changed home star systems several times.
Moreover, there is no historical example, none, of dating system in continuous use for more than 1,500 years. *We* date, for example, the accession of Trajan to the position of emperor of Rome to the year 98 CE: but at that time this system was not in use.
## In practice, different system for different time scales
Let us consider the example of the dating systems we use in practice.
* For dates with the last 2500 years or so we use the common year-month-day system:
+ With complications for dates more than 104 years ago -- some countries used old style dating, others used new style dating, and the delta between them varies. The famous example is the Great October Socialist Revolution (for which the cinematical *Red October* submarine was named), which took place in November as far as the world outside Russia was concerned.
+ With even more complication for dates more than 250 years ago or so -- some countries changed the numbering of the year at dates other than 1 January. For example, until 1752, England changed year numbers on 25 March, such that 24 March 1648 was followed by 25 March 1649.
+ With *severe* complications for dates more than 2,000 years ago. Quite often, for dates between 2,000 and 2,500 years ago we can mechanically translate a date into our calendar system, but quite often we have only a vague idea what actual day it was. For example, the traditional day of birth of C. Julius Caesar is 12 July 100 BCE; but due to the peculiar way the Romans counted years at that time, all we can say is that it was in the summer of the year 100 BCE, at some point between late June and early August. Yes, the Romans counted that day as 12 July (or actually *ante diem IV idûs Quinctiles* in their native reckoning); but they started counting days from 1 March, and 1 March was whenever the Great Priest said it was. And don't get me started on Greek dates.
The Latin means "the fourth day before the ides of Quinctily". Only later were the months of Quinctily and Sextily renamed July and August.
* Beyond 2,500 years ago the system year-month-day is not used, because it would be useless. Year-month or even year-season is fine and serves all practical purposes.
* Beyond 3,500 years ago or so we switch to a system counting *centuries*, or even early-mid-late millennia. That serves all practical purposes well enough. For example, the 4th Dynasty of Uruk is dated to the 22nd century BCE; no more precision is available. (And even that "22nd century" is to be taken with a grain of salt; it could well be "mid-23rd to early 22nd" or "mid 22nd to early 21st".)
* Beyond 5,000 years ago we count millennia. And since we count millennia, we count them BP, "before present", where "present" is defined as 1950. Yes, for archaeologists even the present is in the past.
* Beyond 12,000 years ago we stop using year counts and we switch to the [geologic time scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale). The non-avian dinosaurs got extincted at the bounday between the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic, or, on a finer scale, at the boundary between the Cretaceous and the Paleogene, which is more or less about 66 million years ago. Note that the dating on the geologic time scale is precise (the extinction being the definition of the boundary between the Cretaceous and the Paleogene) whereas the dating by counting years is imprecise, with an uncertainty of tens of thousands of years. (The currently accepted dating by years is 66.043 ± 0.011 million years ago.)
## What does this mean for you?
It means that it doesn't make sense to use one single dating system over such a long time span. At any given point in that overlong time span, people would be using
* A dating system to the day for events within a few thousand years of their present.
* A dating system to the year for events within say 5,000 to 10,000 years of their present.
* A dating system to the century for events within maybe 50 to 200 centuries of their present.
* A dating system to the millennium for events within maybe ten to fifty millennia of their present.
* Beyond that, they would be counting hundreds of thousand of years, or millions of years.
* Beyond a few billion years, they would be dating events based on the home solar system of the time: when Homeworld was located in the Manticore system...
As an added bonus, the system would naturally change from time to time, and quite often. Two of the longest lived dating systems in our history are the Greek system of dating by Olympiads, and our present system of counting years since an arbitrary epoch: one endured for about 1,200 years, the other is only about 1,500 years old. (For fun, the year we count as "1 CE" was "the year of the consulship of C. Caesar and L. Aemilius Paullus" in the Roman reckoning, or "1st year or the 195th Olympiad" in the Greek reckoning.) We have no historical examples of dating systems which endured longer. (Discounting the universal habit of dating by the regnal years of the local potentate. This "system" was of course in use everywhere for a very long time, but it has the drawback that it resets whenever the potentate changes.)
## On the other hand...
The question can be understood as asking how to write natural numbers up to $10^{24} \times 365.25 \approx 3.65 \times 10^{26}$ in a more-or-less readable way.
(I am discounting the idea of "years" and "months". Our current years and months make no sense whatsoever over a such a long timespan. Wherever Homeworld will be two billion years from now it will most certainly not be on Earth-orbiting-the-Sun-in-One-Year. And there are five hundred thousand billion intervals of two billion years in $10^{24}$ years. Homeworld will *have to* change locations and orbital periods *five thousand billion times* in the timespan requested by the question.)
The point is that $\log\_2 (3.65 \times 10^{26})$ is about 88.2. To represent a natural number up to $3.65 \times 10^{26}$ one *has to* represent 89 bits. There is no escape.
* Using ten digits, 0, 1, 2, ..., 9, (3.3 bits / digit) one needs 27 digits.
* Using sixteen digits, 0, 1, 2, ..., 9, A, B, C, D, E, F (4 bits / digit) one needs 23 digits.
* Using 36 digits, 0, 1, 2, ..., 9, A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z (5.2 bits / digit) one needs 18 digits.
If I were to make a suggestion, I would suggest the following scheme:
* For dates up to 999,999,999 days before or after the epoch, use the decimal representation.
* For dates between 1 billion days and 1,679,616 billion days before or after the epoch, use up to four base-36 digits (for the billions) and nine decimal digits (for days in the billion).
For example, VO2—987,654,321 would be the 987,654,321st day in the 41,042nd billion days.
* For dates more than 1,679,616 billion days before or after the epoch use a group of up to four base-36 digits followed by a group of exactly four base-36 digits, and then nine decimal digits.
For example, NF'07WO—987,654,321 would be the 987,654,321st day in the 1,415,926,536th billion days.
* This goes to 2.8 trillions of billions of days, or $7.7 \times 10^{18}$ years. For even more remote days, add a new group of up to four base-36 digits. (Three such groups are enough.)
Double precision floating point numbers have only 53 bits of precion. One would need quadruple precision arithmetic for those 89 bits...
[Answer]
**You will name the period after the wavelength of the cosmic background radiation.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uriZa.jpg)
The cosmic background radiation is left over from the Big Bang. In our era this radiation has redshifted all the way to microwave frequency.
<https://www.universeadventure.org/big_bang/cmb-origins.htm>
>
> The CMB is a perfect example of redshift. Originally, CMB photons had
> much shorter wavelengths with high associated energy, corresponding to
> a temperature of about 3,000 K (nearly 5,000° F). As the universe
> expanded, the light was stretched into longer and less energetic
> wavelengths.
>
>
> By the time the light reaches us, 14 billion years later, we observe
> it as low-energy microwaves at a frigid 2.7 K (-450° F). This is why
> CMB is so cold now.
>
>
>
It is going to keep shifting. There is no limit to how big the wavelength can get.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MnutH.png)
<https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/basic-page/electromagnetic-spectrum-diagram>
There are frequencies of longer wavelengths than radiowaves. [ULF radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_low_frequency) has wavelengths in the kilometer range.
Your dates will be metric units of measurement. One can extrapolate from the steady increase of CMB wavelength to figure out what the wavelength would be at a given time in the future.
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/08/07/ask-ethan-will-the-cosmic-microwave-background-ever-disappear/?sh=5147bdd140e0>
>
> However, the Big Bang’s leftover glow will never disappear entirely.
> No matter how far we extrapolate into the future, even as the density
> of photons and the energy-per-photon both continue to drop, a large
> enough, sensitive enough detector tuned to the right wavelength could
> always identify it.
>
>
>
[Answer]
# It can't be done (even in theory).
The bigger problem is not how to display a single scalar (i.e. one dimensional) quantity in an easily readable manner that has a precision at the level of days.
It is more profound.
**You can't have a well defined universal dating system for trillions of years that applies everywhere consistently.**
**This is because, as a consequence of general and special relativity, the rate at which time passes for different observers is different.** The kind of system you are imagining only works in a world with Newtonian physics and a flat Euclidian topology. Those are often useful approximations on Earth, but not for these scales of space and time.
Time passes more slower in strong gravitational fields than in weak ones. Time passes more slowly for observers traveling at high speeds (approaching the speed of the light in the limit) than for observers traveling at lower speeds.
For observers who mostly travel at speeds far less than the speed of light and are mostly all traveling at similar speeds, and are in comparatively weak gravitational fields that are all very similar to each other, for periods of millions of years or so (e.g. pre-space travel observers on Earth), the discrepancies are tolerable. But, over trillions of years with observers all over the universe, you simply cannot have, because it is not that well-defined, an absolute dating system with a precision on the level of days.
When you are talking precisions of hundreds of trillions of days, even slight relativistic effects add up in circumstances where scientists today routinely ignore them.
You can only get that level of precision for that time period for a very well defined observer and to be useful, you really need to have very careful definition of the observer whose time measurement is being used. Frequently, someone trying to use the system won't have access to enough information to determine the correct date for a particular observer even if that observer is well defined and there is a process for singling out a date from the perspective of that observer.
**Simultaneity, in general, is [not well defined](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity) over universal distances in long spans of time, for many observers.**
>
> According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it is impossible
> to say in an absolute sense that two distinct events occur at the same
> time if those events are separated in space. If one reference frame
> assigns precisely the same time to two events that are at different
> points in space, a reference frame that is moving relative to the
> first will generally assign different times to the two events (the
> only exception being when motion is exactly perpendicular to the line
> connecting the locations of both events).
>
>
>
Yet simultaneity is a core axiom of any one dimensional dating system.
# What Is Possible?
If you are less ambitious, and only want this system for say, one planet, and you defined a particular location on this planet that was the reference point, you could do well enough. But there is too much variation throughout an entire universe for any system to work over the entire universe (and you need fast movers to have any meaningful interstellar travel which the premise seems to imply the need for).
There are lots of good choices here. For example, the duration of a full rotations of the target location on the target planet around the center of the galaxy (about 200 million years) at the time the system was established could provide one good intermediate unit between planetary years and trillions of years. In one trillion years there would be 5,000 such rotations, which would be a manageable intermediate unit.
Likewise, between a galaxy rotation and a year, a span of say, 10,000 years per unit (India's number system likes division of 10,000 more than divisions of 1,000 for example), you get 20,000 cycles per galaxy rotation. So 5000-20000-10000-365. Four divisions of 10,000 each would be a bit neater: 365 days-10,000 years-10,000 ten millennia eons-10,000 (galactic) cycles. A ten thousand unit item can be done in four decimal digits since 0000 is a possible value. So AAA-XXXX-YYYY-ZZZZ. Also, some periods of time matter more than others, so you could probably have abbreviations that simplify matters rather than spelling out the whole things all the time. There might, for example, be ZZZZ possible galactic cycles, but in a historical account, you'd normally have lots of dates in just one of them, so you might abbreviate with a world like IMP for the imperial dominated cycle, or BIG for the Big Bang dominated cycle, or CE for current cycle (that could also have a different meaning if used, for example, in the YYYY field).
This wouldn't be perfectly defined for other locations even in the same galaxy, but you could have a mapping system from the base location on the base planet to other planets that approximations the average travel time of a space traveler using interstellar transportation at the time the system was adopted to use a standard conversion based upon the spacial coordinates of the location of interest relative to the base location as a conversion factor allowing determinations to be made knowing only one's location in space relative to the center of the galaxy and the location of the base location. This would be arbitrary but workable. But that doesn't generally to the billions of galaxies in the universe since their spatial structure relative to each other isn't so stable. And, that would break down when your base galaxy colliders with another galaxy (as, for example, the Milky Way will with the The Andromeda galaxy in about 4.5 billion years).
[Answer]
I'd go with option 3 you listed: breaking up the year into more groups.
So today would be July 23, 2022, 0001. With 0001 being the millennium.
It keeps the familiar date formats, and much like our current date system it would be common for people to leave out the millennium when talking about nearby dates, same as if I say July 25th, you know I probably mean 2 days from now, not 2 days and a year from now.
After that counter approaches 9999 we either add another digit, or break it up again into how many 10000 millennium have passed.
There's no need for anyone to learn an entirely new date system, and no need to rewrite everything that existed before in the new date system - anything missing the millennia number must have been from 0001. Just like we know anything using a 2 digit year is probably from the 1900s.
Since your millenia field is going to get unwieldy using it over many trillions of years, maybe don't use base10 for it. Using base36 (counting 0-9, then a-z) you can fit a lot more numbers into a much smaller field. It's not as easy for humans to do math with, but it's easy enough to put dates in order and see whether the difference is huge or smaller.
A hundred millennia (100,000 years) from now would be July 23, 2022, 2s. A trillion millennia (1,000,000,000,000,000 years) from today would be July 23, 2022, cre66i9s.
[Answer]
# [IPv6](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6)
Fortunately, such a system already exists. Internet Protocol version 6 is the current addressing format used by much of the internet for communication with other devices. It's format is as follows:
>
> IPv6 addresses are represented as eight groups of four hexadecimal digits each, separated by colons. The full representation may be shortened; for example, 2001:0db8:0000:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 becomes 2001:db8::8a2e:370:7334.
>
>
>
They provide the amount of numbers you need, and then some:
>
> IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses, theoretically allowing 2^128, or approximately 3.4×10^38 total addresses.
>
>
>
Your first date of 01/01/483297555721815 converted to hex is 1b78e7b212e57, which would be represented as ::::1:b78e:7b21:2e57. I propose that when read aloud the colons could be pronounced "col," and several in a row can be pronounced using Latin/Greek prefixes to avoid ambiguity. So you'd pronounce it "the first of January, tetra-col one col b seventy eight e col seven b twenty one col two e fifty seven." Still not the most fluid, but it gets some rhythm to it and I'm sure you could internalize them with a bit of repetition. As another example, today's date is "the twenty fourth of July, hepta-col seven e six."
As a bonus, this is *very* computer readable.
[Answer]
* Keep in mind who needs what from your notation:
+ Characters in the story usually need the next couple of days, the next couple of dozen days. "Get me that report by the 42th of Sometember." They might need more, but rarely more than one lifetime.
+ Readers of the story need to get a sense of "not in Kansas any more" -- but not coupled with total bewilderment. They have to *follow* plot-relevant dates.
* *Except for dates (and measurements in the US),* mankind has gone decimal. There are some very good points for octal or duodecimal systems, but decimal is it *for your readers.*
* Most of the Western world reads from the left to the right.
* When one is reading a long string of digits without the checksum of spelling, positional mistakes will creep in. When I write a word like internatonialization, you will understand it despite the spelling error. When I type 053549797435, you have no way of knowing that it should have been 053549779435.
So come up with a system that puts the smallest unit left, followed by blocks which meet human reading and numerical patterns. Three digits per block is convenient because there are less than 1000 days in the year, and blocks can be pronounciated 'thousand' and 'million' and so on.
123-456-789-101-112-131-415 is day 123 of year 456 of millenium 789 etc.
[Answer]
Put `,` after every few digits to break up big numbers. People already do this to make it easy to read large numbers. Similar segmentation is done with `-` in phone numbers or social security numbers, and in credit card numbers.
If people in this world really care about 18-digit dates, they will find a way to remember them. Maybe people will make up songs for different dates. [Commercials](https://youtu.be/Oh6tdYMc8tQ) do this will phone numbers.
A lot of the other schemes you propose violate one of your requirements. Hashes are not human readable. Scientific notation compromises accuracy.
[Answer]
You don't have to use base 10, you're already on that track with your a-z thinking.
Base 64 is common for storing data - but could also be used for counting.
If you imagine using the span 0-1a-zA-Z for a number - you'd shorten the date by more than half. You cold add letters from other alpahbets; greek, cyrillic, brāhmī, arabic and go for base 256 or some other significant number.
Going for 256 your number 23365535731776 would equal (21x256^5)+(64x256^4)+(54x256^3)+(117x256^2)+(16x256)+64 ie your representation of 21 64 54 117 16 64 for example kβRбfβ.
Edit: Mixing uppercase and lowercase and having characters pronounced the same isn't a good idea for vocal communication.
(k-beta-R period, year be-f-beta)
[Answer]
What about breaking it down to bigger pieces ?
For example, you could add the unit "Sun", which would be the lifespan of the Sun (estimated to be 10 billion years).
Another unit would be an "Ice age", which would be 100K years (approx time-span between ice ages).
You can find better units, obviously.
With your example of The first day 65 trillion, 77 billion, 10 million, 869 thousand 222 , this would be:
The 1st day of Sun 6507, Ice age 70108, Year 69222.
And written shortly: 01/69222/70108/6507, or 1 69222y 70108i 6507s.
Still a lot of numbers, but separated into larger "eras".
* You can still combine them easily to get the full number.
* You have some broader numbers if needed ("a period of 3 Suns", "around ice age 10.000 of the 3rd Sun").
I feel like these groups of 4 to 5 numbers are easily readable, and you still use an easily readable base 10. Lots of numbers, but separated into broader chunks.
[Answer]
[RFC2550](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2550) does not have widespread adoption (and is an April Fool's RFC), but proposes an expansion of the existing ISO8601 standard for recording dates to fix the problem that the string `10000-01-01` comes before `9999-12-31` (because `1` < `9`).
It proposes adding a letter to the start of the string, so the date would be `A10000-01-01`, which gives a potentially useful "when in the universe are we" era marker without having to count the number of numbers.
But this doesn't solve the problems of dates that might be exceptionally long, and there's no way of compressing this data. We can give a short name to a millennium and recognise that there are billions of trillions of millennia named the "cromulent knapsack" era, but we established that the one we're talking about starts in `H329910713000`, and we're probably not going to have a name collision with any of the other so-named eras. There could also be a custom character for that era, similar to how [„ãø](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_era_name#Character_sets) was coined for the start of the [Reiwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiwa) era in 2019 in Japan; these would need to be automatically generated like [Github Identicons](https://github.blog/2013-08-14-identicons/) (because otherwise we need trillions of terabytes for all the images!). Although they still don't have enough detail for a human to identify the millenium (only about 24 bits of information compared to 70 bits to uniquely identify a millennium), one could imagine autocompleting the precise date if one has used the same date recently.
This is a **hard** problem. Good luck!
[Answer]
So, I haven't fully tested it out yet but my first thought is to use a logarithm to make the bulk of the year more manageable. Here are some examples where I rounded down to the millenium, took the log100 of that number, and then added the years I removed for the rounding back to that. This is displaying millenium log100 + years in millenium / month / day.
