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[Question]
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I have noticed through several science fiction series that there are those who travel on spaceships with advanced technology yet their clothes are anachronistic
Example:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WvAvQ.jpg)
**The questions**
Is it reasonable for spacefaring humans to wear clothing similar to that of the 1700s - or even older apparel (such as a toga)?
What could be a reason for people wearing old clothing styles in such a futuristic setting?
[Answer]
When graduating college with her fashion design degree, my sister told me she had found one constant in fashion: across every culture, every time, fashion is painful. The nature of the pain varies. Sometimes physical pain: bare legs in Russian winters, corseted busts (men and women at different times/places), tiny shoes, tight jeans, tattoos, piercings, etc. Sometimes it is social exposure: the woman who dares the hip-cut dress or the man in a kilt or the person who wears a color everyone else would be mortified to wear. Sometimes it is financial pain: the money thrown away on a diamond iPhone case that serves no function except to say, "I can afford this waste." On that last one, notice that we tend to respond to jewels as "gaudy" when we think the person can easily afford it but as "amazing" when we think the person really invested in that bling.
It's all about displaying how confident you are that whatever comes, you can take it. You're that damn good.
So, plain cloth in space instead of the safe space suit everyone else wears in case of hull breach? Oh, you bet that's fashionable!
[Answer]
Fashion doesn't really have anything to do with technological progress, or even practicality. While a nomad or peasant farmer is going to wear what is cheap and keeps him warm and dry, once you have enough money, literally anything is possible to wear.
I present to you [bell bottoms](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U8waqejOLho/UXmUVAGB2mI/AAAAAAAABUE/CetggLpWuC0/s1600/5286574514_2dab644a16_b.jpg), [Mexican pointy boots](http://scs-assets-cdn.vice.com/int/v18n3/htdocs/look-at-these-fucking-boots-721/three-guys-in-boots.jpg), [Medieval pointy boots](http://www.lparchaeology.com/prescot/images/11.jpg), the [facekini](http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-07-28-1438092611-2559276-facekini_51-thumb.jpg), [grills](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Paul_Wall.jpg), dressing like [this](http://i.dawn.com/primary/2014/04/5358f5a683693.jpg?r=179869627) in the hottest places on Earth, [cummerbunds](http://www.hirewear.co.uk/media/30447/CummerbundBlackEvening.jpg), [sleeveless hoodies](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0736/2255/products/blackvest4.png?v=1444960261), etc. etc.
Given the crimes against fashion that have already happened, it is plausible for pretty much any style of clothing to come back into style.
[Answer]
I think fashion (other than clothing containing advanced technology or materials) is not specifically a matter of advancement so much as the current social preferences. It's really just an aesthetic choice in most science fiction where clothing isn't serving a purpose beyond what it currently does, looking good.
[Answer]
It's all about the function such clothing serves in the context of the show. Your image is a perfect example: that fine gentleman is a member of the great Centauri Republic, a grand old empire where it's not just the clothes that are reminiscent of a proud empire at its peak (and approaching its decline) - their jewelry, customs, buildings, spacecraft, and entire social and political structures follow the same design principles. But even if I didn't know any of this beforehand, that's the impression I'd get just from looking at this image in any event.
The reason for this, in fantasy and science fiction, is *visual shorthand*: in other words, the audience can very quickly pick up a lot of visual cues about the *type* of alien society being shown, without the writers spending ages having to explicitly outline it all.
Also note that in this case, such clothing can't be considered "anachronistic", as it's entirely correct for its context.
However, to directly address your questions:
**Is it reasonable for spacefaring humans to wear clothing similar to that of the 1700s - or even older apparel (such as a toga)?**
You're in a starship, or on a space station. Who cares what you wear? Would a Starfleet jumpsuit or Jedi robes give you more protection from hard vacuum than Centauri court dress? Of course not. It's an indicator - both in and out of universe - of class, position, status, and possibly character.
Note that in Babylon 5, the show this image comes from, the Starfury fighter pilots *do* wear spacesuits while flying. Appropriateness in context.
**What could be a reason for people wearing old clothing styles in such a futuristic setting?**
Coming back to the discussion about what's *retro* and what's just *old*, it's not necessarily either of these things. It's *symbolic*, and it's *evocative*. Out of universe, it gives the viewer a summarised version of what to expect of the wearer. In-universe, it's a symbol of society or beliefs.
[Answer]
The people of the Renaissance, and later the Enlightenment, were fascinated with the Romans, and emulated them. Nowadays, we get subcultures who dress like Victorians (with gears glued on) or pagans. Maybe space is just full of hipsters.
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If I remember my star wars correctly, 'space is cold'. It's also very empty, dark and uniform (except when it isn't of course). Interplanetary and intergalactic space travel is normally in ships that are utilitarian and streamlined. Normally in tones of grey or blue.
Clothing could be an unconscious human defensive tactic against this cold oneness, Besides needing the extra layers to save on internal spaceship heating costs. To bring colour and dimension to their otherwise grey world. Frills, lace and braiding to break up the smoothness of machine manufactured walling.
Also, with the exploration of space, there is bound to be some sort of associated income boom. (or why else are they spending vast amounts of money and time doing it). People will no longer be limited to cheap, easy to make clothes of today but can return to individually crafted and tailored clothing to suit the personality.
There will of course still be the overalls and machine made bland clothing. But to show you are above all that, to advertise your status as above the lowest of the low, people may return to very frilly frivolous clothing.
[Answer]
*What could be a reason for people wearing old clothing styles in such a futuristic setting?*
The reason why you see with it here and now, mixed with answering the question:
TV shows (like Babylon 5, which the picture originates from) have to face with popularity factors if want to be succesful. Collectively people find something appealing in TV if easy and fast to understand. Let's say it is a challenge for specifically sci-fi category. **For** sci-fi **races it is important to describe main features, even if that is tradition keeping. Clothing will be fulfilling an important role in communicating attitude or values of a race. Specifically Babylon 5 station was acting as a kind of intergalactic multi-embassy, so there interspecies communication had an undoubtedly major role, and military/survival was relatively less important**, however weigh of these roles this was fluctuating a lot.
On the other hand, the trick, how to make a studio and get in production a sci-fi show like this, with lowest cost possible, will involve the smart (meaning cost-effective here) designing the costumes. People in 1994-1998 (the years of this show) did not really imagined intergalactic embassies as spacesuit festival, but rather more a well-developed biodome in a spacestation. Free hand in clothing also gives more atmosphere representing culture, diplomacy, and affairs.
*Is it reasonable for spacefaring humans to wear clothing similar to that of the 1700s - or even older apparel (such as a toga)?*
As above, in a similar, not movie production depending setup, where need to represent our race at intergalactic diplomacy center, **YES, it is reasonable, but it will be always an important factor, what the other party of the communication percieves - if we want to take that into consideration for success.**
[Answer]
Depends on the role/profession. In a sense, Londo's pretty much always dressed 'formally' and the majority of centauri you see are nobles and other folk who think rather highly of themselves. Considering many modern military ceremonial uniforms are based off or evolved from traditional outfits, its entirely plausible.
Outside of that, its also trying to set a very important cultural example - that *I am dressed in the manner of my people*.
Londo's *the* centauri republic. Its no different from when a female Indian dignitary wears a saree, or an Indonesian ambassador wears a batik shirt.
Londo is not just Londo Molari. He represents the might and glory of the *centauri republic* (not to mention, nearly ever Centuri you see is a noble or at least wealthy).
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[Question]
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We have earth at the beginning of the 15th century, and suddenly the biggest continent disappears. There is nothing left of it, no animals, people, lands, anything.
I don't think the details of the reason to disappear is essential. I want to add that there are no noticeable catastrophes connected with the disappearance itself (there is not mega-tsunami or anything like that). But of course, any effect that the absence has on the climate and environment would follow.
I understand that some people would find out, but I don't see a reason why they would share this information with common citizens. Also, I am curious about how long it would take.
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By **central Europe**, I mean approximately the same area where the [Czech Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic) is located.
By **common people**, I mean those who weren't in a position that would make them exceptionally informed about such things (for example, in the government, very well educated scholars, travelers, etc.).
I imagine some farmer who lives his whole life with his family in the village and travels only to the nearest cities.
By **knowing** I mean that they know that part of land far in the east is not there anymore. And they have at least a vague idea of its size and location.
By **Asia** I mean the part of Euroasia east to the Ural mountains and Ural river. The Arabian peninsula, Anatolia, and the Levant also disappear.
By **disappearing** I mean that all the lands with everything on them are just gone. There is only an ocean now.
---
So:
**Would common people in central Europe in the 15th century have noticed that the whole Asia disappeared? Would this message get to them?**
**If so, how long would it take?**
[Answer]
**People would notice it, but they wouldn't necessarily know what happened**
I'm going to assume you meant that all of the land that makes up Asia just disappeared one day. To answer your question directly at first:
1. **Europe is connected to Asia**: so people at the arbitrary edge at which point Europe turns into Asia would disappear.
2. **Traders would know - and traders gossip**: Entire trade routes would fall apart - no more silk road! People often underestimate how connected the world was back in the good old days. Sure, no one knows about Chinese court politics, but everyone knows where silk is from. Speaking of which, international traders would immediately go bankrupt as their primary source of exotic goods just disappeared. So congrats, the single biggest source of luxury goods in Europe disappeared with all of its people too. All coastal/trading towns would find out about all of this (initially in disbelief) and freak out.
Now for the less intuitive stuff - climate and environment:
1. **Sea levels dropping significantly**: Asia is the largest continent on the planet - 9% of the world's surface area, or 36% of all actual land. So suddenly this is all ocean. The Indian and Pacific Oceans would have to immediately re-adjust themselves to fill up the massive void left by this disappearance, with the Atlantic, Arctic, and Antarctic oceans following suit after. By the Ural river definition, suddenly this river is a ocean coastline. Bringing me to my second point.
2. **TSUNAMIS!!**: Not accurate but hear me out. In order for the above water displacement to occur, it won't necessarily be a smooth process - all the ocean water in the world will slam into the the banks of the Ural river. Such effects will be less significant in let's say the coast of Spain. On the opposite side of things, the Native Americans in California will be pretty confused to see their coastlines increase randomly - as will everyone else later on.
3. **Climate change**: The largest chunk of land on our planet just disappeared - this is bound to have long-term consequences. I have no idea what these could be, but they'll probably be pretty massive. For one thing, the western half of Russia will have a beach now - not something anyone expected. This will mess with weather patterns for whatever is left of the world.
So yeah, changes would be pretty significant. Now what can anyone do about this? Up to you and your story tbh. My estimation is that (other than completely reclusive societies), pretty much everyone will notice something going wrong within a year. They may not know/understand the scale of what just happened, but within a year they will have seen the first climate effects of this disappearance. As word spreads, all of Europe will know that something crazy just happened. I'd assume that word would spread across Africa too (maybe not the Congo, but definitely the West African nations). The Native Americans on the west coast of North America would also notice - as would the Incans and Mesoamerican civilizations - but Iroquois would likely not notice immediately. Assuming that the Americas haven't been discovered, no one in the New World would know what happened.
[Answer]
## Word of mouth says: "An act of God"
People living in France wouldn't see direct evidence of Asia disappearing - but they *would* hear about it soon enough! Eastern Europeans would see direct evidence of the land next to their houses disappearing. Such a catastrophe would immediately spread across the continent through word of mouth because of its religious implications. It would be considered an **act of God**, and the Catholic Church would be forced to interpret and report on its meaning. Your average European may not be educated or informed, but if all of Asia disappeared, that would be a big deal.
## Climate Change is Noticeable
Depending on how deeply you uproot the Eurasian continent, you'll see a *lot* of water flowing into the resulting cavity. Even if you don't want any natural disasters (which such a large flow of water would inevitably cause), imagine sea level all along the coast of Europe sinking permanently, presumably by several feet.
On top of that, water moderates climate. Whereas Eastern Europe once had hot summers and cool winters, it will experience a moderate climate with little seasonal variation - and potentially lots of precipitation.
[Answer]
Common folk in 15th century Europe surely would notice if Asia vanished, though it might take a while.
How?
They'd notice that their "betters", the wealthy and the nobility, quit having new silk garments made (because there was no new silk to make them from).
Servants in the mansions and palaces would notice first, then the word would pass from them to the other commoners (via marketplace gossip, casual mention to relatives, and so forth). Eventually, there would be an increase in plantings of linen and hemp, imports of cotton from Egypt and possibly planting of cotton in southern Italy or Greece, Lebanon, Syria, and so forth (some of Turkey has the right climate, but it's technically in Asia by the old borders).
Ethiopians and Arabs were drinking coffee by this time, and without tea to begin importing along the Silk Road, coffee might tend to invade Europe a couple centuries earlier than it did in our history, because everything in life is better with caffeine.
Those who make a livelihood from mining and trading amber would find most of their market dried up, because the caravans that once carried amber as part of they trade goods against silk stopped.
There would likely be a large number of smaller effects, but these are the most immediately noticeable: the ones that have a large effect on expensive goods.
In the end, it might take as long as ten years before the *reason* for the change was known, when silk/amber caravans started to return with the same goods they'd left with, to report that they'd come unexpectedly to untraveled sea east of, say, Persia (or Turkey, or wherever the actual break occurred). As noted in comments, however, depending exactly where the break actually occurs, the Holy Land (on the Mediterranean side of the Arabian peninsula) vanishing would result in notice reaching France and England as rapidly as people could travel to make the trip from the Bosporus -- possibly as little as a few weeks.
[Answer]
**Yes**
The 15th century Europeans had two qualities which would ensure that everyone knew about this. The first is that they knew that Asia existed, and regularly traded with it. The second quality is that they had quite a powerful religious organization in the Church.
This is how I see the timeline: Asia disappears. A few weeks or months pass, and a traveling merchant band shows up to traverse the Silk Road, only now it ends in a vast ocean. They find this odd, and check around to see if this was some kind of a freak inland sea, but nope, it's water as far as the eye can see. They head back and when the irate nobility is asking for their silk, they explain that China disappeared, what could they expect?
Now, the nobility don't believe them, but when *every* merchant shows up saying the exact same thing, some king of some country (Spain and Portugal are likely candidates at this point) sends an expedition, and wouldn't you know it, but the area which was formerly China is now an ocean. This isn't going to happen overnight, maybe it'll even take upwards of fifty to eighty years, but this will happen. And that's when the Church gets involved. They can't not know about this with the power they had at the time and a massive chunk of landmass turning into ocean has only one conceivable explanation - it's an Act of God.
At which point the tale of how this far-off land full of heathenous non-believers got wiped off the map via divine retribution gets added to the Church's repertoire of stories, and thus all the common people in Europe would find out.
[Answer]
This is kind of a mixed ball of stuff here.
As for the hypothetical village, peoples in villages didn't get around much. It's sort of accepted that the bulk of the population in a village was pretty stationary, with folks living their entire lives never travelling much more than 30 km from where they were born.
Yes, there are traders, nomadic people like the Romani, and the occasional story hero running away to seek fame, glory, and wealth. These would of course be the first to know that some sort of disaster happened to the east. Depending on where your village is, exactly, They will probably know of something within months of it happening.
Here is the thing. *If they know, do they care?* A typical villager is not going to be worried about goods coming along the silk road. They want to know if they are going to have an adequate harvest. They care that the cow is giving milk. If the local lord gets cranky because he can't buy silks and spices, that could cause an impact on the local village, but that's about it.
Of greater importance would be changes to local weather. I'm no climatologists, but the local climate will be impacted in one way or another. That said, the local peasants are not going to be able to connect the disaster in Asia to why they are getting warmer weather and more rain.
So, yeah, they will know something big happened, but they probably won't care because it happened more than 30 km away. To them, that may as well as be on the other side of the planet.
[Answer]
Bringing the Pacific Ocean all the way to the Urals would have a profound impact on travel and geopolitics even if there were no associated weather changes.
The central European powers might consider the states of India, Bactria, Central Asia, and the far East irrelevant, but the powers immediately bordering central Europe would not. Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire effectively now have no strategic threat to their rear - *but* they also have no Asian-facing trade.
The Europe / Arabia / Africa landmass that remains is also now circumnavigable.
The common people might not notice any change in their day to day lives at first, but if suddenly the Ottomans drive on Czech territory, or if following the Reconquista the Portuguese and the Spanish are suddenly sailing on the Pacific coastline of Russia, they might eventually get caught up in the wars that will result as the new power situation moves towards equilibrium.
Edited in response to OP's clarification that Anatolia and Arabia are also gone:
The Ottomans are gone; Mecca and Medina are gone. Islam is destroyed, effectively. The Italians have direct access to the East African coast. The Black Sea and Mediterranean are both now part of the Pacific Ocean. The Dnieper empties into the Pacific! The European powers basically now rumble for dominance of what amounts to "the world".
[Answer]
### Yes, they would notice
They would notice within a couple months at least, a few decades at most, depending on the exact part of the century.
The 15th century was when the printing press was invented, and it spread fast.
Also in the 15th century the Portuguese developed caravels and one dude called [Vasco da Gama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama) made an amazing discovery: they could sail from Lisbon to Calicut in a little less than a year, by passing through the Cape of Good Hope in Africa.
The round trip from Portugal to India by ocean was just a few weeks longer than a round trip from, say, Rome to India by horse. But when you have boats instead of carts, you can bring one or two orders of magnitude more goods back to sell to your european homies. Portugal instantly became a trade power, and in a parallel universe their national anthem would go *"They see me sailin', hey hatin'..."*. Notice that the portuguese were not the only ones trying to pull this off. Columbus found the Americas while trying to one-up Vasco, so you already had people in the oceans searching for new routes to Asia.
Granted, those voyages were all near the end of the century. Vasco reached India in 1498, the same year when Columbus thought he had reached India.
So if your story is happening on the beginning of the century, it will take time. But if it's end of century, you'll have a lot of western Europe navigators scratching their heads and asking *"what the fornication?"*. In a couple months books detailing such sorcery would have reached the centralmost parts of Europe.
By the way, this is a hunch... But I think people around the areas closer to the vanishing Asia would desperately run west and spread the news. If I were a 15th century peasant and the land before my eyes became sea, I would think it would be an announcement of Gog and Magog coming to end the world. I would surely make my way to holy Rome as fast as I could. And while one swallow alone doesn't make a summer, if you have a massive immigration like that central europeans are bound to take notice.
[Answer]
**Most common people in central Europe in the 15th century wouldn't be likely to notice for quite a while if EVERYTHING more than a hundred miles from where they were born vanished.**
The only people who would be likely to notice your proposed scenario would be people directly involved in the Silk Road trade, and even they wouldn't be able to easily tell the difference between "Everybody in Asia disappeared" and "Bandits in Afghanistan are killing everybody who tries to travel through there."
[Answer]
# Yes, everyone on earth would notice it
If the whole land mass of Asia suddenly disappeared then this would soon be very noticeable because of the extreme wind speeds as air and water from the rest of the planet fills up the void. Cities within a hundred kilometers from the Asian border would be blown away, a large part of the world population would be killed within minutes or hours, and central Europe would have some serious storm going on for weeks after.
It would take some time before anybody still alive could tell what happened, but they would definitely notice that *something* happened.
Actually, this might well be a Everyone Dies(tm) scenario...
[Answer]
**They would know something was wrong, but not what it was for a little while**
**Climactic Effects:**
Asia is the largest landmass on earth, and thus it’s massive size has a considerable effect on the climate due to how much heat is reflected by land compared to water. Magically removing Asia would mean that the waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans would suddenly border the Urals, which would then lead to massive warm and wet oceanic conditions flowing into Eastern Europe rather than the cold and dry continental climate. The Czech farmers could get hit with massive rain or snow storms depending on the time of year and the exact changes in wind, which could easily lead to crop failures. A failed crop is a major reason to either leave or seek help, which would cause them to learn the truth given time.
**Sea Level Drop:**
Asia is again a lot of land, and if it is suddenly gone then all of the water around it is going to flow into the continent sized hole. This would lead to perhaps the largest drop in sea levels to ever occur, which would lead to a collapse of ocean ecosystems and fisheries, and would force formerly coastal people to move. Many people would move inland to a more familiar world, and they’d even end up in Czechia given how it wouldn’t take long for refugees to make the trek.
**As people move, so does information**
[Answer]
### Don't forget the Ottoman Empire
Most answers focus on the Far East.
However, the Ottoman Empire was a big player in European politics, having conquered vast territories in the South-East of Europe and was in the process of pushing onward.
The question is based on late medieval Bohemia. Which was directly bordering Hungary. Which in turn was directly bordering the Ottoman Empire, being in near-constant warfare.
So the disappearance of the majority of one of the biggest superpowers in the area (and a possible collapse of the rest of it) would certainly be felt in Hungary, and Bohemia is right next door.
How would simple peasants notice? The vast majority of the armies back then consisted of peasants forming a fighting group leaded by their lords in the summer, then returning to their fields for harvest when the fighting season ended. I wouldn't be surprised if many Bohemians took part in Hungarian-Ottoman wars, either as mercenaries or as allies. Especially as Bohemia and Hungary shared a ruling dynasty for some time in the 15th century.
[Answer]
Huricanes / typhoons.
These things are unknown in Europe because Europe has Asia to the east and the tropical cyclons generally start over the water and move to the west. Now Europe has rather large ocean (pacific + what was Asia) and all the circular atmospheric phenomena, probably even stronger than in east Asia, because they have more ocean to grow in. These things are Noticeable.
[Answer]
So your question poses the situation of the world as it was in the 15th Century, plodding along, until in the blink of an eye, everything east of the Urals, the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, Black and Red Seas, and north of the Indian Ocean, is - *poof* - just gone. No land, no animals, no people, just a massive hole down to bedrock where Russia, China, Mongolia, India, the Arab world and Southeast Asia used to be.
First and foremost, the Egyptians, Greeks, Macedonians and southern Slavs are going to notice almost immediately that the land on the other size of the Gulf of Suez, the eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean and the Black Seas is gone, taking with it many of these cultures' close allies and deadly enemies. Egypt, by the 15th Century, was part of the Ottoman Empire which was very near its peak territorial claim, including most of the Islamic world west of Persia, as well as Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Crimea and a few other strongholds on the northern side of the Med in Europe. These settlements would find themselves suddenly and irreversibly cut off from their power center in modern-day northeast Turkey. North Africa by this time was largely settled by Suuni Arabs, who would also have lost their homeland in the Arabian Peninsula (including the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina). That would be offset, probably with very little celebration, of an end to the Sunni-Shi'ite divide that had made the Persians sworn deadly enemies of just about every other Muslim in the known world for nearly 500 years. The Greeks, already living under fairly brutal Turkish occupation at this time, would be looking across what used to be the Dardanelles, expecting to see modern-day Turkey including the other half of Constantinople, and instead, there's a massive hole in the earth filling with the Mediterranean and Black Seas (we'll get to that). So, geographically close civilizations to the borders of what we call Asia are going to see a difference pretty much immediately, and the most immediate effects would turn the Balkans and what's left of the Muslim world completely upside down.
Secondly, and somewhat less immediately but ultimately much more critically, if Asia's really just *gone*, the rest of the world is going to notice an immediate and very severe drop in sea level. How much? Depends on how deep this new ocean is.
As a very simple estimate, what geographers consider Asia proper, which includes the Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, the Levant and everything east of the Black Sea, is approximately 17.1 million square miles. The total surface area of all saltwater oceans and seas is about 139.4 million square miles. So by literally wiping Asia off the face of the Earth, you've increased the oceans' surface area by about 12% (yeah, only that much, from the world's largest continent; the oceans are *big*). Flip the fraction, and the world's oceans are about 8 times more surface area of the world than Asia.
So, if we have some fun with this, and posit that whomever or whatever removed Asia in the blink of an eye didn't think to replace the continent's subsurface volume with seawater, then by that same token, for every 8 feet deep your soon-to-be Asian Ocean is, the world's oceans get a foot lower. The average depth of the world's oceans is about 12,000 feet, so if we assume that the Asian continent is removed to that depth below sea level, the water required from the rest of the world's oceans would lower global sea levels by a whopping 1,500 feet.
In reality, it would be quite a bit more than that, because we're only thinking about the portion of the Asian continent that is above sea level now. If we also include the continental shelf region, which would include the relatively shallow South China Sea and shallow areas of the Indian, Pacific and Arctic Ocean, that's a lot more cubic miles of volume removed from the Eurasian Plate (and other smaller ones like the Yangtsze, Amur, Sunda, Indian and Arabian Plates) which would lower the ocean that much more. You could very easily drop global sea levels by half a mile or more.
This would be *extremely* noticeable to Middle Age Europe. Within a few hours of Asia's disappearance, one could walk from Calais to Portsmouth across what used to be the English Channel, making the British Isles a permanently-connected part of Norman territory. Within a couple of days, you could walk from Tunisia to Sicily and then to Italy without getting your feet wet, and a few more hours after sunrise, you could do the same across Corsica and Sardinia after the last little bit of deeper water drains. The Med is deceptively deep in places, 17,000' at its deepest in the Ionian Sea between Sicily and Greece, but quite a bit of it would be firm dry land within a week.
Further north, the Baltic Sea dividing continental Europe from Scandinavia is only 1,500' deep, and much shallower at the mouth of the sea between the Jutland and present-day Sweden. It's unlikely the Baltic would fully drain for this reason, as the northern Baltic deepens significantly, but it would be an inland salt sea, much like the deeper areas of the Mediterranean.
Randall Monroe did a What If on the topic of draining the ocean that would probably be of use. Let's see... Yes, here we are. Here's what the world would look like if the oceans were 500 meters lower (a little more than 1600', in the lower range of our predicted ocean level drop):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Rwe9i.png)
... and here's the world after a 1km drop in ocean levels (about 3200', the upper end of a back-of-the-envelope estimate for lost crust volume replaced by water):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dic4X.png)
(Source: [Drain The Oceans - XKCD What If](https://what-if.xkcd.com/53/))
Basically, take these maps, and erase Asia.
The Nordic people would see *massive* gains in land area, offset by the fact that their fjords are dry. The British Isles would have stopped being islands 400m of drainage ago, and they, along with a *lot* of currently-underwater shelf to the south of the Channel, would be under a renewed Norman invasion (the British Fleet's defeat of the Spanish Armada wouldn't make the Brits a dominant world power for another 150 years or so).
The draining of the seas would happen pretty fast, as there would be a ridiculously large area of former Asian shoreline for the seas to drain into. I'd expect seafaring vessels in the Mediterranean and northern Scandinavia to be in for quite a ride east, one they very well may not survive. We are talking about a hole 12,000 feet deep where Asia used to be, after all, so sea floors above that level around the former Asian continent would turn into mile-high waterfalls.
Another slightly interesting thing will happen within hours of the continent's disappearance; as inrushing water, converging on all sides, meets in the middle of the former continent. As if a massive drain in ocean levels weren't enough, within a few hours, the leading edge of each bordering ocean or sea will collide in a fantastic fountain of seawater. A few hours after that, any coastal towns unlucky enough to have villagers exploring the dozens of miles of new beach created will get to experience a tidal wave of the backwash from this mid-sea collision, as the fountain settles back down to (rapidly-decreasing) sea level. So on top of the roughly billion people you just disappeared on the continent itself, add in another few thousand over-curious villagers washed into oblivion by the aftermath.
When everything calms down, there will be some lasting effects far beyond the creation of new land bridges in Europe and Australasia. Without Asia and the Middle East, Europe would not have picked itself back up out of the Dark Ages that consumed most of the first millenium AD and quite a bit of the second. To be fair, most of the developments borrowed from the Far East were a few centuries old in Europe by the Renaissance, however Renaissance Europe continued to benefit from trade and diplomacy with the Ottomans and points east through the Reformation years. It's very likely that this massive disruption in the world order could plunge Europe right back into the Dark Ages, as long-distance trade collapses (all the port cities now being several miles inland, and not all the water routes replace by land bridges), making the Renaissance a dim spot of light in what could end up being more than a millenium of stagnation of human progress in science and technology.