23,365,535,731,776 = 6.684287872 + 776 / 1 / 12
23,365,535,731,777 = 6.684287872 + 777 / 1 / 12
483,297,555,721,815 = 7.342107299 + 815 / 1 / 12
383,293 = 2.791599387 + 293 / 1/ 12
This produces a number that you can use as a reference for the era and compare pretty easily to other eras and can be converted to an exact year with a couple of simple operations. If it's between 1 and 2 then it's between years 100 and 10000. Between 2 and 3 is between 10000 and 1000000. For every whole number that it increases, add two zeros to the final year.
I'm sure someone better at math than I am can flesh this out a bit.
[Answer]
Dealing with such large dates and timespans without mental acrobatics is inherently difficult, because we are ultimately not made to think in the scale of billions of years.
Therefor I'd suggest to break it down into segments that are clearly separated, to make it easier for humans to read and quickly judge if a given date is further in the past than an other date.
Since we already have a separation system at thousand that comes natural to most people, I'd go with this and expand upon it by alphabetical qualifiers. Also omitting the month and just use a fraction of the year to specify the day (with a year having 365 fractions) and using a Format that is something like this: "Fraction of Year" / "Year" / "Millenium" / "Million Years" / "Billion Years" / "Trillion Years"
Qualifier Example: K = thousand, M = Million, B = Billion, T = Trillion.
Your example of The first day 65 trillion, 77 billion, 10 million, 869 thousand 222 then would look like this: **001.222.K869.M010.B077.T065**
Characters can then ommit anything either on the beginning or the end if it suits them. Like if its clear they are talking about the current millenium (from their perspective) they can use **001.222** and if they for example know something happened somewhere in 10th million but don't know the exact date yet they can just use **M010** and everyone knows they are talking about the timespan from **001.001.K001.M010** to **365.999.K999.M010**
[Answer]
**Abbreviate it.**
We already do this. Today is July 25th, '22. We don't necessarily have to specify "2022" because in the overwhelming majority of circumstances we know which 22 you meant. You would use the long form if the date might be ambiguous "The company was founded in 1902."
I have to imagine the people of the future would still do this. July 25th of the year 22,406,978,455,022? "July 25th, '22".
There might even arise a convention of only using the "significant digits". If it was a century before the above date, it would be printed as "July 25th, '4922" with the single quote denoting "all other digits are the same as today".
It would be something really unusual to require listing exact dates, or to have that come up frequently. "The star went supernova 22 billion years ago" is good enough for conversation. (They may know the exact date was 22 billion, 58 million, 926 thousand, 47 years ago but conversationally, "22 billion" is good enough for most purposes.)
Another possibility is that they simply keep resetting the date back to 0, for this reason, based on whatever (new emperor? Dates reset to 0.) "Long notation" might only be used by scientists and their day 0 is "the big bang". Kinda like how we use F or C for temperature but scientists may prefer Kelvin, which most people never use and wouldn't (off the top of their head) know how to convert.
[Answer]
The date system we use now has been honed to be efficient for most of what we do. So I'd keep it. For example, if I said something happened in '22, we could make assumptions about the century from the context. When that isn't enough, I'd add a century such as 1922. Whatever system is created here ought to be practical enough to allow such shortcuts.
With a span of trillions of years, we can assume that humans (and their descendent species) have traveled to the stars and will have many local date systems. They all would be translated back to Terra Standard for certain official documents. Otherwise no one would use Terra Standard Time (TST).
So local times are handled - they're local, just like the date we're familiar with, with all the shortcuts we'd expect.
Thus the only users of TST would be AIs and computers. Nothing in the span of humanity lasts long enough, or is important enough, to commemorate an event to the day after a few thousand years. Does it *really* matter if Stonehenge was completed on August 12th, or 13th?
The only time I see it mattering is for law and banking. When ownership changed hands (the former) and accrued interest (the latter).
Shuffling all this around, then, Terra Standard time is:
The number of 10,000 year epochs
The number of years in the current epoch
The number of days in the current year
The fractional day as a decimal
Easy. Since humans won't use the full format, it doesn't have to be human friendly per se, but just has to be easily manipulated.
Today's date in TST would be 0|2022|220 assuming we use the more or less standard of the beginning of the calendar. Or maybe 2022220 since the date would always be 7 digits. Not all cultures might agree with that arbitrary beginning of the calendar, however, so one science fiction writer, I don't recall whom, suggests the start of the calendar could be July 16, 1945 at 5:30am, the date of the first atomic explosion. That TST date would be 1945211 if we keep our current beginning of calendar, or 0000000 otherwise. I suppose Trinity could be 1945211.23 if that fraction of a day is precise enough.
Certain dates would have names. 1945211 could also be called Trinity. Most current events that seem momentous (Kennedy assassination, invasion of Ukraine) don't actually matter much in the scheme of things. Another date that could be worthy of a name could be the imminent Betelgeuse supernova.
There's a little cheat in TST being the number of 10,000 year epics, then the year of the current epoch. Base 10 being what it is, the epoch and year, together, is just the number of years since the beginning of the calendar. For example, a million years from today is 1002022220. That is, 1,002,022 years and 220 days.
[Answer]
Your civilization uses the 64-bit (and maybe even eventually the 128-bit) **Unix time** for official recordkeeping, and people just modulo down to **3 significant year digits** for everyday use.
Assuming your civilization never goes through periods of such destitution that computers go out of manufacture, every computer ever made will keep merrily counting up the seconds since January 1st 1970. With 64 bits to do it, they'll keep counting for nearly 300 billion years. (I'm sure programmers in the year 292,277,026,596 will curse the programmers of 2038 for not jumping straight to 128-bit.) It seems very likely that digital systems will remain integrated with society for as long as society can support digital systems' supply chains, so the Unix time won't just be an academic curiosity, it will be a critical timekeeping system.
At the same time, if human lifespans cap out somewhere in the 100-200 year range, nobody will care about the 1000s or higher year digit in everyday conversation. We already basically don't care about it, when was the last time you heard someone talk about an event prior to the year 1000 outside of a history discussion? If the year is 252525, people will just say it's 525. Maybe when the millennium rolls over people will keep saying the thousands digit for a century because the year "22" looks silly, just like we are doing right now.
But computers will keep dutifully putting full Unix timestamps on everyone's files, and it will remain possible to date things from the distant past down to the second. That's immensely useful, so people will still think of themselves as being in the year eleventy-billion with all those dated files in their past, even if they're not saying the full year in conversation.
[Answer]
Humans are much better at dealing with graphic representations than they are with numeric/symbolic ones. You can ignore computers because it is usually trivial for them to convert representations. Being unable to just speak out the value could be a problem, however. If you are allowed to use graphics, you can use colors and geometries to pack more raw data into the representation, as well as positional relations. Oh, and also humans are much better at percepting things when they fit within their view (which is tiny, like 5 letters or so), so fitting things in a square/circle is better than in line. And humans are better at remembering things when they can associate them with something, like a name(even if its just a single letter like alpha).
The other side of the coin of precise and efficient data transmission (even when it deals with humans) is the raw data itself. We want to minimise the amount of data transmitted, and amount of time needed to convert the data into information. Instead of using absolute encoding, you could use relative: you pick a reference date, perhaps giving it a name (even if temporary, unique to each conversation or even phrase), and then say how far away the one you need is. You can even create a system where representations integrate that. I recommend looking at the chineese language.
Truly, your problem is incredibly close to raw information communication problems, so you could try looking at how mathematicians and programmers deal with it, even if it is intended for computers.
[Answer]
What you really need to ask yourself when facing such time systems is what are people *actually* going to do with it? It doesn't matter if you design your nice shiny Julian calendar to be regular if people are going to do calculations based on the orbital period of the Earth (which drifts substantially in the Julian calendar). It doesn't matter if your nice accurate Gregorian calendar fixes these issues if your religious celebrations are tied to a lunar calendar instead.
It doesn't matter if you are capable of counting the number of seconds between two events a trillion years apart if nobody actually wants to do that. So my recommendation is to think carefully about what operations people will *actually* want to do to your dates.
A few things I've explored which may help:
>
> Not event or loose era based. E.g. LotR uses 'First Age' and SW uses the 'Battle of Yavin' as date markers. I suppose a year (2022) is an 'era marker' in itself, but it is consistent and logical and one can identify its neighbours just by knowing the system.
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You notice the oddity of "the year 2022", which might be treated as an era marker, but has some properties which make it fundamentally "better" than other markers. And you're right, except the era marker is not "2022." It's hidden. The era marker is January 1, 1AD, from which you can use simple arithmetic to measure time. Our system of "years" is based on an Epoch of an arbitrary date that we simply all agreed to use. Well, most of us agree. The astronomical community doesn't use this system. They like to use "[Julian Days](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_day)", a measure of the number of days since January 1, 4713 BC from the Julian Calendar. Why that date? *Because* it was arbitrary. The individuals who suggested the date noted that if you take the solar calendar, the lunar calendar, and the ancient Roman calendar for taxes, you end up with a 7980 year cycle. 4713 BC was chosen as a time they lined up *and* was before any recorded history, such that all historical events had positive day numbers.
Why mention these? Both year numbers and Julian days share a common trait: they have a *single* epoch date, however arbitrary, and a numeric value representing time since (or before) that epoch. The epoch is arbitrary. And they lead into the line of reasoning you are: you fundamentally need a number large enough to cover all time, and a number precise enough to measure the durations we care about. You cannot get away from that.
Indeed, there is a fundamental give-and-take between accuracy and the data content of the string describing the number. It doesn't matter if you encode it as "acrfz.001/69222/0108" or the year "65,077,010,869,222" You will have to fight this balance. In astronomy Julian Dates are sometimes not precise enough, so it is common to add the necessary digits such as 2415020.31352 (the julian date of the [Bessalian epoch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch_(astronomy)#J2000))
So what are your users of this system going to actually do with these numbers? What is the *important* information content of the date? Do you actually care that acrfz.001/69222/0108 is some number of seconds after acrca.002/6920/0100? Or do your users of this system care that acrca.002/6920/0100 is before the ascension of the God Emperor and acrfz.001/69222/0108 is after?
I would argue that you do not want one system, but two. You want a simple single-epoch system based on an arbitrary epoch of your choosing, and you want a "event" based marker. You specifically stated that you don't want them, but you do. Almost certainly you do. The event based dates would be used for the 99.99999% of date operations people would ever want to do. For the remaining 0.000001%, you can fall back on the single-epoch system like we do today with Julian Dates. On all of those times, your human will have a calculator handy to assist them because there is *no* way for a human to do the arithmetic on dates trillions of years apart, no matter how clever your encoding.
You then fix the "events" at a specific time since the grand-epoch of your trillion year calendar. On the rare case you have to convert, there is an agreed upon conversion between them.
Which is more useful, I ask: acrfz.001/69222/0108 and acrca.002/6920/0100? Or human.2022/03/05 and robot.0001/02/25, where "human" and "robot" epochs are separated by the rise of AI? Only very rarely do you need to convert those to Julian Dates (perhaps to find out how long it was since we darkened the skies).
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As others have said, use a thousands separator as we currently do for very large decimal numbers. Among things used currently on Earth: a comma or a period. Alternatively: a dash or slash. The International System of Units dictates use of a thin space, but I don't think that's very eye-catching.
Personally I would recommend the period ([as used in many European countries](https://www.languageediting.com/number-formatting-europe-vs-us/)), as it looks elegant and science-fictiony.
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**Do it like with star names**
The timespan is humongous. It's so large that even epochs have stopped making sense: If you started defining epochs, you'd have more of them than anybody could remember, let alone name or associate any meaningful information with them.
So people will concentrate on events *of interest*.
Those that have something making them stand out.
And those events are rare enough that they will get names.
In fact nobody will care about the digits that make up the exact date they happened on; you have lists where each event has its exact date/time noted down, just like nobody remembers the exact sky coordinates of Betelgeuze, you just look that up.
And it will be just like stars in other respects, too.
Just like there are "blue giant" stars, there will be "XXX events" of some specific significance, and a wealth of similar but slightly different ones, and there will be classes of events that are a total mystery (until some revelation puts them into perspective).
Scientists will find patterns in the events, and make predictions about when/where exactly to find related events, and most will fail, some will find a pattern but it's pure accident, some will find a real pattern.
And everybody will wonder if the currently-known set of patterns really covers all relevant events. There will be theories about "what's out there but we just don't look in the right place/date, and we don't have the resources to systematically scan everything".
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If you assign blocks of time a single character, it will be easy to compare two dates against each other.
a = 0 - 10^6
b = 10^6+1 - 10^12
c = 10^12+1 - 10^18
d = 10^18+1 - 10^24
and then make smaller segments of each span for the next character
f = 0 - 10^2
g = 10^2+1 - 10^4
h = 10^4+1 - 10^6
with the final digits being the "local" date/time that is relevant to a person's experience (i.e. Yesterday, last year, my birth date, etc...)
Something along the lines of how numbers are assembled now:
1234 = 1000 + 200 + 30 + 4
Each number has an associated multiplier with it, we just commonly use 10 because of 10 fingers. You can use anything you want to shorten the number of digits required and if you use characters and digits you get a bigger "name space" that is still easily compared visually.
bg:2020/02/26 is a date in the year range of 10^6+1 - 10^12 but has a more specific section of that group of 10^2+1 - 10^4 which is the second group within that broad segment. You can break the ranges into however many "buckets" you want to keep the number of characters in a date as large or small as you want.
I suspect the most important thing to the characters will be relative comparisons of dates, so making it easy to know that two things were "close" in time or "far apart", in an easy and fast way.
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As there are more than 100,000 (10^5) Chinese characters, and there are ways of assigning an ['alphabetical' order to them](https://www.quora.com/How-does-alphabetical-order-or-sorting-order-work-in-Chinese) you would only need four characters to describe up to 10^20 years. So very space efficient.
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## Prior Answers Have Good Warnings/Ideas
Agree with prior answers that such a scheme would be useful primarily in academic contexts, not in casual social interaction. Additionally, such a scheme indeed needs a well defined observer, due to relativistic effects, if times are to be meaningfully compared beyond the planetary/solar system scale. Cosmic background radiation lacks the specificity (based on instrument abilities) for precise comparisons at the date level. Unix timestamps record only their local time; but with appropriate calibration (and likely conversion to handle relativistic effects) such computer time should be a good approach for tracking events. Agree also that most significant figures should always be first or last. Dumping days in between months and years is poor Science Fiction, and I know of only one country (with less than 5% of the global population) on the planet which writes dates so irrationally.
## With respect to the root of a timestamp system
Unix timestamps count in seconds since an epoch - a fixed date and time. I think setting the base time and duration to 1 year of earth's orbit in the year 5000 is not a great choice, but it's about as bad as many others. More importantly - months are meaningless in this context. I'm sorry, they just are. Days are as well, especially given they don't match up with years nicely. You'll want to pick a single root measurement and have everything else be based on it, in whichever base you choose (decimal if base 10).
## With respect to the date root of significant events
Let's suppose your hypothetical superpowerful deity has some attachment to ancient (*ancient* - trillions of years ago!) Earth months, years, and days for some reason. In that case, the characters should probably have to run a hyperpowerful computer search algorithm to discover these patterns and the associations, just to learn that ancient Earth months matter at all. There is no reason they will continue to be used trillions of years later. Their computers will be better though. Subsequent representations may then be warped to fit Earth dates, but I would argue that that should imply something more than months and years should be at play - why not include the lunar cycle, for example? It doesn't match with years (or months; months are meaningless divisions which poorly approximate the lunar cycle). Week numbers, possibly, or days of the week. None of these are represented in simple numeric time notation.
Say this hyperpowerful being has a thing for Sundays (if it's sentimental about Earth, one can suppose it's played God, and at least one popular God has a thing for Sundays). Every event happens on a Sunday on the Earth calendar. Why would this being limit themselves to the year 5000 representation of time? Would they not have a preference for the 1st day of the 7 day cycle in Earth's current (instead of fixed) timeframe, assuming Earth still exists? Would they not rather prefer to extrapolate Earth's orbit and rotation towards the modern era?
Instead of sentimentality, say the hyperpowerful entity is a computer programmed in the year 5000 with fixed programming (and is somehow relevant trillions of years later). In that case human biases towards months, weeks, and year 5000 year durations may be understandable.
## Representation
Given the above, that someone will have to discover the pattern, and any meaningful measurement system will likely need to be derived by the characters for this specific purpose, you have a lot of flexibility in choosing the representation. My focus is not on measuring, but on the presentation for the sake of the characters and readers.
Research has shown that representation may not help that much in getting users to recognize small differences in high entropy values (your massive dates are one such example - see "Can unicorns help users compare crypto key fingerprints?" as one example). This applies to both your readers and your characters.
Your base26 system (lowercase letters) is a good idea; readers should be able to understand it pretty intuitively (more than a base 36, 62, or 64, etc scheme). However, if significant events happen every increasing power of 10 years, it would be better to choose that (probably with exponential notation, something like 10e24 + 78953274934173947394793-11-23); essentially, the frequency of significant events should shape the date system, since it'll need to be bespoke to the characters anyway. Every power of e years? e^112 + yyyyyyyyyy-mm-dd, etc. Every 100,000 Thursdays? Yep, you count Thursdays with dates such as 764423 \* 10^5 + 68234 Thursdays. Etc.
Whatever is the detected root of the frequency should be the base of the measurement; not planetary years as of 5000 AD, unless that genuinely *is* the true root of the event repetitions (and why not 4998 AD, or 5257 AD?). Months should similarly not matter at all, again, unless the entity itself has chosen them. Days, again. Lunar orbits, similarly. Etc.
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**My Idea**
I’ve decided that my Dwarves are the foremost experts on matters mathematical and geometrical. Further, they believe that numbers are the key to unlocking the “secrets of the gods.” One idea I have is that they believe the [Platonic solids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solid) are divine, but I don’t know enough about geometry to figure out what might lead them to this conclusion.
**My Questions**
1. Are there aspects of the Platonic solids that are significant in other area of mathematics which could explain the Dwarves’ conclusion?
2. How could those aspects be applied to things like architecture? (I’m thinking the Dwarves don’t try to build their structures as Platonic solids but they do try to reflect them, if only in things like angles, the height of the walls being divisible by certain numbers, and so forth.)
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**Dwarves worship crystals.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jveLt.jpg)
<https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/icosahedron/>
Of course they do. Crystals are how the earth sings. And crystals recapitulate the platonic solids, which are the [Platonic forms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_forms); the ultimate truths of Earth behind the crystals.
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I don't see why you need a specific reason behind why dwarves would view platonic solids as divine. Especially since there were very similar beliefs in our real world going back centuries. Kepler for instance believed that the orbits of the solar system followed the surfaces of the five platonic solids nested inside one another. In *Mysterium Cosmographicum* he explicitly laid out his belief that this reflected the universe's divine ordering by god. Plato thought the entire world was composed of his five platonic solids, again as part of a divine construction.
The platonic solids are highly symmetric/organized yet at the same time very simple and elegant (indeed, it could be said that almost by definition they are the most elegant solids possible). These are all qualities that humans (and so maybe also dwarves?) have always attributed mystical significance to. It's probably a big part of why equilateral triangles (see the Eye of Providence, Star of David) have also been widely associated with god/gods, as well as the circle (cross cultural use of the halo in religion).
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What you're describing sounds similar to [Pythagoreanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism). The ancient Greek philospher Pythagoras founded a school of philosophy that studied, among other things, mathematics and geometry, intertwining their studies with religious practice. Numbers became symbolic of intangible concepts, and great emphasis was placed on using mathematics to describe natural harmony in all its forms, whether it be the motion of the planets or the sound of harp strings. The Platonic solids represent mathematic ideals which are in many ways unique, so it's not much of a leap at all to imagine a school of thought that views these special shapes as being directly related to the gods themselves. Pythagoreans viewed the known Platonic solids as representing particular qualities unrelated to mathematics, like the dodecahedron representing health, so imbuing these shapes with divine qualities seems very plausible.
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The Platonic solids are almost three-dimensional extensions of the counting numbers. They have a conceptual primacy that flows pretty directly from the collision between timeless mathematical truths and the fundamental nature of flattish Euclidean space.
Thus, the Platonic solids are universal: any intelligence will eventually discover them from first principles and careful observation of the natural world. Their primacy means the Platonic solids are one of the first "conceptual landmarks" that any intelligence is likely to encounter when it starts trying to understand the world, kind of analogous to how the monoliths in Clarke's *Space Odyssey* series are placed so as to only be reachable once Earth life reaches specific levels of development.
Imagine that the whole enterprise of physical science is a giant theme park. The Platonic solids are probably the statues near the entrance that people use to locate the bathrooms.
Standard fantasy Dwarves are usually a race of master craftsmen, which seems to gel with the method and flavor of basic geometric construction. I'd imagine they love how rapidly trigonometry allows a clever person to know the world. Consider that Hipparchus figured out the distance to the Moon around 140 B.C.
If you proved to some ancient peasants that a high-school trig cheat sheet can unlock some of the secrets of existence that seem most impenetrable, I wouldn't be surprised if they began to worship it. During WWII, some tribes in the Pacific started "[cargo cults](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult#Pacific_cults_of_World_War_II)" that worshipped U.S. Army cargo planes filled with ton upon ton of SPAM -- a shelf-stable, high-calorie meat-solid that is actually quite delicious.
So, imagine a race that genuinely *worshipped* science and its careful, relentless, ever-more-sophisticated search for the truth. It's not hard to imagine what might be the fruits of that orientation, regardless of its level of technological development. Think about a society that pursued truth with the same zeal that we pursue wealth. It would form a virtuous circle (ironically, one that is diametrically opposed to the real world).
These Dwarves would notice that the yield varies with their investment: the more faithful they are to their idol, the more reliably it unlocks concrete benefits, like some new technology or the ability to anticipate and avoid catastrophes (such as plagues). I suspect it would rid them of very many of our worst ills: violence, hunger, disease, prejudice, poverty, crime, pollution, corruption (*our* present dragon), and whatever comes after. No matter how that timeline maps onto their level of technology, they will be happier and healthier for it -- and, because of their explicit orientation toward one of the foundations of science: math & geometry, they would be directing their plaudits, and additional investments, where they belong.
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## Reality of ideas
A long time back when I was feeling sad, I worked out what the perfect shapes were in four dimensions. (... even the [120-cell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:120-cell.gif) - It was a sad time...) That was before the days of just looking things up on the internet, and I'd never heard of 4D regular solids before, and yet I came up with the same answers that others had before me, and which you can look up so easily today.
There are some who insist that ideas only exist as the product of a human mind, or a historical situation - for some reason those people seem most often associated with Marxism, though I don't understand the connection. Suggesting that there are "things" in the universe that exist as *ideals*, independent of humanity, even things that none of us will ever be able to hold in our hand ... it seems to have a religious implication. Maybe that's what they don't like about it.
Whatever the reason, to see something other than self or circumstance, wealth, politics or history, or even the laws of physics, that is the same on every planet, that neither man nor computer can ever change - that has a comforting aspect to it. It is a small faith for small minds, but *tangible*, even provable one might argue.
P.S. If you go this way, be sure to note the connections between the perfect shapes. The cube can be found inside the dodecahedron, and the tetrahedron inside the cube. Each shape has an inverse (same for the tetrahedron) etc. Your architectural artwork will be much more satisfying if it can evidence those transitions.
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**Because divine things are elegant.**
Real life humans spent thousands of years trying to model planets as following circular orbits because that seemed like the most perfect shape for the gods to have chosen. The elegance of a circle comes from the fact that all points on its edge are equidistant from the centre. I would argue that a solid composed of only congruent, regular polygons is just as elegant as a circle. I think that this historical precedent is enough to make your readers not question if the dwarves assume that the gods also have an appreciation for elegance.
I'm not 100% sure if by "things like architecture" you mean art and culture in general, but I'll assume you're open to it...
In terms of how you could work that into their culture that's more a matter of coming up with little ideas rather than a general underlying explanation (in my opinion). Some ideas I have are:
**Put it in their counting systems**
We count in base ten, but have a few remnants of dozenal systems (eleven and twelve as opposed to firsteen and secondteen). In French, base twenty counting is common (97 = four twenties, ten, and seven "quatre-vignt dix-sept"). And around the world, base-60, 'sexagesimal' counting is employed for angles and measures of time. Particularly the latter is odd because time is counted in base ten for <1 second (milli-, nano-, etc -seconds), base 60 for hours and minutes, and then goes to 24 hours to a day. I think that splitting up days into patterns based on the number of faces on platonic solids may be interesting, something like:
1 day has 20 'hours', which each have twelve 'minutes', each of eight 'long intervals', each of six 'short intervals', each of four 'seconds'. In that system, each 'second' would be 1.875 human seconds, and the other units would work out to useful durations.
Other systems with multiple non-logarithmic orders of magnitude could follow similar patterns: ie currency systems, etc. You could also make them prefer counts of 4, 6, 8, 12, and 20, ie make hexameter common in their poetry, etc.
**Put it in their mythology and culture**:
Around the world, cultures apply significance to various small numbers, mostly arbitrarily. See "Rule of three", "lucky seven", "unlucky thirteen", and so on. (Granted these are current, Western examples and I'm sure that every number between one and twenty has been assigned cultural significance by one group or another.) Perhaps your dwarven children learn in school that arguments are most convincing when delivered with four main points, and fairy tales always have four variations of the same event.
**Dice!**
RPG players are used to platonic dice (plus ten sided dice), but to most people they're something of a curiosity. If platonic solids are more culturally significant, make common games that use them for your world.
**Use the shapes in their art**
This one is kind of obvious but: when carving stone, make embossed doedecahedrons, cut fancy deserts into tetrahedrons and perfect cubes, make the pommels of their tools in the shape of isocahedrons, cut gems into the same shapes, and so on.
**Post script**
If your dwarves are interested in platonic solids, they may be interested in their two dimensional equivalents, regular polygons, or in their [4d equivalents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/120-cell) (which someone else has already mentioned) or in [interesting plane tilings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclidean_tilings_by_convex_regular_polygons#Regular_tilings).
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Mathematics are subjective ([cf. category theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_(mathematics))), it's a point of view on reality (reality of ideas too).
[Monocrystals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_crystal) are the manifestation of atoms stacking, which lies on a certain number of symmetries, which are also [well described by *group theory*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystallographic_point_group), one of the many [algebraic structures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_structure) (other structures are arithmetics, analysis, etc).
Hence the shapes one see can be interpreted as a hint on algebras, [model theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_theory) and mathematical fundations, as well as a hint on atoms, matter properties, quantum physics and fundamental physics.
This is hence clearly a platonic solid.
Elements featuring a certain group of symmetries can be used in architecture indeed. But their combination involves also a certain impression, feeling, which is to date not described by any algebraic structure.
Aside of this, *numbers are the key to unlocking the “secrets of the gods"*. This is cryptology isn't it ? Or inaccessible cardinals, used for proving certain theorems (ie., extending the known truth) ?
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In my scifi setting I want a broad range of slugthrowers (bullets, smart ammo, grenades,...), exotic weapons (flame/chemthrowers, high tech blades, nano-bots,...), and directed energy weapons (heat rays, blazers, plasma rays, particle beams, plasma weapons). Since the setting is supposed to be hard-scifi, I want the weapons to be plausible from a basic physics and efficiency point of view. The slugthrowers and exotic weapons all fulfil this criteria, i.e. they are optimal for the purpose they are meant to serve.
Directed energy weapons, however, do not generally fulfil that condition. The issue is something **Atomic Rockets** calls **Routledge's Law**.
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> Any interesting battery material for a laser gun would be more usefully deployed as an explosive warhead.
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Let me illustrate the issue by going over an example. The weapons energy source is a very small quantity of antimatter annihilated in a chamber made of a gamma-voltaic meta-material. This is the pinnacle of my settings technology, so lower tech societies might use something less energetic, but the issue remains. Assume the chamber has an efficiency of 0.7, and the laser an amazing efficiency of 0.6. Thus the weapon might deliver about 40% of the antimatter's energy to the target.
This sounds pretty decent, until one realizes that just putting the antimatter into a bullet shot at the enemy will deliver almost 100% of the energy. Even worse, modern slugthrowers deliver up to 80% of the chemical energy as kinetic energy to their target.
**How can I justify that directed energy weapons are not just specialist tools fore nice applications, but can compete with slugthrowers, so that picking between a slugthrower and a directed energy weapon is more a matter of personal preference than anything else?**
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* Laser beams have straight trajectories in anything other than totally unreasonable gravitational fields (where you won't be using bullets, that for sure). This makes them very easy to aim.
* Lasers beams propagate at the speed of light. This will be substantially faster than any projectile weapon, and a reasonable amount faster than any particle beam, too.
* You cannot make armour out of regular, solid matter that will protect you from a high energy laser pulse. Even fancy handwavium "thermal superconductors", even assuming such things could exist above the temperature of liquid helium, will be vulnerable to ionisation because it isn't a thermal effect. Multiphoton ionisation from longer wavelengths and single photon ionisation from shorter ones will damage it.
* The business end of a laser is merely a blob of optic elements that can be re-oriented without the need to slew the whole weapon around. Even if the bulk of the laser is huge and heavy, the emitting part can be a lightweight hollow sphere that can be rotated pretty swiftly. Tracking fast moving targets, striking multiple targets or simply striking that one guy who managed to get round behind you are all much easier when you don't have to turn your entire gun barrel to face towards the enemy.
* Laser beams cannot be practically intercepted. Given the above advantages, projectiles are at risk of being simply shot out of the sky by a sufficiently capable point defense system. For man-portable weapons there's a limit to how much acceleration you can apply (and hence to the maximum velocity of the projectile) given material limits and electrical arcing from railguns and timing issues with coilguns, so you can't just use a faster slug thrower to overcome this.
* Defocussed laser beams past their killing range become rapidly safe. The same cannot be said of dumb projectiles (especially in a vacuum, especially especially in zero-g) and definitely cannot be said of explosive warheads.
* A powerful laser can also be used, via a slightly different set of optics, to ionise an air channel and combined with a suitable electrical discharge source be used as an [electrolaser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser). Yes, you can set your lasers to stun.
* Visible light lasers, especially ones in the blue-green region, have reasonable attentuation lengths in water, so you can potentially shoot targets that are underwater or if you are swimming, shoot at targets on the surface. Because the air/water interface bends the laser beam, you don't need to adjust your aim to acocunt for diffraction. Just point and shoot.
* Lasers are pretty precise... you'll blast a hole through your target, and maybe set it on fire, but there's not too much collateral damage. You can use a laser at close quarters, or hit just one person in a group, or zap something without destroying the room, vehicle or building it is in. Grenades and rockets are not necessarily so precise.
* One laser pulse from a specific gun is much like another from the same gun. The same can't be said for projectiles, which may well have manufacturing tolerances. Hence the need for careful production of rounds intended for high precision work, like sniping.
* Near-IR lasers can be made invisible in air, produce no muzzle flash and depending on your laser's cooling systems, don't produce any noise on firing either. Unlike "silenced" projectiles you don't have to make compromises on killing power (by using subsonic ammunition) or accuracy (by increasing time-to-impact due to slower round) to use silent lasers. Misses against a distant background may never even be noticed by the target.
* It is possible to use an optical system that lets you switch between two wavelengths, say visible for long range non-stealthy work, and near-IR for close range stealthy operations. Switching to stealth mode compromises range only. The switched element could be rapidly moved in an out of place, and doesn't have a particularly limited lifespan or require a change in ammunition.
* (courtesy of Skyler) Lasers have no recoil. Obviously not all projectile weapons do, but in general they are likely to if only because fully recoil compensating systems may be expensive, bulky, delicate, etc.
* And relatedly: compensating for operator movement and shaking is easier with lasers because you can use stabilised optics which are much more compact and convenient than they projectile weapon equivalents.
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Also note:
* There's more to energy weapon power sources than just batteries. Weapons that require a team or vehicle to move can use generators and capacitors. If your engineers are clever enough, they could make you a smart robotic cable like a superconducting millipede that follows you from a power source, reconnects itself after being severed, navigates around obstacles and hides in cracks and so on. With that sort of thing at hand, you can shoot an awful lot without having to worry unduly about your supplies of bulky or heavy ammunition.
* Range may be limited by the size of your emitting element, but there's nothing to stop you using additional reflecting and focussing elements forwards of your position, perhaps mounted on a drone, aircraft or even a satellite. These could be used to shoot round obstacles or even over the horizon.
* Whilst range *is* more limited than projectiles, remember that small arms aren't used at greatly extended ranges. Sure, with a good rifle you can get kills at 2-3km in Afghanistan, but in wooded or urban areas lines of sight are seldom that long. Also, a mid-wavelength visible light laser with a 10cm aperture could certainly operate at those ranges, and you wouldn't need to account for windage, bullet drop or target movement.
* Dust, smoke, rain and fog are the real things that'll kill laser performance in practical use, not range.
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## Lasers can be armor-penetrating bypassing
Slugs energy goes into the outer layer of armor first. Armor-penetrating bullets are specially designed to get through armor better, but the fact remains that they have to *destroy* the armor before they can hurt the target.
An x-ray or gamma laser is different. Yes, some of the energy is going to be deposited in the armor, but some will go right through (for more info, look up "x-ray scattering length"). Modern-day ballistic armor is made of Kevlar fiber and ceramic plates, which x-rays can penetrate very effectively. Vehicles, robots, and fixed installations could be hardened with steel, lead, or tungsten armor, but humans aren't going to want to carry that around.
## Lasers can be remotely powered
In present-day society, you can generally find a power outlet anywhere in urbanized areas. In a near-future setting, it's not crazy to think that all human-inhabited areas would be built with wireless power transmission. We've already got wireless phone charging, and R&D systems that can do wireless transmission for about the size of a room, so either build that out as infrastructure everywhere or extend the technology to some sort of longer-range, even satellite-based system. Now laser guns have infinite ammo!
## Lasers can hold more shots
Routlege's Law ignores the concept of overkill. If I'm trying to kill one person at a time, he's just as dead with a tiny hole drilled into his skull as he is if completely atomized. So what if delivering the antimatter directly to the target is more energy-efficient? In order to deliver it, I have to package it in some sort of bullet casing, and then propel that bullet with either chemical or electromagnetic (i.e. railgun) means, which means I have cool explosive bullets, but I'm limited to carrying similar amounts as boring lead slugs. You can't make the bullets too small or light or the range will be reduced too much by air resistance. Conversely, if I use the volume and mass I save by NOT having bullet casings, I can carry WAY more antimatter, and therefore have way more shots.
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# Precision
Lobbing the battery as a grenade may be more effective in terms of energy transfer to the target, but it also has a habit of transferring that energy into everything around the target. That doesn't work well if there's something in the vicinity you want to preserve, such as a hostage, or a building, or depending on your battery capacity, the city.
Firing a laser might transfer only 40% of the energy to the target, but it transfers it to only the target.
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> Any interesting battery material for a laser gun would be more usefully deployed as an explosive warhead.
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I don't think this should be treated as a universal assumption. After all, the gunpowder or cordite used in modern-day firearms and artillery pieces is plenty interesting, but it's hardly a good material for an explosive warhead -- and even artillery pieces that fire high explosive shells are reliant on it!
I think that the assumption that the power source is antimatter is part of the problem. Besides just being an extremely energetic and rather dangerously unstable fuel, it's also much more explodey than some other options. Contrast things like nuclear fusion, where getting it to explode is *difficult* (the exact design of the H-bomb is apparently extremely tricky to get right, and we haven't managed to get reactors to work yet) but a large amount of power can still be developed.
Also, "energy delivered to the target" is only one of many figures of merit you need to consider -- you also need to consider aiming (lasers and relativistic particle beams are good for hitting moving targets, but lasers diffract over extremely long distances, for example, projectiles can be made homing but beams cannot), focus (splash damage is great when you want it, and REALLY BAD when you don't), energy-to-target transfer (overpenetration wastes energy, causes collateral damage, and is probably all but guaranteed for overpowered weapons), the ability to breach various defenses, and the ability for an unprotected shooter to survive the muzzle flash of their own weapon.
I don't know if you're likely to get it down to the level of "personal preference", but if you retreat from the rather dangerous antimatter power cells to, say, some form of microfusion or microfission, or perhaps some kind of weird, futuristic electrodynamic technology that isn't so unstable, and you'll both have safer ammunition, but your comparison will make sense.
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# International laws and agreements
In real life there are lots of ways of bringing an enemy to their knees, but they are unnaceptable due to humanitary reasons. See the UN's [Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons](https://web.archive.org/web/20100717100420/http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XXVI-2&chapter=26&lang=en) for banished weapons and [Protocol I of the Geneva convention](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/f6c8b9fee14a77fdc125641e0052b079) for banished practices.
You can't, for example:
* Blind people with lasers;
* Bomb dams;
* Set neighbourhoods on fire;
* Rain napalm on people;
* Generally nuke enemies around.
Well you can... But UN/NATO will hate you, and when your dictatorship is over and you get caught you may be sued for war crimes.
Same thing with your energy weapons. The non-directed variant is just too efficient, so just like chlorine gas it is banned internationally. You are left with the less efficient option.
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In hard-scifi you can't.
And reason is not only "Routledge's Law", but range. Laser weapon has very limited range compared with slugs. You can shoot slugs from Moon to Earth with common modern howitzer and case some damage (to city-size target), but you will never be able to do it with reasnoble laser even utilizing futuristic technology.