The New World wouldn't be colonized by the Spanish, as Spain's naval might would likely collapse fairly quickly in the 1400s with the loss of its existing ports after the Great Asian Disappearance, far earlier than the defeat of Philip's Spanish Armada by the British in 1588. The British would have some trouble too; no longer isolated by the English Channel and with most Southern English ports now landlocked, we'd very likely see the French and Germans both steamrolling the Brits in competing bids to control the newly-appeared land. The Nordic peoples would be in slightly better shape, especially Norway; their port facilities would be stranded high up in the mountains, but the Scandinavian fjords are natural deepwater ports. The Swedes' and Finns' ports are cut off from the North Sea and Atlantic by the new Jutland Land Bridge, but the Norwegians would be among the least affected, still able to travel to Greenland, Iceland and Nova Scotia. With English and Spanish exploration stymied, we really could be celebrating Eriksson Day instead of Columbus Day, as the Nordic explorers would have an extra hundred years or more to colonize present-day New England and Virginia. As long as they made a lasting peace with the Native Americans, and avoided smallpox (never endemic in Scandinavia, so Native Americans north of the Rio Grande weren't fully exposed to it until English colonization in the 17th Century), it's very likely continental Europeans would never take hold in the New World, and a combination of Native Americans and Nordic settlers would dominate modern-day North American civilization.
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Dropping sea levels and a change in climate have already been covered.
But I have the impression that removing enormous amounts of planet stuff should influence plate tectonics. After all, planet stuff is comparably heavy (although the upper layer must be the lightest part, since the heavier stuff mostly sank to the ground when it was still molten.
Anyway. You remove gigantic amounts of heavy planet stuff, so you reduce the pressure on the relevant tectonic plate(s), which, as we know, swims on molten planet stuff, so this plate will be pushed up (due to the messed-up equilibrium), which should cause some really, really impressive earthquakes in all the fault zones and the border regions of the plate in question.
And massive earthquakes tend to get noticed.
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The beginning of the 15th century was about AD 1401.
At that time Russia was a tributary of the Golden Horde which ruled partially in Europe and partially in Asia.
At that time the Ottoman Turks were expanding from Asia into Europe, and had already moved their capital to Adrianople in Europe.
The Ottomans besieged Constantinople for 12 years from 1390 to 1402, and Emperor Manuel II traveled to western Europe to ask for help. The Ottomans also finished conquering Bulgaria in the 1390s. The Bulgarian capital Tarnovo was captured in 1393, and Tsar Ivan Shishman was beheaded when the Ottomans captured Nicopolis in 1395. The other Bulgarian Tsar, Ivan Sratsimir of Vidin, joined a crusade with western Europeans, Hungary, and Wallachia, but the crusade was crushed at the Battle of Nicopolis on 25 September 1396. The Ottomans then captured Vidin and Ivan Sratsimir, ending Bulgaria, though Constantine II and Fruzhin claimed the imperial titles and sometimes controlled small parts of Bulgarian territory.
Meanwhile, diplomatic relations between the all conquering, cruel, and terrifying Sultan Bayezid I and the even more all conquering, even crueler, and even more terrifying Tamerlane broke down. At the Battle of Ankara on 20 July 1402 the hitherto invincible Ottoman army, with contingents from European vassal states, was crushed by the army of Tamerlane, and Bayezid was captured.
The Ottoman state fragmented into several rival states led by sons of Bayezid who escaped. The "Byzantines" and Italian merchants ferried Ottoman warriors across the straits from Asia to Europe. believing they might need the help of those Ottoman warriors if Tamerlane of the mega massacres invaded Europe. That turned out to be an error, since Tamerlane turned eastward and never again came that far west. But the "Byzantine" Empire and eastern Europe did have a respite from Ottoman invasions for a while.
Eventually the Ottomans resumed their march of conquest, later in the 15th century. Hunyadi Janos, Skanderbeg, and Dracula became national heroes of their respective countries due to their active, and sometimes successful, resistance to the Ottomans.
The Hungarian army was crushed and King Louis II killed, at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. The future Emperor Ferdinand I became King of Bohemia and King of part of Hungary. The Ottomans continued to raid and sometimes invade Europe. Vienna was besieged in 1529 and 1683, and then the tide turned and Hungary was reconquered from the Ottomans in the Great Turkish War of 1683-1700.
All the Habsburg lands, including Bohemia, and all the Holy Roman Empire, including Bohemia, contributed to the Great Turkish War.
At that time the Khanate of the Crimea, an Ottoman Vassal, was constantly sending raiding parties to capture slaves from eastern Europe, while the Barbary States in north Africa, also Ottoman vassals, were constantly capturing European ships and raiding the coasts of the Mediterranean and even occasionally as far as Ireland and Iceland.
And if all the land and people in Asia, and a large part of the populations of the Golden Horde and the Ottomans, disappeared around 1401, what would happen? Would that be better or worse for eastern Europe? Would the Ottomans be too weak to continued invading and conquering Europe, or would they turn all of their energies into invading Europe since they could no longer invade Asia?
So The disappearance of Asia would certainly be big news in Bohemia, even if most Bohemian peasants probably had only a vague notion of where Asia was. And if later news indicated that the Ottomans were a lesser threat, or a greater threat, that would be important news to everyone in Bohemia, since in real history the Bohemians were eventually taxed to pay for anti Turkish warfare to keep the Ottomans as far from Bohemia as possible.
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[***They wouldn't notice for long enough to matter***](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/150899/what-impact-would-a-dragon-the-size-of-asia-have-on-the-environment/150920#150920).
Just ignore the bits about the dragon taking off and you still have your answer: basic planetary destruction at worst, entirely planetary surface remodeling at best.
If you suddenly whisk away several billion cu km of rock (*all the lands with everything on them are just gone*), the rest of the planet isn't going to just sit idly by. People in central Europe won't notice, but the waters of the Arctic, Pacific, Indian & Mediterranean will suddenly begin to flood into the about 200 km deep hole in the planet. Water + 1000 deg rock = loads of explosively ejected steam.
They might notice weird effects as the crust's isosasty is suddenly disequilibrated: sudden pressure release over an area of 44 1/2 million sq km means the mantle shoots up and Europe & much of Africa sink.
Pressure relieved on the planetary core will cause it to explode.
End of all central Europeans and their momentary curiosity over the day's events.
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There would be a dramatic effect on the climate, though it’s hard to say exactly what it would be without access to a climate modelling supercomputer. The dividing line between Europe and Asia is a bit arbitrary, but east winds would only be travelling over hundreds of miles of land instead of thousands, making the climate less extreme. And the Himalayas affect the climate of the whole world.
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# No, at least not what actually disappeared.
What if China and its silk was still there? What if just the land in the middle disappeared and China, Mongolia and half Russia was still there? Big difference in size and economic perspectives.
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If we were talking about knowing that some land disappeared I'd say sure, like many others have. It could be religion when it tries to explain what happened. It could be someone who knows and explains to the farmers why the climate has changed. Or it could travel through gossip and merchants, it's a huge news that will be shortly confirmed by the climate after all.
But while we know that the whole thing disappeared, they'd have no way of knowing it. Maybe everything disappeared but China, making it an island. If it were any other state with lower trading importance they may just assume that it was gone, but in this case people would probably still have hope that maybe only the land in between was gone. And if Europe was still there, maybe also the other side of the continent was still there too.
But they couldn't just go there blindly hoping to find something. From the nearest point to halfway through China there are roughly 4000 km. It took seven years for Columbus to find someone who financed his travel which was, according to his estimation, of roughly the same length (3860 km). The difference is that in that case there were estimations (even if bad) while in our case there are none. In the worse case there is no land at all (they don't know that it's actually like this) and the ship is neither able to go around the earth nor able to return back.
At most they'd be able to reach the border of current China and return back, but even there, there is a big piece of land afterwards that they'd have no way to know if existed. To see if their trading partner was fully gone they'd need to travel 12000 Km in the worst case, which is way beyond what they could do at the time (or willing to do due to the costs and danger).
It's important to notice that the potential disappearance of the whole continent would prevent both Columbus' voyage and the discovery of the sea route to India below Africa. This would probably prevent the Age of Discovery from happening and also inhibit the development of long transoceanic travels far away from any land.
For this reasons it'd take more than two centuries before anyone is actually able to tell the size of what is gone and even there they'd probably just check for China and assume everything else was gone too. This would allow for islands of the size of Europe to be overlooked (like the whole east Russia), but we are not interested in precise knowledge. I'd personally say much more than two centuries, but we are already far too deep into an alternative timeline for that.
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It would be the news of the century, and spread as fast as a messenger could ride to every corner of Europe.
The Ottoman Empire -- aka "The Terrible Turk" was the biggest threat to Christian Europe.
Losing your neighboring threatening superpower would be a huge event. The church bells would ring out in every city, town and village, the news would be shouted form every pulpit and echoed in every street. "The LORD God has smitten the heathen, just as He smote the unbelievers in Noah's day. Mighty is the LORD!"
Expect mass pilgrimages to see the new edge of the world, and new sea trading routes to spring up overnight. And Europena poltics would change completely without a common enemy - or an Ottoman Empire to trade with.
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Litter size varies vastly even in just the world of mammals, from the single spawn of an elephant to the up to 30 children an opossum can have. Obvious, litter size will determine population, cultural views of children, child rearing and even the family dynamics.
Is there a good solid rule for the amount of children a species should have? Perhaps relative to their size or age?
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Litter sizes are influenced by how many offspring an organism needs to produce to carry on a species. Greater numbers of offspring, and thus larger litters, are selected for when extrinsic mortality rates are higher. Insects produce hundreds of offspring to offset their significant infant mortality and predation rates, and short life spans, while long lived mammals like elephants with comparably low premature death rates can afford to put large amounts of effort into protecting the investment of a single offspring.
I got curious, and compiled some data on lifespan and litter size. I was unable to find data on what percentage of species's members survive to adulthood, but I do believe the graph below well illustrates the idea that longer lived creatures have fewer offspring, and thus smaller litters.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eQVVk.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IS8NA.png)
And the raw data, if you're curious. The numbers aren't incredibly precise, but they should be accurate enough for these purposes.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/on2x7.png)
Edit: Here's a [google sheets link](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X7Wlz1YmsrNkiKPdnQJ50DlmUZpbMLDofnQZFPB44s0/edit?usp=sharing) to the data I compiled, so you can play with it if you'd like. Most points draw from more than one source, but the raw data typically represents the the median of the top few google results. Where ranges were given, I took the middle value.
Edit 2: Thanks to @Remi.b for factual corrections.
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The special terms used to distinguish between animals with large litters (and usually short childhoods and little parental investment per offspring) and those with small litters (and usually long childhoods and much parental investment per offspring) are **r-selected** and **K-selected**.
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory):
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> In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity and quality of offspring. The focus upon either increased quantity of offspring at the expense of individual parental investment in r-strategists, or reduced quantity of offspring with a corresponding increased parental investment in K-strategists, varies widely, seemingly to promote success in particular environments.
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## What types of animal are likely to be r-selected (have large litters)?
From the same Wikipedia article (emphasis mine):
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> r-selected species are those that place an emphasis on a high growth rate, and, typically exploit **less-crowded ecological niches**, and produce many offspring, each of which has a relatively low probability of surviving to adulthood (i.e., high r, low K).
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> Organisms whose life history is subject to r-selection are often referred to as r-strategists or r-selected. Organisms that exhibit r-selected traits can range from bacteria and diatoms, to insects and grasses, to various [semelparous](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semelparity_and_iteroparity#Semelparity) cephalopods and mammals, particularly small rodents.
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## What types of animal are likely to be K-selected (have small litters)?
From the same Wikipedia article (emphasis mine):
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> K-selected species display traits associated with **living at densities close to carrying capacity**, and typically are **strong competitors in such crowded niches** that invest more heavily in fewer offspring, each of which has a relatively high probability of surviving to adulthood (i.e., low r, high K). In scientific literature, r-selected species are occasionally referred to as "opportunistic" whereas K-selected species are described as "equilibrium".
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> In **stable or predictable environments**, K-selection predominates as the ability to compete successfully for limited resources is crucial and populations of K-selected organisms typically are very constant in number and close to the maximum that the environment can bear (unlike r-selected populations, where population sizes can change much more rapidly).
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> Traits that are thought to be characteristic of K-selection include **large body size, long life expectancy, and the production of fewer offspring, which often require extensive parental care until they mature**. Organisms whose life history is subject to K-selection are often referred to as K-strategists or K-selected. Organisms with K-selected traits include large organisms such as elephants, humans and whales, but also smaller, long-lived organisms such as Arctic terns.
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## TL;DR:
* Large or predatory animals, with long lifespans, who live in stable environments with high competition levels, are likely to have small litters.
* Small or prey animals, with short lifespans, who live in unstable environments at high population densities, are likely to have large litters.
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Prey species tend to have larger litters than predator species. Species that need a lot of parental attention have smaller litters. Litters are smaller when food is scarce.
These are all points I learned from David Attenborough over the years. :-)
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What **sort of baby** do you want them to have?
The r-selected type of creature which other answers have mentioned (small with large litter size), tend to give birth to **helpless babies** which cannot do anything for themselves. Blue tit chicks, kittens and mouse pups, for example, which are blind at birth, can't walk, can't find their own food, and so on. These are termed [altricial offspring](https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Precocial_and_Altricial.html)
*Exception:* animals which have no parental care, like insects. Fly maggots and butterfly caterpillars are from large litters but can look after themselves from the moment they hatch.
The K-selected creatures (big with small litter size) tend to give birth to **well developed babies** which can walk within minutes or hours and can run/swim at full speed within a day, to keep pace with mum. A caribou calf or a dolphin calf, for instance. In species which don't feed on milk, the baby can also feed itself. So a hen or duck shows her babies what is edible, but doesn't collect food for them. These babies are termed precocial.
*Exception:* being a prey species will tend to drive you in this direction as soon as your body size is too big to hide your babies in burrows. Baby has to be able to escape the snapping jaws of the carnivores! However wild boar still have large litters
**Extremely Notable Exception:** human beings. We are a big K selected creature with a helpless baby. Human babies don't even learn to crawl for several months after birth. Compared to chimp babies, they are hopelessly underdeveloped. This contradiction is evolution in action - becoming bipedal and big-brained has forced a helpless baby on humanity as a compromise.
Soooo... if you want creatures which are just humans with the serial numbers filed off, make them big creatures with small litters of helpless babies.
However, if you want them to be a more 'typical' big mammal, they'll have small litters of well developed babies. In human terms, they'll give birth to a child which is as large and active as a toddler.
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So, this answers your question in a different direction, but for mammals, a good guess at litter size is half the number of nipples. Litters are sometimes bigger, and sometimes smaller, but the ability for the mother to feed her young tends to control mammalian litter sizes.
For egg laying species, the litter size seems to be a function of how many eggs you can fit in the mother (see the Kiwi bird).
Aside from that, infants that are born relatively complete tend to be born in large numbers, while infants that require more development outside of the mother tend to be born in smaller numbers. What's the critter you're trying to design?
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I would say, no, there is no good solid rule that exists. Birth rate and parental investment are strategies. If the strategy a species "chooses" results in a birth rate that lags their death rate, that species will go extinct.
We need to remember that there were millions of extinct species, that for very long periods, had solid winning birth rate strategies and then, due to some environmental change, that strategy, unchanged, became a loosing strategy. If we had asked the average passenger pigeon whether or not he thought his birth rate strategy was a good one, I'm sure he would have answered "you betcha" anytime before 1800. But then over the course of a very few years, that strategy turned out to be for the birds.
At the end of the day, we might consider the idea that NO FIXED BIRTH RATE STRATEGY WILL BE SUCCESSFUL OVER A LIMITLESS PERIOD OF TIME. The more dynamic the environment, the more likely a fixed birth rate strategy is to move from successful to failing. Many species do exhibit variable birth rates directly impacted by various environmental factors such as food availability or weather conditions. Variable or Reactive birth rate strategies may provide some protection against strategy failure due to dynamic environmental changes.
So, at any moment in time, the environmental conditions at hand will result in a certain death rate for a species, depending on their adaptation to the demands of that environment. If the species has a birth rate strategy that results in a positive population growth, that species will survive or thrive. If not, that species will decline until the environmental conditions shift back in their favor or they go extinct.
What this means is, refer to cinnamon18's answer above - choose what your death rate will be for this hypothetical species, based on the environment you design for them to live in and the adaptations you give them, then choose a birth rate that results in a slightly positive population growth and you will have selected the strategy that you would have been most likely to observe if your species had evolved naturally and you had observed them at most any time during their existence from speciation through extinction.
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It seems to be a recurring idea in science fiction that some industrial tools, especially mining tools, are extremely sturdy and reliable to the point that in certain combat situations where durability is the top priority they outshine even military grade weapons. This trope was seen in Dead Space, and one of the more recent well-known examples is Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 where a mining ship with a laser drill shows great durability.
My question comes down to two points:
1. Is the idea that mining tools are designed to be very durable grounded in reality at all, and if so what's the reason for it? Of course tools for hitting stuff will definitely need to be durable, but is there a reason that mining tools would be made to specifically prioritize durability while military equipments may not be? (e.g. military tools are meant to be easily replaceable for some reason)
2. Whether or not the idea is grounded in reality, what kind of situations and combinations of factors (besides availability: assume both are equally accessible) that can be formulated in science fiction could lead to a case where a character chooses mining tools over weapons in combat?
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> Is the idea that mining tools are designed to be very durable grounded
> in reality at all, and if so what's the reason for it?\*
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Absolutely it is. I'm going to talk primarily about machinery here, and the key point is that in a working mine, the machinery works 24/7. The workers may trade shifts, but the trucks and the mining drills and everything else is expected to be able to run all day, every day, for years at a time with minimal maintenance because if one thing stops, usually it makes a lot of things stop and that costs the mine money. For mining equipment, reliability is THE most critical factor.
Military machinery, by contrast, is designed for performance. The extent to which durability and endurance are compromised for the sake of performance can vary a lot depending on the expected use though. Think about civilian versus military aircraft for a minute. Like mining gear, passenger aircraft run 24/7/365. Airlines want to own the fewest possible number of airframes to get the job done, so the ones they have are constantly in operation. Crews swap out, but the planes will be in continuous operation for weeks or even months between maintenance. Military combat aircraft aren't like that. They're designed to experience extremely demanding use for brief spurts, with lots of time for maintenance in between combat sorties. Modern fighter aircraft may require ten or fifteen hours of maintenance for each hour they spend in the air. The [F-35 takes FIFTY.](https://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/feature/5/179243/navair-projects-f_35-to-need-50-maintenance-hours-per-flight-hour.html)
It varies by nation too. As much as the German tanks of WW2 were lauded as having incredible performance (and they did), [they were maintenance divas](https://history.army.mil/html/books/104/104-7/cmhPub_104-7.pdf). Everything was designed to work as well as it possibly could, but that meant the Panzers (and ESPECIALLY the Tigers) broke down constantly and needed enormous amounts of attention from very highly trained crews to keep them running. The Russian T-34 by comparison was designed to be crewed and maintained by illiterate farmers who had never seen anything more sophisticated than a farm tractor. One on one a T-34 was far less capable than a Panther, but because it was easier to build and easier to maintain, the Russian army had six or seven T-34s for every Panther or Tiger the Germans could keep on the field.
You can look at the M16 versus the AK47 too. Although the issues were eventually addressed, the M16 was designed to be light and easy to carry. Reliability was not the most critical feature which is why the M16 has a mechanism that allows dirty air from the barrel back into the working mechanisms which makes them require much more diligent cleaning. The AK47 by comparison is much heavier for the same relative performance, but has looser tolerances and a design that makes it MUCH more difficult to jam, and fair easier to maintain.
**TLDR: Durability and endurance is a primary design requirement for mining equipment. Military equipment frequently sacrifices those qualities for performance, with the expectation that there's going to be plenty of time for maintenance between fights.**
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The only scenario where this makes any sense is if the people who made your mining gear are working with a MUCH higher technology level than the people who made the military equipment that's available to you. The Star Trek reboot was a good example of this, where a mining vessel is a lethal threat to fleets of warships because it has the advantage of a couple hundred years of technological development. A modern [Cat D5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar_D5) with a bit of field modification would be practically unstoppable on a WWI battlefield, for example.
**But otherwise, no. Military gear is never going to be inferior in combat to mining gear in any realistic scenario. Mining gear might stand up to more PUNISHMENT, but it's not going to be a more effective WEAPON in any reasonable scenario.**
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## No, not really.
**Dead Space is a game about engineer stranded on a mining space-ship fighting off space-zombies. Primarily, mining and construction tools are what he has access to.** Secondarily, space-zombies in DS are animated by space-magic emanated by space-artefacts, said space-magic makes them impossible to kill and keeps them going forever. Main character's only chance at respite is though dismemberment of space-zombies into space-chunks fine enough as to be rendered harmless to his space-armour clad self. He needs to put some space between different parts of space-zombies, if you will. Those factors have dual purpose of forcing him to use repurposed tools along with rendering many actual weapons, designed to kill entities animated by internal organs instead of space-magic, relatively inefficient because said weapons are unable to disrupt space-magic with same efficiency they disrupt internal organs. You can be space-sure that actual space-weapon space-designed for space-dismembering space-zombies would easily outperform space-engineer's space-makeshift space-weapons, not to even space-mention any space-weapons space-designed to space-disrupt space-magic itself. Space.
**In scenarios not convoluted by space-magic there is no practical reason why mining or construction tools should be more effective weapons than weapons themselves.** **[Killdozer](https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/09/killdozer-day-marvin-heemeyer/) might sound awesome, but** at 47880.5 kg, the Komatsu D355A (model of a bulldozer used) is already close to typical weight of a [Main Battle Tank](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_battle_tank), factor in makeshift steel/concrete armour it was fitted with and we are definitely looking at MBT weight class. **In a fight between MBT and Killdozer odds are such that bet of 1\$ on MBT will get back 1\$**. Would Marvin Heemeyer use MBT had he access to one? I bet he would, but that's the crux of the issue, he didn't. However he didn't need one as he didn't intend to fight proper military. He was planning on committing terrorism through property destruction, thus facing only civilians and police, to which his makeshift tank was well enough.
**Sure, you can argue about durability and maintenance cost**: contrary to popular belief military equipment breaks all the time and requires constant maintenance, similar ratios of mechanical failure, associated costs and delays would be unacceptable for any enterprise, but for armies around the world that's the price of operating equipment fulfilling conflicting requirements. As long as you are not actively being shot at, malfunction isn't that much of a problem, war is "Months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror" after all while enterprises go to great lengths to eliminate idle time of pretty much everything, from employees to equipment. **If reliability is a price of your tank being an effective tank, then so be it.** Killdozer might cost less to run per unit of distance and require less maintenance but does it really matter if as a weapon it's only good for running over handicapped people and MBT with broken engine could destroy it from 8km away within 10 seconds of attaining visual contact?
**All equipment is designed for some purpose, with some constraints and intended for certain operational parameters. Crucial difference is in what said purposes, constraints and operational parameters are, for military equipment it's "killing people with vaguely analogous equipment" and "keep operators alive", for mining or construction gear it's "maximising profit".** Now, as recent issues with John Deere show, just whose profit is being maximised is entirely different matter...
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Combat equipment has to travel long and fast. Take for example the difference between Light, Medium and heavy tanks.
Heavy tanks are far superior in armor and weapons to light and medium tanks, but due to the weight of its parts it becomes a nightmare to deploy to the battlefield because of its low speed and high fuel cost. Add to this the fact that their low manoeuvrability makes them easy targets for fast attackers like CAS bombers.
Mining equipment on the other hand won't be moving much by itself. Once it is in the mine it does its thing, no need to dodge bombers and if it has to move a great distance other vehicles would probably carry it to its destination.
Additionally, mining equipment are often at risk of cave ins and will have to be able to carry a large amount of weight to do their job properly. So there is logic in using mining equipment for combat when the goals lies closer to a form of static defense then offensive purposes.
Now for the reason why mining equipment might be preferable, I don't really think there is any. Military equipment will (often) be adjusted to the needs of the battlefield. So the only reason somebody would use mining equipment for combat would be desperation (but as you said they are both equally accessible so that won't be the case).
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Logistics costs. Mining is a commercial enterprise; if using tougher kit makes it easy to keep a site up and running with reduced repair and resupply costs, some spreadsheet wrangler is eventually going to point this out and things will be adjusted accordingly. Conversely, companies often cut corners when they can, because spending money eats into profits and no-one wants to do that.
Military actions aren't necessarily commercial in nature, and the primary goal is to keep your peeps alive in the face of people who'd rather they weren't, and to ensure that the other side's desire to die for their country is facilitated as quickly as possible. In *that* regard, there's scope for throwing money at a problem to keep a supply of less-than-indestructible gear flowing towards the front lines. Conversely, gear that can't survive harsh use and abuse in a huge range of environments under very trying circumstances isn't really fit for purpose, and if all your peeps get killed because the equipment you have them wasn't any good, your operation is going to fail and there's a small chance that heads of higher-ups will end up on spikes, and they definitely don't want that.
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> Whether or not the idea is grounded in reality, what kind of situations and combinations of factors (besides availability: assume both are equally accessible) that can be formulated in science fiction could lead to a case where a character chooses mining tools over weapons in combat?
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Has your enemy remain in their current location for the past five hundred million years, at least? Are they made of rock? Have at em.
For everything else, only desparation will drive you to using unsuitable kit. Military explosives are much more easily deployed than mining explosives, especially at range and in a hurry. There are no mining guns. Even mining lasers, as and when such things even come to exist, will be very short range (and probably *fixed* range too, so don't get too close) because that's a far easier thing to build and the rock you're mining isn't going to run away or charge at you with murder in its eyes. Military equipment is designed be carried, by humans, for extended periods of time. Not to put too finer point on it; it is designed to *kill* humans and smash their toys, and do so efficiently and effectively. Mining gear? Not so much.
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Mining tools are made to crush, destroy, pullverize SPACE stuff. Things made in space scale temperatures mixed with space pressure.
On Mohs Scale diamond is 10, the hardest mineral. Hardened steel is just 8. You design tools for that to be used days after day after day for 8-12 hours a day. While your military equipment is designed to "work" for minutes if not seconds.
Overheating a gun is something written into maintenance of it. The German MG-42 had a special "ironmaster glove" so the operator could touch, to remove barrel, and install new one. As you can imagine stopping a weapon and making it useless for few minutes is a weak point. Especially when you know that it overheats when it's used and using a weapon means you are in danger.
Yet it's the drill that can go on and on and on, while there is plenty of time and nothing that can kill you if you stop.
Like there is some need for a machine to work tirelessly without a stop to provide profit and mine profitable resources while human beings fighting a war is just an easily replaceable item. So there is almost no reason to make military equipment very durable and long lasting when the operator is the weakest link that, if killed or captured, make the equipment wasted.
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I want to offer an alternative perspective.
The military pays for the cheapest bid offered, sometimes there is corruption involved. The equipment might under preform(think of the M16 in Vietnam) and the cost is mostly in human lives, but grunts are not that expensive to replace (unless you are thinking of *starship troopers* type infantry where each soldier is a highly trained specialist). so the contractor updates the design(and bills the military of course) and so on...
Now think of a private mining company, they cant afford to work in this way, if they buy the cheapest ship design and it under performs the shareholders aren't getting the returns they expect and the CEO's job is on the line, so the private sector ends up with more durable equipment that performs solidly while the army might end up with more experimental tech that can go either way
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It's probably fair to say that most people aren't familiar with the realities of military or mining equipment, much less space military and space mining. They see on TV that tanks and humvees look bigger and bulkier than their Honda Civic, so they assume military=tougher. They see that earth moving equipment looks even bigger and bulkier, so they assume that mining=tougherer. Part of it is probably that miners themselves are depicted as tougher and rougher than even military (who are shown having varying degrees of professionalism), so it "follows" that their equipment must be likewise tougher and rougher. Whether the writers themselves are also under this misapprehension is moot, as the audiences have this expectation and the writer must cater to it. Even car manufacturers (and those of other consumer goods) exploit this trope by making products bulkier, with a camo/industrial pattern, and calling it military/industry grade. So I would say there is not much basis to it, it's almost entirely a product of marketing at this point, especially with very popular media like the ones you mention.
In reality, the durability of both mining and military equipment can vary a great deal, and the only thing we can say for sure is that both will probably be at least a little more durable than cheap consumer goods that are explicitly designed for planned obsolescence.
Agility has historically been very important in almost every military context, from swords and rifles to battleships and aircraft carriers. When somebody is trying to attack you, moving away is always a fair option, as is going around their defenses when they are trying to defend. In mining, being able to move fast is not as important, so you can expect military equipment to be faster, while mining equipment is heavier (though not necessarily stronger as that depends on type of material as well).
However, the military deals with actual intelligent hostile actors. In mining the risks can be controlled. So mining equipment does not need particularly strong armor or any active defenses. For example, an infantry helmet is probably not "weaker" than a plastic hard hat, nor would you expect to find stronger body armor on miners than troops.