It doesn't means that lasers are usless. But they are exactly a niche weapon, perfect "specialist tools fore nice applications".
UPD: some conter arguments for "pew-pew" adepts:
While lasers indeed faster and easer to handle, to deliver damage you need to *hold your aim* for some time. And it is hard to impossible. While slug hits or not as whole. Lets get some numbers.
Distance 2Mm (2000 km). Laser has "ray power" of 100kW (its a 1-10Mw of power consumtion), apperture of 1m, wavelength about 100nm (10e-7 meters - ultraviolet) - it is a very good laser! At that distance ray would be 1 + (2\*10e6)\*(2\*10e-7/1) = 1.4 m, ≈ 1.54 m^2 across).
To melt 2mm aluminium plate (5.4 ≈ 5.5 kg/m^2), we would need to hold energy income at any point for ( 390 kJ/kg \* 5.5 kg/m^2 )/( 100 kJ/s \* 1.54 m^2) ≈ 14 s (even times longer - I neglected reflaction, energy dissapation and heating to 660°C).
It means that laser beam need to have to follow target angular speed with deviation if no more than (1.4 m / 2e6 m) / 14 s = 5e-8 rad/s ≈ 3e-6 °/s (best astronomical instruments beats that by orders, but there targets and platform are much mor stable than battleship), or target plate have relative acceleration (including gravity and centrifugal one) less than 1.5 cm/s^2 (0.01g). Crew running around in panic could create more than that :)
There is another problem with aiming: our aiming equipment has much larger wavelenths and smaller appertures, than that of laser, and thus *much less accurate*. For example, to achive same accuracy as abovementioned laser in visual specter (including red colors) you need targeting equipment with 6-8m apperture - quite a huge telescope even by surface standarts (and no, 10m base coincidence rangefinder would not help: apperture determines the size of a minimum point, a "pixel size").
And for active protection: 14 seconds - is a lot of time to apply countermeasures (gas, or just turn other side). And more of that: you need only 2mm of non-activly cooled alluminium to protect you against battleship class laser for that long time. And 10mm steel plate would be impannetratable by that laser: laser would melt faster than this plate (and no one would sit for half an hour under laser beam)
So no laser would ever compete shrapnel gun at "broadside baragge" in hard-science settings!
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I'm surprised a real world system that is currently being used hasn't yet been discussed.
Lockheed Martin has developed a laser system to overheat drones and missiles to thus shooting them out of the sky. A laser is an ideal system for this since it can track targets with erratic paths much better than conventional slug throwers, it can also frequently disarm missiles so they don't set off their ordinance.
The system is cheeper per use then systems like the patriot missiles and are usually mounted to large ships are powered by large fission reactors that wouldn't be feasible to launch at small objects such as drones and missiles.
Here is a video of a modern directed energy weapon in use, just imagine what a weapon set in a distant future world could do!
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH6NIazR5pA>
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In the second *Ringworld* novel, *Ringworld Engineers*, Larry Niven gave the engineers of the title a drastically large energy source, but one that was ordinarily very diffuse. He gave them the ability to manipulate solar flares, and to cause them to lase in the x-ray region. So the result was a fairly tight x-ray beam with an energy of many Gigawatts, that could in principle fire for hours. Probably it was originally intended to kill off any last few stray meteors the engineers missed. But as a weapon against potential invaders, it was reasonably effective.
An x-ray laser is pretty much automatically a weapon, even if it has other uses. It requires some quite special technology to be able to resist it. Ordinary matter of pretty much any type will ionize and so lose its structure. So any enemy without that special tech is going to fry if hit by it. As well, even to be aware there is something going on before it is going onto you, you need to have some pretty advanced sensor equipment. Of course, the drama of the novels required that a few of the potential invaders had the tech to resist it...
In an answer to another question (which I can't seem to find just now) I pointed out that a Dyson sphere would give you control of the entire stellar wind from a star. In principle that would mean you could control a huge swath of high energy protons which would be a formidable weapon if concentrated in a beam.
In both the Ringworld and a Dyson sphere case, throwing mass as part of a weapon means you lose the mass, and you now have that mass moving rapidly through your system. If you hit your enemy there may be shrapnel that goes in hard to predict directions, potentially hitting your home. And you don't want to give up any mass since you have used all the local mass to make that home.
So, when you have some drastically large energy source available already, and you are able to manipulate it accurately, possibly you can make an energy beam weapon that people will take notice of. If you are potentially facing many or very large enemies, and you don't want to throw away mass, possibly you can make good use of a beam weapon.
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If you take a look at the yield of annihilating a gram of antimatter, it releases ~2\*1014J, roughly triple the yield of Little Boy (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)#1012_to_1017_J>). So lobbing antimatter bullets is like lobbing small nukes. This poses a couple of problems if you are not aiming for all-out annihilation of the target:
* Radiation byproducts
* Destroying the eveything you are trying to conquer
Another thing to keep in mind for a hard-science story is that the payload has to annihilate on impact, but not during the acceleration phase. This creates a difficult problem, and a great possibility for unintentional self-destruction. I am assuming that you have a system for containing the antimatter at "normal" accelerations.
If you have a system that can control the release of the energy to acceptable levels, and still deliver with 40% efficiency (at least at the source), you are in business. You can sustain a rate of annihilation sufficient to conquer planets almost indefinitely with a relatively small amount of antimatter. Most importantly, you can do it in a way that minimizes the risk of vaporizing yourself.
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First things first, the real difficulty in creating a viable laser weapon is not energy density as many people claim but rather power density - we already have batteries that can store half a million joules in one kilogram, the problem is we can only get those batteries to provide a trickle of a few joules per second. Capacitors on the other hand cannot store as much energy, but they can pump out that energy at a much faster rate, so that's what we really need.
It is popular to claim that a magnetic accelerator gun is easier to achieve than a pulse laser gun, but this isn't really true since they also rely on electrical input, and any capacitor that can provide energy at the required rate to make a practical gauss pistol/rifle will also be able to provide energy at the required rate to make a practical laser pistol/rifle.
In my scifi setting, body armour made from fullerene mesh and diamondoid laminate is virtually impervious to traditional firearms, and lasers have been miniaturised to the point where interplanetary age soldiers have point-defence beam projectors built into their suits. The combination of ultra-durable armour and miniature point-defences has made laser weapons preferable.
1. they cannot be intercepted the same way a firearm slug can be intercepted
2. even if they fail to penetrate armour entirely, they still cause ablation
3. they require only a power supply, unlike gauss guns which require both a power supply AND a slug/needle supply
4. they are totally recoilless, pinpoint precise, and very easy to learn to shoot
5. the beam can be defocused and the power level reduced so as to minimize overpenetration inside fragile habitats, and even to create a "stun" effect rather than a lethal drilling beam
6. you can shoot them on airless low-gravity moons and asteroids and without creating the same kind of persistent navigational hazard that slugthrowers make
of course, the effectiveness of lasers can be reduced by the use of prismatic aerosol and handwavium "reflec" armour (not actually reflective, but rather diffuses the energy over a wider surface area to protect the material beneath), so gauss guns are still popular
but honestly, Routledge's "law" is just plain silly, the explosive batter-bullet is easily countered by personal point-defence lasers, and the fact that the 1kg beltpack powering my laser pistol can hold several hundred shots while yonder space pirate's slugthrower is limited to a couple dozen at the most =P
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If you're looking at purely lethal options... ballistics would probably be better then energy weapons.
But, energy weapons have more applications then lethal application.
* microwave guns that heat targets uncomfortably for crowd control / dispersal
* sound guns that create high pitch noise .. again, for crowd control / dispersal (sound force can be used to penetrate and destroy solids, but, I think that would require an amount of energy that would best be used some other way.)
* emp weapons will fry unprotected electronics.. so if someone has a pacemaker .. poof. If someone is driving an eletronic-primary vehicle .. poof.
* in the Mass Effect series, guns were ballistic, but used energy to accelerate small fragments of metal at railgun speeds.. so, you could have hybrid weapons that require energy. Depending on how high tech your story is, these could be small Mass Effect type weapons, or massive prototype man-portable railguns (a la Fallout's Gauss Rifle)
* stun guns are an obvious energy weapon designed to incapacitate / crowd control. You could have energy weapons shooting flechettes with their own energy sources that shotgun-disperse into crowds, penetrate, and create shocks to pacify crowds. Or, have a simple one-shot stun gun. Or a multi shot stun gun that has multiple tether-attached spike lines, allowing multiple shots to stun people before needing reload.
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Since it is sci fi, i just want to add that lasers are good anti-spaceship weapons.
* propagating at the speed of light they are hard to evade. The trajectory of a hard sci fi spaceship is difficult to modify and easy to forecast.
* the power source is in the ship itself, any hard sci fi ship worth his salt having some kind of fission, fusion or antimatter reactor to power its engine.
* can't be deflected, decoyed or destroyed by a coil gun like a missile
* very long range thanks to the vacuum of space. Diffraction will reduce the power to the square of distance, but also make the beam larger, facilitating your aim and preventing evasion.
* no ammo to take care of. As long as your power source goes, you can fire. The weight of ammo is a crucial factor in realistic fighting spaceships.
The goal is not to destroy the ship in a few shots, but to keep your aim long enough to build up more heat than its radiators can radiate and cook the passengers alive. Time consuming, but the above pros balance this con. Ideally, destroy the radiators with more conventional missiles or coil gun before aiming the laser. If the enemy ship folds its radiator to protect them, all the better: keep roasting. If it deploys them, all the better: more surface for you to aim your photons at.
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**Cost**
Your gamma-voltaic meta-material is expensive. So you'd rather your soldiers didn't just throw the batteries at the enemy unless they absolutely had to, as you don't have the budget to keep replacing every soliders battery after every battle.
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## Newton's 3rd law
If you use the battery material to propel slugs, 50% of the force are lost to recoil. Additional energy is lost in heat/radiation, friction etc.
If you deploy the battery material as explosive, the energy is emitted radial. This is great if the bomb is inside a head, house or mountain but to focus the energy on a point you would need a shaped charge. However the shaped charge would suffer the same problem: 50% of the force generated are lost in the opposide direction...
**Tl;dr:** The [energy conversion efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_conversion_efficiency) of the laser might be lower at the first glance, but only if the warhead explodes inside of your target.
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I'm going through my novel in the editing stages, and I'm realizing how flat the culture of my food is. How can I develop a good food culture that is believable without drawing too much on human aspects of food culture? The main part I'm struggling with is describing the food.
(FYI, my creatures are elf-like and war-oriented, the kind of food I'm thinking about "creating" is more strange-ly colored and with weird texture.)
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If you want to make it believable you can build your diets based on these:
1. available ingredients;
2. available cooking technologies;
3. culture
**Ingredients**
Your people live somewhere and they get foodstuffs somehow. What is the climate of their area? What plants grow in this climate? What animals live there? You can check types of existing [biomes](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Biome) and then look them up to see what lives there. Then see what kind of plants and animals locals consume for food. If your flora and fauna are not terrestrial researching biomes will give you some ideas about features typical for plants and animals living in specific climates.
The next series of questions for this part deals with lifestyle. Are your people hunters, gatherers, farmers, fishers? Do they migrate with seasons? Do they trade with other peoples?
**Cooking techniques and technologies**
Food can be boiled, fried, baked, fermented, pickled, frozen, served fresh, etc. Check [Wikipedia](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_cooking_techniques) for specific techniques and their descriptions. Choice of cooking techniques depends on technology (do your people have ovens and frying pans?), ingredients, and lifestyle. For example, pickling would be widespread in societies that have short growing seasons, no greenhouses, and easy access to salt. Deep frying would be rare if oils and fats are not easy to get. You can check the historical period and culture to see what combination of techniques was most prevalent in specific circumstances.
**Culture**
Culture may dictate what can and cannot be eaten. For example, it may place a taboo on eating meat or drinking alcohol despite both being widely available. You should consider, though, that most taboos are practical and they will not cause starvation. It is impossible to forbid meat in climates where people rely on meat to provide essential nutrients.
Culture also affects preparation and presentation. For example, both Chinese and Japanese cuisines cut food into pieces that are easy to eat with chopsticks. However, Chinese cuisine manipulates ingredients and their taste to a greater degree than Japanese cuisine, because their respective cultures appreciate the natural taste of an ingredient in different ways.
Once you are done with figuring out what your people can possibly cook and how they do it, you can try to make it more 'interesting'. Add some insects for texture and crunch. Use some water plants (kombu, for example) for decoration. Make your people admire the weightlessness of souffle or a pate. Create a culture that serves a lot of side dishes so you can showcase your effort. Or go the other way and make it very simple and practical.
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Food in war-oriented *organizations* tends to be nutritious, reheatable but can be eaten hot or cold, is neither too bland, too spicy, nor too pungent, is portable, and can be transported and eaten one-handed in the dark or rain. It does not spoil rapidly. Preparation can produce some telltale smoke or steam that might be observed by an enemy...but not too much. It usually won't cause diarrhea or gastric distress, but is also not too fibrous. It's not epicurean, but it's not terrible either.
Food in a whole war-oriented *culture* might share some of those characteristics.
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It doesn't need to be that believable if it's alien/foreign, just make sure it fits with the rest of the culture you're describing, and describe it as it's experienced by the protagonist. Savory intestinal wall basted in exquisite fairy spoor and roasted over fresh-cut toenails could be a thing, but you wouldn't SAY that unless you're trying to gross out the reader (and you may want to).
Be aware that your audience will relate most to human terms and the more alien you make it, the more they will rely on their connection with the protagonist for a vicarious perception. FOCUS on experiences over accurate depictions of the food itself: "Altorqas speared a cube of baked venrappa and bit into it gingerly to avoid burning her tongue, relishing the crunch of its husk and the viscous meat within."
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Design the food around your world culture. being elf-like creatures which often preferred proper cooked/decorated food (being high-tasted, noble like elf etc), combine with the opposite war-oriented which need a quick / easy-to-cook / long life span high nourishment food.
with this idea in mind you can come up with something very interesting.
For example
-For aristocrat, you can just google irl high end restaurant menu and adjust a bit since they can afford their elf part being high-tasted (some other menu that you really want it in the scene but can't fit in, you can just categorized it as 'import good')
-For public general, meat-based grill/roast quick served in medium rare with a mashed foreign potatoes, and a touch of some hack spice in your world ('really good taste spice that widely used by this society' equivalent seasoning powder irl), maybe they have enough time/patience to make bakery/brewing stuff (who doesn't like a good beer after a fight? even if alcohol drinks is expensive good, they could learn to make a moonshine themselves )
-For frontier/war zone, meat-based smoked/stream + carbohydrate wrapper (imagine Sub-ways sandwich but lower quality)+ dried exotic fruit(for vitamin like prunes,grape etc) high perseverance,have required nutrient, still look nice when put together.
suiting both elf-like and war-oriented.
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Beyond just the plants and animals available, also take a moment to consider the *climate*.
For example: in cold locations, food tends towards high in sugar/fat, warm, and high liquid content. The high sugar/fat content provides energy for the body to burn to keep itself warm. Similarly, food with a high temperature warms the body through, and water has quite a high Specific Heat Capacity - that is, to say, it *holds heat well*, lots of it and for a relatively long time, so a belly full of a hot broth keeps you feeling warm. Long winters will lead to plenty of preserved foods, such as jams, pickles, or smoked meats.
In moderate countries, the food tends to get lighter — less heavy and filling — and closer to room temperature. This allows for more delicate interplay of subtle flavours. Water is not needed to retain heat, nor to replace lost fluids, so the cuisine can be 'drier'.
In hot countries, you will either can have both very dry foods (to reduce spoilage, and prevent evaporation) and very wet foods (to replace lost fluids), depending on local humidity. High levels of salt are common — since people will lose electrolytes through sweat — as too are *spicy* foods: the spice tricks the body into thinking that it is hotter than it is, which makes you sweat more, so the evaporation cools you down further (this is less effective, and thus less common, in areas of high humidity). If the temperatures cause certain foods to spoil more easily, then they may be accompanied by strong flavours, to hide the edge-cases.
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### Cannibalism
[Prions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion) make cannibalism a cultural trait that generally isn't positive for humans. [Kuru](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)) is one example of what can go wrong. Your elves may not have the same issues with malformed proteins though.
We do know that [cannibalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism) occurred in numerous human societies over time. In a warrior society with limited farming capabilities, you don't pass up any available food, so it's basic common sense to eat your dead. Of course there are records of this from European explorers, most notably in areas such as the Pacific islands where tribes then had exactly this kind of warrior society and limited farming. Going back in time though, we have early hominid skeletons with cut marks on the bones demonstrating that they were butchered for cooking. So it's been going on for a while.
Various authors have used this for "otherness" of alien species' food cultures. Dredging my memory, the Shand from [*Strata*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strata_(novel)) by Terry Pratchett may be the clearest example. And I seem to remember that Poul Anderson's Cynthians also were (the character Chee Lan, one of David Falkayn's sidekicks, who's basically a female Rocket Raccoon).
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A very believable food source for any fantasy (works for scifi too) is **Green Milk**. You can have your Elf people milk the green ooze straight from the sagging teat of some weird cow-type species.
This is highly believable for the masses, whilst implanting wonder in the audience (due to the green color).
Any scene with the green milk should show your characters milking and drinking it directly from the udders. This will, in no way, creep out your audience or ridicule your main characters to the extent of disbelief.
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How to go about it:
Describing texture and color is unimportant. If that's the only thing you do, it feels tacked on.
The value of strong world building is that individual parts inform us about the whole system. So you should focus on the interconnectedness of your food to your world.
So, you could present your character with a rare dish.
This would tell the reader something about the situation and about characters and the world:
-He is valued/they want to impress him/they are rich.
-Or the dish is normally rare, but seemingly not for this culture. This tells the readers the culture are good hunters if it is a dangerous animals meat. Or if they export the dish it tells your readers how they make money.
-The dish could inform about religion/tradition, which in turn informs about a lot of other stuff.
But that's just examples. Find out the why. Find out why the food is important to the people, the culture and the world.
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## Go More Primitive
Elven culture is often depicted as being more close to nature than human culture. Since you are planning a more warlike version of elves, you could perhaps look at some of the semi-nomadic warrior cultures of North America like the Arapaho for inspiration.
Instead of pushing elven cuisine divergently forward from human tastes, you could hold it back to more of what these hunter/gatherer peoples would have at their disposal. The humans in your setting could be more like European culture having soups, sausages, cheezes, bread, and a variety of other heavily seasoned and processed foods that require agriculture, supply chains, and specialized preparation.