Militaries develop their own doctrines, and the nature of their designs is influenced by economics, resources, technology and many other things. An imperialistic military might be driven to cut costs and use cheap equipment to maximize the profit margins of its adventurism. Or perhaps there is a strong military-industrial sector that manipulates the government into overspending on overengineered designs. Maybe in your setting, slow and lumbering spaceships have an advantage (for example, spherical energy shields that exploit the square-cube law). Or maybe the military is not militaristic at all: For example, in Star Trek the "soldiers" walk around in tights and the ships seem fragile, but they're not really meant to be dreadnoughts, but vessels of diplomacy and exploration. Maybe with humanity going to space, central governments become very weak, and militaries are just underfunded, vestigial organizations who have all but faded into irrelevance as giant asteroid mining mega-corporations raise space armies that put the East India Company to shame.
On the mining side, it is worth recognizing that the miners themselves are likely capitalist entities, as are the suppliers of their equipment. You would expect designs to tend towards whatever maximizes profit. This can be extremely durable equipment, or very flimsy, throwaway but cheap equipment. The efficiency of the market is also a factor. With large, well-governed mining corporations, the equipment manufacturers may expect serious scrutiny of their product and thus aim to produce quality. But if miners are either bloated enterprises or many small time individuals, they may be more susceptible to deceptive marketing and the equipment may be low quality as a result. This may result in equipment that is needlessly heavy without providing much durability (made from cheap but bulky materials so it can be marketed as "tough"), or equipment that is very flimsy (made to save cost on materials and marketed as "agile" and "sleek"). The nature of the mining is also a big factor - on Earth, miners must deal with moving a lot of earth. In space, you pay for every pound that goes to orbit, but since it costs about the same amount of fuel to go to any part of the asteroid belt, maybe people will favor ultralight mining rigs and beeline for whichever asteroid is the most effortless to mine.
So ultimately there are many factors influencing equipment design on either side. But as a rule, I would expect military equipment to focus more on maneuverability, but also be better protected, especially against active threats such as missiles. Additionally, the military might suppress the manufacture of mining equipment that is particularly combat-worthy, in order to maintain its own monopoly of force. Beyond that, it all depends on the particular military, and the particular mining industry.
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> what kind of situations and combinations of factors (besides availability: assume both are equally accessible) that can be formulated in science fiction could lead to a case where a character chooses mining tools over weapons in combat?
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The obvious reason is that they are a miner and have more experience with mining equipment. It may also be that military equipment is harder to use, perhaps because the users are assumed to have extensive academy training, while mining equipment is simple because the mining companies don't want to spend money on training their staff.
Generally they may be in a unique situation where mining equipment afford a tactical advantage because it is so different from the threats the enemies usually faces, and they are not prepared for it. For example, somebody mentioned the killdozer, which was effective because police don't normally have much anti-armor capability given that most criminals don't use armored vehicles. Of course anti tank weapons could always be easily obtained, but that takes time, thus giving the killdozer the element of surprise. Maybe the action takes place somewhere deep in the atmosphere of Jupiter, where there is rarely any need for military intervention, so military ships are simply not designed to cope with the environmental hazards, whereas mining ships are.
The big problem with this is that if a piece of mining equipment was superior in combat, the military would also use it. More importantly, their enemies would use it, and the military would develop countermeasures. So if you are going to have a mining tool outperform comparable military tools, the reason should be something that is very circumstantial and one time thing, unless you intend for the user to be a brilliant tactician.
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Military equipment has to be light enough to be transported - often by human power - to the unpredictable locations where it will be used for an unpredictable but probably short length of time, after which it might well be abandoned rather than transported back to a military base. Assuming, of course, that it is not destroyed by enemy action.
Mining equipment generally gets used in a known location, probably for an extended period. Thus it makes sense to make it durable.
Now the question of whether it's "tougher" really depends on how you define tough. A mining truck like the Caterpillar 797 series <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caterpillar_797> can withstand having 350+ tons of rock dumped in it day after day for years, but might easily be disabled with a few\* heavy rounds to the tire sidewalls. A tank might shrug off those rounds, but be immobilized by having that much rock dumped on it.
\*I admit I'm guessing here, not having one to experiment with.
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In the real world, I work for a company that uses both mining equipment, and "military spec" equipment. None of the fun stuff, unfortunately, just industrial equipment that's certified to meet the military's durability/ruggedness standards. I can say that there definitely *is* some truth to the trope, but it's not a straightforward comparison like trope tries to make it. Each of these problem domains defines "durable" quite differently.
"Military grade" equipment might be manufactured to standards like [MIL-STD-810](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-810), [MIL-STD-461](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-461), or [MIL-STD-167](https://keystonecompliance.com/mil-std-167/). These standards define durability requirements based on the conditions normally encountered on a battlefield or in a specialized environment like a submarine. They include things like:
* Immunity to certain electromagnetic interference
* Ability to operate in extreme environmental conditions (temperature, air pressure, humidity, dusty air, combustible atmosphere, etc)
* Ability to withstand shock, explosion, vibration, and sudden acceleration (G-forces)
* Limits on generated noise, electrical interference, power consumption, vibration, or heat
The equipment may not have to run in these conditions 24/7, but it needs to be able to handle them for a certain period of time.
Contrast this to mining equipment. The stresses imposed on mining/digging/drilling equipment are much less diverse. The equipment will primarily be exposed to mechanical stresses: impact/shock, friction, shear forces, etc. As you go deeper underground, the temperature and pressure also increase. After a mile or so down they can reach far beyond anything you'd ever see on the surface. Mining equipment spends its *entire life* under these sorts of stresses.
Military-grade equipment can't survive at the bottom of an oil well, the pressure and temperature can be far beyond what it's designed to handle. Similarly, there's a giant list of battlefield conditions that mining equipment isn't designed to handle. It's less that one is 'tougher' than the other, and more that each is specialized for a different set of conditions.
One use case for this trope is against heavy armor. Military ships are designed to defend against military weapons. Using a non-conventional weapon can sometimes grant an advantage. For example, a tank has a metal shell that is designed to repel most weapon fire. That metal began its life as buried ore, which was dug out, refined, and cut to size. The tools used to mine/cut the metal during manufacturing are obviously stronger than the metal, so you could use industrial tools to penetrate the hull of a tank. In the real world this is usually beyond impractical, but in sci-fi, anything goes.
Another use case you sometimes see is (as you mentioned) to defend against weapons. Military weapons are designed for attacking military targets. They're not designed to attack industrial equipment, so you may be able to use this to your advantage. A heat ray that might destroy a starfighter wouldn't even slow down a deep-core drilling ship because that puny ray is peanuts compared to what it deals with for hours each day. However, something as simple as blowing a bunch of dirt in the engine's air intake could completely neutralize the mining ship.
While there's some truth to the trope, it's really not specific to mining equipment. It's more a matter of military equipment vs. <insert random non-military equipment here>. It's the same trope that allowed Ewoks to defeat imperial walkers. One's not objectively *tougher* than the other, it's just that in this particular situation you're stronger against their weakness than they are against yours. Anyone who's played the Pokémon series of games also knows this type of tradeoff system well.
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Since this is sci-fi, one such scenario would be where weapons are cheap, but warp drives are punishingly expensive. War requires mobility, and that mobility comes with a cost. Let's say for example that it costs 1-3 space bucks per kilo to build a laser, any laser, but a warp drive costs 1000 space bucks to be able to move that kilo of laser quickly. This would force warships to be as small as possible.
In contrast, a laser can be made huge as long as you don't need it to go FTL. So, you can either afford a 50 tonne gun ship with really top end weapon systems that can be deployed over long distances, or a 50,000 tonne slow moving ship that can cut massive asteroids in half. The mining ship will still need at least some modifications to be a viable weapon such as a proper targeting system and probably some jimmy rigging to allow the beam to focus over long ranges, but as long as you can get it to sometimes land a hit, it could in theory be quite devastating through sheer advantage of scale.
**So why not just make a bunch fortress worlds protected entirely by 50,000 tonne weapon platforms?**
The answer to this is planetary bombardment. Ships are small and fast. Hitting them requires relativistic weapons fired at ranges short enough to make evasive maneuvering ineffective (probably 1 light second or less). In contrast, planets are really big and predictable. If you just want to blast someone's capitol city, you can plot out shots from very far away. If a shot is fired from 60 light seconds away at 0.95C, you will not see it until it is only 3 light seconds away giving your defenses very little time to aim and fire countermeasures to stop it. If an FTL fleet finds a tightly packed ring of weapon platforms, they just bombard the planet until it surrenders.
This means actually protecting a planet requires jumping out to meet attackers with your own FTL ships to engage them well before they get into range.
Mining ships however are not warships. And no one expects them to have the targeting systems needed to be warships; so, when your FTL fleet has been defeated, and the enemy fleet moves inside of 1 light second to claim their prize, your modified mining ships can turn to shoot them to devastating effect. In this since, they remain a special tactic that is very effective when executed, but smaller FTL ships still remain the normal military doctrine.
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Money.
If the mining equipment is more expensive than the military stuff, it will be better quality.
This is not that unreasonable; mining is a multi-billion industry, vitally important to all infrastructure. A large, world spanning mining company easily has the profit to invest in the most cutting edge.
It's not like the olden days when mining was just a small underpaid army with pickaxes to extract ore; in a high tech setting to mine a mountain all you need is a dozen operators with million dollar equipment. Being a miner can be a very high paying job using uniquely developed equipment (especially depending on what you're mining - the more valuable the ore, the better the equipment).
In Guardians of the Galaxy (to take your example), they were mining space god brains. That stuff has to be worth a lot. Little wonder the company invests in some very tough and reliable machines.
Meanwhile, military suffers budget cuts. In real life, a very large portion of military equipment was designed in the 80s and never modified since. Also lot of military budget is dependent on political climate and economy - it's quite easy for soldiers to be under equipped. Guns and weapons become obsolete quickly. Plenty of nations even today have armies which are... lacking.
It's quite possible, even realistic, for very large mining companies to have more investment and development money than national militaries. The miners are more valuable than the soldiers.
If the mining has the most investment behind it, then the miners will have the better toys.
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There are lots of good answers for 1, let me post some thoughts on 2.
What could drive our sci-fi heroes to construction or mining equipment? Military equipment built by humans is designed to fight humans. If we suddenly run into an opponent that is decidedly not human-like, we will be scrambling. Rifles work great, but poking a 5.56mm hole in that zombie doesn't seem to do much. How about goo monsters? Swarms of knee high insects? We can build military gear to deal with these threats, but not overnight.
Give the players a problem and watch. It'll be great.
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The best answers can be found in the basic differences between mining and military endeavors.
**Mining is a for-profit venture; war is an economic black hole.** Mining is a venture whose financial backers expect to see a return on investment. That investment can be significant, but a high rate of return can very easily justify higher cost of entry into a market. That typically calls for the purchase and introduction of vehicles designed to last a good long time, so you pay the cost once and get the value of the equipment for as long as it can do the job.
War, by contrast, is an environment that is specifically designed and intended by all participants to ensure as large a net loss as possible for all involved parties, because the higher the cost of the war in men, equipment and supplies, the less likely the people will have the means and willpower to continue paying it. As such, the economics of war have generally favored making things that are ultimately as expendable as possible while still getting the job done, because the expectation is that you will lose these things sooner rather than later. It's only been recently that it's become fashionable to design military materiel with an underlying mentality that the vehicle will be too expensive to risk in direct combat.
**The enemy of a miner is nature; the enemy of a soldier is another soldier.** Mining is generally an activity pitting man against the forces of nature; nature can be very harsh, especially in more exotic environments like deep underground or in space, but it has limits defined by physical laws. Nature also isn't *intelligently* trying to kill people and break stuff; its destructive capabilities are guided by physical laws dependent on the exact underlying conditions of the region in which you are working, which only coincidently put various human developments in their path. As such, anything you build specifically to survive the ambient working environment is generally going to do so, *as long as* you know the full range of conditions within that environment, and are capable of producing equipment that can tolerate any condition within that range.
Combat, in contrast, is a working environment specifically engineered by its intelligent human participants to destroy anything and anyone in it. As such, that environment will adapt, under intelligent influence, specifically to counter any attempt to better survive it. Build a stronger combat vehicle that can withstand multiple hits by any weapon the enemy has fielded so far, and the enemy will eventually field a more powerful weapon. The ability of humans to destroy has very rarely been stymied by the ability of humans to resist destruction, and never for very long in the grand scheme of things. The last serious technological defensive strategy that truly stymied assault tactics of the time was the medieval castle, ultimately meeting its match in the gunpowder cannon. At present, pretty much anything designed to be fielded in combat with the expectation it will survive can be fairly easily destroyed by something else in someone's arsenal.
**In mining, speed is secondary to safety. In combat, speed *is* safety**. In mining, the least risky action in the general case (outside an imminent acute hazard to life) is to do nothing. If you don't dig, the mine is less likely to kill you than if you do dig. Digging is how you make money, so you do have to dig, but acting hastily on spur of the moment decisions is how people die in mines. Measured decisions based on exacting observation, executed with care, keeps miners alive. Slower movement also allows other advantages like fuel efficiency that reduces operating costs, and mechanical advantages like better leverage against whatever the equipment is working with. Being fast and powerful costs more money, so if you don't have to be fast, you can be powerful for much less money.
In combat, doing nothing is the fastest way to die. Pretty much any weapon ever devised by humans is most effective against someone not trying to get away from it. That may sound self-evident and it probably is, but it means that combat vehicles have to balance the ability to survive the hits they can, with the ability to evade the hits they can't survive. Speed, even for larger materiel, is a primary aspect of most mil-specs, and it necessarily figures into power-to-weight considerations as well as cost. At a certain point, favoring speed requires a fundamental limitation in survivability that a mining vehicle would not have.
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Military equipment has an expiration date, for all intents and purposes. If a war is expected to last for 5 years, why mass-produce weaponry that will last for 20 years?
Example 1: This is the sort of thing we see with German Panther tanks versus Russian T-34 tanks. Sure, an individual Panther was better, but the Russians better understood the temporary nature of war machines.
Example 2: If memory serves, Merlin engines in WW2 were expected to last about 3 months.
Mining equipment is expensive too, but is generally paid for by a company who cares about profit and loss. An expensive machine that wears out or breaks is a non-starter.
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In a peacefull society/setting mining is still done every day. However millitary equipment has not been actually battle-tested for tens/hundreds/thousands of years and might therefore not actually work (well).
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The SCP is an organization created after World War 2 that deals with threats to our species and the entire planet: mystical or alien artifacts, world-ending events, ancient monsters or gods that predate humanity, and other things best left unsaid. They require the cooperation of world governments and other interested parties that are informed of the necessity of this organization and their sometimes-brutal methods. They retain their secrecy by containing or eliminating threats, and making those who know things they shouldn't, disappear. They are also responsible for discovering how the artifacts work, and they use various groups of people (prisoners, witnesses, etc.) as guinea pigs.
In the past, it was relatively easy to conduct their affairs in secret. However, the world in 2018 is much different than the 1940s. We live in the age of Facebook and Twitter, where a picture posted on the internet can last forever. Cellphone cameras and GPS have made it more difficult to remain anonymous. Loved ones of prisoners and "disappeared" people are making noise and asking questions. People cannot just vanish without a trace anymore. The world is getting smaller everyday, with the advancement of technology and its availability to the public. Ambitious journalists eager for a story have taken to wiretapping and recording conversations with officials. In addition to this, politics is becoming more and more divided. A controversial president has been elected who has thrown his government into chaos with his constant firings, antagonism towards the media, and arguably divisive relationship with his colleagues. Government leaks have become a constant issue, and it is becoming much harder for governments to keep secrets.
This has thrown the SCP into a tailspin and has them worried. The constant issues with politics and tech are surpassing the protections they have in place. Some consideration has been given to using the artifacts they possess to move the needle in their favor. However, many of these are barely understood, and often lead to unintended and disastrous consequences when used.
***How can they continue to retain their power and autonomy?***
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While certainly painting with a broad brush, people vanish without a trace all of the time. Even more so in the "not first world" countries. If the organization has any complicity with the government, at any level, it gets even easier as investigations get neglected or shut down.
Do people make noise? Sure they do, but the question becomes whether anyone is listening. A lone fathers eternal vigil for their child tends to be just that: alone. Shared closely, but never really expanding to greater attention. Not every family [puts a billboard on their property](https://ew.com/tv/2018/10/06/cold-justice-finale-murder-case-inspired-three-billboards/) calling out crimes.
The bigger problem isn't the individual "disappearances", its any higher level of pattern that perhaps can be intuited over time. But even then, that's "crazy talk". Books like this are written all the time. Folks love reading about a conspiracy! But then there's the problem: it's a conspiracy.
While "the internet" does give people a voice, it also gives EVERYONE a voice. "Signal to noise" ratio on "the internet" isn't really regarded as high quality.
Large organizations are implicitly inefficient and filled with "lossy" communications. There's LOTS of cracks for important details to fall in to and never be seen again. Navigated by an expert team, remaining hidden "in plain sight" can be done.
Finally, as anyone who's done any real digging in to, well, most anything, we find that the eternal memory of the internet is anything but. Link rot is real, Google is not all seeing, web sites come and go all the time. So, even then, digital vigils can eventually fade.
So I simply assert that the problem isn't perhaps as difficult as you may think it is. Watching some episodes of the X-Files as a resource of cover up colliding with bureaucracy is probably a useful exercise.
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Leaving aside the concerns regarding organisations that "retain their secrecy by containing or eliminating threats, and making those who know things they shouldn't disappear," there are several ways they can stay out of sight.
## 1. Camouflage
They have access to the personnel files of every security agency worldwide, and can easily insert identification for their agents, as and when necessary, then remove it afterwards without leaving a paper trail. The public won't see the SCP kidnapping people, they'll see the KGB or Mossad.
## 2. Hiding in Plain Sight
The SCP's a famous movie company, releasing such hits as "Men in Black", which is about a secret government agency protecting the world from aliens; "S.H.I.E.L.D.", about a secret WWII government agency dealing with extraordinary threats; "Hellboy",a secret government agency protecting the world from "Mystical or alien artifacts, world ending events, ancient monsters or gods that predate humanity, and anything else best left unsaid"; "Indiana Jones"; "The X-Files" and many more. SCP is killing people to stop them telling the world about the supernatural? The movie company, *that* SCP? Come on, it's obviously a publicity stunt! I can't believe you actually thought it was real!
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Actually it's easier than ever. To address some points:
Everyone knows the internet is full of fakes. A few decades ago, a photo was a certain proof that something exists. Today your realistic smartphone footage of bigfoot might be photoshopped by a fifteen year old living in their parents basement. Only idiots believe all those conspiracy theories without proof from a credible source. (And if SCP exists, they certainly run the majority of fact-checking websites).
In the same way, the news-cycle is faster then ever. There is no time for long investigations and even if some journalist actually has a story about incredible objects, that's just fake news and conspiracy theories. If the media persists, just release the next sex-tape, arrange for a mass shooting or just wait for the next public statement by the president and your story will be old news.
Concerning test subjects, simply don't recruit from first world countries anymore. There are more than enough Mexicans vanishing in mass graves in some drug war, refugees drowning in the Mediterranean and accused drug dealers being shot in the Philippines.
Concerning leaks, your surveillance is always improving and the people working for you know that. While a few decades ago, they might have gotten away with sending an envelope to some journalist, today the gps in their phones (leaving home without it will definitely be cause for an investigation) will tell you precisely when they went to the mailbox. And if they are crazy enough to try something anyways, did you know that many parts, including power-steering, in modern cars are controlled by computers nowadays?
Certainly, there might be stupid politicians but the politicians never get told anything important anyway. Some may have stumbled upon the deep state, but they are completely oblivious to its true purpose.
Finally the most important part: Create a website where you catalogue all the things that you are storing. Call it [scp-wiki](http://www.scp-wiki.net/) or something. Then whenever someone gets wind of some of your operations, just point them to the appropriate entry and tell them that they have just stumbled upon a hoax inspired by that strange internet horror-site.
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# There's an SCP for that.
There's so many of these things, even one that is literally [a never-ending supply of pizza](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-458). I hardly find it difficult to believe there is an SCP out there that can erase credible data from the internet as soon as it is uploaded or can rework public consciousness to thinking all these sightings are merely hoaxes, movie sets, and so forth. People are really only dangerous in groups. One lone person can be easily erased if they are digging where they shouldn't.
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They can use [antimemetics](http://www.scp-wiki.net/antimemetics-division-hub) for a start. Basically ideas that make themselves difficult to share.
The most powerful antimemes are [forgotten as soon as you learn about them](http://www.scp-wiki.net/we-need-to-talk-about-fifty-five).
They have antimemetic drugs that can be given to an individual to make them forget things.
There was also "[The Woodvale Incident](http://www.scp-wiki.net/the-woodvale-incident)"
A tale of how the SCP Foundation managed to keep out of the Cold War when the USA demanded that the Foundation hand over several SCPs, sites, and staff so as to have an edge over the USSR.
Finally, they can also just dispose of people that they aren't able to silence. They are not a hugely ethical organization.
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These questions feature heavily in the Monster Hunter series by [Larry Correia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Correia)
The Monster Control Bureau has a legal right to remove a citizen's legal rights if the pose a threat to the suppression of supernatural knowledge. The MCB can imprison, intimidate, suppress or even outright assassinate without due process. All big companies have someone read in on the secret act and has signed the correct NDAs and will remove any suspect material upon request. Witnesses that refuse to take the hint to shut up often have slip and fall accidents in the bathroom and the police are guaranteed not to investigate too hard on the matter.
New Orleans is a hotspot so the MCB there have taken the approach of the best way to tell a lie is to tell the truth badly. They run a trashy tabloid that runs actual real stories with real photos but they digitally alter the pictures to make them look like they have been digitally altered.
All countries have their own version of the MCB and the different countries are co-operative more or less with each other. They have virtually unlimited power and minimal judicial oversight.
Basically to answer your question, yes they can suppress anything with enough brutality and ruthlessness. Even a reporter will keep quiet when they know if they try to publish it, they can be legally shot in the face and everyone they suspect to have told also gets shot.
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# Memetics
Consider SCP such as
* [SCP-055](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-055)
* [SCP-3125](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3125)
* [SCP-3000](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3000)
It hardly seems far-fetched that an organization in possession of inter-dimensional knowledge could harness the memory-erasing power of the artifacts and creatures they study.
# Reality Benders
Some entities, like [SCP-239](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-239), have human intelligence and the ability to reshape reality itself. It's not hard to imagine one such entity sharing the foundation's interest in keeping SCP's secret.
# Is anything impossible for these guys?
When you think about the literally world-altering capacities of [SCP-2000](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2000), is ANYTHING outside the realm of possibility? Containing a leak seems trivial compared to resetting the timeline seamlessly...
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Three alternatives.
1. Decide the nr of SCPs are much less than the SCP wiki would have you believe. - Since it's a crowd created universe it is up to you to decide what is canon. Pick a handful of SCPs to be the ones the SCP actually contain, the rest either do not exist or are purposefully false disinformation to make it more difficult to find the actual ones. This also means the foundation is much less all encompassing, much less powerful, and much more down to earth. Also if it needs to contain a dozen anamolous SCPs instead of thousands, hiding makes it a lot easier.
2. The SCP uses anomalous SCPs to hide the information. - For all you know, the internet itself is an SCP. Every time you log in, you get a small dose of an amnesiac to make you ignore the subtler details that are incorrect. Even if not the internet as a whole is, technologies within it might be. As op point out this might have unintended consequences.
3. They don't. Their secrecy is slowly breaking, and it is only a matter of time until they are revealed. What's worse the increase in information technologies affect everyone. Cults and independents have never had an easier time obtaining information, which have resulted in an explosion of anamalous objects and entities being unearthed/invented. The world is quickly moving into a position where the abnormal can no longer be hidden away, and is quickly going from unheard of, to unique, to rare, to merely uncommon.
] |
[Question]
[
Meet Todd the time traveler. He's a good boy and has decided to use his powers for good, more specifically he wants to stop the black plague from happening. His powers work in a similar fashion to the time travellers from the Butterfly Effect movies; the time traveler is immune to paradoxes, he remembers everything about the alternate histories. The key difference being 1) he can only go back in time once a year and goes back to his time after that year is over; 2) he can only go back in time by reading (or looking at) information of the past; Pictures, newspapers, historical texts, etc.
**Some details about Todd**
* He served as a medic for the Turkish Land Forces for 16 years and is very skilled in medicine.
* Other than his military service and experience, he is an average White male.
Using his modern medical knowledge would Todd have a chance at stopping the black plague?
[Answer]
*Prevent* the plague? No.
However, if he could somehow convince enough rulers and authoritative persons that the plague is carried by fleas (*Xenopsylla cheopis*) abandoning dying and dead rats (mostly *Rattus rattus* in the garbage and *Rattus norvegicus* down at the docks) and biting people, he might be able to reduce the death toll from tens of millions to tens of thousands.
He wouldn't need to explain that the cause is the invisible animalcule *Yersinia pestis*. People wouldn't believe him, and in any case wouldn't care about the exact nature of the toxic humour, as long as they had a way avoid it. Just understand that flea bites are now more than a filthy nuisance, they have become mortally dangerous.
If he tried to teach anything else, like improving sanitation or reducing crowding, he would just be one more voice among the thousands of royal physicians and other advisors who already knew that the burgeoning population was putting everyone at increased risk of encountering one of the four horsemen.
Todd should understand, though, that the plague is in one sense a symptom of the larger problem, that populations everywhere in Europe are rapidly outgrowing the technology, infrastructure, and common wisdom needed for people to live safely at such densities.
When Todd returns to his own time, he will probably discover that in preventing a 30% population crash circa 1345, he has inadvertently allowed a 40% population crash circa 1425, or a 55% population crash circa 1500.
My theory is that the survivors of the Black Plague were people who learned how to build storm drains and sewers, and who declined to place their garbage dumps unpleasantly close to their towns. Take away that lesson in 1358, and the people will have to learn it by way of the next great disaster.
[Answer]
Go back a bit further than the onset of the plague. Embark on a campaign among the nobility and clergy on the godliness of felines and how the mark of a proper household is a healthy cat.
There is a good argument to be made that the slaughtering of cats because they were familiars of witches and unlucky directly led to a massive population boom among rats, which brought along the fleas, which passed along the plague.
[Answer]
Almost certainly not. To begin with, nobody knows exactly where the Death originated or how it got to Europe. Some folk *claim* to know, but there is no certainty. The current best estimate is that it originated in Central Asia and was carried to Europe via merchant ships and the fleas on rats.
As a result, there is no reason to think that there is a readily-identified "Patient Zero" who could be stopped from spreading the disease. Any individual who is identified and taken care of will be replaced by a dozen more. Any ship which is prevented from sailing will be, sooner or later, replaced by another ship carrying the vector. And at this time, *everybody* had fleas.
Even if you could prevent the transmission to Europe for a decade, there would be plenty of carriers waiting in the wings.
I suppose that if Todd is willing to set himself up as the New Genghis Khan in, let's say, the late 10th Century, and then embark on a campaign of genocide through Central Asia he might get lucky and wipe out the population which will provide the critical mutation. Maybe not, since it's not clear exactly when the strain emerged, but it was widespread in Asia by about 1300.
Of course, many think that the bubonic plague was responsible for the Justinian Plague in Rome in the 6th century (I did indicate that there's not much certainty), so wiping out Rome in the 4th century might be necessary instead. Or maybe all of Italy.
[Answer]
I don't think one time traveler is going to have much of an effect on the plague. Here's why:
**Who would believe him?** If Todd drops himself into the past, he has no credibility. No one knows him well enough to know he has skills. And if he can only stay for a year, he probably doesn't have the time or the knowledge to find an occasion to prove himself. With no credibility and probably not much resources, people will only start believing Todd when they have no other options, and by then it's too late.
**What could he do?** Prior to the Black Death, Europe went through a pretty lengthy period of famine. It's believed that this contributed to the lethality of the plague, by raising a generation of malnourished children. Not only that, but the rise of city populations contributed to the growing amount of general unsanitary conditions of the era. Both of these things are going to be very hard to reverse, you can't just tell impoverished peasants to eat more or leave their homes and start a new life in the countryside. Unless, again, there's the threat of the Black Death at their heels, but since you want to stop the plague you can't use it as a motivation.
If he wanted, Todd could probably find a village or two and convince them to cut off outside contact for a few years and make sure to wash things more often. But as for one guy from the future trying to enact social change on a continental scale to prevent a plague the likes of which has not been seen in centuries, I don't think it's going to work out too well.
[Answer]
Prevent? No, but our potential time traveler could certainly make the situation much better.
The unfortunate thing about this plague is that vaccines don't work to prevent it. Meaning that we would have to effectively stop it from originating in the first place. Very difficult to do with the little information that we have! Instead of attempting to locate a needle in a haystack (or really, a flea in all of Asia), we need to instead look at minimizing the damage.
Your time traveler has an extensive medical history, and should be capable of manufacturing antibiotics. Additionally, they should be able to arm themselves with knowledge of generally where the plague spread and when. By setting up manufacturing of antibiotics near common shipping lanes, it should be possible to get them out to the general populace before the plague hits their area. Of course, prep time and gathering supplies may be tricky to come across.
[Answer]
I'd like to add to the answer of @Thebluefish which suggests that Todd has enough medical experience to **learn how to make antibiotics**. I agree with this. Before going back in time, he could train himself in the procedure of making antibiotics. While [the procedure](http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Antibiotic.html) is complex, it doesn't seem to depend on anything that was impossible in the 1300's. The main thing that's needed is the *knowledge*, and Todd has access to that.
The next problem is *logistics*. Todd can only make a limited amount of antibiotics, and he couldn't possibly distribute it to all of Eurasia. Moreover, he's a *nobody* in the eyes of the rulers, so it will be difficult for him to convince them to help him.
Therefore, he has to gradually earn trust. He should plan his visit for *well* before the actual outbreak of the Black Plague. He then needs to get himself something that will work as a laboratory, and start manufacturing a small amount of antibiotics. Once he has them, he needs to seek out people who are sick from a bacterial infection (not the from the actual Black Plague ([Yersinia pestis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yersinia_pestis)), we are earlier than that in time). His first patients may be suffering from a lung infection or something like that. Many such diseases were thought incurable and often deadly at the time, and his "miracle pills" should certainly give him some attention. If he continues like this, it won't be long before he's invited to the ruler's court to create antibiotics for the people there. Before you know it, Todd will be the head of an educational institution which teaches how to manufacture and administer antibiotics.
Todd can also use this newfound position of respect and authority to spread ideas about hygiene, cats, etc. as discussed in other answers.
Todd needs to execute this plan in the capital of a large empire. That way the knowledge of how to manufacture and distribute the medicine will have **spread throughout the empire** and to the rest of the region *before* the outbreak of the Black Plague. Having antibiotics widely available will severely limit, if not entirely *prevent* the spread of the Black Plague.
Of course, Todd will have to start this plan very early. It will take *years* for this knowledge to spread. So Todd will have to spend his whole year teaching people about antibiotics. He will then have to leave, and it will be left to his students to continue the spread of the knowledge. This spread will have to go on for *years after* Todd has left. He will have to see the results of that work once he comes back to the present. (Those results, of course, will be huge, if Todd succeeds.)
There are, of course, many things that could go wrong, such as Todd being hanged for heresy even while trying to treat his very first patients. Or the ruler trying to keep the antibiotics secret to hide them from his enemies.
Also, I don't know if there is some part of the manufacturing process of antibiotics which absolutely requires modern technology (I skimmed the summary of the process, and the only thing I could see was the need to control temperatures, but that can be achieved using ice and tempered water.)
Other than that, it should be feasible for a story.
[Answer]
I have just finished reading 2 books on the Black Plague of 1347. Sources were mostly actual accounts of people who were there.
NO. The plague could not have been prevented because it was caused by many things happening at once.
1. ~~2 years before 1347 the Pope decreed that all cats be killed. This lead to an explosion of the rat population, which carried the fleas which carried the plague.~~ My source was in error. A pope from the 1200s had declared all cats be killed as he declared the cats to be agents of Satan. Looks like it was [Gregory IX (1170-1241 A.D.)](https://esoterx.com/2014/02/20/nine-lives-are-not-enough-inquisitions-cat-massacres-and-the-black-death/).
2. Earthquakes in China and disasters in other areas west of China meant that rats that normally stayed in place (in the wild away from people), were forced out of their normal ecosystem into the cities where they sought refuge.
3. "Mainstream science" of the time was stuck on their own incorrect version of reality. If a character were to suggest that rats carried fleas which carried bacteria which could not be seen, the character would be laughed at, or worse, imprisoned for witchcraft by church leaders.
4. Religion was the basis for (explaining nearly) everything, and science was in its infancy. If the Bible could not explain it, the Church leadership would condemn it, and the population would have no basis for understanding what was going on. Most explanations were reasoned the plague to be the wrath of God as some punishment. But a few wise people noticed that the plague was spread by contact or nearness to the infected.
5. Modern germ theory and therefore modern cleanliness rules were completely unknown. They changed their straw bedding about once a year, hardly enough to prevent exposure to biting fleas. They also bathed very little as it was not their custom. Plus it was quite a pain to heat up water, or even take a cold bath, especially in the winter. Have you ever had the power go out and taken a cold bath in the winter? I have.
6. Communication was difficult and slow, and thus travel could not be controlled quickly enough. Many cities tried to close their doors (if they had walls) but most were too late. An infected person or rats were already in the city by that time.
As I read the books I learned that the leadership (politicians, cardinals, etc) were just as clueless bumbling fools, doing too little too late, just like they are today.
The two free EPUBs about that plague are [listed here](http://chuckrblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/free-bubonic-plague-ebooks-in-epub.html). There were other plagues that appeared similar but not as bad as this one.
[Answer]
Preventing the plague before it broke out might be too tricky, but preventing it from spreading from the originating areas to the rest of the world might be possible if you have the correct data.
According to some theories the plague originated in an arae of Kyrgyzstan. If you could convince neighboring areas to cut off relations and create a large enough perimeter around it with poison bait for the rats and other animals that might try to migrate out.
Slim chances anyway as the logistics of it would be a nightmare, but not entirely impossible. Some English villages staved of other epidemics by doing the opposite, that is, denying enterance to travelers and burning bodies found on the roads in the surrounding area.
From wikipedia " Nestorian graves dating to 1338–39 near Lake Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan have inscriptions referring to plague and are thought by many epidemiologists to mark the outbreak of the epidemic,"
Todd the time traveler could possible travel back time by reading earlier inscriptions from the same area.
[Answer]
A lot of people are bringing up the concern of our time traveler Todd lacking credibility, but you're not thinking with time travel. With time travel you have access to every intellectual authority in history.
Go back and teach Aristotle germ theory. That might actually do the trick right there.
While you're at it Todd, I have a bonus mission for you. Have some conversations with him about the importance of the scientific method. History can only be improved by earlier emphasis on evidence based knowledge and decision making.
[Answer]
Depends on what time he comes from and the technical advances of his era.
This was not specified in the question.
Current medical knowledge in our era not likely.
Current social skills that our modern society have, he would be laughed all the way to the stocks.
Who knows what tech will be like 1, 2, 10k years from now. A time traveler from then may be able to? Who knows.
Again, since we are talking about a time traveler, a key piece is missing from the question, "From when he comes."
I say yes because I think barring any extinction level event, if human kind is allowed to evolve themselves and technology over the span of many many thousands of years. Then I have zero doubts that eventually a genome altering vaccine with contagious properties for example could be produced. Vaccinate 1 person and it spreads like the disease but as a cure.
[Answer]
A time traveller would have to go back in time far enough that any procedures they put in place have time to spread.
That being said, there are a couple of interesting historical anomalies. As given by Dorus above, the Jews did have stricter hygiene laws, and a better survival rate. Even more interesting is the Egyptians cat motif, including a goddess Bastet - a warrior or protector goddess no less.
What if a different timestream did not have Egyptians revering cats, and because of that the Black Plague showed up sooner? After all the Egyptians had a powerful, wide-ranging trade network, so exposure is likely to occur. Perhaps an intrepid time-traveller, trying to prevent an early Black Death instilled a love of cats into the Egyptians early in their history.
On the flip side, the demonization of cats does seem a bit odd. Perhaps that was the work of an alternate time traveller, working at cross purposes to the first, for their own reasons. Quantum Leap FTW!
[Answer]
Easiest way to prevent the plague would be to prevent the fall of Rome. This would give a stronger base culture more time for advancement, communication, hygeine, etc.
Easiest way to prevent the fall of Rome would be to assassinate all the wealthy landowners near the time of the fall along with their heirs (the ancestors of kings and queens who would later turn their tenents into serfs, and who turned the power of rome into their tool for personal gain) as well as killing off the Caesers and their line, and any who would pursue it, allowing Rome to *finally* end it's "perpetual state of emergency" situation that gave the legal opportunity for their to be a Caesar instead of a Senate in the first place.
That'd put the focus of Rome back on Rome instead of the personal gains of would-be kings and emperors, empowering it to handle the plague on its own later (and allowing aqueducts to thrive making a society less susceptible to germs).
... although, of course, they'd have to contend with any more advanced germs that Todd brought back with him unintentionally.
[Answer]
Unlikely, as the plague affected many countries and cultures, so appealing to them all would be very difficult.
BUT, if he had the ability to bring back specific knowledge of how to manufacture antibiotics like streptomycin or sulfonamide he could drastically cut down the lethality, assuming he could manufacture enough and distribute it effectively. This could probably, for Western Europe at least, require some sort of appeal to the Church and a demonstration of its effectiveness, all the while not getting branded as a devil worshipper and executed. This would probably require a substantial effort in recruiting/tricking high placed members of the church and their patrons to accept that the antibiotic will work and to manufacture and distribute it to the masses. And most likely the bacteria would develop resistance eventually, so he'd just be delaying the plague.
There are ways of making a vaccine, but they are not very effective in this case and would PREVENT the disease, which is probably a much harder concept to get across back then until the plague is already in effect (in which case folks were doing ANYTHING they thought would protect themselves).
Basic sanitation and hygiene would blunt the disease, but barring significant education and infrastructure reform I don't think it would do much outside of some small areas.
But really, most folks now think that the Black Death was ultimately a GOOD thing (given enough time removed from the human tragedy of it all, of course), so why would this guy want to stop it?
] |
[Question]
[
All of the countries having highly skewed sex ratio are skewed towards a preference for male children. Some of the worst examples are [China](http://theconversation.com/pity-chinas-bare-branches-unmarried-men-stuck-between-tradition-and-capitalism-68592), due to one child policy and expectations that sons would provide for their parents in old age, and [India](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/trash-bin-babies-indias-female-infanticide-crisis/257672/), due to custom of bride's parents paying a dowry to the groom.
Could there be a country that favors girls?
It doesn't have to be that boys are aborted or left to die, but just a place where girls have better access to healthcare and education. Why would a country practice that? All the countries in the world, that I know of, either favor sons or treat both genders equally.
[Answer]
EDIT: Looking back at this answer, it is complete BS.
[Answer]
**Yes?**
There easily could be. There just needs to be a reason!
There are a few fictional ones, currently Menzoberranzan (D&D) jumps to mind. **The reigning deity favors females**, so female drow have a much easier time in life.
From the Wonderwoman, the Amazonians are a famous fictional society consisting of only women. They have their own [reasons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons_(DC_Comics)).
In a more nonfiction sense, a major reason to value females is **population**. If we found a new hospitable planet, the most efficient way to populate it would be to send mostly women, and only a handful of men, to keep the gene pool stirred.
[Answer]
There are some ethnic minority people in my country (Vietnam) that are matriarchies (such as: chăm, ê đê, giarai, mơ nông, k-ho, ba na). That means the female is who is powerful in the family. A male when married will join into his wife's family. So they would like to have daughters instead of sons.
[Answer]
To be contrarian to other answers: In a male dominated society, allow males to have harems of up to 10 wives, and to own as many concubines as they wish (none of which are allowed to become pregnant; if they do, the pregnancy is aborted).
Allow females to be sold (e.g. the Bible explicitly offers advice to men on how to price their daughters). Allow early testing for male/female fetuses, and insist that men have no more than two male heirs, but can have as many female offspring as they wish, and can sell these girls to other men.
If any additional male heirs are not aborted, and are brought to term, they become slaves for life. Many more women than men will be produced; so the ratio of men to women will remain 1 to 10 or more.
---
**Late add:** To address issues brought up in comment (which was moved to chat):
* **I am being contrarian,** IMO the OP was fishing for ways to elevate women; I think there is a way to achieve the result by doing the opposite. I read the Bible, and although I do not believe in any God, I do believe it accurately portrays a real and stable society in which women are property: There are numerous examples of sexual slavery, the selling of women, permission to rape servants and so on. Such societies are not impossible or unstable.
* **Better access to healthcare:** I presumed if women were treated as livestock then they would have a monetary value and it would be in the best interest of their owners (men) to keep them healthy. For the same reason, IRL in America, race horses get far better medical care than homeless people, and millions of pet dogs get better medical care than homeless people. Of course the author could still making the killing of a female illegal, or give females some limited set of human rights their owner must provide, to whatever extent the author wishes.
* **Better access to education:** I admit I forgot this part! However, it follows naturally from my premise: if 90% of the population is female and owned by males; they are going to be doing all the work; including the work that demands education. As IRL, rich men in this society would be running things as managers; they would not be the engineers, technicians, nurses, doctors and so on in the society; or at least the majority of workers in this society would be females. That requires education. Since higher education results in greater value; it is in the best interest of a male to get his females as educated as possible, for future sale or lease as workers.
If women are in charge of everything, the have a great deal of control over what men see and how events are interpreted. They are probably the soldiers and managers of companies, the military, and government agencies. Just because they are not the CEOs of those operations does not preclude them from wielding significant levels of power to shape their society.
* **Slavery of Excess Male Offspring:** I'll just abandon this idea in favor of a better one I had: All offspring must be examined at birth, any males brought to term beyond the legal limit of two would be humanely sterilized; perhaps by amputation of the testicles. The father is still responsible for caring for such males for life; but they will not be allowed to marry or take wives. Upon examination and verification that an infant is female; the female can be "marked" by permanent tattoo, or alternatively a long-lasting dye, like those used in some countries to indicate that a person has already voted: The reason for this is to prevent any substitution of a recently born female infant for a male infant. Even a man with minimal training can tell the difference between a 1-day-old infant and a 7-day-old infant; so no female can be examined twice to hide an extra male heir. Further, any man caught trying to do this can be stripped of all of his property and sterilized.
The point of this is to maintain the ratio of men to women at 1:10, the men are in charge but it takes 10 women to support each man. Additional population controls can be instituted if necessary to control the population and retain this ratio; e.g. only a single male heir is allowed.
Alright, I'm done with this exercise in thinking outside the box; and that is all it was, a stray rebellious thought to answer the question. Based on the tone of some comments, I encourage people to remember that me ***writing*** about fictional slavery, rape or murder does not imply I am pro-slavery, pro-rape, or pro-murder!
Note this question had *three* requests: First that a country must favor girls in birth ratio or prefer that girls be born, then secondly and thirdly the uncorrelated requirements that girls have "better" access to healthcare *and* better access to education. Those conditions do not go hand-in-hand, but I am interpreting "better" to mean more certain than that of many women IRL.
[Answer]
There are a few tribes here and there which are matriarchal. Consider [the Mosuo from rural Tibet](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/01/the-kingdom-of-women-the-tibetan-tribe-where-a-man-is-never-the-boss).
>
> Imagine a society without fathers; without marriage (or divorce); one
> in which nuclear families don’t exist. Grandmother sits at the head of
> the table; her sons and daughters live with her, along with the
> children of those daughters, following the maternal bloodline. Men are
> little more than studs, sperm donors who inseminate women but have,
> more often than not, little involvement in their children’s
> upbringing.
>
>
>
The linked article does not explicitly say whether the Mosuo claim boys are worth less, but from what is said that's certainly implicit.
>
> Women own and inherit property, sow crops in this agrarian society,
> and run the households – cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. The men
> provide strength, ploughing, building, repairing homes, slaughtering
> animals and helping with big familial decisions, although the final
> say is always with Grandmother. Although men have no paternal
> responsibilities – it is common for women not to know who the father
> of their children is, and there is no stigma attached to this – they
> have considerable responsibility as uncles to their sisters’ children.
> In fact, along with elderly maternal great-uncles, who are often the
> households’ second-in-charge, younger uncles are the pivotal male
> influence on children.
>
>
>
Basically, this culture values girls more than boys, in so far as the family unit allows women more rights, revolves around the matriarchal line, and is headed by female elders who make executive decisions.
So, could there be a culture which values girls more than boys? Yes. The other question about access to healthcare and education is more specific and doesn't seem relevant to the Mosuo case, as they in general don't seem to care much for education.
[Answer]
Canada comes closest right now because of their approach to gender equality. There's a video on youtube of what children in different countries think about growing up. The Canadian girl is the only girl who feels sorry for boys because she can do things they can't. From a psychological perspective I think this is huge. She includes starting a business in her elaboration on her point too so she isn't just talking about getting pregnant. I think the video is by natgeo.
Canadian government is apparently working very hard to make the number of women in the government equal to the number of men in the government. I'm American so I don't actually know if this is actually happening, or if this is strange anti-Canadian propaganda. The little girl's response makes me think this is an action the Canadian government is actually taking.
Still, at best this is just a case of accidentally making girls "more equal" while trying to fine tune gender equality.
A broader example of societies which favor women would be societies that don't have them. These societies would have been faced with an existential crisis related to birth rates. This would have made women far more valuable to them than to most other societies at the time. The issue is that this would lead to things like "aggressively importing" women instead of leading to women's rights. Women will be more valued than men in places like China reasonably soon because of this. Too many men and not enough women rarely ends well.
[Answer]
**Yes, if the government incentivises it.**
Consider China's one child policy. This had the result of many people preferring to have a boy and so less girls were born.
Having seen this effect, the government could have implemented an additional policy that gave people generous rewards if they had a baby girl in order to balance out the gender ratio. If this policy wasn't carefully balanced, it could have lead to people preferring a girl to a boy.
[Answer]
Actually the root reason why there is a male favoring in most of "modern" societies is connected with the (wrong!) idea the female is "just" a (hopefully fertile) field male has to "inseminate".
The discovery sexual act is needed to procreation completely overturned balance from matriarchal societies to patriarchal ones; if you add to this that, till very recent times, women needed males for muscle and protection (males were expendable! see: "women and children first!") the idea a male son would "continue the lineage" much better than a female is clear and "obvious".
As nothing of this is actually true (surely not the biologic part, but also the need for stronger muscles is not so felt anymore; as RAH once said: "wheels under luggage did more for women freedom than all suffragettes"), the customs are slowly changing (note: dowry, now alive almost only in India, was a worldwide custom no more than a century ago) just follow the path and differences will be watered down to oblivion (but it could take centuries!).
What You need to do to have a female-preferring world is to revert again child "ownership" giving women complete control not only over when and how to give birth to a child, but also to his/her nurture... it could really suffice just return to matrilinear families (child takes the surname of the mother). All the rest would follow naturally.
[Answer]
I would read some classic science fiction, particularly Ursula Le Guin who is a genius of a writer.
A world along these lines is described in the short story "The matter of Seggri".
If you want to write anthropological / sociologically interesting science fiction, particularly with reference to gender. Then you should also read "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin.
In fact if you want to write this type of science fiction I would recommend reading EVERYTHING by Ursula Le Guin. "The Dispossessed" and "The Word for World is Forest" I would also consider essential reading, although these books don't deal with gender (as directly).
I have read a much more recent book which was clearly heavily influenced by Le Guin and describes ANOTHER very pro female world... but for now the name of the title and author escape me. It's very good though.. I will try to remember.
[Answer]
**Population Decline & High Infant Mortality**
(e.g. because of extreme resource shortage)
A society in population decline due to high infant mortality might favour girls over boys.
The reason being that men can go around impregnating at will, but a woman is a lot more limited in the number of children she can bear. So the optimal number of women vs men for the purposes of continuing the future generations would require a higher number of girls to live to adulthood.
[Answer]
I've read about LDS communities which permit having multiple wives.
As they strongly prefer to mate inside the group, there's enormous pressure to drive boys out of the group as they get of age, for the older and powerful men to avoid competing with them for a limited pool of brides.
I can imagine how they would favor girl babies knowing that girl have much greater chance of sticking around.
[Answer]
Yes, there is such a place: [Rojava](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava "Rojava").
>
> The persecution of women in the Middle East has been endemic and cruel,
> but the Revolutionary Feminism of Rojava is determined and militant.
> Rojava's military is known as the People's Protection Units (YPG),
> which is co-ed with men and women, and within it are the Women's
> Protection Units (YPJ), an all-women force. [\*49] According to one
> journalist covering the Middle East, "But to see women from another
> Middle Eastern nation fighting -- and defeating -- ISIS in entirely
> female fighting units was remarkable." [\*50] In the local councils and
> communes, women must have proportional representation, and most of the
> ministries, with the exception of the Women's Ministry, must have both
> male and female co-ministers. [\*51] According to Article 27 of the
> Rojava Constitution: "Women have the inviolable right to participate
> in political, social, economic and cultural life." [\*52] This is not
> mere moralizing about the issue. To quote Margaret Owen writing for
> PeaceFire in 2014...
>
>
> "In every town and village there is a Women's House, where women and girls can access advice, counseling, protection, and shelter, in
> the face of many forms of gender based violence, honor killings,
> post-traumatic stress, and physical and mental health problems." [\*53]
>
>
>
Source: <http://anarchistrevolt.com/articles/rojava-the-anarchist-community-emerging-from-the-syrian-civil-war.html>
[Answer]
### Parthenogenesis
Women are required to have babies. They have the wombs. Men are only required to provide sperm. We encourage men to have more presence in their children's lives (and wives' lives during pregnancy), but it's not actually a requirement.
We don't really know how to do it yet, but it seems at least theoretically possible to generate sperm-like genetics from eggs. Then two women could produce daughters. This is called parthenogenesis. The children would always be daughters because they'd always get two X chromosomes, as that's all that the women would have. To get sons, they'd need Y chromosomes from men.
If a society found out how to perform parthenogenesis practically, it could adopt it. Perhaps a country would create a haven for battered women and lesbians. Economies of scale might allow for it to be a generally affordable procedure. Every pregnancy would be planned.
### Logic
Looked at logically, women are the constraining resource on producing children. So logical analysis already favors daughters. Favoring sons is an emotional analysis or it is based on factors other than reproduction. For example, sons are more useful in warfare, as they are bigger and stronger. So it makes sense for a war-oriented society to prefer sons. And of course, most societies have been war-oriented. If they weren't, they were taken over by a neighboring society which was.
A society that was generally peaceful and had parthenogenesis would be able to concentrate on daughters without giving up advantages important to them. And females use fewer calories than males. Buildings and doorways can be smaller, as women are. Women live longer and are less reckless.
A peaceful, logical society with parthenogenesis. How hard would that be?
[Answer]
**Sci-Fi answer** (This has been addressed somewhat in the comments. I'm pulling those together in this answer, and adding some other ideas.)
1. There are some animals where the mother provides the eggs, then leaves, and the father incubates the eggs and raises the young. (Seahorses and some birds come to mind.) If you had a human society like that, the gender roles would be largely reversed.
2. Part of the preference for males is the need for laborers and fighters. So, have a society in which physical labor/fighting is despised/forbidden. That evens things out. (We're starting to see exactly that in 1st-world societies. Now introduce robots.) Or, have females be larger and more aggressive. (Some hokey sci-fi comes to mind. So the challenge would be doing that without it being farcical.)
3. What if females usually had large litters instead of only 1 baby? Then your society might have the "human" equivalent of lion prides or grazer herds.
4. What if the males were very unsociable, but the females were very sociable? And resources were scarce, and females were not to be trifled with? (We see this with elephants and hyenas.) Then you'd have male loners and a totally matriarchal society.
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This question has already been well answered enough that this will be buried, but it's worth noting that **China** is already an example of a country with a skewed preference for *female* children.
Obviously not true of the whole country, which possibly has a [gender skew as bad as 6:5 in favor of boys](http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-02/06/content_19509424.htm) from the combination of traditional agricultural culture and the former one-child policy, **but**
* The high land prices in **Shanghai** have produced a population that's [23% senior citizens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Shanghai) and has a [0.6 fertility rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Shanghai). The ease and minor qualms concerning abortion mean that many mothers are able to prioritize daughters over sons, since in the present society they're considered more likely to be dutiful, stay close to home, and care for them in old age. It's offset by traditional bias among the more fertile migrant workers who visit the city, but it's still a real part of the culture here.
* The old **one-child** policy has been essentially scrapped, but even during its heyday the government saw the inherent problems of massive gender disparities and permitted couples a second child if the first was a boy. Forcing the abortion of second boys or even mandating each couple produces at least one girl and no more than one boy would shunt the demographics majority female.
Why would any society do that, though? Surplus men are the cannon fodder for successful violence against outside groups. Outside of self-selection for old-age care in very peaceful environments, though, you're probably looking at some kind of Arabian, Mormon, or colonizing dystopia where wealthy-enough men are culling the boys to produce harems for each other or producing more female children on the homeworld to speed inexpensive seeding of new systems.
[Answer]
Chickens
I have pet chickens, and have learned that among egg laying breeds the roosters tend to have very [short lives and meet grim ends](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_culling) .
If a country or society or culture developed in which something which can be harvested (either sustainably or lethally) from only females became critically valuable, then girl babies would be more desirable than male babies.
While this strikes me as horrific and repulsive, never underestimate the motivations of greed (is it valuable enough?) and fear (will I die without it?) for humans.
[Answer]
Oh, ours. Look at sheep, cows or chickens. How many rams or roosters do you observe? 95% of male farmyard animals are culled. Talk about unfair!
[Answer]
"Could there be a country that favours baby girls?"
Yes.
Communities where land and power is passed down the female line are likely to favour baby girls. E.g. Bribri (Costa Rica). Not defined as a country but you can see how it could be possible.
Also of interest are the Tuareg matriarchal Muslim community.
[6 Modern Societies Where Women Rule](http://mentalfloss.com/article/31274/6-modern-societies-where-women-literally-rule)
[Tuareg – The Mysterious Tribe Where Men Wear Veils And Women Lead The Family!](http://womenpla.net/tuareg-the-mysterious-tribe-where-men-wear-veils-and-women-lead-the-family/)
[Answer]
A different reason for this was explored by Harlan Ellison, in his series of stories: [A boy and his dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog). It's not that women dominated, as much as men were becoming almost irrelevant due to sterility.
Arguably, a very few females dominate in some insect social orders, such as ants and bees, where the activity of the group is to support the queen.
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First I'd like to note that matriarchies are actually only rare in the modern world because of the missionaries of the Catholic Church, especially in the Americas and in the Pacific's Polynesian cultures female chiefs with many husbands were the norm until a few generations ago. As to creating a society that favours girl children from a patriarchy I can see three simple solutions, a population race, and a religious imperative, and something that's a less clear cut call it a racial imperative.
Population Race; in a society that has been heavily *de*-populated by a disaster of some description breeding females become a focus as the nation tries to rebuild its numbers this will mean that girls and young woman get special treatment to bring them to their breeding years in the best possible condition.
Religious Imperative; there are already a few religions in which women and not men play the main role, if a theocracy based around such a religion was to take over females of any age would be revered and held in higher regard than the males of that society.
Racial Imperative; this is a little more complex, it has overtones of the Population Race argument but is couched slightly differently. Imagine a world in which female children become relatively rare and childbirth relatively dangerous for mother and child both, women would then have to be afforded the greatest possible chance of bearing young as often and as safely as can be arranged if there are still going to be people around in a few generations.
[Answer]
Reasons I haven't seen mentioned here yet:
* **Abnormally low fertility rates** (or many failed pregnancies or high infant mortality)
If most women just aren't fertile, you'd need a whole lot more of them to sustain the population size and thus girls could be favoured above boys.
Perhaps as the result of chemical warfare or consuming products we genetically modified in a way we don't fully understand has permanently damaged fertility rates.
* **Abnormally low female to male birth ratio**
If let's say 1 in 100 or less babies naturally born are female, that would lead to a shortage of women and girls would be greatly favoured.
This can be caused due to similar reasons as the above.
* **High risk of death from giving birth**
This would create 2 problems: women wouldn't want to have children because they don't want to die and women are unlikely to give birth more than once.
If the risk of death is very high, this would quickly wipe out the human race, but a more reasonable risk and/or a much higher chance of twins, triplets, etc. could be sustainable.
In either case, girls would be heavily favoured, as one man can impregnate many women and you'd need more women to get enough who want to have children.
* **Longer and/or more mentally or physically draining pregnancies**
Follows a similar argument to the above point, in that women would be demotivated from having children, and that would create a higher demand for them.