In contrast, your elves would only eat what can be eaten raw or cooked over a basic fire pits. Without the use of pots or other fancy cookware you'd see a lot of smoked and dried meats, raw fruits, nuts, and vegetables, etc. Since they don't rely on bulk agriculture, you'd also see a lot more variety of things they might consider normal to eat. Pinenuts, acorns, insects, reptile meat, thistle, various roots, various plant shoots (many toxic plants are edible if eaten young enough), etc.
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Perhaps you should make the food the same as where you the setting is:
eg.: Woods=Mushroom Soufle(idk if it's spelled right),
Desert=Deadbark Dinners, Italy=Spaghetti, Snowcapped=Wolf
If you can think of one basic ingredient based on where you/the characters are, you can make a tree of foods as ideas!
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You might also consider the size relationship between your characters and the biome. Are the much larger than the things they eat? Or much smaller? How does that affect what they can obtain as food and consume?
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In my world, there are anthromorphic animal people, similar to the ones in *Skyrim*. There are many types, so I will just call them all this. Due to them having fur, most specifically the cat people and dog people, I was wondering how I can have them wear clothing like humans, and if the clothing can help the users in any way.
Note: This is just for clothing, armor does not count since it would have a use.
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# Cleanliness & Safety:
Do you want to get goo all over your fur? Is the mud hard to comb out? Do you really HATE taking baths, and the hours trying to get your fur back the way you like? Clothes cover up to protect. Do you work in a hospital? Are you afraid of strangers coughing all over you? Wear PPE. Fireman? You better have the gear.
# Status:
Do you like it? It cost a fortune, but you really do have to set yourself apart from the commoners. I heard the deer people don't even WEAR clothes. Poor, pathetic losers. Do you think a deerskin vest would look good? Fur is murder, but it's SO trendy!
# Identity:
Those French cats wear short skirts and berets. You can always tell the African tigers from the Indian ones by the sarongs. It's *hound*, not dog, any proper British *hound* wears a vest and carries a pocket watch. What, are we German DOGS to be running around in leather like some kind of werewolf?
Dying your fur is complicated and messy, so if you want to show your colors, or team spirit, and still be able to go to work in Monday, it's easier to put a shirt or a robe on.
# Religion & Belief:
The prophet said to wear robes, and whatever the prophet says, goes. Civilized people wear clothes, and just because your ancestors didn't, does that make it right?
# Setting yourself apart from the Beasts:
Dogs are mangey beasts with no clothes. Just because there's a resemblance, doesn't make me a DOG. Humans wear clothes, monkeys don't. Wearing clothes sets you apart from the beasts.
# Uniforms:
A police officer is recognizable because of how he dresses. A preacher wears vestments. A doctor without a coat gets no respect.
# Covering sexual signals:
I CAN'T STAND the males staring at my eight nipples all day! You'd swear they never saw a female before. The boss runs around waving THAT THING in everyone's face, and we're not supposed to complain? He rubs up on my ass, that perv, and there's nothing between me and him. THAT'S IT! I'm buying a dress.
# Accentuating Sexual Signals:
Fur can cover up one's natural shape, so a tight-fitting body suit accentuates your muscular thighs and is slimming around the waist. Perhaps some mystery around genitalia is alluring. Or maybe puffy fur is sexy, and a faux fur coat makes you look REALLY hot. Human clothes could be a fetish, or a female wearing the skin of a prey animal might excite some guys.
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# Cultural habit
The animal people started out as humans and in human society, branching off by genetic engineering. They never got rid of the social pressure to wear clothing. If humans are still around, those *baselines* might impose their demand for clothing on them even.
# Individuality & Uniformity
How do we tell others at a glance who we are? Clothing is an easy way to show who we are or which social group we belong to. How to identify the Police? Their Uniform of course! How to know they are military? Uniform! How to spot the punk or goth or anime fan? Their choice of clothes is telling!
# Pockets
The best reason to wear some clothes is pockets. Pockets are needed to carry around all the amenities of society and their demands, such as money and ID. The pockets might be a piece of clothing on their own, or they might be part of the clothing.
# Laws
Laws demand to cover up some areas of the body in public. They might be ancient and predate the advent of animal people.
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# To Look FABULOUS!
Same reasons we humans wear makeup, dye our hair, and also wear types of clothes. Not to mention whiten our teeth as well as coloring other parts of our bodies (like ancient Egyptians dying eyes, ancient Japanese dying teeth black, etc.).
Look, I am trying to say it's fashion. Different fashions exist for different cultures with different values. Clothes can display status, show off wealth, and increase attractiveness. All good reasons to be fashionable when not strictly needed.
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**It is cold.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HhNuAm.jpg)
Best reason for clothes I can think of.
**Bad fur.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/y56wjm.png)
[source](https://www.thehonestkitchen.com/blog/hair-loss-in-dogs-types-causes-treatments/)
I have some friends who must wear clothes to hide their bodies from the world. It is how it is. They have great personalities. So too your dog people. Some are mangy or have compulsive fur licking habits. These wear clothes to avoid having people gawk at them when out and about.
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Why do humans wear clothes in most cultures, even when there is no practical reason for it?
In many parts of the world it’s warm enough – at least some time of the year – that going naked would be possible or even advantageous.
But in most locations and cultures it’s frowned upon or even outlawed.
So I don’t think you need any rational reason at all for clothing.
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The animals have initially developed a sense of prudery which have them cover themselves and their secondary sexual features, and later, like in humans, the clothing itself has become a way of calling for attention or giving non verbal communication.
Imagine what a scented attire could do for a canine person, for example, or what a multispectral gown could do for a bee person, in non verbal communication with con-specifics.
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**Sweaty Smelly Hum-Animals**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SoRoj.jpg)
Everyone knows dogs and cats don't sweat. But Humans do. And horses do.
---
**Extra:** Some horses already wear clothes. The owners shave their horses when it is hot:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4w1Dv.jpg)
Then on cold days they use a horse blanket
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gO8Rv.jpg)
Some people only shave the part that goes under the blanket.
---
Hum-Animal people sweat too. Even the cat and dog people. They are closer to pure humans in this regard.
Civilised hum-animals do not like the smelly sweaty smell that smells sweaty, any more than humans enjoy the body odour of other humans.
The cat and dog people bath frequently. But with their long hair it takes days to dry off. Instead they trim their coats on their body to be short and easier to clean, and cover it up with clothes to keep warm.
[Answer]
Clothing has alot of purpose besides just covering one's skin. After all, in many places it is now acceptable for men to be shirtless, and in some for women to be shirtless, and yet the vast majority still wear their shirts all the time.
Clothes help protect us from minor injuries like scratches and scrapes, as well as from the heat or the cold. It's true that these animal people would likely have fur (or at least many of them, idk if you're including reptiles or furless mammals), but even those with fur such as dogs still have places which can be rather sensitive such as the lower belly, the genitals, and the paws. Gloves/shoes and shorts would be very protective clothing.
Clothes are also an excellent way to wear your belongings which otherwise would have to be carried. Your wallet, a favorite pen, an ID, a handy tool, a weapon, and more can be carried in pockets or bags, built-in or attachable (or wearable as a separate piece, like a purse). Clothing is sometimes used to include jewelry as well, such as necklaces.
Lastly, clothes can be a great way to really trim out your look. Letting your hair grow wild can be an attractive option to some, but some people keep themselves trimmed up, and some like to wear specific clothes simply for how it changes their look. Animal people, to me, would essentially behave like people but look like animals; therefore, they would care very much about how they appear to others. If the right gloves could give you a look of superiority or finesse, I can't imagine some of them *not* wanting to wear them.
(Edited "most" to "many" in the first paragraph for better accuracy)
[Answer]
## Minor Evolutionary Adaptations
Over time, some parts of their bodies have lost some of the fur coatings that they otherwise would have had, similar to how hominids had lost theirs, though maybe not to the same extent. As a result, the imperfect coverage requires some clothing to maintain climate protection.
These kinds of adaptations can happen simply because of advantages due to comforts of civilization, posture changes, or even just chafing from walking upright. Regardless of how it happened, now if they don't wear clothing, they tend to feel rather drafty in public, and do show some skin here and there, but still have a good deal of residual fur.
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[Question]
[
I'm trying to construct a society which has had a narrow miss with a natural disaster that has isolated them, scared them considerably, changed the culture, made many of them preppers, but didn't kill many/any of them. But I'm struggling to build a setting which has the right level of destruction, isolation, and fear without wiping the city out.
I'm looking to know if its at all possible for a natural disaster that:
* Completely isolates a large, modern, first-world city from the rest of the world.
* By large I mean 1 million people plus. 200 square miles plus.
+ Eg LA, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.
* Forces the closure of all travel and freight into and out of that modern city. Road, rail and air are totally stopped.
+ No food.
+ No medicine.
+ No gasoline.
+ No mail.
* That lasts for at least 3 weeks,
+ Even with an effective emergency service giving a 100% response inside in attempting to get out.
+ Even with outside world giving a 100% response to attempting to get inside and help.
+ Even with multiple levels of functional, funded, non-corrupt government doing mostly the right things.
+ Even with a cooperating public following all the instructions.
* (if possible) cuts satellite uplinks.
* (if possible) prevents air drops of supplies.
* (if possible) directly kills as few people as possible, and leaves the city mostly livable after it passes.
* (if possible) Cuts off the internet and phone lines in and out of the town - no exchange of data with the outside world.
* (if possible) prevents satellite or recon planes from knowing people are still alive.
I know that tornados, floods, and hurricanes can blow/wash away roads, or flatten airports, but my understanding from decades of CNN is:
* Small towns (< 10,000 people) can be cut off for weeks when their only road washes away, but supplies can be airlifted in.
* Large city's (> 1 mil people) can loose a few highways to big twisters, but their full perimeter can be hundreds of miles, no disaster is big enough to wipe out all those roads on all sides without also taking out the city.
* Earthquakes can take out roads over a large area, but airdropping supplies is still possible, and non-elevated roads can be patched pretty quickly.
* Large cities can loose their airports to disasters, but that's unlikely to take out all the roads 100s of miles away as well.
+ If it does occur, the runway can be cleared by heavy machinery pretty quickly.
* A big, widespread disaster, like a tsunami or hurricane, could reasonably take out all these things, but some roads could be cleared quickly, and supplies can be helicoptered / airdropped in while roads and runways are being cleared.
The best I've got is: an unrealistic meteor shower that falls in a ring-shape that manages to take out every road, rail, and pipe leading into town, but magically leaves the city intact, except for one hitting the airport, followed by a "Carrington event" that wipes out everything electronic, ceasing all communications. That's pretty unrealistic, surely I can do better than that.
# Is there any realistic way to completely isolate a million people in a modern city for a few weeks without killing them?
[Answer]
### Totally possible. 2 million Australian's came very close in "20 bloody 20"
About 80% of your requirements were met in 2020. 12 days of total isolation is a little shy of your requirements. A few subtle tweaks is all you need!
Remember this image? It is computer generated and [isn't *real*](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fblogs-trending-51020564&psig=AOvVaw3Y_IlHgkYzxEYHM7ymiM1G&ust=1615103821038000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCPD-t-CYm-8CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD), but it is sourced from real data overlays:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SG9S9.jpg)
So as a "warm up" to my real answer - **Sydney came pretty close** to meeting your requirements in late 2019 / early 2020. As multiple fires across multiple states merged into mega-fires, and multiple mega-fires merged together around Sydney's perimeter, and the media started experimenting with the term "gigafire", Sydney was cut off from all highways and the interstate rail, the airport was operating at low capacity due to smoke cover. The Sky was red and ash was thick - it was opaque to satellite and aerial photography (at least without IR photography). A few very long winding routes were still possible into the city - via Newcastle or along the coast IIRC, and the internet and phone lines remained live. However this came pretty close.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4retU.png)
However on the opposite side of the country, it was even worse. [Perth was completely cut off](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-03/nullarbor-road-closures-to-last-five-days-causing-food-shortages/11837324) by bushfires. Perth is 1.9 million people, 6400 square km, and every sealed road between Perth and all other state capital cities were closed. There were food and medicine shortages. Many empty shelves. It was the first city in 2020 to run out of toilet paper. Fresh fruit and veg was also scarce.
[400 km of highways were closed](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-02/bushfire-threatening-remote-motel-on-eyre-highway/11837958), and a remote service station on the only sealed road into Perth needed helicopters to deliver supplies to the 250 truck drivers who were stranded there. With fires at the time also burning around Adelaide (my hometown - centre bottom), both ends of the road were shut due to fires. The temperature hit [49.8 celsius](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/christmas-chaos-as-bushfires-affect-nullarbor/11819578) (121.64F).
The longest continuous period of complete isolation for the city was [12 straight days](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-10/eyre-highway-reopens-after-bushfire-threat-blocks-road/11857678), however as the fire was controlled and escaped again the roads were re-opened and closed. 22 days in a month had total isolation. People were told to stay indoors and work from home. Outdoor work stopped. It was a warmup for Covid.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/joAgD.png)
The airport didn't completely close, but there were long delays and cancellations as the city got blanketed in smoke and visibility went to 0. Planes got diverted or turned around but the wind subsided sometimes and allowed planes in.
So - for your scenario, once the fire starts, you only need to subtly change the wind to get your outcome (sans internet dieing):
* Stronger ash cloud over the airport. Keep the wind steady and no-ones flying in or out.
* Stronger ash cloud over the seaport so people can't work. If they can't breathe outside, they can't unload ships.
* Keep the fires burning up to the highway for a few more days. If crews weren't able to push the fires back on cooler, calm days, the roads wouldn't remain shut.
* Satellite and airborne photography suffer from anything in the air, thicker ash and it'd be pointless.
* Air drops couldn't be done in strong winds and zero visibility.
To cut Perth off from internet, you'd need to cut [5 undersea cables](https://www.submarinecablemap.com/), this is quite an ask and unlikely to happen all at once. Cutting power will accomplish this. Ash clouds will ruin solar, strong winds can overwhelm wind generation (they drain power to apply brakes), and 0-visibility could affect fossil fuel power plant staffing, but cutting power in the Australian summer will kill hundreds of people from heatstroke however. A carrington event may take out all the ICs, and thus all internet and phone connections, and blow all fuses, but after resetting your circuit breaker your dumb Air Conditioner may still work. If a few dumb fossil fuel plants come back on line, or were shielded, you could have a society that is temporarily phone and internet free, but still air conditioned and has fridges to keep some food.
So to start it all, a Carrington event may be the answer. That [caused sparks from telegraph lines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event). Sparks from modern power lines on 45 degree days with strong winds would start bushfires.
So the sequence of events is:
* Hot Australian summer. Typically "Catastrophic fire conditions" 45 degrees C. 40kmph winds.
+ Official advice from government on these days is "Leave your homes early, before a fire starts, as once it starts, it's too late to leave."
* Carrington event hits. A geomagnetic storm hit Perth.
+ Knocks out most ICs, killing the internet and phones.
+ Power lines spark out in the bush, starting numerous fires.
* Strong winds spread the fires quickly, crossing the Nullarbor highway and the Indian-Pacific rail line, closing Perth to all rail traffic and all road traffic not on dirt paths.
* Fires spread into inaccessible terrain around Perth, like the Jan 2021 fires did.
+ These fires can't be fought by ground crews as they're too remote. We can only fight them from the air.
* Ash cloud blankets the city.
+ Stay-at-home orders issued. It's too smoky to go outside.
+ Planes are unable to land as visibility is 0. They all Go-Around and then end up diverting to their alternate (Adelaide).
+ Ships are unable to be unloaded due to the Ash cloud.
+ Airborne water-bombers are unable to fly as the smoke is too thick, meaning we can't fight the main fire in inaccessible terrain.
* As usually happens after these heatwaves, cycles of low pressure air come in, bringing cooler temperatures but stronger winds and lighting.
+ these help spread the fire massive distances. ember-attack 20km in front of the fire is not unheard of.
### How does it all end? - Floods or heavy storms
Typically Australian bushfires need a big soaking to go out. They can burn into Autumn in inaccessible scrublands being slowly attacked by water bombers waiting on a big downpour. These [usually have their own issues](https://citynews.com.au/2020/that-hailstorm-cost-514-million-and-rising/) like the Jan 2020 Canberra bushfire was weakened by a $500million hailstorm.
Once you've made them suffer enough, have one of the low pressure cycles bring heavy rains, and then a period of calm winds.
* Emergency services can get on top of this within a few days of this.
* Opening a road after a bushfire is quite involved. Safe-looking trees can reignite and drop flaming branches onto trafic, so the surrounding bush needs to be cleared if its burnt.
* All the signs, safety rails, and other infrastructure is burnt away, so speed is limited after a fire, further delaying resupply.
Multiple times they've been extinguished by devastating floods or cyclones, so scenes like this road covered to a depth of 1m while still displaying bushfire warnings happen quite often:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jjEO1.png)
[Answer]
The [2010 eruption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_eruptions_of_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull) of Eyjafjallajökull is an example.
>
> The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull were a period of volcanic events at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland which, although relatively small for volcanic eruptions, caused enormous disruption to air travel across western and northern Europe over an initial period of six days in April 2010. Additional localised disruption continued into May 2010, and eruptive activity persisted until June 2010.
>
>
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If you top it with bad weather at sea, disrupting the naval traffic, maybe even adding rocks falling due to the volcanic eruption, you have isolated the city without actually destroying it.
For a reference, the airport of Catania, in Sicily, is often closed when Etna erupts, and the annoyance for the city is usually some thick layer of volcanic ashes. They can block road circulation, and if the eruption goes on for long time cleaning efforts can get behind.
[Answer]
**Occupation**
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul#Government_by_the_Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant_(ISIL)>
Mosul was a city with a population of over 1 million. It was captured by ISIS militants and was governed by them for 2 years.
The city in your fiction is occupied for only 3 weeks. A revolution takes place in the US with varying success - in most places rebels are overcome in a matter of days but by circumstances of geography, luck and skill the insurrectionists take and hold this city. Manhattan (on an island!)might be a good choice, or Austin or Atlanta - with local military moved to help in other areas, insurrections who have come to the city over the previous weeks take the city (possibly with some cooperation of local military) and cut access by tunnel and bridge. The persons holding NY are able to cut cell phone use. Rebels intercept air drops and boats attempting to bring supplies.
When it becomes clear that the larger insurrection has (for the moment) failed, the rebels effectively hold the city hostage while they negotiate terms. The US government is unwilling to dislodge the rebels because of the immense property damage and loss of civilian life that would produce. Through negotiation with some groups in the city and innovative military techniques in others Manhattan is restored to government control.
In addition to your traumatized city, for this scenario you might have other cities that fared less well. The idea of something like the [Guangxi Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre) taking place in an American city would make a gripping story.
---
There are a lot of great pictures I was looking at to illustrate this idea. I think though I will leave it unillustrated. Too close for comfort.