* **A fatal and widespread disease that affects only women**
This also creates a shortage of women and leads to there needing to be more of them (although this creates an interesting conflict in that any given person may not want to bear a girl due to the high risk of death).
* **A fatal and widespread disease that affects everyone**
While we may not want to counteract deaths (i.e. population decline) due to resource shortages (because more people will only make this problem worse), and deaths due to war might lead to favouring men, deaths that in no way discriminates based on gender in an otherwise thriving society, such as a disease, would lead to heavily favouring girls.
The reason for this, as above, is because one man can impregnate many women, so the number of women would be the limiting factor for the extreme population growth that's required to counteract these deaths.
Most of these depend on **the extremes** - slightly offsetting one of these factors may not do much in terms of how people think about the value of girls versus boys, even if there is a strong logical preference one way or the other - there may need to be a fair amount of panic over the survival of the human race for the general public to change their preference.
] |
[Question]
[
I know it's not really all that exciting, but things like eating will be very prominent in the cultures and show up a lot in my story...
In my world I want my race to have at least two different types of eating utensils, like chopsticks and the knife and fork. Other than with these, most humans will either eat with a spoon or with their hands (Or with other pieces of food like bread).
The spoon seems to be quite universal, but there doesn't seem to be any tools to eat that wouldn't feel distinctly human, if that makes sense.
I've thought about clamshell-like tongs, but they seem a bit unwieldy.
[Answer]
# Alternative Tools
The question leaves many questions to be answered. Is the species different from today’s humans? Is the food (consistency and type) similar to common food items today? Which items? That said, assuming the setup parallels our experience, I can envision repurposing existing tools as well as provide new contraptions; some simple, some more complex.
## 3-prong claps
Similar to chopsticks, this contraption can stab or grab food.
To operate:
1. Push one end to expand the prongs at the other end
2. Hover over food
3. Release end to contract the prongs
## Suction Grab
Similar to a lotion pump, or putting a straw in liquid and vacuum sealing. This contraption can suck up squishy food like mashed potatoes.
To operate:
1. Squeeze cylindrical device
2. Place one end in grits, mashed potatoes, etc
3. Unsqueeze device to suction grab
4. Either squeeze to release, or have a push function at opposite end to press food out
## Conveyor
This device acts like a treadmill for food. At one end your pile of food is placed in a feeder (like dirt feeder for mining gold). It feeds onto a hand-cranked belt that leads right to your mouth.
## No-utensil
Bareback the eating process and go all hands-on.
### Fingercaps
In the same genre to using hands, these thimble-like objects can be placed on three fingers. Their purpose is to be more hygienic, but also offer some shaping to increase grip/friction when picking up food. Allowing you to keep your hands free and offer something washable. Maybe it’s done one-handed, maybe you have 6 for two-handed work.
## Spade
Similar to a pie-knife. This flat spatula-like object acts as a temporary table-to-mouth plate.
[Answer]
**Little seesaw for launching food into the air.**
This would be a little device with a lever over a fulcrum. You would load food in the far end then bang the near end, launching it into the air towards the face. The eater catches it in the mouth. There may be a couple of possible designs. I feel like I have seen popcorn catapults at the Renaissance fair...
But the caught food! At some Japanese restaurants the chefs will toss food into your mouth. Plus some dogs are good at catching food out of the air. I could not find a youtube of anyone who had built and used such a device for launching and mouth-catching morsels. If you do please post video. Maybe video before and after practice.
Your aliens are descended from hunters who grabbed live food out of the air. Now they eat dead food which is a lot less satisfying. Getting that food up and flying makes it seem like food!
[Answer]
An amusing question. I don't have any suggestions that I think are very good, but let me suggest some angles of attack.
The trick is to come up with something that would actually be a practical eating utensil, but that no one in the world uses in real life. (Or at least, that is uncommon enough that most readers would never have heard of it.)
I've read lot of stories that try to create an alternative society, and where I find myself thinking, "Oh come on, that is so wildly impractical, does NO ONE in this society think to try a better way?" Like you can write in a book that, say, the people in your society eat by handing meat from hooks in the ceiling, and then they run across the room and jump up to try to pull the food with their teeth, but ... I'd find that hard to believe.
Seems to me that there are basically five kinds of eating utensils people use:
1. Things to pick up food by stabbing it. Like modern Americans and Europeans use forks. In the Middle Ages, people would stab food with a knife to pick it up and carry it to their mouths.
2. Spoons and similar devices to scoop up food. Especially necessary for liquids as of course you can't pick liquids up with a stabbing item.
3. Grasping items, like chop sticks.
4. Cutting tools, like knives.
5. Breaking tools, like nutcrackers.
I think that basically covers the things that need to be done to eat. So what are other tools that could accomplish the same purpose?
Thoughts that occur to me:
Instead of breaking nuts crab legs with a plier-like device, you could smash them with a hammer.
To pick up food, use a scoop. Not much different from a spoon, but you could describe it to look much different.
Hey, here's an idea: How about a small mace? I mean, a heavy object maybe 6" long with spikes on the end? You could use it to hit nuts or shells to break them, and you could bang it against a largish piece of food so that the spikes stuck in it, and you could then pick up the food to put it in your mouth.
Tongs. People use large tongs to serve salad, etc, but you could have smaller tongs to pick up food and take it to your mouth.
A simple skewer, i.e. a long, skinny nail. Stick it into the food and pick it up.
Maybe instead of drinking from a cup, you could use a sponge. Dip the sponge in a bowl with the drink, then tilt your head back, hold the sponge over your mouth, and squeeze. I suspect this would be much inferior to a cup but maybe there's a way to make it more practical.
Small plates that fold in the middle -- either a hinge or made of a flexible material. Then you put some food on the plate, lift it up to your mouth, and pour it in. Seems very crude to me, but maybe that's just because it's so outlandish.
There's also the whole category of "edible utensils". Like a taco shell is edible, but it's also a handy device for holding all the ingredients that make up the taco. In the middle ages people ate from "trenchers" -- a small load of bread, cut open in the middle, and food stuffed in. Kind of an early sandwich.
This is a fun game. I like the question. Try to think of ways to solve a problem that are as different as those used by our society as you can think of, while still being practical enough to be plausible.
[Answer]
Your question made me think of the Anti-Matter Chopsticks in the Red Dwarf episode "Legion"
<http://reddwarf.fandom.com/wiki/Anti-Matter_Chopsticks> .
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NzfUA.jpg)
It might give you inspiration for the purpose of a new kind of utensil. Not to make it easier to eat a certain food or dish but to make it harder. This way civilized, educated people can distinguish themselves from the unwashed masses.
[Answer]
## You need to ask yourself some questions first
How did your species develop, and what do its manipulation and eating organs look like?
Once you answer these, you can start looking at what tools might make it easier for this species to eat, which is the whole point of utensils. We have hands with fingers and a mouth that we need to lift food and drinks to. We developed as bipeds hunters who were stabbing things from the beginning (forks/chopsticks) and lifting liquids to our mouths (cupped hands->spoons).
Is your species an aquatic filter feeder? Congratulations; everything might be a dense soup for them that they just pour in. Does your species eat like a boa constrictor? Congratulations; their utensils might be ropes or bands that crush their food into an edible mass and pull it in.
If they're biped hunters, you might have to stretch things a little to get away from utensils that are basically forks and spoons.
[Answer]
Here is some inspiration from the real world.
Where I come from, crabs are a big deal in cuisine. We cook them whole and serve them that way.
You can't eat the shell, though, so you need a way to access the soft parts inside. We have a special utensil for that. Check the picture below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FvbGD.jpg)
The etiquette for the usage of these special utensils is to never use them close to someone who is allergic to crustaceans, because crab shell pieces tend to fly and spread everywhere like shrapnel. Other than that just knock yourself out!
[Answer]
**Scissorspoon**
Basically scissors with a small spoon like cavity on the side on which food would be stored (or the scissor is double and the food remains in the middle/inside)
An alternative thing based on the ratchet principle, is some kind of big tube that cuts and "spoons" the piece of food upwards with every slamming, and you eat from it like a push pop. It would be messy and loud though. Alternatively, some kind of piping bag (any flexible not so porous/easy to clean surface and leather or something thermic on the outside) so everyone just drop some in their mouths. The tips could be interchangeable although the food should be small even with the biggest acceptable tip
[Answer]
The eating machine as seen in Chaplin's movie.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/81aII.png)
There are *many* utensils there. They appear more than alternative, but I do not know their names.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Times_(film)>
[Answer]
It would be difficult to invent a new utensil that doesn't resemble the ones that we already have.
All eating utensils can be categorized into two types - the ones that we put in our mouth and the ones that we don't. While the latter can indeed be very much customized, the former are very limited in their design. We already have utensils which fall into basic geometric shapes - flat and round (or near-round): spoons, forks, chopsticks, drinking straws and knives (though eating from a knife is a poor table manners).
You mentioned tongs, and rightfully concluded that they would be "a bit unwieldy". Indeed, putting tongs in one's mouth is not going to be very comfortable. However, a smaller device called "**pincer chopsticks**" already exists, and can potentially serve your purpose. Another existing hybrid is "**spork**", which is popular among backpackers.
For the utensils that we don't put in our mouth, using them only to part or serve food, we have a full creative freedom.
[Answer]
**Chusher**
An expensive spoon like utensil (often made of silver or gold) with a lid that crushes its contents, letting the released liquid flow but retaining the solids.
Some rare and elusive delicacies (such as very small animals, fish, beetles) may be eaten raw, but epicures insist on their extreme freshness.
So, the item is placed in the crusher and put in the mouth. The crusher crushes its contents releasing the juices, blood or whatever. Taking the crusher out of the mouth removes the unwanted solid bits (eye, legs, etc.) which are then disposed in an elaborately decorated and expensive bowl designed for the purpose.
**Y-Straw**
A straw that has one mouth end but two other ends that dip into separate glasses.
The glasses contain liquids that reacts with each other when mixed. The desired effect (flavour, magic, regeneration, etc.) is a by-product of the mixing and stops once the liquids are fully combined.
The Y-Straw ensures the mixing happens in the mouth for maximum effect. Once the noisy fizzing/bubbling/smoking/face twisting mixing stops and the effect is absorbed; the resulting waste gas is exhaled with much satisfaction, like cigarette smoke.
[Answer]
## Straw + air pressure
Lots of good suggestions already, but this one is still missing:
If you have a liquid, you can stick a straw into it, close the upper end with your finger (or other bodypart as alien) and let air pressure keep the liquid inside the straw until you hold it over your mouth and remove the finger. The liquid then flows out of the straw into your mouth.
With rigid solid foods this would not work well, but smaller pieces of solid but somewhat soft/compressable material can be picked up by pressing the straw against them (they get pushed in a bit, displacing air) and then following the above procedure. Try it with a bit of meat or boiled vegetable - if you seal the upper end of the straw, air pressure will allow you to lift a bit of solid food that way.
Not the most efficient way to eat, but fun (for human children, at least), slightly educational (I imagine children eating this way to have an easier time learning about the effects of air pressure) and, most importantly here, foreign.
[Answer]
## Portable Kinetic Field Devices
The hard part is not coming up with something new, but coming up with something new and practical. Eating is a common activity; so, practicality is an important factor in determining how believable adoption of the utensils are.
Since you are talking about multiple races, I'm assuming this is a scifi/fantasy setting; so, you may want to consider how technology/magic could make eating more convenient than we can do in our world. While real world utensils are great at getting food into our mouths, they come with the shortcomings of needing regular cleaning and risking the spread of disease.
Using technology/magic, your non-humans could cut and manipulate food without touching it. This makes sanitation and cleanup a non-issue. This would also make for an interesting plot point where your non-humans would have a hard time accepting human eating customs that involve "touching" our food.
[Answer]
The first thing to do is consider what eating utensils already exist, and *why*. As a general rule, they are to make it *easier*, *safer*, *cleaner* or *more hygienic* to eat:
* Chopsticks are essentially extended fingers, for plucking up food
* Spoons, bowls and cups are all analogous to scooping something up in your palm
* Knives are for cutting things, in place of tearing or biting
* Breads and napkins are sometimes used to grasp things, rather than getting fingers dirty / sticky
* Nutcracker and Lobster Crackers make it easier / more elegant to apply sufficient force to break through the shell (with Seafood Picks to extract the meat)
* Fish Tongs / Fish Bone Pliers, for gripping and removing fish-bones
Next, you need to decide roughly *what* your people typically eat - national dishes, et cetera - and *how* they ate it **before** they had cutlery. Because, that's what the cutlery will resemble most.
For example, if your culture is highly carnivorous, and used to just pick up a roasted leg of meat and chomp away: A simple napkin, washed between meals, wrapped around the bone is the simplest solution. However, a still-piping-hot joint could burn you through it, and seasoning/sauces would be messy - so, perhaps they would make use of a [bone holder](https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/french-silver-lamb-ham-bone-holder-220185907)
If they are used to holding and grasping things like apples, then they might develop a pair of short tongs to replicate a one handed grip - which would *then* lead to future foods being developed as balls of about the same size.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CrNuy.png)
[Answer]
If you accept suggestions for drinking - including liquid meals like soups or protein shakes - then I'd suggest some kind of balloon or pouch or bladder. They used to be made of animal skins and used for wine until a few centuries ago. Last century more high tech versions were developed for astronauts (although it seems like they no longer eat directly from the pouch).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wineskin>
<https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-care-and-feeding-of-astronauts>
[Answer]
Seems to me that the food itself determines what the utensils will be and what your feeding organism looks like. Vegetable matter - maybe something to assist with grinding. Meat - cutting, slicing, dicing. You have lots of good suggestions here from other contributors.
[Answer]
**Big hammer**
Its used to pacify food before consumption. Longpork some types of food really don't like, when you eat it.
It doesn't like it so much, so it even can strike back!
On the same time, this food preserves much better, if it is still living.
[Answer]
You might take inspiration from some of the rarer (or odder) utensils people have come up with, they will both have a realistic-ish feel and an exotic-ish one.
One example - [eating thorns](https://www.google.com/search?q=medieval%20%22eating%20thorn%22&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjgksrEw6jpAhXBgnIEHS8rBocQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=medieval%20%22eating%20thorn%22&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECCMQJ1CqsgFYj8MBYOjGAWgAcAB4AIABVYgBpAGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ei=TYy3XqC4AsGFytMPr9aYuAg&bih=723&biw=1077&rlz=1C1AWFC_enUS877US877). Very rare nowadays, but common during medieval europe among other places. Its kinda like a fork with only one tine, or an awl, and can be a simple pointed utensil or can have a loop, curve or zigzag in the middle for better gripping. The proper way to arrange one's fingers around the zigzag for fine control and manners would be taught to kids, so protagonists can struggle a little or be quite apt as you wish.
Another example, also from medival times - it was quite common to cut pieces of food then scoop them up to eat with the flat of one's [knife](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-knives). Again, rare usage nowadays and probably a bit counterintuitive but it might feel both realistic and unusual to readers.
Perhaps a smooth round rod can be used to mix or stir instead of a spoon, or spread preserves instead of a knife. (maybe look up [spurtle](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=spurtle&atb=v197-1&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images))
Or something more complex, like a mini molinillo, a twirl whisk, or a wooden churner used to mix one's drink instead of a spoon... there are a lot of interesting designs if you [look](https://www.google.com/search?q=wooden%20whisk&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjgksrEw6jpAhXBgnIEHS8rBocQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=wooden%20whisk&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAAyAggAMgIIADICCAA6BAgAEENQ0hdY0i9gqDVoAHAAeACAAZUEiAHsE5IBCzYuMS4yLjAuMi4xmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ei=TYy3XqC4AsGFytMPr9aYuAg&bih=723&biw=1077&rlz=1C1AWFC_enUS877US877), and once you have a design idea you can build up culture and custom and even biology around it to make it more exotic or more familiar
] |
[Question]
[
An un-treatable virus starts infecting and killing people. Societies are on the brink of collapse, and it is decided the best way to save the most amount of people is to move everyone who can fit into nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and then out into the pacific ocean.
The basic plan is to have all the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and boats bringing people from shore operate alone for a month, so any infected that slip through the screenings have time to expose itself. A small government craft will approach every boat (never touching or docking) for a census count and ration delivery twice a week. After that, all the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will link up to form a large artificial island.
Every landmass has the infection, so docking anywhere after setting out, is out of the question. Governments set the sail date two weeks away, hopefully enough time to get non-infected people and boats into quarantine zones. All nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are going to be part of the island. Large tanker ships trade their oil for freshwater, and the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers cover their massive square footage with soil to produce a small harvest to supplement whatever can be fished. What ever rations are available are gathered, and the rations are shared for the first month of isolation, but the bulk of this food is saved for the world leaders and ruling class.
So I am wondering, could this human civilization live 150 years in a nuclear-powered aircraft carriers colony? The best answer would answer in two parts, the first being how many people could be part of the colony, and would there be viable food for that sized group after the first month? If the civilization wanted to survive 150 years, would they have to have a culling and resort to cannibalism?
[Answer]
**You have problems, and it isn't food**
Food is easy. The ocean is full of fish. So long as your story places the aircraft carriers in the right place, food is irrelevant.
Your problem is nuclear fuel. Those aircraft carriers are big, sealed, bathtubs. Without ventilation, the CO2 resulting just from human breathing would slowly make the lower decks uninhabitable (IMO). The ventilation is designed for electricity, so electricity is the tall pole in your tent.
And electricity on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier depends on fuel rods. The period between refueling for a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is [25 years.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refueling_and_overhaul). Could that be stretched? Somewhat, but it's not like you can parcel fuel rods out over time. So, 150 years is completely unbelievable without replacement fuel rods, and disposal of the old ones (don't want to radiate the fish!).
If you let the ventilation die out, then you're restricted to living on decks with access to port holes, doors, etc. that open to the outside air, and maybe (maybe) a deck below that. I honestly don't know how far toward the keel portholes go, but you certainly won't have them below the water line. And considering the nature of storms over the ocean, it's unlikely people will want to live on-deck.
**Just out of curiosity**
* You have a deadly disease that's killing people. Why do you have to wait 150 years? If it's that lethal, you'd only need to wait 5-10 years before 90% of the population was killed off and huge swaths of land became re-inhabitable. 150 years is an awfully long time. One would hope your doctors aboard the aircraft carriers were trying to eradicate the disease and that medical equipment to do so would be among the highest priorities during those early shipments from land. I find that 150 number really hard to choke down.
* This plot is hauntingly similar to *[The Last Ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ship_(novel))* by William Brinkley. You might want to go read that novel. Your aircraft carriers would be in radio contact with everyone they possibly could for the entire 150 years, tracking the viability of returning to shore anywhere.
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**Edit:** User "user" pointed out in comments that there are off-shore [solar arrays](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/Is-Japans-Offshore-Solar-Power-Plant-the-Future-of-Renewable-Energy-180949453/), [wind turbines](https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/what-are-advantages-and-disadvantages-offshore-wind-farms), and even oil platforms (indeed, any *pre-existing the apocalypse* energy-producing platform\* is usable to partially or completely offset the lack of new fuel rods. Well done, user!
Also, noting Forbin's actual experience as a Navy nuclear operator (it's absolutely *amazing* who uses this site!), refueling at sea is, fundamentally, impossible — making all discussions about disposing of the rods irrelevant (go read that comment. Holy schmoly it's a process).
[Answer]
There's a lot that goes into answering this, and the answer could turn into either yes or no depending on what assumptions and trade-offs you make.
Firstly, nuclear carriers have an operational lifetime of 50 years, and get a overhaul and refueling at the 25 year mark. This is assuming that the carrier is actively being used for military purposes, if you're content to let it float or cruise at low speed in the middle of the ocean, this timeline can likely be extended to a degree, however there will come a time when the nuclear plant has to be shut down because the lack of maintenance makes it too dangerous to operate even if you've still got fission fuel.
Second bit, there's a lot of stuff happening on an CVN that's just there to keep it in fighting shape: F-16s? Chuck 'em. Avgas? No need for that. Munitions? Garbage. Steam machinery, catapult piping, arrestors, carrier ops, all gone. Machine shops? Cut those back and re-purpose them to ship maintenance. That will free up a lot of space and mass.
Third bit, food and water. Assuming that whatever plague can't be transmitted through consuming fish, the bulk of the ark's diet will be based on fish, seaweed, maybe using algae as a supplement, and hydroponically or aeroponically grown citrus. A meat based diet like those of the Inuit actually provides all the nutrients and vitamins you need as long as the whole animal is consumed - but fruits and vegetable carry vitamin C in much larger quantities and are thus the best source for it. That means you can afford to feed a much larger population than you'd expect if you're assuming that you're growing everything on board.
Fourthly, corrosion and fouling. As others have mentioned, seawater is beastly stuff. But, there are ways around it. Sacrificial anodes have been mentioned, and it's simple enough to just stock up on a whole bunch of those. Wrap them up in airtight bags and attach them to floats then toss them overboard on a line if you've run out of space on board.
Fouling wise, you CAN remove it while still at sea, it's just more of a hassle than it's worth, which is why it's usually done in dock. But there's nothing stopping you from coming to a dead stop and sending out a bunch of divers with electric scrubbers to scrape off fouling. You can take it a step further if you have the equipment, and you can always set it a few years in the future and say they've got ultrasonic anti-fouling hull vibration systems or electrified graphene coatings.
Fifthly, weather. No great way around this. You'd want to keep north, where the water is too cool for hurricanes to form. Not south, because the waves there get really high. Still, you'd need some power to station-keep. By the time your nuclear reactors spool down, the carriers should have working kite sails to be able to maintain some maneuver capability. Their size works for and against them: they're big and thus stable in high seas, but they're also difficult t move with wind alone.
Finally, is this infection magically bound to all pieces of land? There are a lot of uninhabited islands out there that would be a lot more viable for long term habitation than living on the ocean all the time.
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Assuming dirt farming, as opposed to large scale industrial [hydroponics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics), [aeroponics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics), or [mycoculture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorn) it takes roughly an [acre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre) of land to feed a human for a year. We can reduce that somewhat if we assume that the fleet harvests [plankton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton), [krill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krill) and other high density marine life. Further still if the fleet can take advantage of some of the more advanced techniques available to the modern close space farmer but you're still looking at relatively large volumes of space for farming per person.
I think the fleet is done for; let's look at an example: The flight deck of the *[Abraham Lincoln](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Abraham_Lincoln_(CVN-72))* is roughly 6 acres and it ships nearly 5700 crew and flight wing.
The bigger problem is that none of the ships will be afloat after more than a couple of decades at most, seawater is one of the most corrosive substances known to man, without regular changes of their [sacrificial anodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathodic_protection) ships hulls will simply fall apart. Without anti-[fouling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofouling) measures, that require [dry dock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_dock) time to complete or renew shear weight of marine life will sink ships.
[Answer]
Your generation ships will have 99 problems. Food and fuel won't be two of them.
Food won't be a problem if you like fish.
Fuel is a bit trickier, and requires command staff to *know at the outset* that their nuclear carrier is now a generation ship. Let's pause to look at the nuclear ship refueling cycle.
## The refueling cycle
When a reactor shuts down, nuclear fuel keeps making heat. Civil reactors handle their fuel "wet". CanDU and RBMK have removable plugs that allow machines to swap fuel rods while the reactor is underway, and it's kept wet in the machine. BWR/PWR/VVER types, you have to shut down and pop the lid off, and the spaces above the reactor lid are a huge pool that you flood. (e.g. the worrisome fuel pool in Fukushima reactor 4). That's how you manage decay heat.
With military reactors, there's no space for that. So you must wait a long time for the fuel to cool enough to *even start* your refueling operation, so you use that time to do a systems overhaul as well. This whole deal takes 3 years.
So. Suppose your ship is on year 25 and the drydock is ready. But wait! War is imminent in the next 1-3 year; you'd be caught in drydock. That won't do. So your refueling/overhaul is *deferred*. In year 27 war begins, you see robust action through year 32, but no overhaul yet: another boat needs it more due to battle damage. So year 35.
Also, suppose on year 35 they have been idling for 12 hours and suddenly *they gotta go Right Now*. That reactor will in a [Xenon Pit](https://www.hydroworld.com/articles/hr/print/volume-34/issue-3/articles/investigation-re-creation-indicates-likely-ignition-point-of-thermalito-fire.html). So it'll be built with the control-rod "authority" to quickly blow through it and regain full power, without resorting to safety violations like Ch[o](https://insp.pnnl.gov/-chorninit-spelling.htm)rnobyl. We're talking a lot of reactivity and rod authority that will keep it going when it *doesn't* have a xenon pit.
**Military reactors are sized for contingencies**.
## Getting to 150 years
Nuclear fuel is pretty simple: fuel burnup is proportional to the heat energy you use. Carrier reactors are sized for a career of high tempo maneuvering: lots of fast cruise and generous use of energy *since it's plentiful*.
If you can reduce power consumption, your reactor lasts longer in proportion. Making it to 150 years takes about an 80% cut in energy usage. Obviously you will be quitting flight ops, and minimizing sea cruise. Keeping propulsion at [tickover](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tick%20over), just enough to maintain sea stability, or weighing anchor somewhere, will be key. Then you cut down your electrical loads and reduce your heating loads with good insulation (which you didn't really need before).
I would expect that most of the time, one of the two reactors would be shut down. The ship is more than capable of fighting on one reactor, so it should be able to serve in "generation ship" mode with one reactor at low power.
The experience of the civil nuclear industry is that reactors age quite well. There haven't been an appreciable number of new US plants since the 1980s, so they're all quite old - and yet they are repeatedly recertified, even in a post *[Chornobyl](https://insp.pnnl.gov/-chorninit-spelling.htm)* post *Fukushima* age. The only major difference is that carrier reactors use *salt* water as an ultimate heat sink in heat exchangers, and corrosive salt water may be an issue.
One option to slow or arrest salt water corrosion is for the carrier group to relocate to a river which allows them to sail sufficiently upstream to be in fresh water. As discussed, this would be one of their 99 other problems.
One way to deal with hull maintenance is to use bulldozers, tides and pumps to make a man-made basin, and an improvised "lock" made by pushing dirt around. Float the carrier into the "lock", fill the lock and basin, float the carrier into the basin, then open the "locks" and let the carrier settle onto the earth - the equivalent of blocks in a drydock. Then, to reach the carrier bottom, you tunnel the dirt out from under the carrier, in narrow strips of maybe 20 feet wide, so 90% of the carrier bottom is still supported by earth. You remove barnacles and replace the bottom antifouling, and when it cures, refill that tunnel and dig another tunnel. You could do this in a continuous "bubble", digging out on the aft side of the tunnel and repacking the dirt in the forward side. When the process is done, have the bulldozers re-create the "lock", pump the basin full of water, and float the carrier back to sea.
[Answer]
## FOOD
As others have mentioned, food isn't an issue. You have fish and you have seaweed. You can farm fish and also do things like grow oysters on strings. Some vertical farms on the boats could grow some land vegetables (with compost adding to the soil so it doesn't deplete). Fermenting the vegetables in brine (easy to come by) gives you plenty of Vitamin C, probiotics, and B vitamins.
Once the colony is formed, the fish and sea vegetables will need to come from smaller crafts sent out for gathering. Why? Because of the human waste generated by the colony that goes into the surrounding ocean. Yes it helps feed plants and animals but it's not sanitary to harvest directly from it.
## WATER
Fresh water is a much bigger problem. Mostly this is for drinking/cooking. While humans feel better bathing in fresh water, it's not required. When there is heavy rainfall, the excess fresh water can be used for laundry and cleaning to get salt residue off.
Rain is uneven and you need enough fresh water storage containers to carry you through to the next heavy rainfall. Dew and condensation collectors can help bridge the gap. And there could possibly even be desalinization technology that works on the right scale to make a difference.
The main issue here though is time. Not just the time between rainfalls, but time ruining your equipment and damaging your storage containers. Plastic containers won't last 150 years (they probably won't last 20 years, especially if exposed to the sun). Metal containers will corrode and develop leaks. They can be repaired, but eventually the patches aren't going to do the trick.
Collectors also will develop holes and leaks. Something as simple as a hanging tarp to allow dew to form overnight and drip into a bucket will not work in a few years because the materials have degraded so much (and can't be replaced). Desalinization equipment will also break down.
## CANNIBALISM
Cannibalism can take two forms:
1. Deliberate "culling" of people for food.
2. Making use of the bodies of people who have died.
Either way though, it doesn't make much sense. There's no need to eat human flesh because there will be plenty of fish in the sea, even after 150 years of local eating.
Population control is a big issue though and there won't be any birth control available after the first few years, aside from periodic abstinence (which works better than people think but only if you care, chart, and don't cheat). That's not cannibalism but it may give your story the right amount of horror you want.
There is also the issue of criminal behavior. There could be some prison space (perhaps even a prison boat) but it's not practical to punish people by locking them up long-term. For people where "community service" and plain old shunning/shaming doesn't work, there might be a death penalty.
If you really want some cannibalistic element, use prisoners' bodies to feed the fish farms.
## POPULATION
The number of people you can have will depends obviously on the capacity of each ship plus how many ships you have. Some ships might need to be workstations or for storage. If not, then you need to allocate space for those things within ships. Ditto for food and water storage, food processing, and general storage.
Food supplies won't limit the population (it does on Earth now but your ships will only have a fraction of what Earth has). But water supplies will, especially as your storage capacities diminish over time.
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**The aircraft carrier will not last that long.**
A standard cruise is maybe 2 years at a time before needing maintenance downtime in the yard. But during those 2 years there will be numerous resupplies, either at dock or using an auxiliary resupply ship in a maneuver called "UNREP" (Underway Replenishment). That supply ship is not a small boat.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rXvH0.png)
20-25 years before the reactors need to be refueled. Planned service life 50 years with all the planned maintenance periods in dry dock. Maximum? Probably 65-70 but it would be in horrible shape by then.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/R66D5.jpg)
Ships that old stuff like toilets, air conditioning, etc start breaking down. There are WWII ships that old still intact as museums but aren’t operational or seaworthy in any sense. The older the boat, the more expensive and difficult it is to maintain. This is not a good plan, it’s just too much work to keep aircraft carriers working.
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Many of the answerers have done a good job pointing out the deficiencies in trying to keep a group of nuclear carriers afloat and functional for many years. However, I think we are giving short shrift to the problems of food, waste management, and public health. The crews of modern warships are generally extremely healthy young individuals, and every effort is made to maintain "herd health."
This will go out the window in a crisis situation with a non-military refugee population. Especially since the medical supplies will eventually run out and it's extremely unlikely any of the ships in the group will have any capacity for making more.
Completely apart from the terrible virus they think they are escaping, if they stay in those close quarters for long, disease will eventually become rampant and wipe them out.
Additionally, warships aren't designed to recycle their waste. They just hold it until they can conveniently get rid of it. Establishing some kind of reasonable waste recycling may be difficult or impossible in a refugee situation.
And even though several posters have claimed that food won't be a problem, a fish-only, protein-only diet will be... less than optimal for everyone's health over the years. The populace will need vegetables, and that requires at least an acre per person. More, to support the possibility of an increasing population and as a hedge against some crops failing.
The right solution is to stay at sea only long enough to find a reasonably isolated and "clean" location on land for most of the refugee group. That alone will be a huge task in such a setting, especially since most of the rest of the populace ashore may be assumed to be quickly dying off and unable to report on conditions. Time would be of the essence, and this would likely be a time (and resource) consuming task! Perhaps this could be the crux of the story?
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Could some number of people survive without resorting to cannibalism? I think the answer is most certainly. Could 7 Billion people survive off harvesting the Pacific Ocean for 150 years? On average humans need 100 grams per day and 1500 calories. That's 700,000 kg per day of protein and a lot of calories. Today, we harvest 90 Billion kg of fish, muscles, and so on from all the seas around the world. So there seems like there would be enough food for a lot of humans. Survivability would be enhanced by colonizing the other oceans too, and not just the Pacific.
I think the biggest challenge would be power generation. They'll need to smelt metal to repair parts of their ships -- 150 years at sea is a long time, and ships rust.
[Answer]
Assuming no issues with the ships ventilation as stated by [JBH](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/149559/65871), here are some solutions.
## If your goal is to ensure the survival of humanity
Just do Adam and Eve for each ship. If each ship have a plot of land and fish, a pair (a male and female), they continue the human race; especially if there are multiple ships out in sea. Ideally, you would want a doctor or medical expert to be either the husband or wife and some specific vitamins to make up for the missing resources provided by eating meat.
Since there's only two human per ship, you can even bring in livestock like cows and chicken as they produce useful food items. Heck, if each ship brings a different combination of livestock and/or plants, they can implement a trading system where each ship (or family) can trade with other ships for essentials. This will ensure that each ship is specialized in one produce.
As for who gets to live and who gets to die, well, that's where this gets a bit nasty; it is the survival of the fittest. Those who are the healthiest and have useful skills (i.e. doctor, farmer, fisher) gets to live. **While pairing should be compatible/lover, with the end of humanity, lovers can't be choosers.**
## Save as much people as possible
There are multiple suggestions of fishing/farming, but here is another, very disgusting, albeit doable way.
This is pretty bad, you have been warned
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> Eating one own poop could help offset some food issues provided that medications are abundant. This is because the digestive system cannot 100% process what we eat fully and thus our waste still have some benefits.
> There are health risk with this obviously, but that is where medication comes into play. Meds are generally small and last a long time.
> The idea is for the rest of the years, carefully balance fishing/farming and eating poop to survive. And every other or so excretion gets reused as food (obvious for oneself, it is already bad as it is, but force other to eat yours?).
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The main idea is not to exhaust the sea and whatever land you have. Over fishing and and planting can greatly tax the resources and led to early depletion of resources. So by limiting the amount of fishing and farming via other means, one can last longer. Also, the waste can be used as fertilizer to help rejuvenate the land and with careful amount, attract micro-organisms which can then attract big predators, leading to more fishes.
The reason I did not mention bring livestock in this case is that humans + livestock = too much waste and thus cause heavy pollution which can easily led to quicker contamination of water and air. Especially cows.
## Screw the World
This one is pretty much ignore the disease and move back to land. Humans are very adaptable creatures and a group of people may be able to become immune to the disease.
To help with this crazy idea, lets go even crazier. Radiate people; you got nuclear reaction at your fingertip. Mutation can lead to genes which could help the person survive the disease. What kind and how much? That is up for grab and chance.
Would not recommend if you want to see humanity live; would be a fun simulation tho.
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Cannibalism just doesn't work in that setting. It can be a solution for relatively short periods of times. Maybe for a year or two (stranded in north pole or surrounded by enemy soldiers for less than a year) but eating people will cause serious issues. First of all is the amount of human meat in a body. Assuming things are not going well the average weight of average person on that ship has gone down to 65kg on average. Men and women alike lost their body fat and become more more fragile, skinny and tired. And people won't start eating other people until they have done and waited as long as possible. This means that average body has less stuff to eat. According to some googling about 80% of human body weight is edible. So one body is about 52kg of food. And one kilogram of human meat might have 1500 calories.
Using gerald r ford aircraft carrier as an example that holds a crew of 2600. So let's assume we triple that mount and remove all the airplanes and weapons to make it still float. That is 7800 people. Pure guess. Let's say 700 calories per day is minimum to survive. This is awfully low amount as you'd need to be able to work hard to keep fixing the ship as all its systems are massively overloaded due to tripling of the number of people onboard. But you have kids onboard as well who eat less.
So from those numbers we can quickly conclude that relying on cannibalism alone won't work. Daily for that amount of people you'd need 5200kg of human meat! You'd need to be killing 56 people PER DAY just to survive. It just doesn't work at all. If you want a math challenge you can work out how long until all but one person is dead from that 7800 people. One person needs 700 calories per day, meat has 1500calories per kilogram, one person weighs 65kg.
And if that is not enough you'll create massive problems with who gets to live and who gets eaten. You are asking people to commit mass scale murder on daily basis. People having to eat their spouses, kids, mothers and fathers. Not to mention the effort it takes to prepare all that food. Killing, cutting it up, cooking it... You don't want to eat raw meat as it has less calories than cooked meat. So you need a lot of electricity or wood to heat up the meat as well. Plus all kinds of other issues. When the food runs out cannibalism won't save you. It might help handful of people out of big group to live a year or two longer at most.
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The reactors are not designed to last that long. When the fuel goes your people will probably suffocate in the lower levels and youll drift uncontrollably. Your people will not survive after that. I think the fuel lasts about 25 years. If these reactors are breeder reactors that turn u238 into pl239 then your all set. The ocean has a lot of uranium dissolved.
They should be able to build drones out of scrap that can be used to harvest iron from land, and sterilize it before bringing it over. Then turn the iron into wires and run some dc current through it. It will turn into a substance similar to concrete by mineral accumulation and will self repair so long as it has dc current. You now have concrete floating islands ideal for coral growth and aquaculture. Fishing and algae can be used to make more soil. After a bit youll be able to make concentrated solar thermal generators. Your floating islands are now sustainable and capable of growth and will ladt longer then the fuel in your carriers, which will probably be disassembled.
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[Question]
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Consider the following situation:
Over the last 2 to 3 years, all the world's birds and bats *outside of those in human captivity or domestication* have stopped getting sick; sick - even terminally sick - animals have recovered, and these animals now have lifespans extended to about double that which they formerly could have expected.
Should humans capture any of these birds or bats, their immunity ceases and their aging progresses as usual from the creature's apparent age. Any birds or bats released or escaped from human captivity *and observation* also quickly (re)acquire this newfound immunity and longevity.
Should a captured bird or bat be examined sufficiently closely soon after capture, scientists might notice trace quantities of Hafnium, Tantalum, Silver, Holmium and Lutetium above those normally found in birds, as well as subtle differences in bone layering, but no other explanation for their former immunities and longevity.
The agency by which this is achieved is an alien nanotechnology with sophisticated rod logic brains that have been instructed to covertly spy upon humans, and if any humans get too close, the nanotech will self-destruct without harming the animal (leaving behind the trace elements I mentioned, plus Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Hydrogen, none of which are likely to be detected). However, a side-effect of being covertly infiltrated by these alien general-purpose nanites is that the nanites will also implement unrevoked prior programming that instructs them to look after the health of whatever organism into which they are inserted. The nanites will avoid an *un*infiltrated animal that humans are observing, but if they don't believe that any human is paying much attention - and the nanites are individually pretty smart and they all talk to one another, so there is a good chance that they'll know - they'll infiltrate *that* animal too. After all, if a canary escapes, humans would expect it to stay in the vicinity for a while.
**EDIT:**
Observation means that either a human or a human-made device physically restrains the animal, a human or a human device spends a significant amount of time watching the animal, such that another human would consider the first person or device to be watching that animal, (really *watching* it, as in "it is part of my research project" watching, not just casually observing it since it lives nearby) or a human or human-made device attaches an active tracking device.
Passive tracking devices such as leg bands do not count as ongoing observation. Any nanites present would self-destruct on capture of an animal, but after being banded or otherwise marked, if it appears that no great amount of attention is being directed toward the animal, then it will be *re*-infiltrated.
The nanites that are infiltrating the world's birds and bats are AI *spies*. They are individually as intelligent as a human, but have no sense of self-preservation. While their orders dictate that they must prevent discovery by humans, they must also *observe* humans while their host animals continue to act normally as far as possible. Since the act of observing humans leaves their hosts able to be observed by humans in turn, they cannot simply self-destruct any time a human looks at them sideways, since that would leave them unable to fulfil their mission. They are smart enough to know when a human is paying attention to their host with a view to capturing it, either now or potentially in the future, or is looking for any unusual behaviour or traits. Active tracking devices that rely upon GPS or RF broadcast and enable location of the animal at a distance *are* considered to be ongoing observation.
Since pretty much *every* non-domesticated bird or bat has been infiltrated, the loss of a few here or there if humans catch and active-tag some is acceptable, but if the opportunity for unobserved reinfiltration occurs, it will be taken.
If humans begin to capture birds or bats en-masse, the nanites will probably assist a few to escape. These animals aren't all that smart naturally, but they are smart enough to recognise a new "predator" eventually, so their fleeing wouldn't be considered unusual.
**TL,DR**: the nanites are each as smart as a human and they all talk to each other, and if they think that humans are too interested in an uninfiltrated potential host, they won't go there, and they'll self-destruct if humans appear to be approaching a position where there is any possibility that they could be discovered within that host by humans.
**End Edit**
However, would we even notice? If so, how long might it take? Could we notice in under 5 years?
**Extra credit:** Can anyone deduce why Hafnium, Tantalum, Silver, Holmium and Lutetium in addition to elements C, N, O & H and other light elements?
[Answer]
Professional ornithologists and conservationists would definitely notice. They would probably realize that something is going on within a few years.
There is a large community of bird watchers, and a smaller community of professional ornithologists, such as [the Cornell Lab of Ornithology](http://www.birds.cornell.edu/page.aspx?pid=1662). They have a [citizen science](http://www.birds.cornell.edu/page.aspx?pid=1664) program.
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> Each day, bird watchers report tens of thousands of bird observations to citizen-science projects at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, contributing to the world’s most dynamic and powerful source of information on birds. . . . Scientists use these data to determine how birds are affected by habitat loss, pollution, and disease. They trace bird migration and document long-term changes in bird numbers continent wide.
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These people are monitoring wild birds. They will notice.
AdaliaBooks brought up a good point in his answer; Deaths of small birds are not primarily caused by old age. Small birds get eaten before they die of old age. However, large birds are a different story. [Nothing eats bald eagles.](https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Library/Birds/Bald-Eagle.aspx) Bald eagles are a symbol of America, and get [plenty of attention](http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/managed/bald-eagle/monitoring/) by wildlife monitoring scientists. [We know the age at death](http://www.newsweek.com/oldest-bald-eagle-dead-new-york-343842) of at least a few bald eagles, and we have noticed that, thanks to conservation efforts, they are living longer than they used to.
The second part of your question was, how long would it take for us to notice? If we just track bald eagle deaths, we would definitely notice when 50 year old bald eagles become routine, but that won't be for another couple decades. it will be at least 10 years before we notice that bald eagles are definitely getting suspiciously old. The Florida wildlife survey I linked, monitors the number of fledglings per active nest. Presumably this number would jump up if eagles stopped getting sick. They would spend less time and energy fighting diseases, and more on making eggs.
This doesn't mean that they would accept an explanation like alien nano-bots. I'm sure a proper biologist could spin a half dozen theories for super long lived birds that are less crazy than nano-bots. That being said, "less crazy than nano-bots," is not a very high bar.
[Answer]
The cities would be the first to notice. And I mean **really** notice.
**Seagulls**
Welcome to my home city of **Aberdeen** on the north-east coast of Scotland, the 'oil capitol of Europe', which really *should* be better known for its **seagulls**. The local politicians have recently issued a warning over upcoming ['Seagull wars'](http://www.itv.com/news/2017-02-07/mps-warn-of-seagull-wars-ahead-of-breeding-season/) expected by the city council as residents face a fresh round of battles with an oncoming storm of giant seagulls which have plagued the city since the dawn of time.
I have seen them dive bomb numerous people in order to steal food out of their hands, intimidate pensioners, and terrorise children in play-parks. The birds have been caught on camera destroying property, harassing all kinds of residents, and even shoplifting... and not as a one-time news story either: **it happens [year](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/6907994.stm) after [year](https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/watch-seagull-caught-on-cctv-terrorising-aberdeen-cinema-staff/) after [year](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-36600404).**
The city has previously issued [specialist guidelines](https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/aberdeen-council-issues-guide-to-help-combat-seagull-problem/) on dealing with the birds, and has been struggling with the problem for years. **The saving grace of the city is that seagulls do - occasionally - die.** If seagulls stopped dying in the cold of winter or becoming sick, they would rapidly increase in population even further, and pose an even greater menace than they do currently.
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**Pigeons**
If you've ever spent any length of time in large public transport stations in cities, you'll have seen pigeons. Lots of pigeons. Most of them quickly become a sickly gray-brown with pollution, and lots of them have missing eyes, toes or entire feet, and hobble around from day to day through various passenger stations.
If all of a city's un-eaten pigeons rapidly became all shiny and healthy without a single defect, it wouldn't take much more than a year - perhaps two - for somebody somewhere, to notice. Although I personally would expect that they would notice the seagulls first.
And if I were to speculate about the identity of that remarkably observant person who notices it first... I'm fairly sure they will live in Aberdeen.
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It really depends, as Jarred mentioned in his comment if observation cancels and removes the effect it's not likely humans will realise anything is amiss.
However, I'm not sure making birds super healthy would really increase their lifespan at all (and cause any effect for people to notice).
Take this for example:
<https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/ask-an-expert/previous/blackbirds_live.aspx>
Apparently the average life expectancy of a blackbird is 3.4 years, yet they can live till at least twenty. Clearly birds aren't dropping dead of old age, and presumably at 3 years old they're pretty much in their prime so illness is less likely a cause of death than predation is.
How many birds do you see in your garden every day? And how many dead birds do you find?
I can count on my fingers the number of dead (garden) birds I've found in my lifetime.
Illness doesn't kill most birds, other animals do. Cats, birds of prey, humans are all far more dangerous to birds.
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To add to [BobtheAverage's](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/79271/32987) answer (and others' answers), there are other groups that would notice, given time.
First, Wildlife Refuge and Park Ranger groups would begin to notice that birds aren't dying in the same ways they are used to seeing. These are wild birds in wild environments, but with both active and passive monitoring going on seasonally.
Healthier birds would tend to breed more successfully, so populations would increase, since disease and other natural causes would have less impact on their survival rates. Overpopulation would be noticed by a wide range of overlapping but different groups, from park rangers to bird watchers to hunters to farmers ("damn crows ate my crops again this season!"). And once the larger populations were noticed by these groups, various veterinarians would get involved; they'd study live and dead birds to determine a root cause.
Veterinarians. They'd notice. Within nanoseconds of any kind of public notice of population changes or possibly other "weird news!" events around birds, *every. single. roadkill bird ever.* gets sent to various regional veterinary diagnostic laboratories (VDLs). These VDLs saw a huge uptick in submission of random dead birds after "bird flu epidemic" news stories hit. And yes, many died of obvious causes like hitting a car or such. But each bird had to go through a [necropsy](https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/necropsy), the animal equivalent to a human autopsy. Many of these laboratories (at least in the US) are run by public universities. The people who work in these labs are experts in their fields. They may not realize anything at first, but eventually someone with a bit more curiosity than the average person would start to notice "something odd."
I can assure you\* that the pathologists in VDLs have a high degree of curiosity, that they tend to know "what's normal" for the birds native to their area, and that they have extensive -- often international -- circles of friends / colleagues that form an informal data-sharing network. They'd ask around and eventually start publishing detailed findings.
Once the first such story hit a peer-reviewed journal, everyone would know something was going on. They may not know WHAT yet, or WHY. But they'd know that things weren't right. And that would lead to further research and so on...
It would take time. And the press would get wind and distort the facts a great deal, leading to mass hysteria, etc. (see also, bird flu epidemic). But eventually they'd realize that something was going on.
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\*I worked in one of these VDLs for 15 years (in IT, but for the lab). In that role, I saw how people in that industry network and conference with each other for mutual support.
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Humanity would notice something is off\* within at most 1 year\*\*.
While your tech avoids active observation, gathering statistics on birds, such as how many die/disappear is done by [passive observation](https://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/ringing/about-ringing/why-report-ringed-bird).\*\*\*
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r3d2Mm.jpg)
\*Less illness means less dead birds and more live ones. While some answers speculate that birds mainly die due to predation, that actually works in favor of noticing the effect, because predation affects the sick individuals far more than the others.
\*\*Several kinds of birds come back to the same nest (or colony) for breeding season once a year, where they are captured every year to read the rings, weigh them, track which exact nest they go into, track how many young they have (which will get rings as well), etc.
\*\*\* In addition to the rings, there are countless bird monitoring programs where professional birdwatchers count breeding pairs for all species in an area, usually by walking through the area a few times during mating season and listening to the songs, and sometimes by spotting the birds.
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## Remember that in a stable population each breeding pair produces only one surviving pair of offspring.
That's in their entire breeding lives, no matter how many breeding cycles, no matter how many offspring per breeding cycle, two survive to produce their own two offspring in their turn.
If they produce more than that then the population rises, fewer and the population falls. Of course no population is *that* stable, there are booms and crashes. However population booms tend to cause population booms in predator numbers, so for humans to notice anything you'd have to look carefully into how often prey birds actually die of something other than predation or starvation. The answer is likely to be *not a lot*.
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The answer is in the first sentence of your question. **2-3 years**.
Ornithologists catch birds and mark (they literally put a ring on them) on a daily basis. They also put into a neat table the supposed age and description (general condition), then put number that correspond with description that is also on the ring.
So after two or 3 years they notice that previously sick birds are getting well. You don't need to catch the bird to watch it. They also notice that if they try to keep the bird for tests the sickness return. They also notice that when released the birds came back to full health.
This is called "Mantis effect" (no not, really I just made that up). You know the story that female mantis eats male head after copulation? They did that because they we're watched and it make them do silly things.
So scientists will/would be able to figure out a way of examining the birds without holding them in captivity.
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The North American [House Finch](https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/House_Finch/id), and to a lesser extent the [American Goldfinch,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_goldfinch) have experienced an outbreak of [mycoplasmal conjuctivitis](http://feederwatch.org/learn/house-finch-eye-disease/) over the past 20-odd years:
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> House Finch eye disease was first noticed in 1994 by FeederWatchers in the Washington, D.C., area. Birds infected with this disease (also called Mycoplasmal conjunctivitis) have red, swollen, runny, or crusty eyes. In extreme cases the eyes become swollen shut and the bird becomes blind. You might observe an infected bird sitting quietly in your yard, clumsily scratching an eye against its foot or a perch. While some infected birds recover, many die from starvation, exposure, or predation.
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> Conjunctivitis can have many causes, but the type most often seen in House Finches is caused by the bacterium *mycoplasma gallisepticum*. This bacterium has long been known as a pathogen of domestic turkeys and chickens. The disease has affected several other wild bird species, including American Goldfinch, Evening Grosbeak, and Purple Finch.
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5pe6Z.jpg)
(Image from the above link)
The House Finch is a particularly common visitor at household bird feeders, and the symptoms of the disease are quite noticeable, particularly in advanced cases. (I've had outbreaks at my own bird feeder, so I speak from experience here.) The Cornell Lab of Ornithology runs [Project FeederWatch](http://feederwatch.org/), which is a crowd-sourced (flock-sourced?) data project that among other things tracks the prevalence of mycoplasmal conjuctivitis.
A sudden drop in the prevalence of mycoplasmal conjuctivitis would almost certainly be noticed by the data trackers at Project FeederWatch. Ornithologists would probably think up a few hypotheses for this collapse before they jumped straight to "alien invasion":
* Perhaps the birds had adapted to be resistant to *mycoplasma gallisepticum*. However, the fact that this infection affects multiple species rules this out; why would both house finches and goldfinches simultaneously evolve a defense against the same disease? The rate of spread of the "disinfection" would also argue against this, as evolutionary change occurs over many generations of birds (i.e., decades if not centuries). If the technology came to earth simultaneously at multiple locations, that would look even more suspicious.
* Perhaps *mycoplasma gallisepticum* had mutated to be a less virulent form, one that could infect birds without affecting their vision. (Bacteria can evolve much more quickly than macroorganisms, after all.) Scientists would then try to culture this new, less virulent strain in the hopes of isolating and describing it. They would already have a reservoir of *mycoplasma gallisepticum* in domesticated fowls, and finding a less virulent strain that was able to out-compete the known domestic strain would be a great boon to the poultry industry. They would quickly realize that *mycoplasma gallisepticum* had essentially died out in wild birds.
* In an attempt to study this new-found immunity, they would perhaps capture wild House Finches and try to infect them with *mycoplasma gallisepticum* from domesticated fowl. These birds would manifest all the symptoms of the original disease, proving that this was not an evolved immunity. If the birds were still infected when released, and if they were banded for later tracking, they would be found to have been "disinfected" while in the wild. This would look exceedingly suspicious.
My guess is that scientists would know that something really weird was going on with wild bird disease within 5 years of the initial tech insertion, at least if it occurred in North America.
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We would notice lifespans doubling. This would have *at least* the effect of doubling populations, and that would be quickly noticed.
Also, my cats would be happy and purring.
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The problem is that you'd need large scale statistics of bird deaths, but most bird deaths are so unimportant that they're not recorded.
To detect a trend, you'd need a large data source of unimportant, inane events. A microblog service with lots of users is ideal. People will casually mention a dead bird. Remember to normalise the data for any trends in number of users and what topics they talk about, and you can see if the number of bird deaths have gone down over time.
This has been done in real life looking at the number of people mentioning they have the flu on the microblogging service [Twitter](http://hub.jhu.edu/2014/03/18/twitter-data-flu-tracking-new-york/).
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Even assuming that the nanites are so careful that they self destruct at any human-bird interaction, we would still notice. Indeed we monitor not only live birds, but traces left by them, for instance guano is harvested.
Even assuming constant bird population (because there is self-regulation, for instance when food gets scarce, birds have fewer offsprings), we could notice a decrease in bat bones in bat caverns.
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Kinda ran through the discussion, so sorry if it hasn't been asked, but how long is the observation going? The easiest solution is to say that there is an uptick in endangered birds. Considering the United State's nation symbol, the Bald Eagle, is one of the most endangered and observed birds because of it's two statuses mentioned, it would be noticed overtime that the Eagles are not dying.
This also brings up another point that many birds are quite territorial (raptors especially, but even non-predatory birds like the Blue Jay, are aggressive attackers on anything entering their territory... and that is a wide swath of area), one has to wonder if the benefits these birds receive carry over to bird on bird physical attacks? The whole operation might be indanger of a never ending war over territory and food. Especially since predators of any kind will need a large supply of food, an increasing raptor population will encroach on human territory and there would be an uptick in pet deaths due to birds (the great Chihuahua genocide will ensue).
Also, while this does take into count captive birds, meaning farmed chicken and turkey are not going to be passed over, what about game birds? Will hunters the world over be taken seriously when their duck season starts to look feature ducks that can take bullets like Daffy Duck (I'm now picturing one of the first indicators is the homicide team standing over a duck hunter who apparently shot himself, believing he had "no more buwwets" because the ducks weren't getting killed by when he shot them)?
As for the cat question above, I would imagine that it would stop working as cats are notorious for playing with their food before the kill... the nanites would likely register this as captivity.
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Amazon has extended to Mars, and their Prime customers there need, if not 1-day shipping, at least 1-month shipping.
They have created a shipping mechanism involving some method, that allows them to ship items to Mars in 1 month. This method is fairly resource-intensive, but Amazon researchers have determined it as efficient as possible.
What is this method, how much does it cost to use, and what materials would be valuable enough on a Martian colony that it would be worth that cost?
* Obviously food is valuable on a Martian colony, but food also weighs a lot
* This Martian colony is similar to a real-life medieval colony; hopes to be self-sufficient, but it's not quite yet. It has access to *basic* food production, but it is not yet enough to have anything more then the bare minimum nutrition
* Please consider acceleration and deceleration of the material
* It's not necessary, but I would like the solution to involve a railgun, becuase they are cool. EDIT: After quite a few answers, I don't think this possible. No need to include this.
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The maximum distance between Earth and Mars is ~401.3 million kilometres. Leaving aside the pesky star in the middle for now, to cover this in 30 of your Earth days is going to take a fearsome rocket.
You'll be needing a continuous thrust rocket, where the engine has a steady acceleration up to the half-way point of the journey, at which point the rocket flips over and then does a stead deceleration burn to the destination. The [brachistochrone equation](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/torchships.php#id--Brachistochrone_Equations) can tell us what sort of *oomph* you need: given a distance $d$ of 401.3 million km and a time $t$ of 30 days, you end up with an acceleration $a = \frac{4d}{t^2}$ of about 0.24m/s2. That's not obviously a whole lot, but it adds up over 15 days of boosting to get you a peak speed over 300km/s which is pretty formidable.
With a required [delta-V](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget) of ~620km/s, you're going to need a potent rocket engine, or a rather silly amount of fuel. Lets say we have a generous mass ratio $R$ of 10... that is to say, the loaded spacecraft masses 10 times as much fully fuelled as it does when its tanks are dry (or alternatively, the fuel masses 9 times more than the empty ship). You can use the [specific impulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse) formula to work out that you need a rocket with a specific impulse of 27426 seconds, or an exhaust velocity of 268km/s. This is at the very top end of what a [VASIMR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket) might produce.