[Answer]
Wellington, New Zealand is in a earthquake risk zone and really only has 2 roads in or out.
One road runs through a steep gully which is prone to rock falls). The other one runs along the shore, so is at risk of post earthquake tsunamis; and I think is partially on reclaimed land.
>
> Reclaimed land is land which used to be seabed, but had dirt/fill pushed into it, to make more usable land. Reclaimed land is prone to subsidence; like when you jiggle wet sand and it goes liquidly, like sinking sand.
>
>
>
The sea port and air port are also built on reclaimed land.
The upside, for the mean time, is Wellington has really good cafes and restaurants and lots of live theater, shows etc.
[Answer]
## It is not just the disaster but the response as well.
Look at the Puerto Rico earthquake as an example, have the government utterly fumble emergency response, thus drastically prolonging isolation and building a mindset the the government will not help.
## Consider combining effects.
To use Puerto Rico as a model, imagine if their had been a hurricane shortly after the earthquake cutting off sea traffic the whole island could have been isolated for even longer.
Combine anything else with a earthquake to get much more destruction with little initial loss of life.
A city does not need to be completely isolated to be effectively isolated, if there is only one shallow harbor left usable, supplies have to go through several steps to even reach the city drastically slowing down how fast they can be delivered.
## Add a distraction.
Have a natural disaster followed by another worse natural disaster or a war in a different place in the same country, diverting supplies and manpower. I hate to keep using the same example but imagine how Puerto Rico relief would have been handled if Yellowstone had erupted at the same time or consider Australia during the fires if Russia had taken the opportunity to invade Europe.
[Answer]
Air traffic is pretty hard to take out. There's only one thing that comes to mind that can do it: Volcanoes.
The initial conditions require a city on a peninsula and over a fair area the approach by sea is unsafe. Then there's a big quake that sets off two volcanoes. One cuts the landside connection, one cuts the part of the sea that was safe to approach. Nothing can approach by air because of the volcanic ash. Both volcanoes are throwing enough bombs that you are at great risk trying to go past.
The volcanoes can take out the utilities and they'll mess with but not completely block radio. In three weeks I think a data link would be jury rigged, but that assumes powered-up computers in the city to communicate with. (Take a sacrificial cargo aircraft, load a big spool of armored fiber optic cable, fly it as high as it goes, when it approaches the danger zone the pilots jump and it continues under computer control with the cable spinning out. When the engines fail it shuts them down and proceeds at best glide speed so long as that will clear the city. If it won't, the computer fires a self destruct. The hard part here is laying the cable fast enough.)
I do have a problem with the scenario, though--there will not be very many survivors after three weeks unless you have a source of fresh water.
[Answer]
**Los Angeles after the "Big One"**
This is something that's been seen in a couple of movies: Californians tend to imagine that in the future there's going to be a huge earthquake that will split Los Angeles and surrounding area off from the mainland to form a new island. In the movie *Escape From LA* the background of the plot is that, after the big earthquake, the rest of America sealed off LA as a kind of prison island to prevent the crazies from getting out. (This actually seems like a pretty good idea.) It could be a realistic way to achieve what you want (or at least, it would *seem* realistic to people who already believe in the inevitability of the "big one").
[Answer]
I think that limiting major cities to populations of 1 million plus ignores several realities of modern cities. For starters, there are only 9 cities in the United States which meet this population size request. Most cities are in 6 figure population sizes. That said, U.S. cities generally have significant metropolitan populations which if included would put them well over this figure (For example, I grew up in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan area, which includes the two cities and all their suburbs for a total of 9.75 million people (NYC has a population of 8 million and Los Angeles has 3 Million for comparison). The two principle cities in this statistical area both see a significant day time swell as people commute into these cities for work and return to smaller suburb communities where they live and are counted as population. This is quite common in most American cities, especially since the 1950s and could actually have devastating consequences in that should this occur during the day time, the city would its working population cut off from the families they support (consider that kids typically go to school locally in suburbia compared to their parents who are working in the urban center).
While it wouldn't be a city proper, the Manhatten borough of New York city is often times modeled for Wide Open Sand Box games for two reasons... it's got internationally known landmarks that will allow players to orient themselves with respect to the direction AND is notoriously difficult to evacuate, with only a handful of bridges and tunnels to the mainland. Consider the difficulty of evacuating Manhatten on 9/11, an event where an otherwise small area of the city was actually attacked (for an added bonus, the North Tower contained a major cell and broadcast tower for local NYC television and radio stations. When it collapsed, many local tv stations signals froze on the final signal which broadcast the start of the fall. Radio broadcasts also went silent (at this point, phones nationwide were jammed as people tried to get in touch with friends, family, and emergency services related to the attacks. Most major news networks also have posted the entire recording of the broadcast of the events to youtube and you can watch from first report to final collapse and beyond of the coverage, which naturally includes many erroneous reports (for example, there was a reported car bomb explosion at the State Department Building in D.C. that didn't happen in one networks coverage). Even then President George W. Bush, who was visiting Florida at the time, was in a communication quandary as he and his staff had difficulties calling the staff they needed to talk to (in interviews he would routinely point out that he pushed heavily to overhaul command and control communications capabilities on Air Force One).
9/11 isn't the only time Manhatten has displayed these issues in the past. On more than a few occasions, a minor issue in the power grid could cause a massive blackout in the North Eastern United States with the effects more evident in Manhatten than any other part of the state, mostly because the island is reliant on electircal transportation for it's function... a citywide black out not only kills the largest Subway system in North America, but it also traps alot of people in skyscrapers... and again, phone calls peak and jam up the phone networks frustrating communications.
Another incident was the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which caused a generator to kill the southern half of the island's power, including pumps keeping subway tunnels free of water from the storm surge of the storm... again, transit was out for days. In all cases, Manhatten, when in emergency, can become a prison, and a commute of maybe an hour can take as much as 9 hours for a person to make, depending on where they are in the city. In wide open video games, closing off bridges and tunnels out is easy to do, making the play space defined but not artificially constricted. Compare this to Wide Open games in non-NYC inspired locations, which have to find a way to limit the game world to the game map through other means (Rockstar, who make GTA series and Red Dead Redemption series of games has only made two maps where the game map wasn't confined to an island (both Red Dead Games mix impassible water barriers with mountain barriers) while almost all GTA games are set on islands despite their real life counter parts not even coming close to Islands (Vice City is Miami which is a very small land area... but not an island, IV is Liberty City which is NYC, but if it was built on a small island chain, and San Andreas (GTA: San Andreas and GTA V) is California and Nevada/Southern California respectively if it was an island).
[Answer]
### Major undersea volcanic eruption near Oahu
The city of Honolulu has a population of nearly 1 million people. A major eruption would effectively shut down air traffic (cf. Eyfyallayöküll), and an undersea eruption could make shipping hazardous as well. In addition, fiber-optic cables to the island could be badly damaged or destroyed, cutting off internet and phone communications.
You'd have to fudge a few things, though:
1. Our best geological understanding is that the volcanoes that formed Oahu are pretty much inactive these days. While minor eruptions are possible (if unlikely) over the next few hundred years, they would only affect a small portion of the island.
2. Oahu, owing to its convenient location in the middle of the Pacific, actually has [several undersea cable links](https://www.submarinecablemap.com) connecting it to the rest of the US, Japan, Guam, and other points in Oceania, as well as the other Hawaiian islands. There appear to be seven separate landing points for these cables on Oahu, dispersed widely enough that an undersea eruption couldn't take out all of them. You'd have to imagine a Universe where Oahu is not as well connected, or perhaps where some of the cables just happened to be out of service when the eruption hit.
3. Even if the eruption is nicely positioned to not drop "bombs" and lava on Honolulu itself, ashfall will still cause some mortality among those with breathing conditions.
On the other hand, if this is for a work of fiction, then the average reader will already associate volcanoes with Hawaii and be more willing to accept #1. And maybe you could justify a "research trip" to Honolulu to "gather information" for the work, which seems like a nice perk.
[Answer]
This more-or less happened to Santa Cruz in the 1989 earthquake.
Landslides cut off the main road (Highway 17), and other landslides cut the coast road (Highway 1) in various places. People who lived through it say that there were *some* back roads such that you could get to San Jose via Watsonville or La Honda, but basically it was cut off.
At the same time, the telephone system went down for various reasons.
Power was restored, after a few days, but things did not return to "normal" for almost a month.
This was a Medium-Sized Earthquake. In the event of a 9, you might see the entire Bay Area cut off for weeks, and certain places like Half Moon Bay or Santa Cruz cut off for months.
[I was in San Jose at the time, and noticed that there was NO NEWS coming from Santa Cruz or Scotts Valley. I tried to call people I know, but the phones were out.]
[Answer]
Look up the 1998 Ice Storm in Montreal. It pretty much closed the city for about a week. It cut power to regions east of the city for weeks, and in some cases months (in the dead of winter).
If you get enough ice, it destroys any part of the infrastructure that involves hanging wires from poles. In Quebec's case, I believe 1200 of those large steal-frame high-voltage transmission towers were destroyed as well as about 30-35k wooden poles.
That much ice can close airports and rail links. Montreal is an island. At one point, the temperatures went up a little and the ice began to melt. Much of downtown was closed as large sheets of ice came sailing off building. All but one of the bridges over the St. Lawrence were closed as well as ice sailed off the superstructures and came crashing into the bridges.
This was caused by about 100 mm (about 4 inches) of freezing rain. Do that in a cycle every few days and you get a city that can't function.
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[Question]
[
**Premise**
I'm creating a pre-history world to attempt to demonstrate an alternative sequence of events. I would like natural forces to somehow make natural selection view intelligence/technology as inferior. At current, it all seems too predictable; the most technologically advanced tribe always wins.
If the earth gets hot, burrow underground. If the earth gets cold, weave some fur. If you can't fend off scavengers, drag the kill up a tree. Intelligence has an answer for almost everything and it gets to the point where it is almost boring. It seems the only thing that can challenge intelligence is being more intelligent. However, I would like to challenge this notion.
Time after time in natural history, the primitive species yield to the more cognitively developed competitor species. Additionally, the few primitive species that remain in strong numbers today tend to be rather smart for their genus. There are a few exceptions to this generalization, but let me list some examples to land my point:
* Thylacosmilus (marsupial sabertooth, late Pliocene) presumed to have
gone extinct from conflict with sabertooths (who had more developed
brains)
* Neanderthals, though their brains were bigger in terms of sheer
volume, their technology was thought to be inferior and went extinct.
* One of the oldest species on earth, crocodiles, have primitive
reptilian brains, but in general terms are some of the smartest
lizards on the planet.
In my pre-history world, I would like to see what it would take to undo this trend. It seems to be a bit of a tall order, at times I can't think of anything other than smiting Prometheus down with a strike of lightning before he gets a chance to share his discovery. Hopefully the community here will be able to help in this regard...
**Question:** What could nature throw into the mix to make intelligence or technology an evolutionary disadvantage? Such that brute strength, brute endurance, brute whatever would be more effective than thinking through natures challenges.
**Further Clarification**
* Era: About 2 million years ago (Pleistocene)
* Natural Forces: By this I mean geologic things like climate, weather
and tectonics, but also species/ecosystem forces like competition,
reproduction rate, ect
* Intelligence Threshold: Presumably a dominant species would have to
be at least intelligent enough to perceive its surroundings. The
species that results from your natural forces answer doesn't have to
be brain-dead, but intelligence would not be its *defining
characteristic*.
* Realistic Threshold: I want to keep it fairly realistic, but freak
occurrences in nature to a moderate degree will be acceptable.
[Answer]
Some wonderful answers here that really got me pondering. I have a few ideas.
Evolution is a robust thing. Specific traits, though, are fragile. Just because intelligence is an advantage in many cases doesn't mean it's always worth it, as Amadeus expertly points out in his answer. There are also distinct risks that come from being smart. Playing on that idea, I think the key here is to arrange several forces in such a way that intelligence just isn't worth the price in comparison to something else. A few small tweaks or accidents at the wrong time in human evolution and smart monkeys would have become a dead end (as nearly happened to us at least a couple times in our various [bottleneck events](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/10/05/rspb.2009.1473)).
So, I think there are several ingredients that you can mix and match as necessary to get rid of those pesky humans.
* A competitor that's as smart as humans, but without the physical characteristics necessary to support technology. Imagine a jaguar that's as smart as a person. Would it make tools? Nope, sorry, no thumbs. But it'd probably be darn good at hunting humans and many other animals (see [The Ghost and the Darkness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters)). Early on, tools were largely ways to make up for a lack of physical strength; we don't have claws to take down a mammoth, but we do have spears. In those early stages, I find it easy to imagine that a smart predator *with* physical strength could outperform (or simply eat) humans. But really, the trick here is not that this creature would hunt humans to extinction (though maybe it could), but more that it increases the cost of getting food. If you can't gather berries without 10 people with you, you can't cover as much ground. If every morning of your hunting expedition you wake up with one fewer hunter, you decrease the likelihood of taking down that mammoth. If you can't follow the herds because leaving your easily defensible cave will mean your children get eaten, you might not have enough food that winter. Once the humans are dead, the jaguar can stay smart or not; it doesn't have the dexterity to develop technology.
* Climate. Make a world with climate fluctuations that are characterized by both sharp, large amplitudes and fluctuation periods just outside of human memory. Have a severe drought century immediately followed by a lush, rainy century. During the rainy century, human population sky rockets; then, one year, all the crops fail (whether gathered or farmed directly). War breaks out and the strongest/bravest are selected for. These people scrape by until the next rainy century when the population skyrockets again, just after the people who remember what happened last time are dead... rinse and repeat for tens/hundreds of thousands of years and the evolutionary pressure is likely skewed towards individual physical power over intelligence and numbers. (Something like this happened to the Anasazi in the Southwest US – check out [Collapse](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0143117009) by Jared Diamond for a fascinating analysis of that case and many other societal collapses which may be relevant to your question.)
* In social creatures intelligence often comes cultural sophistication, but that's not always a good thing. During the recent Ebola epidemic in Africa, one of the challenges people fighting the disease encountered was [ritual mourning and burial](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/150130-ebola-virus-outbreak-epidemic-sierra-leone-funerals/) in the communities most affected. Infected bodies were washed by hand, which spread the disease to mourners. If this had happened in a pre scientific society without knowledge of microorganisms, this kind of disease could be devastating to intelligent creatures and not to ones that don't have such cultural practices. Another example is the Viking Greenlanders: they were used to farming in a different climate, and their cultural norms kept them from adapting to their environment (to the point of their own starvation).
* Make certain technologies dangerous for whatever reason. There are many great examples of this, but for two currently relevant examples, see nukes and man-made climate change. Past ones include, for instance, clear cutting forests for farms. If you make that practice even more dangerous for whatever reason, people could be doing it all over and suddenly be screwed.
* Make the problem too hard for anything but several tech leaps. What if some problem requires either metal OR physical speed? Or the only food available needs to be either specially preserved OR eaten by the pack immediately (at risk of possible death)? What if vocalization is a disadvantage, but writing hasn't been invented? Lots of ways to exert evolutionary pressure here.
* Change the behavior of prey. There are two main things humans do better than any other animal: think, and run long distances. Predators since time immemorial have known that when you chase something, it runs away. For much of evolution, eating meant running faster than the prey. Humans, though, discovered that if they just *kept on running*, the prey would tire (especially old, weak prey). Then you could kill it. [Some scientists](https://www.livescience.com/98-runner-high-jogging-separated-humans-apes.html) think that, among other changes, this is actually helped cause us to become more intelligent. If, for some reason, prey didn't behave in this way, you might stop intelligence from developing in the first place. Off the top of my head, I can imagine that if male buffalo aggressively defending the pack when threatened rather than retreating, that could pressure human evolution towards strength and speed rather than cunning and long distances.
These are just some examples of how environmental factors and competition could disadvantage early humans in particular, and any intelligent animal in general. Just because something *can* be reasoned out doesn't mean it will be in time, and intelligent social behaviors have their own trade offs. Playing around with combinations of these things can probably get you what you need.
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>
> What could nature throw into the mix to make intelligence or technology an evolutionary disadvantage?
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Starvation, and/or an easy life. Brains are extremely expensive; they consume 20% of your calories for about 2% of your weight. [[1](http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml)] [[2](http://www.pnas.org/content/99/16/10237.full)]
They are no good if they consume calories and do not pull their weight (or ten times their weight!) in added opportunity, that is exactly what happens if there are very few threats. If calories are also very precious, wasting them on idle contemplation will be selected against.
Our brains are *necessary* to navigate our world, mostly of our own making, but of course we don't choose to be born into it, we arrive and have to cope, and those of us that cannot, due to brain deficits, typically have a very low reproductive rate. In short our big brains are the result of a feedback loop.
Other species don't have that: you don't see Elephants and Dolphins making 100 year plans, and chimpanzee / gorilla society is based largely on brute force. (Bonobo culture uses sex as a medium of exchange; also not high intelligence or planning).
We are the oddity: For 99.9999% of species, brawn IS more important than brains. To select against brains, make them not worth the biological expense.
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Let's address making technology somehow not be an advantage.
Now, technology can be something as simple as a stick made sticky with saliva so it will pick up more bugs when you put it in the hole.
And you want a world in which not thinking of that is more advantageous than thinking of it.
Because that's a tool. And tools, no matter how primitive, as long as they are modified somehow to fit the purpose, are technology.
You're asking for a world in which any tool we can think of doesn't work as well as smashing the termite pile--and you want it to be true for every situation.
**I'm stymied as to how to build a world in which all tools are useless.** The only thing I can think of is that the rules of physics change every few minutes or something. That's all I got.
Now, **as to intelligence being a disadvantage--the only thing I can think of is: make the cost outweigh the benefit.** Amadeus spoke of caloric cost--but there are other costs you don't see.
For instance, take the jaw strength of a human vs. any ape or monkey relative to size.
We lack a muscle across the tops of our heads that has to do with jaw strength, but lack of that has allowed us to spend longer developing our brains.
If, for instance, survival was predicated on being able to crack things with our jaw or bite strength---then the cost for intelligence might be too high.
Except.
Except that any drawback that you can think of evolutionarily, a big brain can mostly defeat. You can't crack it with your jaw? Take it away and build a tool to do so--or watch how the birds drop the shelled animals they catch on the rocks until they break and do the same.
Basically, what I would look into is ALL the trade-offs for intelligence, and find a way to make at least a few of those untenable.
**Intelligence is unusual** (depending on how you define it, which is not really clear here). That means that **specific conditions have to be in place to hit the sweet spot between having enough bounty to develop a brain and having enough evolutionary pressure to make using that brain worthwhile.**
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I can think of a fast-changing environment with quick mutations.