Lets say your spacecraft weighs about a 200 tonnes with full cargo but no fuel. That gives it a "launch" mass of 2000 tonnes. I put "launch" in quotes because I'll handwave this as leaving from high Earth orbit. To reach the required acceleration, you need an initial rocket thrust of nearly half a meganewton. With the required exhaust velocity, that means a rocket power of **about 64 gigawatts**. Clearly, no VASMIR is going to manage that, as it would require a giant nuclear reactor to operate. Clearly, you need a nuclear drive. I can't find any fission designs that are this efficient and powerful, so you'll be wanting *fusion*.
The ever useful Project Rho suggests two research papers on fusion driven spacecraft designs... this makes the designs *plausible*, if not yet actually *possible*.
1. [Realizing "2001: A Space Odyssey": Piloted Spherical Torus Nuclear Fusion Propulsion](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20050160960)
2. [Z-Pinch Pulsed Plasma Propulsion Technology Development](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20110008519) ("HOPE Z-Pinch")
Both these designs have much lower mass ratios than your ship needs, but they should give you a starting point. Critically, both ships have a fairly similar layout, showing quite how much space needs to be given over to heat sinks for your monstrously powerful nuclear engine:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Oiky3.png)
Your delivery ship will have *much* more fuel, and a substantially larger engine because the Hope and the Discovery II are *plausible* ships with sensible milligee accelerations, and your nuclear monstrosity needs 10 to 15 times what they have.
Note that if you relaxed your shipping requirements slightly to be "30 days at closest point" (which gives you far fewer launch windows) you can use either of those ship designs *as is* for your needs. Only for the "30 days regardless" requirement do you need crazy rockets that carry ten times the fuel and have ten times the acceleration.
For the shortest possible trip, your rocket could make it in a little over 11 days with a mass ratio of more like 2.33, meaning it could carry several times as much cargo.
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Well, the trite answer is "as little as is required".
You do need to be able to put a few hundred tonnes of cargo into space cheaply (or manufacture everything you need out there) and you also need to be able to produce several hundred tonnes of refined nuclear fuel (requiring deuterium separation, tritium generation, lithium separation, etc) and get that up to the relevant orbit, too. You need to be able to do the same job at the Mars end of the journey, or your delta-V budget **quadruples**. One assumes that if you can't refine fuel in Mars orbit, you send it there via slow, infrequent but vastly cheaper and simpler Hohmann transfer.
The ship will need work after every flight. There will be micrometeor damage, radiation damage to the drive nozzle, neutron-activated drive components to replace and decontaminate, whatever else.
Clearly you are talking about a society which *can* do this, because flying to Mars in a month, on demand, regardless of its current orbital location with respect to Earth is a very technologically challenging, as I hope I've made clear.
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> what materials would be valuabe [*sic*] enough on a martian colony that it would be worth that cost?
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Any piece of critical equipment in an emergency. Nuclear reactor parts, medical equipment, etc. Most likely it will be *people* that are the critical resource, and more importantly they're also the thing that suffers the most in long duration spaceflight.
A sensible colony would have backups of all the critical things, and replacement stocks would be kept topped up via slow but cheap(er) freight.
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A quarter of a tenth of a gravity. Don't you worry. Your ornate glasswear will be just fine.
Of course, landing stuff on the surface of Mars might be a bit more, uh, sporty. But clearly you can land people on there, so as long as whatever you're sending is no more squishy and fragile than J. Random Meatbag, it'll be fine.
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With a max velocity at flipover of more than 300km/s, I simply don't know how you'd make a railgun that could throw a projectile fast enough to be of any use at all. Sorry about that. Some fusion reactor designs use railguns to throw plasmoids, but that's an internal detail of the reactor and not the sort of cool that you can really look at or interact with externally.
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**Nothing they aren't already doing.**
Amazon is an interesting reference point to use. The thing about Amazon is their supply chain network is HEAVILY supported by data analytics and prediction algorithms.
I am confident in saying that so long it is not a one-of-a-kind product, by the time we colonize Mars, Amazon can easily promise same day "shipping" regardless of how long it takes to transport to Mars; Amazon would have the data to anticipate each item's day to day demand forecasting months in advance and plan their shipping schedule to fill them as needed. The Earth-made product is likely shipped to the Martian warehouse long before the cusotmer ordered it, and dispatched when they click "Checkout."
But wait! What about new releases? Amazon Prime has an entire legion of product/partnership managers - no, not managers for the product you're purchasing, but specific aspects of the "Amazon Prime" program. (I personally met one of Amazon Prime's product managers, her job is strictly in ensuring shipping times.) With Amazon's purchasing/negotiation power, they are likely coordinating with all significant businesses with their new product releases and have that headstart in shipping direct from manufacturers, so even an Earth-made product is released tomorrow, you bet Amazon can make sure Martians will get it on the same day for any company that's in the habit of synchronized worldwide release dates.
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Amazon solution to this apparently impossible problem is to put in orbit around Mars a 3D printing factory, which produces anything available on their catalogue and then send it on the planet. Then they send from Earth regular resupplies for the raw materials, which arrive roughly once a month.
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# Buzz Aldrin to the rescue
Mr. Aldrin is best known for his landing on the Moon in the Apollo 11 mission. Another contribution he made to humanity was the discovery of cyclers for the Moon and Mars.
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> A cycler is a trajectory that encounters two or more bodies regularly. Once the orbit is established, no propulsion is required to shuttle between the two, although some minor corrections may be necessary due to small perturbations in the orbit.
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[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_cycler).
Aldrin discovered the first Mars cycler in 1985. Afterwards more cyclers were discovered, all listed in the link above.
The point is that, as other answers have already explained, Amazon would have goods going to Mars on a regular basis - think of a fleet of spaceships doubling as warehouses in solar orbit. This would all be controlled by algorithms and logistics etc. With cycler trajectories, you signal the next oncoming spaceship to prepare the packages to be sent to Mars. Upon closest approach, the warehouse sends a fleet of lander drones to delivery centers on Mars which will handle the last leg of the process. The warehouses are then restocked upon closest approach to Earth.
With the shortest Aldrin cycler, each warehouse would have a 146 days transfer between Earth and Mars. That means a minimum of five mega orbital warehouses could allow for a delivery time within one month of ordering. A fleet with dozens of orbital warehouses in the least would allow for better service level given backups, redundancies and the ability to possibly cycle stuff between warehouses.
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Starfish Prime almost got it. He's got usable numbers for the course but he made the mistake of thinking rocket.
The answer here is clear--laser-pumped lightsail. (Although something outside the visual spectrum might work better.) You don't haul along the big powerplant, you have one at Earth and one at Mars. Big sail, small package, boost away from Earth, then Mars takes over and slows it back down.
Energy-wise you'll do better the harder you can push without melting things, a higher acceleration allows you to get there with less velocity and total energy use is effectively linear with velocity and at the .001c of turnover little is being lost to Mr. Doppler.
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The time to get to get to Mars varies depending on transfer window - at your best closest approach, you have travel times of less than six months. Getting people there with nuclear engines is considered fast at a couple of months. Getting cargo there in such a short time simply is not necessary, nor really in the cards.
As I said, you have to target the right transfer window, a window that opens up approximately every two years. Because of this restriction, much cargo that would be used by humans on Mars would be sent in advance of humans being there, and redundant cargo would be sent. In the long term, humans on Mars would want to strive for being completely self sufficient, not needing to import anything from Earth.
I think for the purposes of your scenario, the best you could do is have a some kind of mass driver on the Moon. You'd have to dig into the numbers on this though, as I again, don't think that it would be nearly as fast as you desire, and could only arrive in the transfer window.
If you are flexible on increasing the time, but just want a regular delivery service to your people on Mars, the most realistic method besides a mass driver on the Moon would probably a Mars cycler. This would be (in the long term) a nuclear powered craft that is going back and forth between Mars and Earth, never stopping. I imagine this in the future being one of the most high volume ways to transport people and cargo to and from the red planet.
So I regret to inform you that unless you are willing to have very handwavy tech, this just isn't happening in its current form. It takes even *light* a full twenty minutes at some times to get between Earth and Mars.
All this being said, I think the most unrealistic part of this scenario is Jeff Bezos getting any sort of presence on Mars, when his twenty year old aerospace company Blue Origin has yet to send anything to orbit.
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Given that the distance from Earth to Mars can be as little as about 40 million miles (64+ million kilometers), or as much as approximately 225 million miles (roundly 360+ million kilometers, with the Sun in between; minimum pass length during opposition would be above 400 million kilometers), this is a pretty tall order.
For a railgun to supply a velocity high enough to reach oppositional Mars in under 30 days, it would need to be either extremely long, or use a very high acceleration (or both) -- and then you have to slow down the package at the Mars end, ideally without vaporizing it in an aerobrake maneuver.
I don't think a railgun is going to do the job. What they need is a constant boost drive. That also avoids the problem of having to "shoot" too close to the Sun and risk heat damage during the day or so of closest approach; the delivery drone can vector its thrust to steer wide with little additional acceleration required.
For the shortest distance, at 1G, the trip takes about a week; at the longer range, allowing for that all-important "don't melt the package", you'd need a bit more than 1G to finish the trip (including turn around and deceleration) in a month; without doing the math, I'd guess around 3-4 G will do the job.
The good news is, anything you'd now trust to UPS or FedEx will survive the G load.
The bad news is, the energy cost of this kind of drive would beggar whoever had to pay for the shipping. Four weeks of constant 4 G acceleration is on the ragged edge of what a projected Orion drive can manage (and I doubt either you or I want Bezos's spiritual descendants to have access to nukes, never mind thousands of them).
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## Fusion Powered Engines
The maximum distance between Earth and Mars is about 400,000,000km To get there in 30 days using constant thrust (to minimize G forces and maximize fuel economy), you must accelerate at ~0.23815m/s^2. This gives you a peek velocity of 308,642 m/s by the time you are half way there, you then turn around and slowly decelerate for the rest of the trip. This whole trip would require a total of 4.8e4MJ of thrust per kg of cargo.
An ideal fusion generator is pretty much the most cost efficient system you can theoretically make using Newtonian Physics. If you could perfectly convert hydrogen into helium as a power source and perfectly turn that power into thrust you get about 3.4e8MJ of thrust per kg of fuel; so, it would only take about 1 gram of hydrogen fuel per kilogram of cargo to make the trip. Since hydrogen costs about \$1.80/kg in today's market, this would make the fuel cost for shipping less than a penny per kilogram of cargo. So, while such a ship may not be cheap to build, the overhead could be extraordinarily low making free shipping very affordable.
Now I can not emphasize enough how idealized these values are. Various estimates for a near future fusion reactor are somewhere between 50-95% efficient, and they will use fuels that are much more expensive than common hydrogen. Deuterium gas (a more likely candidate for affordable fusion) costs about \$1000/kg. You also have to consider you are transporting the mass of the ship itself. So we can probably assume you are really transporting about 2kg of mass for every 1kg of goods when you compare it to other methods of shipping like semi-trucks, trains, and break bulk freighters. You also have to consider the power efficiency of converting the energy in your fusion reactor into thrust. Ion engines are currently the most efficient form of propulsion we have at about 90% power to thrust ratio... but they are not very strong using today's technology. If strong ion engines can not be developed, you could get a lot more thrust over time venting the fusion reactor directly into space, but you'd probably get something closer to the 35% efficiency we see out of chemical rockets.
So, a more realistic (though still pretty idealized) guess is that a fusion powered rocket would more likely cost somewhere in the range of \$0.33-1.60 per kg of fuel. The freight trucks that Amazon uses today have an average efficiency of about 180mpg/ton. So, to ship 1kg 1000 miles by truck has a diesel fuel cost of only about \$0.02/kg. So, between the longer operational time, and higher cost of fuel, it would probably still cost Amazon about 30-100 times as much to send a package to Mars as ground shipping does here on Earth. Ultimately, Amazon Prime would probably not be able to cover the cost of shipping on all goods sent between Earth and Mars unless they could develop a viable fusion engine that works off of normal hydrogen. But even a deuterium powered fusion engine could make shipping affordable enough that many consumer goods like electronics, medicines, clothing, and even food could be more cost efficient to manufacture on Earth and send to Mars than to try to make on Mars itself, and the Rare-Earth elements that you may be able to mine from Mars (or at least near by asteroids) generally go for enough here on Earth to make the cost of shipping those back this way worth while.
*SIDE NOTE: This answer excludes the cost of actually getting goods in and out of our planet's gravity well... for this you need an initial acceleration of well above 0.23815m/s^2, but you would only need to reach 11,200m/s leaving Earth or 5,300m/s leaving Mars at this higher acceleration before you can drop down to your lower acceleration. Assuming you are using the reactor venting method of propulsion here to achieve chemical rocket like accelerations, this should not significantly change your cost.*
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# Nuclear powered railgun ship.
Amazon has mastered railguns and nuclear fusion, and has a space ship that does both.
By firing massive railguns behind them with their enormous electricity from fusion [they can accelerate at 0.05 G](https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/space-travel), and reach Mars in 26 days even at the greatest distance.
The cost of nuclear fusion engines and futuristic railguns is unknown, but probably high.
# The main value probably wouldn't be from mars colonists, so you could transport them whatever, but from hauling parts for asteroid mining.
Mars has a deep gravity well. It's hard to get anything useful from them. The asteroids are more useful. It wouldn't be too expensive to strap a small fusion engine to an asteroid, move it to mars, wait till earth is close, move it to earth orbit, and mine it. Mars is a great waypoint for such missions, and the colony is probably there to make mining more efficient. No need to go on an expensive trip home if your family is on mars!
Any space mission is gonna be incredibly expensive, but not getting valuable ores and metals and rare earth stuff from asteroids is more expensive. Any components needed for mining will as such be shipped very quickly to Mars, to ensure that they stay functional. Computers, drill bits, scanning tech, spaceship parts, all the advanced materials that are hard to make.
There would likely be a fixed amount of cargo for mining, a fixed amount of key colony goods to maintain the colony and a certain amount of extra space for whatever else people wanted to order. You'd bid for parts by weight, so people would probably mostly order expensive computer parts that were weight efficient, hard drives of valuable info, mementos from home, small animals, and manufacturing equipment to make stuff locally.
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If you are min-maxing for high production value and low mass, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors are at the top of the list. Even if the Mars colony has readily available 3d printers and machine shops, bootstrapping yourself up to a tech-base that can produce nanometer-scale integrated circuits takes a long time and an enormous amount of effort. Similarly, vaccines and other drugs, besides having astoundingly expensive R&D costs, are also extremely difficult to produce--we only can afford them because they're mass produced.
Fortunately, neither computer chips nor pills are particularly vulnerable to high accelerations, so an orbital railgun that fires small reentry-capsules loaded with processors and ibuprofen in the general direction of Mars could probably turn a profit. Even if 99% of the chips miss Mars or burn up on reentry and are destroyed, they cost basically nothing here on Earth to produce.
] |
[Question]
[
I am designing a species specifically designed to be technician on spacecrafts, where their workspaces have low-gravity. Here is how they are currently designed:
* They have two pairs of arms instead of the current human design, two arms and two legs.
* They have a prehensile tail which can wrap around the various bars placed around the ship.
* Their main body is quite small, with very long and thin arms.
What I want to ask is, what other attributes would help them survive and thrive in this environment? They should be able to survive in Earth-like gravity and conditions, and survivability in the case of a hull breach would be handy.
The basic idea is based on this article: [BBC: Will we ever have genetically modified astronauts?](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171123-will-we-ever-have-genetically-modified-astronauts)
[Answer]
Definitely [cephalopods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod), bring on the space octopi!
If 4 hands are better than 2, then 8 is twice as good! Plus tentacles allow one to reach in all those hard to reach spaces, did I mention they don't have any bones and can move their entire bodies into those tight spaces! Arms are very helpful, you don't just need an arm to turn the wrench, in zero-g this will just spin you, you need multiple arms to secure yourself and transmit torque to whatever you're working on.
The Earth varieties of cephalopods are actually quite intelligent, and trainable, so it's not much of a stretch to imagine an intelligent species following this body type.
You can adapt a species to survive in the air, provide them with water breather packs, or fill your engineering spaces with water.
They can swim in the air (or possibly expel fluid in a jet) to propel themselves in large open spaces in zero-g, or use their many arms to propel themselves using available hand holds in tighter spaces.
Some species survive in the deep ocean and can survive very large pressure changes, this ability may help in loss of pressure situations.
Plus bioluminescence, they provide their own light, for those low light engineering spaces.
Their eyes are used for hunting and they have very good vision, they can see polarization in light, and their color changing skins can actually detect light as well, they can see with their skin!
[Answer]
You can use a [prehensile-tailed gecko](http://goodlifeherps.weebly.com/slender-prehensile-tailed-gecko-rhacodactylus-sarasinorum.html) pretty much as is.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ov76W.jpg)
1. Prehensile tail, as specified.
2. Feet can grasp. [Or gecko feet can stick to flat surfaces via VanderWaals interactions](https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-strange-physical-force-that-geckos-control-1579421880).
3. Small body, quick.
These guys would never be floating around. They would always be on a wall or hanging onto something.
They would crave peanut butter, just like real geckos.
[Answer]
I really like what @BornToDoStuff and @Jakob Lovern said about eyes, and I think you could even build on that a bit more:
*Binocular vision* is the basis of depth perception (think fine manipulation and 3D rotation tasks necessary for repair/installation type work), and is greatly facilitated by having two forward-facing eyes.
*Monocular vision*, where an animal's side facing eyes function more independently to cover a much broader field of view, is excellent for keeping track of one's environment, like the location of tools, parts, the orientation of your body relative to the ship, movement of the ship relative to nearby objects (if working outside) etc.
So why not code in an *extra set of side-facing wide-angle eyes* for the space engineer's head, since you're already accounting for the additional (or maybe just differently allocated?) sensory-motor capacity to operate two more hands and a tail? Maybe they could close one pair of eyes at a time to avoid over-stimulation if they can't use both simultaneously.
Moreover, one's sense of balance (the Vestibular system) is not all that useful in free-fall and changes in pressure like you'd experience quite frequently in space travel while moving between enclosed environments have the potential to aggravate vertigo. Maybe a similar function could be tied into these additional side-facing eyes, but one that is unique to free-fall/low gravity. A sort of inherent motion/inertia tracking and spatial awareness(like a sort of 3-dimensional balance?) based on input to these side-eyes.
[Answer]
What about... Spider octopus monkeys? Yeah? The long arms are useful, but tentacle arms would be better. As for hands, you have some options. You said they were designed, so we can skip out on evolutionary hacks. One of the key features of hands is our ability to oppose our fingers. Can you expand this for greater grabbing ability? Finger suckers would be a good idea, too. I'll explain why, soon.
Now...There's a problem with tentacles. They're highly motile, but... They're not very strong.. The lack of an internal bone structure is a great weakness.
But what if you copied the structure of snakes, instead? Recall that the boa constrictor literally crushes its prey to death. If your engineers had this, they would have strength while only sacrificing flexibility slightly.
Now, let's recap this. You've got a monster with long snakes for arms, covered in suckers. Its hands are highly opposable. But can it live? Probably. If you were to install handles and such all over your spaceships, especially on areas not designed for walking, your engineers could slothcrawl their way along the ship. In situations with gravity, they would be counterpulled downward.
Now, how to balance the ability to survive without air and living in a earthlike environment... What about isolation? If the outermost layer of the engineer is covered in a thick squamous tissue that seals it in, it wouldn't need to even consider atmospheres. Imagine a pressurized sack of air that the engineers keep within them, making them buoyant in liquid and able to respirate in the depths of space.
*But isn't space cold?*
No, it isn't. It's merely a vacuum. Things freeze because of the pressure differential. If your engineers were able to maintain a stable internal pressure (maybe via a form of exosuit?), then they could not only survive a depressurization incident, but they could EVA when needed.
[Answer]
I think that having a prehensile tail is very useful but would actually argue against the extra set of arms as they would be very complicated for them to use properly what with all the criss-crossing of limbs.
**Limbs**
I think a better course of action would be to make them more like monkeys, able to grip with their feet so they have the same number of limbs as us yet are able to hold more. They could hold tools or apply force (to wrench or other somesuch) with their feet, and use their hands for fine motor applications while holding themselves up with their tail.
If you look at the muscle structure of monkeys you may find more desirable traits as well, for instance monkeys have a few muscles/tendons that we either don't have or don't really use that improves their grip strength with their "less important" fingers. Improved grip strength seems like a useful feature.
Also: Gecko style fingers/toes. Heck yeah. It would make them amazing at sticking to walls and ceilings without having to use their tail and give them great grip on tools and small things, you know, like those tiny screws that dont want to come off the table unless you wet your finger or use a magnet?
**Tail**
If they regularly hold their whole bodyweight for extended periods with their tail it would probably be thicker than a monkey tail, I am imagining something more akin to a reptile tail in shape (thicker at the base, tapering at the end for more finesse) but that is covered in skin, like a rat tail, for good grip.
**Diving Lungs**
Alright, here me out on this one. Whales. Whales are mammals, they need air, but they can also hold their breath for a long time and their lungs don't strain under the pressure of the deep water. These creatures would still start losing all of the moisture in their cells in a total breach unless they were covered in a weird carapace due to the vacuum of space, but if they have very good lung capacity (or maybe more efficient oxygen usage, such as being able to purposefully slow their heart rate) they will be able to deal with very low pressure and low oxygen environments for periods of time. Ex: if there was a breach and the ship lost its atmosphere in the decompression but then an airlock closed off that section so its no longer a complete vacuum in the rest of the ship, even if it is missing the oxygen.
Its hard to give them survivability in a vacuum without making them really weird bug people.
**Eyes**
When there is little or no gravity having boring human eyes can be very inconvenient. Anything could float into them, if there is liquid the surface tension of the liquid could make it stick all up in your face, and in space there isnt always a lot of light. Sure there are stars all over but you arent guaranteed one of them is close enough to give you *good* light.
I think that giving them a second transparent eyelid would help them deal with low gravity gunk not getting in their eyes, and making them have larger pupils/eyeballs would allow them to see in the theoretically lower light conditions of space.
[Answer]
I think that a major issue for any zero-g species is going to be control when not attached to anything. If something is floating away (beyond reach), then they need to go get it; but you don't want to have to travel all the way to the other side of whatever (possibly large) space you are in. The options (I think) are: jet or tail/wing.
* Jet: this is propulsion like a squid, which requires ingest of some working fluid followed by expulsion. Possible, but seems like it would be weak.
* Tail/wing: This is more interesting. Rather than prehensile, I would make them have large folding tails that could be used to propel themselves around. The primary working limbs are the arms (2, 4, 8, whatever) and do not need to be very strong (zero-g); the prehensile tail is superflous. The body can be light-weight. Then, you make the tail such that it can unfold and generate a significant thrust-to-weight ratio.
[Answer]
As I think about how a real hot-rod of a space ship might be built, I think of one thing: every cubic millimeter wasted on air and access space is likely to have a tremendously high cost. Therefore, I spurn the Jefferies Tubes of Star Trek lore and suggest that pipes, conduits, and even simply minimal access space between components, constructs, and emplacements is likely to rule the day.
To that end may I suggest evolving a human (who, IMHO, must be exceptionally well paid for this) that is amazingly flexible. Arms want to be thin, very thin, with very strong digits. The body just as much so. Bones originally designed for leverage now need positional control, so I'm thinking all major bones in the arms and legs are made to resemble vertebrae. The head narrow and long, the brain elliptical rather than spherical. I imagine the tech "snaking" through the ship to affect repairs. Several sets of eyes would be helpful, one on top to see where you're going, one or two on the sides to examine the work in front of you.
Very low atmosphere is also a plus, so I'm thinking elongated lungs and highly oxygenated blood.
Cybernetics is a must so that hands can be dedicated to doing the job. Also, embedding basic diagnostic equipment into the hands and arms would seriously save effort (and the need to carry really bukly repair kits).
"[The Scream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream)\* by Edvard Munch embodies in art what I'm thinking in spirit — in every possible facet of comprehension. So might [Slenderman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man)... but I don't want to talk about him....
[Answer]
Having more limbs or eyes will effect the amount of their brain devoted to motor skills. Similarly with a small creature, even with a neuron density of 100% it would not be as smart as a human.
Motor control is a trivial task for a machine.
The perfect engineer would be a huge brain with just enough control to use robotic parts of a ship, possibly with use of a brain interface if the creature had a brain designed to be read by a device.
Using different robots would be adaptable so the same engineer could do precision work inside an engine, lift heavy machinery or dangerous work on the hull during a battle.
[Answer]
A designed space creature would benefit from something like a Gecko's disposable limb, a tail that can be regrown? Something massive that if an astronaut were floating away in space to their doom, they could hurl the severed limb in the opposite direction and give themselves a nudge back towards safety.
[Answer]
Small!
Whatever that thing is, a few thousands thumb-sized repair insects will be more effective than a human. They can work together to move something big, or individually to make thousands of tiny welds at the same time.
[Answer]
Hibernation.
In practice a spaceship does not need continual maintenance work so there will be long periods when the techs do not have any work to do. Have them hibernate. Also a slow metabolism so they don't consume much oxygen, food, and water. In this way there is less consumption of scarce resources.
] |
[Question]
[
Right now, I'm facing a problem:
## Dragons are useless.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UHD4Sm.jpg)
*This is dragons every time they come into contact
with any fireteam.*
Most of my characters are non-humans. Among them, dragons have the problem of being, well, kinda useless in combat, thanks to firearms and helicopters. That is a problem, considering they're supposed to be going on adventures storywise.
I mean, dragons are a combination of the worst possible traits:
* Large size
* Natural armor
* Flight
* Six limbs
Those four HATE each other. Sure, you can experiment with hollow osteoderms, [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/96503/what-kind-of-natural-armor-would-stop-bullets) question and whatnot, but at the end of the day, you will be left with something that ain't the most workable as infantry, and downright laughable as ["The Dragon"](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon).
The most problematic elements of these creatures are their size, armor, and biology:
* **Size:** Even though I constrained my dragons in size to be around as big as a large horse and only a fraction of their weight, they're still a bigger target, compared to humans.
* **Armor:** Given that they need to be able to fly, dragons must suffer in other areas, not just muscle mass, but armor as well. Even if we assume that they can withstand a .30-06 Springfield where it's important, the enemy can simply just bring a larger (50 BMG) gun.
* **Biology:** Though dragons are heavily altered in terms of genetics, which is what gives them their unlikely biochemistry and human intelligence, they're still "mundane" animals, as in that they're organic life ('cause fully-autonomous robots have been banned). So, if they get shot, they bleed, cry, and their abilities are decreased.
This is especially problematic since while they do have stronger (but no heavier) bones than even giant pterosaurs, damage in the right areas can compromise their ability to fly. Sure, dragons can grow about everything back (given they survive), and unlike military vehicles, they forage their own fuel and contribute to the economy.
Their advantages aren't all that compelling either:
**Posture**: Since they're based on felines, dragons are better at stealth than a shire horse and are able to crawl. Here's a crawling leopard, to give you a rough idea of what they look like: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSl2u.jpg)
**Speed**: Dragons on the ground are more geared towards burst-strength, able to sprint faster than most horses (in part thanks to their [increased stride length via spinal flexibility](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THA_5cqAfCQ)) but tiring out quickly.
**Perception**: Dragons obviously have very keen hearing, smell, and eyesight.
**Flight**: Dragons are capable of powered flight. Many of their flight characteristics (pole-vaulting into the air, primarily soaring flight, and speeds that exceed 90 kph) are similar to [that of giant pterosaurs](https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-we-think-giant-pterosaurs-could-fly.html). Note though that if dragons are heavier than pterosaurs, their speed would likely increase, [see this post](https://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2014/05/godzilla-and-mutos-vs-birds-and-newts.html).
Since giant pterosaurs could potentially tackle human-sized prey (and because their flight was for escaping and long-term travel) we can assume our dragons could also carry the weight of a human without becoming grounded.
They can also swim and climb.
**Endurance**: Dragons can cover roughly twice the distance as cheetahs in one day,) which means 22 kilometers a day, though dragons prefer to fly when safe.
## Here is the problem:
While I'm in full control and I could easily crank up effective gun control in my world from *"thoughts and prayers"* to *"9mm only"*, it feels like cheating. You'd expect that in a modernish setting, dragon characters would have to face off against firearms of any kind and (since I don't want to roll new characters) live to tell the tale.
**So, would dragons be useless in modern warfare as combatants?**
Just to be clear, dragons have human allies and/or superiors. I did say they contribute to the economy.