For example, the climate is getting cold. Less intelligent species are trying to adapt naturally. More intelligent species are wearing furs and maybe even fabrics. As time goes by, first species adapt better to a new, even harsher environment, while the second species progress can not compensate for the environmental changes and they eventually go extinct.
But I still think that this mechanism is, at the very least, debatable. Intelligence would eventually find a way to improve in a "permissible" way.
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**your asking for a scenario where intelligence is a disadvantage**
maybe you have heard of a movie called [idiocracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy). If so, this answer steals the core idea behind it.
The idea is that intelligent members of a species reproduce less often than their less intelligent counterparts. So technology could be developed but never in a widespread fashion, because the smart one is not reproducing.
Most things have a few basic requirements to be invented. creativity (who knew a stick and sting hold tension!?), spacial awareness (a stick cannot go into this tunnel well?), and efficiency (why push a stick into the earth when I can screw it in?)
creativity is an element of intelligence, lets leave this alone. Spacial Awareness is a combination of eyesight and intelligence, a candidate. Efficiency is a physics issue, lets not mess with the fabric of the world.
Out of the above, Spacial awareness is probably our easiest affected. This is a good thing as eyesight is a complex thing that took a long time to develop, now we need to discourage it. Thankfully we have some preexisting modals, [blindness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindness_in_animals). This typically happens in Nocturnal and Subterranean animals, the commonality is a lack of natural light, that gives a few obvious solutions.
**solution 1**
Dim your world a bit across the spectrum, this promotes a lack of food that will increase the cost of brain power. it will also delay technological advances. between the two, less intelligent animals should mate fast enough to offset intelligence growth through evolution. It will also lead to advances of other senses, like smell.
**solution 2**
make the surface nearly uninhabitable. either through solar radiation, harsh climates or something else. if the majority of your animals are evolving without light for sight, it will never happen and will cause the same impediment for evolution as solution 1.
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**Make the world hostile, unpredictable and hard to change**
If it is hard to survive, evolution will likely steer towards [r strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory) - just produce a lot of offspring. Now if the danger is largely unpredictable and almost impossible to avoid (let's say frequent volcanic activity or other natural disasters, or lots of diseases), intelligence can only increase your likelihood of survival a tiny bit and will not be worth the energy.
Note that this is not much of a stretch from the current state of the world. While we as humans value intelligence, only a [small fraction of the Earth's biomass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#Global_biomass) consists of species that we could consider highly intelligent/technological. Yet all of the contemporary species represent an unbroken chain of 3 billion years of evolution. Basically all microbes live in a world that's (from their perspective) hostile and unpredictable and their survival depends on a few simple heuristics (e.g., following a concentration gradient of nutrients) and producing a lot of offspring. At the same time microbes can easily survive catastrophes that would wipeout all multicellular life.
On a slightly related note, during my studies of AI, I did [some simple experiments](http://popelka.ms.mff.cuni.cz/~cerny/papers/cerny_planning_CoIn_final.pdf) on when a specific form of intelligence is worth the computational burden (increased time to think). When you make the world unpredictable, simple reflexes that are faster to compute lead to more efficient behavior.
**Select for small size**
This is kind of related to the previous point: bacteria are so succesful because they are small. And you simply cannot cram that much intelligence into a small space. A similar case is with earthworms or krill that are very succesful thanks (at least in part) to their small size. Even if they would benefit from increased intelligence, they are less likely to evolve it due to their size.
One way to select for small size is to have small isolated islands of nutrients. The organisms need to be small enough so that a self-sustaining population (~50) can survive on a single island with only rare mixing with others.
---
In general, I think it is impossible to select against *any* intelligence (even [bacteria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_intelligence) and [plants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology)#Plant_intelligence) have certain amount of intelligence), but it is relatively easy to make anything beyond reflexes and sensory processing just not worth the cost.
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A lot of interesting ideas are around in this thread.
I would like to throw something else into the ring: the evolution part.
Intelligent life is offspring of not quite as intelligent life. So it all started from "a group of equally stupid ancestors" (yes i am simplifying).
One feature of intelligence, sadly, is the ability to jump to conclusions and to come to false positives.
False positives are actually very handy when trying to identify a fairly well concealed large predator: while "there's a tiger! defend!" does not harm you when it's wrong, and the opposite ("i'm not sure this is a tiger, let's investigate further") turns you into a smart yet tasty meal, they can also be very problematic in other situations. There are many interesting experiments that show how jumping to conclusion and all those biases that result in favouring false positives can make someone a victim of all kinds of frauds, it should be conceivable to invent a scenario where a not very bright (only slightly brighter than their fellows) group of proto-people are being doomed by jumping to a conclusion.
The route might go into the direction of creatively misunderstanding some coincidences or correlations (something you often see in not too bright and not too well educated people), and as a result having an unhealthy tendency to end up in dangerous settings.
If you really wanted to you might even have some early overly eager priest having not only one virgin sacrificed for better hunting, but all the smart females (because they don't want to mate with him, or something), or you could have those semi-smarts migrating somewhere (for very good reasons), where hunting is better, and life generally is much more pleasant, but lacking an understanding of viable populations and thus dooming themselves in their new-found paradise to extinction or at least degeneration due to inbreeding, because no other humanoids migrated there.
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I'm not sure if this is the answer you're looking for, but ask yourself why there was no "intelligent life" for hundreds of millions of years before we came along. There was no discernible trend toward intelligence. Really, any inevitability comes from hindsight.
Our "big advantage" is also a huge drawback. We are learning animals. Ever see a newborn horse? They can usually stand 30 minutes after birth. Birds fledge in a few weeks. Humans take *years*. There are a number of reasons for this but one is that humans (I think) have less hardwired knowledge and more learning ability. They have to learn practically everything.
This means that intelligence doesn't work very well unless the creature concerned is highly social. You've probably seen nature programs where the mother animal loses lots of weight while taking care of newborns. Imagine if that went on, not for days, weeks or a few months but for years. What animal can afford to make that sort of investment in its young? Most often, the winning strategy is to be self-sufficient as soon as possible.
I think the "intelligent human" strategy wouldn't work if food was scarce and widely scattered. We think early humans followed herds and used persistence hunting. Without a herd to prey on, maybe selection would favor smaller, less expensive brains and shorter periods of helpless infancy.
If there were a bunch of much stronger predators (like the dinosaurs who were conveniently wiped out by a comet) then maybe it would make more sense for humans to be scattered rather than tribal. Arboreal rather than savanna-based. Strong, quick monkeys rather than tool-using thinkers. Maybe.
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**Intelligence ultimately leads to self destruction.**
There is a fine old SF anthology downstairs. One of the stories (I will find it and link it up tomorrow) features future humans exploring a hive of these aliens which are like social insects. They are extremely ancient. Various commensals and hive parasites are the degenerate descendants of intelligent species which had offered them competition over the millions of years.
When the hive perceives a threat from intelligence, it produces a temporary intelligent appendage. In the story the appendage explains why to the humans: intelligence is a formidable attribute but inevitably intelligence leads a species to self destruction. The real use for intelligence is not gathering prey or fending off the elements, but outcompeting conspecifics. *An intelligence arms race inevitably ensues*. Individuals and groups of individuals become too clever for their own good and either destroy themselves or destroy their capability for intelligence.
I suspect this resonated with the Cold War era audience for this late 1960s story.
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There are two sources for knowledge: Instinct and learning.
Instinct is determined by genetics and so has the advantage that it's there from before the creature is even born. The disadvantage is that changing instincts takes many generations. Many of the ills of our modern society can be traced back to the fact that our social instincts still assume that we are members of a tribe of 30-50 individuals at a stone-age tech level, fighting with nearby tribes for resources.
Learning has the advantage that it doesn't require hundreds or thousands of generations to alter, but the disadvantage that the organism has to experience things, calculate the inputs and outputs, and store the knowledge for future use. Since the new knowledge is not hard-coded into the brain's circuitry, retrieving and using it takes longer than running on pre-programmed instincts.
So, to de-prioritize intelligence, fill the world with a constant barrage of threats such that either the creature's instincts are correct, or it dies before it has a chance to learn much. The threats need to be stable enough that the slow pace of genetic evolution can keep up with them though. Intelligence is the tool for adapting to a world that changes faster than your genome. If the world doesn't change faster than your genome, intelligence is a waste.
For purely natural forces, you'd be looking at something like a constant barrage of random lightning bolts at fairly high saturation, along with frequent earthquakes so that caves wouldn't be safe, and whirlwinds that will suck up anything hiding in the water and splatter it across the landscape. Creatures in this world will have to devote most of their processing power to sensing electrostatic buildup, listening for the infrasonics of a crust plate starting to slip, and feeling for the shift in the winds that presages a tornado. The advantage to natural forces is that they are likely to remain a constant for a long time, so adaptation speed will not have to be faster than evolution speed.
Another classic method would be monsters. Big predators in the air, land, and water, and even ones that burrow through the ground, so there's never any opportunity to stop and think. Get the threat level high enough that most creatures sleep half their brain at a time like dolphins do so that they can be ever-vigilant. The problem, of course, is that this leads to an evolutionary arms-race wherein whatever species can adapt to the tactics of the other fastest wins... Which makes intelligence and learning a winning strategy for any species that can get it. There are two scenarios I can think of that would prioritize lower intelligence and faster reflexes.
One: assume all photosynthesising life is dead. The sun went out, the herbivores ate all of the dying vegetation, and then the carnivores and scavengers ate all the herbivores, and now all that's left is a pile of carnivores desperately trying to hunt other carnivores without getting themselves killed as the world slowly spirals down into icy doom.
Two: This one I find to be more interesting. Some species has already won the arms race and developed rapid learning and high intelligence... This species is not your protagonist. They are small in number, large in tech and viciousness, and systematically wipe out any species that appears to be gaining enough intelligence to be a threat to them. They live in small colonies and 90% of the planet never sees anything but their aerial drones. But any species they notice using weapons or learning to control fire gets exterminated as thoroughly as they can manage, with extreme prejudice and absolutely no concern about collateral damage. ("Burn the forest off half a continent to get rid of those pesky apes? Sure! Why not? We're not living there anyway. Don't forget to bomb it hard enough to collapse any tunnels they may have dug, we wouldn't want to have to come back and do this again in a hundred years.")
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Two words, "nerd sniping," all you need is something odd enough to make it interesting, better if it's not a clear cause of death. I'm told you can catch some kinds of monkey with a ball through a hole just bigger than it is. They can't get their hand out holding it and don't want to let go.
A secondary problem is brains. They require lots of food, careful temperature control, and are a huge cause of death during childbirth (either the mothers or the childs). There were several near human races with bigger brains than ours, they didn't make it. Brains are a huge deficit, if they don't pay their way really well the competition will destroy their owners.
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Evolution is a slow progress. Sure a species can eventually evolve to survive in a new environment but that's a process that's going to take hundreds or thousands of generations. Intelligence on the other hand allows for changes to spread through a population within a single generation.
By the time of divergence (2 million years ago) early hominids were already using stone tools. We have evidence of cooked food from 1.9 million years ago. They were already reaping the benefits of intelligence from at this time. Any change that would challenge early humans would also challenge the rest of the species in the environment. Humans are better equipped than other species to adapt to these changes. The won't need to evolve to thrive, they just need to learn.
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Having an intelligence capable brain has an high methabolic cost: the brain needs to be supplied with energy to operate. As long as the brain usage brings some advantage, it is worth doing this.
Make therefore intelligence useless by removing all the situations where it is an advantage: create a stable and easy environment, one where the only effort to survive is to lay below a tree and wait for a fruit to drop in your mouth.
In such an environment an energy-hungry brain is a huge disandvantage and evolution will work by eliminating or reducing it, like it happens to fishes in underground caves which lose their eyes with evolution.
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There is something that already exists, that if you do not have it, having a lot of intelligence and technology can be tremendous disadvantage. It is wisdom. Possessing a lot of intelligence and/or technology without the wisdom to appropriately apply these things is quite destructive. With intelligence and technology comes new discoveries, new discoveries can be dangerous, especially if misused. Many times, with new discoveries, we only partially understand the situation, and there are hidden dangers that we not realize the danger that they pose until further investigation has been done. We generally posses fair amounts of both in our current culture/society, and thus are quite attuned to discovering and eliminating the ill effects. If you need more motivation, take a look at the early history of X-Rays, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520298/>.
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Two words: prions and scarcity
Prions attacks only brains. Let just imagine a prion that thrive on grey matter and leave more or less intact the white matter. Dumb animals that kept a more primitive brain such as Koala (on top of being small its brain has less grey matter also) would survive, not others.
**Scarcity of food** (wikipedia)
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> The koala's
> small brain size may be an adaptation to the energy restrictions
> imposed by its diet, which is insufficient to sustain a larger brain.
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[**Prions**](http://neuropathology-web.org/chapter5/chapter5ePrions.html)
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> pathology of prion diseases During the incubation period and active
> clinical phase of prion diseases, PrPTSE is probably present (and can
> transmit the disease) in all tissues and body fluids, especially
> brain, nerves, and skeletal muscle. **Pathology develops only in the
> brain.**.../... Spongiform encephalopathy Advanced cases show
> neuronal loss, gliosis, and brain atrophy.../... **The changes are
> confined to the gray matter** (the primary pathology involves the
> neuronal body). In some prion diseases, PrPTSE precipitates as amyloid
> plaques.
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I believe the answer would be **equal egoism and pride/arrogance in all species**.
What I mean with this is that, in real life, those are some of the worst attributes of human nature. We have that need of conquering, of feeling powerful somehow, of searching for revenge. We kill animals for fun, instead of just for a need. And we kill each other for all of the above.
*Homo homini lupus* (man is wolf to man), which means that we're actually our worst enemies.
Imagine those attributes in all kind of species. Strong ones like elephants and hippopotamus, or predators like lions and tigers (even a T-Rex in prehistory), wanting to dominate or "be owners" of all the land they can, or just killing a whole other specie for fun.
In that scenario, intelligence might be a little advantage, but strenght and speed would be dominant.
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Perhaps a **huge** but **steady growth** in **cold temperatures over a large number of years**?
*Imagine* a situation where **because of tech**, let's say animal furs, leathers, fires and maybe even house insulating architecture or something, less was said to the DNA to adapt to the environment, and as such humans grew with a simulated temperature.
However, the temperatures wouln't stop dropping over a large span of years, resulting in wild animals adapting slowly over time, **meanwhile** humans not adapting as much.
Although I couldn't possibly know any plausible numbers, I can try to give an illustrative example of what I'm saying.
Imagine if it got -0.15ºC/-32ºF colder each year over 1.000 years, where animals felt 100% of that each year and evolved with the change - even if some didn't - while humans felt 40% of that and so didn't evolve as much over time. Finally, when the cold 'stacked up' enought, animals endured it, while humans lived all that time "protected" from the small temperature drops. At those pre-historic times they wouldn't have the tech to help them against so much cold **(I'm talking -150ºC/302ºF total).**
**Second thoughts:** Maybe not a **steady growth** but a **scalating one**, where the lowering of temperatures got bigger and bigger. (Resulting in a 'sudden' shock to humans and less so to wild life).
Mind not the actual numbers, -150ºC is too brute for any living organism... but the idea is a steady growth in cold, where animals DNA changed enought and the inteligent species didn't **because** of their protective tech.
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Why not (As a thought experiment) put yourself in the position of a plant and ask yourself ... why has this plant survived in the evolutionary battle for survival and other plants have not? (assuming there is such a thing as plant genus going extinct)...??? Plants lack intelligence, yet they do evolve over time ...
Ultimately it would seem to me that the organism that is most adapted to its environment would by default win out over organisms that are not well adapted to their environment... thats the only way I can picture evolution happening progressively without intelligence.
As a side note, it was my understanding that Neanderthal's went extinct not necessarily because they lacked technology, but because they failed to spread out on the planet and populate new areas ... they stuck together making them "fish in a barrel" as it were ... yet, one could argue that only a lesser intelligent species would behave in such ways ...
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## Simple environments
Intelligence isn't the perfect solution to all problems that you're making it out to be. If it was, all animals would continuously evolve to be more intelligent, which they don't.
Most evolutionary adaptations are trade-offs, and intelligence is no exception. In fact, the cost for intelligence is quite high: the brain is an *extremely* energy-hungry organ, and bigger brains require exponentially greater amounts of energy to keep running. Energy, being nature's "currency", is a big limiting factor on any adaptation. The human brain uses a whopping *20%* of the body's total energy consumption. That's energy that could have been used for building strength, speed, armor, big teeth, fast running, reproduction, survival without food, or any one of the countless other "purchases" that could help an organism to survive.
Intelligence also tends to *greatly* slow down the reproductive cycle. Intelligence doesn't play nicely with complex, hard-coded instincts - so usually the solution is to toss out the basic instincts and let the animal figure things out as they grow. This means that intelligent animals will tend to be less capable from birth than less intelligent ones and might require the parent to invest energy in teaching them how to survive. And the energy cost (both from the brain itself and the time spent teaching) means that parents have to invest a lot more energy in raising children, which typically means having smaller numbers of children. Both of these things are detrimental for the survival of the species.
For intelligence to be worth the cost, it has to convey a pretty significant advantage. For most animals, that advantage is *adaptability*. Without intelligence, most organisms can only adapt to new situations through evolution; intelligent animals can adapt within a single generation. While this seems like a worthwhile advantage, it is only really useful *in a changing environment* that has a lot of new resources and dangers popping up on a regular basis. And there's your key.
Most organisms are *specialists*, meaning they do a small number of things really, really well. Cats rip open prey, polar bears can live in the cold, crabs can smash through shells, tortoises can deflect sharp objects, ants can grow food or raise livestock, beavers cut down trees to build shelters. Humans, and other intelligent animals, tend to be *generalists* - nature's plug-in devices. We can make knives to rip open prey, fur coats to live in the cold, hammers to smash shells, armor to deflect sharp objects, and we can make farms and houses for food and shelter... but we need to "pay" for this ability by eating more food, and we aren't born with the innate knowledge of how to do *any* these things. We can live almost anywhere and exploit almost any resource, but we usually can't do them as *well* as the creatures who evolved to do so.
So what's a circumstance that would make intelligence a disadvantage? A simple, unchanging environment, with a single, basic resource, and few or no predators. Such an environment will favor animals that are born with the physical and instinctual means of exploiting the resource and evading the predators; intelligence will be a pointless waste of energy, reducing reproductive fitness while conveying no real advantage.
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No hands.
Intelligence without being able to manipulate the environment does not help much.
Or make the world have few elements. Say a small island without trees. All food is obtained by catching food by hand on the sea shore. (No trees = no boats)
In both situations above intelligence is expensive but does not help much.
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Intelligence on a world like ours is definitely paying of. But as someone stated above, intelligence is very costly as of energy/resource/evolution.
To be able to pay that cost, you need high surface of land, that has a strong environmental complexity and can provide abundant and diverse food sources.
If your world has smaller land masses, and for some reason they don't have abundant diverse food sources, then specialized creatures would have the upper hand in evolution.
So maybe make it a world that has mostly inhabited islands, with the continents in the global areas where deserts would form. You should increase the global sea level (in the early history of the planet it was bombarded by more ice meteors and comets).
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Here's a few of my ideas:
**Make other pressures orders of magnitude more important, or make time the enemy**
The Brain is a huge, massively complex organ, which, as others have pointed out takes a lot of maintaining.
The more complex the system, the more points of failure it has. For example:
**Increased Solar Radiation**
Deplete the magnetosphere or ozone of your planet. Not enough to kill everything, but to the point where selecting for large brains is likely to come with a larger downside in terms of reduced radiation resistance.
**Increased toxicity**
Lead is a good example, as brains are especially susceptible - Maybe your planet's soil and water is heavy in lead content
With the above as examples, they also have the added benefit of killing over time: a large, complex brain requires a minimum size of organism, which requires time to grow.
I.e. you could essentially design the planet such that there is a 'maximum lifespan' of any even semi complex organism - even with the benefit of evolutionary protection.
Everything races to produce offspring in a few days or weeks before dying and leaving a glowing, lead filled corpse.
**Reduced Oxygen Content**
Replace some of the oxygen in the air, with, say, Helium. It's non toxic in and of itself, but if making the most of every molecule of oxygen is a significant pressure, feeding the oxygen hungry brain may be a step too far.
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Do it like Warhammer 40k which is so grimdark that intelligence can be a huge liability. Being curious about the wrong things usually causes trouble or brings one to the attention of the Inquisition (usually both), and many Inquisitors of the Xanthite faction walk on a razor-sharp ridge when acquiring and using arcane knowledge.
In that setting, big brains also usually imply psionic powers, which carry the inherent risk of being om nom'ed by warp entities, thereby threatening entire planets.
Another risk is being intelligent enough to amass huge power, but not intelligent or powerful enough to look through the plans of one's enemies, or failing to vanquish them. Horus for example, though being one of the brightest minds of the Imperium, was corrupted. Even the Emperor himself apparently underestimated the risk of the Ruinous Powers being able to corrupt His sons and turning them against him.
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Intelligence is, at it's fundament, the ability to 'say' yes, no and maybe, to impose a non-binary state on an apparently binary environment as a means to 1: Decision making with insufficient data and 2: The ability to act and allow for 'luck' even when the data suggests failure.
It works for us and other animals because we *always* have insufficient data from a (hah, because of a) point of view.
What if nature evolved a complex binary organism that had the same drive to reduce threat as mammals? That is to say, *everything* outside of itself was a threat. It would not spend time pondering the stars, or wondering why a cube thrown into water would make a circular ripple, but be a plague upon all things, a force of nature as it were.
Or in other words, Intelligence is always a threat unto itself.
Complacency, optimism, speculation and all those other vices.
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[Question]
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Necromancy is a time-honored profession that goes back thousands of years. A necromancer is prized because of the gifts they can bestow to wealthy individuals, specifically the noble class. When someone of noble rank dies, their soul can be transferred to an artificially created body specially constructed for them. These bodies are built with special materials and possess a neccessarily large container inside of it that houses the soul.
Naturally, this process is expensive and must be paid for beforehand, making the only ones who can afford it to be of royalty. After the process is done, the person's soul remains attached to the body, needing no sustenance or repair. However, they are seen as wizend elders and are unable to take the throne or high positions of authority. These are held by "living" members.
Now, these ranks of immortals are made up of people who are accustomed to power. They made their families or houses great and influencial, surviving years of backstabbing, machinations, etc. As such, they have decades of experience and knowledge. These people are unlikely to just give up power with a second chance in life, leaving the running of their kingdoms to younger living people.
How could societies with these kinds of immortals not be ruled by them when they are the most qualified?
[Answer]
Any societal or religious taboo will eventually be overturned by the experienced machinations of the eldest undead, so the only way I see this working is if there is something in the magic itself that prevents it.
Some possibilities:
1. The soul of the reanimated is not a complete soul; it is more like an imperfect "imprint" of the original person's personality and knowledge. Basically, it is a walking, talking "book" representing everything the deceased knew or believed at the time of death. Although it can give advice to others based on its experience during life, it cannot adapt creatively to new situations and will be unable to really take charge.
2. The undead are physically unable to communicate with most of the living through speech, gestures or writing. The only living person who can understand them is the *current* king. So while they can advise the leader, they have no effective means of organizing a coup against them.
3. Some other magic empowers the ruler, and the undead are unable to use this magic. Perhaps the ruler is a "Fisher King" and the land's prosperity reflects the ruler's nature - if a dead person takes the throne, the crops will wither and the land will die. Or maybe it's a magocracy and the undead cannot use magic, or the king must communicate with the gods and the dead cannot do this.
[Answer]
# "Tom Bombadil"
In sum: ***Immortality made them lose interest.***
In *The Fellowship of the Ring*, the Hobbits encountered Tom Bombadil in the Old Forest, likely an equal to Sauron. He could see Frodo while wearing the ring, put the ring on and did not turn invisible, and he was not tempted to keep it.
Because he lived on a higher plane of existence, the petty struggles for power had no grip on him.
Your machine-soul links create a state of being that opens doors to interests far beyond that of mortals. Mortals seek legacy and dynasty because of their very mortality. By giving them immortality, they no longer care for rule and power because they will live eternally anyway. Their interests are more in knowledge, theory, and things that challenge them, like making stars go supernova and such.
So, you see, they won't fight for the throne because they're just not interested.
[Answer]
Each of these souls has died before being transferred. That means that each of them has gotten a glimpse of what lies on the other side before they were brought back. None of them are ever quite the same after that.
What they've seen and learned may have been enough to convince them that these worldly struggles over power are largely meaningless. What their aims are after coming back may be something that no living person can understand until they too have seen what comes after death. Therein lies true wisdom.
[Answer]
You can do it the same way we prevent permanent rulers in the real world: *term limits*.
Positions of nobility, even kingships, are not permanent. Instead of waiting until death to pass your title to your heirs, you must also pass it on once you've held that position for (let's say) 40 years. Plenty of time to raise the next generation and train them to take your place.
What prevents them from ignoring this rule? The populace. Ages ago, there was a king who lost his mind. The people suffered through 20 years of being ruled by a man who would spend days conversing with his bedside table but was otherwise incredibly healthy. The kingdom barely held itself together. At another point in history, an king died under mysterious circumstances and was succeeded by his 19-year old son. The son could only be described as evil, and he ran the kingdom into the ground in order to build up his own wealth. The people were subjected to poverty, crime, and forced labor for nearly two generations. Eventually, the people got tired of getting stuck with terrible rulers for a long period of time and in a Magna Carta-like effort, implemented a system of term limits. All heritable positions of royalty and nobility come with an expiration date. Throughout history, everyone that has tried to maintain power beyond their term has been swiftly and forcefully deposed by a united front of peasants, soldiers, other nobles, and the heir who should now be holding that title. No matter how well-liked you may be, the people have been burned too many times to take that risk again. Your necro-bot bodies may not need maintenance, but they're definitely not invincible. If anything, they're likely *more* vulnerable to attack since they lack the human body's self-repair capabilities.
Side note: you call these revived nobles the "most qualified" to rule. Being an aristocrat doesn't mean that you're even remotely qualified to lead *anything*. All it means is that you were born/married into the right family, or that you happened to make the right friends. History is full of aristocrats who couldn't even lead a *parade* successfully, yet lived as if they were the most talented leader around. A necro-bot who grew too big for his britches would be easy for the living to depose. After all, it's not murder if they're already dead.
[Answer]
## Keep them in a box
Each family head has a special room where the 'bodies' of previous family heads are kept. These bodies are immobile and only the leader of the family has access to the room. He/she goes there to consult with past leaders for advice on how best to lead the family. Removing one of the ancestors from this room is anathema, mainly because of a sad incident in the past where one of these immortal spirits, sadly quite insane, ruled his house for generations and caused much chaos.
[Answer]
The new body does not have adrenal glands or testosterone or other hormones. They no longer get the same hit of feel-good hormones when they have successes, or feel-bad hormones when they fail. With the loss of these things they lose the same *drive* they had before to be the ultimate winner. In other words, they are a shadow of their former selves, although they may not realise it.
[Answer]
so what do they gonna do? rebel on their own family and bring ruin to the kingdom by making civil war? sue them?
beside they are immortal now why become king and burden yourself for eternity, if you can ascend into godhood or worshipped as real life founder and proof of the kingdom glory, even if they just lazily around? they still can give advise to their descendant and they still will be the head of the family the king will be just puppet or name only to not scare the populace or fear of eternal dictatorial regime.
[Answer]
### Legally Dead
The first and obvious answer is that they were, at one point, dead. Even if their return is a known thing, they died and anything tied to their living form has registered that.
The first noble/monarch to do this to themselves did not arrange for a change in the laws to maintain their power after death, either through accidental or intentional action. The living heir, now ruler, does not want to give up the power to their unliving parent and so they do not arrange for the laws to be changed for them.
Fast forward through the generations, and now it is an ingrained custom for the deceased noble to step aside allow their living heirs to take their place. They still enjoy relative prestige and influence by being a entity of great experience without the responsibility of actually running the show, while also allowing them to pursue whatever ignites their interests.
This assumes, that they were/are good sources of wisdom.
But that's a bit boring, and assumes that it is all benevolent. They are undead aristocrats and businessmen … I doubt "benevolent" is in their vocabulary. This leads to the follow-ups …
### Game Behind the Thrones
Of course there are people(?) that want to rule after their death and subsequent rebirth. Unless this is one world-spanning kingdom, it is likely that there are various degrees of success throughout this world and likewise many ways that it was prevented from happening.
An advisor of much influence can rule without ruling by the expedient measure of being the single most trusted advisor to the ruling line. But once you get enough of them around, it is plausible that they will turn their ambitions on each other and attempt to deal with their own cohort so that they are the one true advisor to the leaders. The cunning survive and thrive, while less apt suffer for their failures.
Basically, they play a deadly game behind the scenes that lays mostly out of public view. On occasion their experiences are tapped for advice.
Basically, an Undead version of Game of Thrones only with the R-rated stuff converted to more verbal warfare.
### Ambitions of the Ghost Council
A second scenario is that they do rule, just not on paper. A shadow cabal of immortal undead keep a watch on the world, nudging events in the directions that they want through advising the leaders of the world.
However, this shadow council also has a secondary function of watching over their own to ensure that the political balance of the world is maintained. They are the ones to keep the rogue elements of their cohort neutralized through their own machinations.
This situation could arise both based on groups of any motivation, and even have multiple cabals with conflicting goals that have entire shadow wars, or manipulate events into real wars. A layer of politics under the politics that might make for an interesting intrigue setting.
In short, they are too busy allying with and scheming against each other to really achieve global rule like they used to when they were alive.
[Answer]
How about this scenario:
At one time, they **did** take the throne, but some time after people rebelled and managed to dethrone these ghosts. The inner circle of this ghost ruler was condemned to a fate worse than death (complete erasure, sent to a prison dimension, whatever you feel like basically) and now there's an agreement between the ghosts and the living for it to never happen again.
The ghosts are free to advise and participate, but they can never hold a position of power. Maybe only because they don't want to risk the fate worse than death, or maybe there's actually a new component to the "resurrection" spell that prevents them from doing it.
I would imagine this would give a sort of chamber of ghosts that can advise the ruler with their wisdom. It could be quite cool!
[Answer]
Although they have become immortals, the transfer of the soul to a new body leads to a weakness that does not allow them to operate as normal human being.
The weakness leads to rapid energy loss physically but also huge mental strain only when one deals with, is involved in political matters. One can be incapacitated for days. Any other activities does not lead to it. Although many studies have been done, no one has ever managed to explain why it happens to them. Thus, they are not interested in participating in political matters, preferring to concentrate on other aspects of life.
[Answer]
Maybe they don't because the one who bound them to the body can unbind them? Considering the wizards who can do this necro craft are also immortal?
Otherwise the normal folk aren't going to put up with the egos of these shell people for long and the guards won't guard the dead? I could see this as being in one era the person's skills, methods and tactics were useful but has the years have moved forward their tactics, skills, and methods are too obscene or costing for the "modern" time.
A third scenario would be these former rules realized they aren't the end all be all in the power game. Especially if rulership is constricting and some of them probably have PTSD from their past rulerships. They realize there are ones above the ruler or who have more flexibility to change things w/o blood all the time like councils, ruler advisors, ect. They could even just play kingdoms off of one another and make bets on who wins and looses.
[Answer]
Give them some sort of critical weakness that would prevent them from performing the daily tasks of ruling a kingdom.
A good classical example would be if they were like vampires, in that they can't stand being exposed to daylight. Whether it kills them or not is up to you. Maybe it just hurts their eyes so much they have to stay in the dark. Or they turn to stone during the day like trolls, and only come back to life at night. They could of course blacken all the windows in the palace, but maybe it's based on time of day instead of just light, so even in a sealed dark room they'd be out of commission during the daytime. The kingdom can't just come to a halt because its rulers are nocturnal. You need someone around to run things during the day and they just couldn't do it.
Another possibility would be if they just need to sleep a lot and only wake up for a few hours once a week. You just need them to be unavailable for a large enough percentage of the time that effectively ruling a kingdom would be impossible.
[Answer]
## Messy Business, Succession
The main reason your society would not want immortal undead in ruling roles is because it is already a nightmare to determine who is next in line when someone dies. Adding more people to mix, whether they are living or dead, is going to make that process even more difficult and increase the chances for coups, rebellions, and civil wars.
As a simple example, imagine a King who has two sons. Both want to be king but only one of them gets the crown when dear old dad dies. Normally if one of the brother's died the survivor would be automatically nominated. But with necromancy you can run into the situation where one brother dies and is brought back, and now you have the same situation with even worse long term prospects.
Say the king dies after passing the crown to the living brother. A few years go by and the new king has a child who is the heir apparent. Except that the undead brother is still kicking around, and could still technically have a claim on the crown if his brother and heir both died. If he were alive and that happened it wouldn't be unreasonable for the crown to pass his way as the eldest surviving member of the royal line. But does that still count now that he is dead?
Now imagine a couple more generations of undead aunts and uncles and seven-times-great-grandfathers floating around behind the scenes. As soon as there is an opening in the rulership every single one of them could make a claim to the throne. The court genealogists would go mad tracing out that family tree and figuring out who has the best claim. How do you choose between your dead uncle twice removed, and your grandfather who is so great he speaks a dialect nobody understands?
Even worse, imagine putting an undead on the throne and them ruling for a century. Then the undead king gets assassinated or destroyed or just ups and leaves. Who do you pass the crown to now? Unless your world is way darker than I am thinking, the re-dead king doesn't have a direct heir, so we are back to square one and the genealogists are seriously debating offing themselves and making it the next guy's problem.
## Puppets and Puppeteers
There is also the (possibly legitimate) question of how much power a necromancer has over someone they have raised. Even if they don't have direct power they probably know ways to put down a zombie. Having someone too important to get rid of but who also has the power to kill your king with impunity is a situation that no nobility would want to find themselves. The two options at that point are to accept that money can't save you from death, or that once you die you aren't allowed to rule even if you can come back from the abyss.
I am not terribly familiar with nobles, but I could hazard a guess at which of those two options they would prefer.
There is also the added benefit that you don't actually need to wear a crown to influence policy. History is rife with advisor and councilors and sycophants all trying to push their own agenda and using the current ruler to do so. The fact that after you die you *only* get to play court games and not actually deal with all of the day-to-day responsibilities of being a king is probably a bonus for at least some of the nobles who can afford resurrection.
[Answer]
## Lack of succession would thwart the nobles ambitions.
Kings are kings only because enough of their subjects consent to be governed. That does not rely only in the king being liked but also in stability; if any time someone did not like a king he would be allowed to rebel then the country would bleed itself in civil wars; as long as the stability brought by supporting the king outweights the burden of tolerating his rule the nobles will defend him against other claimants.
But that does not mean that the nobles do not have ambitions to have a king more favourable to them: someone who is less controlling on the nobles, or someone who has a priority in helping the noble's fight against his neighbours, or someone of the noble family.
Of course, the best moment in which the nobles can try to get advantage of is during succesion, when loyalty binds have not yet been established and you can support this or that candidate against a much less organized position1. Even while the king is alive this game can be played, with the nobles getting ready to make use of the next succesion crisis by forging alliances, courting prospective heirs, establishing family ties, improving their forces...
Of course everybody knows that once an undead is at the throne there will be no more successions, and so they would lose that opportunity to increase they power2. For that reason, each time there is a risk that an undead would take the throne, they unite in refusing it and make it clear that they would not acknowledge him and would fight him.
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1In fact in many kingdoms the next king would be elected by the nobles, and in many others it would not be elected but it would need the nobles to formally acknowledge him as king.
2It would also threaten their current power as the undead king could also use the nobles'own succesion crisis to gradually diminish their power.
[Answer]
Tradition dictates the following:
* "family" means blood ties
* the head of a family must be able to have heirs
An immortal severs blood ties by choosing a new body. They have "**honorary family member**" status.
Now, any number of points could be made as to why exceptions could be made:
* heirs have already been produced prior to immortalization
* the new body has a supply of preserved sperm
* the new body is organic and cloned
* tradition tends to be stupid, anyway
... but YOU try to argue against customs with centuries of momentum, centuries during which every proponent of change had been grossly outnumbered by supporters of all the other successors who were not all that keen on agreeing to have their turn only after eternity ran out.
Of no help to that cause is a circulated anecdote of a family who DID allow immortals to rule due to one of those excuses (and, more to the point, their inability to oppose their ruler's ascension), and got briefly hijacked by a rival incarnated into the ruler's body (a very costly and otherwise pointless process)
[Answer]
Divine Right doesn’t work that way
The right to claim oneself as ruler of a realm flows directly from the God(s). Divine Right has been the rule for generations. However, sometimes a noble chooses to break their relationship with the Divine. Once a person has broken that link between mortal and the Divine, once someone has severed their relationship with the Higher Powers and rejected the path to the afterworld, how can that person still claim the Divine Right to rule? Of course the God(s) would not bestow the gift of Divine Right upon someone who had rejected the mortal’s end of that bargain. It doesn’t work.
What people would follow a ruler who had so blatantly turned their back on the God(s)? Catastrophe is sure to follow.
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