---
**Update 1:** I've previously made a question about [dragons, equipped with autonomous grenade launchers](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/188370/would-dragons-with-automatic-grenade-launchers-strapped-to-their-backs-be-useful)
**Update 2:** Here's [a video of a leopard crawling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xG5_0WWcoo). My guess is that the highest vulnerable point of a crawling dragon would be their elbows and supracoracoideus muscle (top of their backs). The height of a crawling dragon would be determined by the deepest part of their chest, Here are two giant pterosaurs as reference:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6XYUj.jpg)
**Update 3:** People have been in confusion about how strong was my dragons' natural armor.
**Sadly, not even I know**. My original plan was to make the muscle fibers, tendons, and bones of dragons more resistant to tearing and sudden impacts (bullets) by letting them synthesize and utilize graphene in their bodies. Now, [spider silk can actually be reinforced with carbon nanotubes](https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.06751), but myosin heavy chains and collagen are very different from spider silk, even if all three are proteins.
This overall "upgrade" was meant to help them withstand the stresses of flight with any additional bullet-resistance being a welcome side-effect.
The dedicated protective layer would be their osteoderms/scutes that deviate from the normal bone microstructure, opting to resemble the abalone shell's instead, which offers the most optimal structure for impact-resistance.
As for things like biogenic silicon carbide, we do know that bacteria can [efficiently bind silicon to carbon](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2114054-bacteria-taught-to-bond-carbon-and-silicon-for-the-first-time/), even if they only used it to create organosilicons (which silicon carbide is not).
[Answer]
## The vast majority of soldiers don't shoot guns
Warfighting isn't about an army of guys going "pew pew".
Mostly, war is about getting the right guns AND butter to the right places at the right time. Knowledge and logistics.
Consider the lowly [E-2 Hawkeye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_E-2_Hawkeye). It's an [Airborne Early Warning aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control), propeller-driven and a great deal slower and more fragile than even a Boeing 737. That's a trait it shares with your dragons.
But the E-2 (and its also-ancient E-3 Sentry counterpart in the Air Force) are **extremely high-value assets** -- and the people *who do have guns* protect them even more fiercely than they protect air-tankers.
The dragon's role might be much like the E-2; being eyes in the sky, perhaps even backpacking an actual early warning RADAR. Sufficiently back of the battle lines, and fiercely protected. You see enemy fighters coming, at 30 miles range just switch off the RADAR and jink -- no fighter's active RADAR can spot an organic 30 miles away, so they'll lose you.
## See, the dragon's role may be *force multiplication*
A great deal of warfighting isn't about shooting guns, it's about supporting the guys shooting guns. As said, getting them the butter they need, and also telling them where to be and what to shoot.
For instance, the dragon may not directly engage the enemy tank. But it may be working "very forward" to "laze" the enemy tank, steering in Hellfire missiles being chucked by Blackhawk helicopters beyond visual range (and thus, untargetable by the tank). The dragon has trained moving whilst holding the laser on target, so the tank has no chance to engage it. An actual dragon + over-the-horizon Blackhawks would be an unbeatable antitank combination, even against the varsity.
Artillery spotting is another rather useful role. In fact, if dragons have been warfighting for centuries, they could've done it for centuries. That's especially true in naval engagements.
What's more, not every theater of war brings a superpower's varsity team to the battleground: In fact, none do, because superpower vs superpower wars don't happen in the nuclear age. The enemy probably does not have air supremacy, and may not have a smart enough missile to target a dragon (a Sidewinder/Stinger/SA-7 won't even see a dragon). It may be enough for the dragon to simply loiter above AK-47 range and drop things, again with laser guidance. No need for Hellfire missiles, just a 20-pound laser guided bomb that the dragon walks right into the target.
[Answer]
**Dragons and humans can both be soldiers.**
Your dragons also have guns. They are larger guns than humans use. Your dragons also wear body armor. Their vests are larger than those of humans and concentrate protection differently according to anatomy. Your dragons might not fit into small shelters where your human soldiers can take refuges. But dragons can escape to altitude and humans cannot.
Humans and dragons are hurt badly when hit by a gunshot. But human soldiers still soldier and so too dragons. Both kinds of soldiers try hard not to get hit by gunshots.
[Answer]
In this question: [How could a single dragon pose a threat to more modern human settlements?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/188329/how-could-a-single-dragon-pose-a-threat-to-more-modern-human-settlements/188345#188345)
I gave the answer below. Now after the quote I will try to discuss your world. Just bear with me
>
> Short answer. **She can't**.
>
>
> I will offer solutions down after that.
>
>
> we currently have fun things such as
>
>
> * ICBM.
> * Fighter jets that can easily push a top speed of 3000 km/h. [Source][2].
> * Bunker buster bombs that can penetrate up to 6 meters of reinforced concrete. [Source][3]
> * Tanks. I love tanks. Their guns has a very limited range of 3-12 kilometers. [Source][4]. Yes that 12 kilometers range of the T-14
> seems suspicion and we can argue about that military value of it. But
> the humble M1 Abrams has a much more realistic current gen range of
> 3-4 kilometers which is my point.
> * "Short" air to air missiles with a mere 30 Km range. [source][5].
> * Longer missiles of 100 kilometres. [Source][6].
> * Artillery. With the lowest range being 100Km and longest 650km. [Source][7].
>
>
> Just to name a few random military things we have.
> **Now what could nature possibility offer to go against anything like that?**
>
>
> Nature is about evolving to fit the environment and survive. As far as
> we know not a lot of creatures had to evolve to compete with main
> battle tanks for food. So basically any biological creature would be
> dead against any modern army.
>
>
> And if you work extra super hard to make a challenging creature it
> would take all of two hours for engineers to comp up with a weapon to
> kill it. Even if the dragon emits EMPs many military weapons are
> shielded against that. CBRN protection is a thing. Because we are such
> a fun species that we have to come up with scenarios in which our own
> kind are using the most destructive materials science can come up with
> and militarize to use against us. But don't worry. We also maintain
> nuclear submarines if our nuclear missiles and air crafts failed to
> destroy life on earth.
>
>
> I'm not saying this for no reason. I'm saying this because we are as a
> species are historically proven to be be capable of coming up with the
> most genius or ingenious ways to to destroy what we worked so hard to
> build. So. Even if your dragons have week telekinesis it is still
> screwed. We simply can invent and tweak what we know and have.
>
>
> But if you can hope into a fighter then press a button and a guided
> missile is launched against a dragon then I honestly can't think of
> any reasonable solution to that issue expect magic.
>
>
> [2]: <https://www.aircraftcompare.com/blog/fastest-fighter-jets/> [3]:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_buster#Modern> [4]:
> <https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a27023/russias-new-tank-will-out-stick-americas-abrams/>
> [5]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-to-air_missile> [6]:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(missile)> [7]:
> <https://www.army-technology.com/features/featurethe-10-most-effective-self-propelled-artillery-4180888/>
>
>
>
With the fact that nature go **nothing** on our military then we can try to think of your question.
>
> So, would dragons be useless in modern warfare as combatants?
>
>
>
Well. No. Dragons would make for very pathetic soldiers armor and biological capabilities wise. **But so are the humans**.
I want this to be the important point here. We have always created weapons to far surpass our ability to survive.
**In both quality and quantity**. This is a major point as you can work extra hard to armor your dragons with a super duper scientifically plausible armor then all a commander has to do is to simply increase the volume of fire and voila, no dragons.
But again humans themselves are pathetic meatbags that falls apart once supersonic ammo starts flying around, and we certainly experience critical existence failure once tanks roll into town. I always say this in monster settings: a tank rolls into town, everything dies.
However we still have human soldiers, don't we?
So. My suggestion is not think of it this way: What measures can I use to fully incorporate my dragon into the army?
Why? Because they are citizens and they can be used to fight, maybe politics as they are demanding that, maybe because you are down on numbers...etc.
Basically think of the creation of modern armies which open it's gates to all people capable of fulfilling the needed military roles.
Now you might think: won't dealing with dragon increase the dreaded budget?
To which I say yes, but politics.
Basically the dragons are part of the people and get to join the army for whatever reason you decide on. The budget is increased a bit but your military engineers are not exactly saying: how to protect such fragile things? I like working with humans because they are known to be resistant to bullets.
So. Since we already suck at deflecting bullets then dragon not being able to deflect bullets should not matter.
**The roles of infantry**.
I don't feel like saying the obvious. OK. I will say it but not much.
The modern battlefield still needs the meatbag to do infantry rules because war, war never changes. I mean war still requires infantry even in the age of drones.
So. It is the intelligence, flexibility, speed, stealth...etc of human infantry that still makes infantry to be be useful and still a major part of the military.
You can still take a tank down with a squad of human infantry if you arm and train them well enough. Urban combat or jungle combat still require infantry.
Policing still requires infantry...etc.
And as the old adage says something like: you can do whatever you want to it, glass it, bomb it, nuke it, but unless you have your dudes on it, it is not yours.
Bottom line: just reconfigure the social and military structures to have dragons as soldiers and you should be fine.
**Not being able to take a 9mm round has never stopped the armies from recruiting humans.**
[Answer]
From "thoughts and prayers" to "9mm only". This made my day xD. I will print this on T-Shirts and get rich.
To your question, Dragons would probably not even exist anymore, as humans would shoot all of them down. The main problem, as you know, is that a Dragon is good but a Surface to Air Missile is better. And considering Dragons are real in your world, you would expect that Humans have a few very efficient ways of downing a Dragon. Heck, it's not like they can fly away fast enough. So why waste a missile ? Something like a point-defense cannon will do the trick.
Dragons also have the problem that any heat-seeking missile will have zero problems finding them. And if that happens, it's game over.
So overall, I would say going into a battle against Humans as a Dragon is like showing up with a pen to a nuke fight.
[Answer]
If they're of human level intelligence, they can use human tactics and weaponry.
* As for size, they do make a bigger target, but I imagine in military
doctrine they would rarely work without support, like a modern Heavy
Weapons Platoon integrated into an Infantry battalion. Sure, the
dragon is a target, but you've got to get through all his/her battle
buddies first--and if your military uses real tactics, that isn't
easy. In a combat role, the dragon could use their greater strength and size to wield heavier weapons (recoilless rifle, heavy machine gun, autocannon, large energy weapons if your universe has them, etc.) then their human squadmates.
In short, a dragon is like a tank--if one dragon is fighting all
alone against the enemy, either your tactics suck or the battlefield situation has
gone horribly, horribly wrong. Combined arms tactics are your friend.
* Armor can go a few ways, and gunfire will always be a problem due to
the simple fact that there's no such thing as bullet 'proof'. There's
just various levels of bullet *resistance*.
When humans don modern body armor in combat, it's not to become
invincible, it's to make sure as many possible wounds one could get
are *survivable*. The plates and carrier will stop much of the stuff, but they are also meant to make sure you can limp or be carried back to the aid tent, surviving long enough to be treated. This would be the same for your dragons--give the most vulnerable areas extra wearable armor, but know it won't always stop bullets.
I did find a picture, that while not quite to scale with what your dragons are, may help give you some ideas as to what to do in this regard.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KNKMK.png)
* I think human intelligence, just like humans, is going to be the greatest asset of these dragons. They can apply strategy and tactics, and work with their companions to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses, working together to reinforce each other.
If you want your dragons to avoid attacking altogether, you have an option still. Since you said they can carry a human, would make great medics that can rapidly fly wounded soldiers out of the combat zone. By the Laws of War (presuming your world has similar rules to the Geneva Conventions), these dragon-medics would be noncombatants and illegal to shoot at. They could also be light transports/Spec-Ops insertion pilots or advance aerial scouts, who fly lightly armed and armored planes to begin with in the real world, meant to high-tail it back to base if spotted and fired upon.
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Sorry for my english... and well, it depends on some other factors. The problem here may be that you're thinking in the most confrontational parts of warfare, kinda like putting dragons go after tanks, and so on.
It seems to me they'd be great for scouting with their mobility and stealth. Apparently they can go through any terrain, given they can fly, walk/run and swim. It's important you also said they can climb, because even if they were to get their wings injured (and thus their flying capability compromised) they could still cross a great deal of different terrain. This is without knowing how good that eyesight is.
They also can serve as a sort of a 'better' helicopter. Not fighter jets, but they'd make a good flying infantry, to put it in some way. The whole mobility thing mentioned above means they should also be capable of moving provitions from one point to another. A line of dragon delivery of sorts, where they only have to go short distances (to make up for stamina) can be helpful to military.
And though you list it under the disadvantages I'd hardly call human intelligence one. Can they communicate? Their vocal cords may not permit it, but if they have literal human intelligence maybe they can understand human language. They're smart animals. It makes for great soldiers, letting them do all of the above by themselves, without guidance from a rider or so. They're their own soldiers.
Moreover, if they're part of society and they're part of military they *should* have dedicated equipment. How ridiculous you want to get on that is up to you, but even something simple like a smaller version of carpet bombing by attaching bags with bombs some rider lets open, or I don't know, boxes that open at a signal and so on, makes combat different. It would also change views on artillery: if they're good at scouting, they have amazing eyesight, and they can carry their own bombs, then the air strikes are a lot less blind.
A lot less area and boomies, too, but you're way more sure you're hitting targets.
I'd figure they'd could also get something that serves as countermeasure to stuff like tanks.
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As front-line soldiers, dragons would most likely be a liability. Other answers have pointed out that they are large, slow-flying (compared to aircraft), etc. They probably can't carry anything like a typical soldier's equipment load without being rendered unable to fly (unless you toss the square-cube law out the window, but your post doesn't suggest you want magic and it would significantly change the scope of this question). An ordinary human soldier could do everything they could manage on the ground while being half the size and thus harder to see and shoot at.
That doesn't make them useless as combatants, however. Consider paratroopers: their advantage is in being dropped behind enemy lines or in other normally impractical locations for infantry to reach, and then wreaking havoc; they shouldn't be getting anywhere near a standard battlefield. Dragons would be a wonderful asset for any sort of behind-the-lines action; just imagine those paratroopers trading some equipment in for jetpacks, allowing them to circumvent conventional defenses and infiltrate military stations behind the lines. Unlike those jetpack-equipped paratroopers, though, your dragons wouldn't need fuel, and they'd likely be a lot faster too!
Guerrilla warfare is another place where dragons could shine. Staying hidden might be a little harder with those wings, but it would greatly expand viable locations for ambushes when you no longer need to worry about having an escape route open on foot. Being able to fly around or over patrols and torch storehouses or raid supply convoys would be devastating. Major bases could use customized sensors and radar, but there's just no practical way to deploy that sort of equipment everywhere; your dragons would prey upon the small detachments, the boots on the ground that any army needs to actually hold ground. Trying to pursue fleeing guerrilla soldiers is a lot harder in three dimensions than it is on a two-dimensional field, and a three-dimensional defense is similarly a far more expensive endeavour in labour, time, and money.
Note that your dragons are flying at 90kph at least when they get into the air; even if they can only sustain that for around 90 seconds (yes, I read that link) before being reduced to soaring and gliding while they recover from that sprint, that's still far beyond anything human infantry can manage, especially when you don't have to worry about cliff walls or rivers or so on. Also, despite what you specified for their endurance, your dragons will manage a lot more than 20km per day; soaring fliers cover a lot of distance just gliding through the air. They can't be expected to beat a car on a nice straight road, but over rough terrain without any roads and competing against military vehicles (typically armed and armored, which cuts into their effective speed) is an entirely different matter.
Basically, you need to play to the strengths of your dragons. Don't expect them to fight in the trenches: given their greater size, that's just idiocy when you could use humans. **The great advantage of your dragons is their innate mobility compared to humans: abuse that advantage at every opportunity**.
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I think there's some great answers here already, so hopefully I'm approaching from a different angle that may not have been thought of before.
Instead of focusing on your dragon's weaknesses, let's look at their strengths.
You describe burst-speed, endurance, stealth, perception and flight as characteristics - in these I see a really valuable guerilla fighter, or ambush specialist.
Darting out from cover, creating maximum damage and then getting back out are key elements of guerilla warfare. The main idea being to wear the enemy down, and buy your own side time (<https://www.britannica.com/topic/guerrilla-warfare/Strategy-and-tactics>). Examples of this in the last century or so are the Communist forces whilst they built strength in China (1930's The Long March, <https://www.history.com/topics/china/long-march>), Australian Infantry vs Japanese along the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea (1942 Kokoda Campaign, <https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E84663>), the Viet Cong (1950's-60's Vietnam War, <https://www.thoughtco.com/the-viet-cong-the-vietnam-war-195432>), and modern Afghan warriors, on both sides, in the current Afghan war (this article concentrates on the Taliban, but of course whilst the Taliban were in power the Northern Alliance had to make use of guerillas against their oppressors :) 1970s - today, <https://mwi.usma.edu/guerrilla-maneuver-warfare-look-talibans-growing-combat-capability/>)
Guerilla Warfare, whilst usually employed as an example of asymmetrical warfare, is typically about finding ways to surprise, shock, and affect your enemy HARD. Whilst your dragons are large, there's ways and means to deal with that. If operating amongst a mixed-species civilian population where it's hard to pick out friend from foe, then there's part of the trick to the ambush already done - see any insurgent warfare going on right now (Phillipines, ISIS, Ukraine, etc). If it's more in-country warfare, then your dragons' abilities may come into play as follows (IMHO, anyway):
* Burst-speed and Endurance: You describe your dragons as comparable to a cheetah for endurance, and faster than a horse at bursts. Both of these are better than regular human abilities, and depending on cover, would open up the range of a kill-zone as your dragons could burst in do their damage and hopefully get out nicely. A very rough modern example is probably the USAF signature Shock and Awe campaign. This paper goes wider, but I'm including it because it's still very interesting and analyses everything that is meant by Shock and Awe, from Blitzkrieg to Massive Bombardment: <https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1042817.pdf>
* Perception: With heightened senses, they have the ability to be much more of an early-warning detection system for your troops; sensing where an enemy is, how far away, with hearing they'd perhaps be able to identify certain features of the enemy's profile through voice, detecting how on-edge they are, language, discussion, etc. With a key element of modern warfare being about gathering information, having a dragon amongst your intel assets is a big deal. Here's info on Information Warfare (<https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR661.html>) and here's info on one of their tools, an AWACS aircraft (<https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_48904.htm>).
* Flight: I can't find hard evidence on this I'm sorry - maybe someone smarter than me can help? - but I recall reading somewhere your average soldier on patrol doesn't look up - or down. This reading involved a battle in the Balkans during the breakup of Yugoslavia - I think the Croats were ambushing a column of Serbians coming into a mid-sized town. The Croatians hid their fighters up in buildings, or down in drains and sewers until the Serbs came into their killzone. This positioning meant the victims took a few more critical seconds to figure out that the shooting at them was coming from above and below rather than at the same level. I've read similar things about US troops in Iraq and Russians in Chechnya. I apologise I can't bring up hard evidence. Perhaps others can help (or my pointers might be able to help you do your own research in which case, happy hunting and reading! :D
Either way Flight is an inalienable advantage to have particularly with first-contact situations in a fight. Your stealthy dragons would be able to effortlessly paradrop down into an enemy formation at will. Having aggressive horse-sized beasts suddenly drop into your safe-feeling group of buddies would be an unnerving idea in soldiers' heads. Here's some reading on the advantages of flight in battle: <https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/classic/world-war-i-flight.htm>
* Posture (Stealth): As prowling feline-style creatures, it's probably worth remembering their analogues and what they can do. The leopard picture you posted is fantastic. That is an Alpha Predator. So in my mind what I'm thinking of about your dragons is that they are Alpha Predators, with the ability and means to sneak up and attack prey at close range, even without flight, with the disadvantage of size and armour. Combined with speed and endurance, this is a scary creature.
Finally, it's probably worth thinking of a few other analogues we have here on earth. We do not tame or farm bears, elephants, hippopotamus, great white sharks, wedge-tailed eagles etc, who are of comparable size to your dragons, but we know and fear them enough to stay the heck away from the things! Adding in elements like their intelligence factor and the points you have made, I think there is scope for a very intimidating warfighter in there.
So sure, a rocket launcher might take one out. An air-surface missile will be game over. But here's the thing - there's many ways to counter those for a human, so in your world there are ways to counter for dragons also. Even if it is an army of 50,000 of them (in which case a nuke solves all but then again, that causes other big problems also).
Hope my points offer something to consider. Sounds like your work will be very interesting indeed :) Good luck!
PS: Short addition re: sensors that others have talked about: in this situation, I'd walk your dragons to site and then have them launch in the air when it is too late to do anything about it. Forested areas are still dense places to cover with a predator drone for eg, as is uneven ground, or mountains with lots of caves or crags or other such hidey-holes. Or if you are creating the equivalent of the Vietnam war, or Blitz-era London, there may be miles of tunnels, or sewer systems or train lines, under where you are operating. Think about counters to everything! :D
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Urban warfare/crowd control:
Modern warfare does is not only high-powered guns. keeping groups of unfriendly civilians at bay without bombing down the whole block is important. So having naturally armored strong fighters seems appropriate.
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Your dragons are the product of a ridiculously advanced technological society. Like, can-survive-heat-death-of-universe.
To a casual inspection, they violate physics.
Dragon scales have a hardness that we cannot measure. Human science only has a vague idea what they are made of because of particle accelerator experiments, and it appears to be post-trans-uranic materials using some kind of exotic chemistry.
Dragon eggs and the organs that create them emit hard radiation; there appears to be transmutation involved in their biology. The shells are harder than dragon scales. The first nuclear bombs used dragon shells as basically perfect neutron reflectors.
When we do put enough energy into breaking a dragon shell (and in the last 20 years we have finally managed to do it), there is a catastrophic release of energy.
Dragon shells and scales also naturally decay. Over a period of a years, they release a surprisingly little amount of hard radiation (but enough that you don't want to be near them) and become a kind of sludge of slightly abnormal isotope mixtures of various materials.
The study of this is key to many modern technologies, like room tempurature superconductors, neutrino-panels (makes 50 W/m^2) and sensors, dark matter astronomy, etc.
The interior "biology" of dragons is also exotic, and not something humanity understands either. Scanning dragons with high enough energy tools can cause unfortunate reactions in their biology, and their bodies rapidly change upon death.
Now, you can kill a dragon. Artillery scale solid rounds won't penetrate its hide, but will cause enough acceleration that its internal biology is disrupted. Nuclear weapons and even large fuel-air bombs work as well.
The working theory is that dragons are evidence that we live in a simulation and that whomever wrote the simulation likes dragons. Dragon philosophers have assumed they are made in the image of god, but that is considered obvious by every dragon wyrmling.
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Dragons locked out of the sky by humans in jet fighters? Absurd. That jet fighter probably has a *dragon* at the controls.
As others have already pointed out, the problem of modern weapons is by no means unique to dragons; a helicopter is just as vulnerable to a SAM as a dragon, and an anti-materiel rifle will kill a human as easily as a horse(-sized dragon.)
Where dragons will have the advantage is where their natural gifts will save on either training or equipment, relative to the same mission undertaken by humans and human-piloted vehicles. Specifically, dragons will likely dominate most airborne roles - given their natural ability to fly, they’ll be far better adapted for and take far more easily to any role that requires flying or piloting
Take the helicopter example. You want to launch a commando raid on a target by helicopter. That means a squad of commandos, their equipment, and a transport helicopter (plus crew) that you need to fly past any air defences without getting shot down. Then you need to land, execute the mission, and somehow get the commandos back on the helicopter and back out.
If you instead have a squad of *dragon* commandos, you can skip the helicopter - they can just fly whatever route you’d planned for the helicopter. They’re smaller than helicopters and certainly quieter, so any route the chopper can safely fly, so can they. That means you just need the commandos and their gear, and no expensive helicopter to get in and out (and risk falling into the hands of the enemy)
Paratroopers? Same deal. Any path clear enough for a bunch of humans wearing great big parachutes is certainly clear enough for a wing of dragons to fly down, and you don’t even need to train them specially. Bonus points, you can have them fly themselves in and out if the conditions are right.
On the ground they might not be quite as effective as humans in a shootout (being bigger targets), but they can easily be *at least* as well equipped as their human counterparts. Their larger size and tough hides are an advantage in close quarters combat, and if their opponent needs an anti-materiel rifle to take them down while the dragon only needs a normal bullet (or jet of flame), the dragon will have the advantage in agility too.
In summary, your dragons will likely be at home in a combatant role in any airborne mission; even though they can’t overcome the usual anti-air defences, they can perform many missions independently that would otherwise require vehicles and don’t suffer from the defences any more than the vehicle they’re replacing would
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Any commander, when finally realizing what they've got here, would salivate at the chance of employing dragons.
Yes they are larger and easier to hit, but that does not automatically mean they will get hit or are useless.
Armor:
While their natural armor is nice, their ability to carry a lot of armor is even better. You can give up flight altogether and use the wings to mount kevlar wrappings as well as mount armor on the torso and head. This creates super-b protection. You could say "the enemy will just bring a .50cal" but that means the enemy now has to actually sacrifice one soldier to bring a hefty .50 cal. Even with less armor it would still have a high resiliance to small-arms fire.
Weapons:
This is where its at. Your dragon can carry +/-80 kilo's in flight. If we knock off 30 kilo's for armor you still have 50 kilo's of gear to pack. This gets even better if you forgo the flying ability and simply use it as an infantry-support weapon. The heavy machine gun has been an incredibly useful tool in making enemies duck for cover and stay in cover, but due to it being hard to handle its always been a defensive weapon or had to be mounted on vehicles. Your dragon has the mobility of infantry (higher even!) And can bring a heavy machine gun in an attack role. Even better is that it can easily reposition to a higher area and set up when necessary, or fall back at speed.
This makes dragons the perfect infantry-support platform. They can carry mortars with much more ammo and more easily than infantry squads. Most armored vehicles on the battlefield are Armored Fighting Vehicles rather than MBT's, and dragons would be excellent at hunting them with anti-tank weapons. They can carry loads more than infantry while walking to the battlefield, stash most somewhere and then walk/run/fly to positions that the enemy does not expect them to be. They can carry relatively small intelligence gathering equipment or ECM equipment and other good stuff like that.
Another weapon people seem to ignore: the wings. The wings can carry more than the weight of the dragon in the air (near the torso not the wingtips). This means that if a dragon were to smack you with his wing he could easily kill you, add a razor edge or mount a sledgehammer and you can go to town with it.
Battlefield roles:
Infantry support would be the most obvious role. It can carry plenty of heavy weapons and you could give one zero weapons but mount tons of armor up front so a squad can move up behind the dragon. However it could easily fulfill other roles. Give it an adapted shovel and it can dig trenches and fortifications quickly, infantry in modern war still build tons of trenches! Give it a bunch of explosives and this dragon can quickly demolish things like bridges. Their high speed and infantry-mobility make them some powerful tools for behind-the-lines actions.
Another perfect role is decentralized officer. Having on-the-ground information is important, and a dragon has enough capacity to carry a large radio set and still be mobile. The dragon officer doesn't have to rely on what his radio tells him alone but can give orders based on what he sees on the ground, then move to the next group of soldiers that need his attention. The birds-eye-view capability can also help judge a situation in a way that you can't when on the ground. One of the best uses of such officers would be to fly behind friendly lines and guide supply routes or quickly catch up to groups that have lost contact and might have been ambushed.
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This depends almost entirely on intelligence and tactics. If the dragons are dumb (animal intellect), they're useless to more advanced humans (although the ability to take off at will is nice, they're not durable or all that fast, still need fuel, and can't carry as much as planes, etc.) If the dragons have human-level intelligence, they’re far less useless, but still not all too useful due to their lack of useful limbs, and due to the fact drones outclass them. (I'll be assuming dragons are animalistic.) However, if their allies have intellect, dragons can become a major force in combat, although not that much. How, you ask? The answer is tactics (and armament). Take this example:
That’s a dragon what are you talking about
If the dragons have artillery (missiles?) mounted to their backs, they will be much more useful. If they just hover/circle above a fight and drop bombs or even large rocks over the enemy position, far out of the range of small arms fire, they will be much more useful. They can also serve as cheap transport/supply droppers that can be stationed close to the battlefield to take advantage of their ability to pretty much be ready at a moment’s notice (compared to planes at least). They also don’t really need maintenance from what you’ve told me; they can get their own “fuel” too.
As I said, if dragons have machine guns mounted to their backs, they’re not as useless. Their actually quite small size and good enough stealth may make them good at ambushes/hit and run, perhaps with machine guns mounted to their backs, or maybe poisoned claws, and their resistance to small arms fire and favored close quarters combat weapons like knives (if they can withstand bullets they can probably withstand knives). Don’t forget Kevlar exists also. Strap 2 of those hand-held rocket launchers to their sides and adapt them to allow the dragon to fire them, and you have effective air support that can zoom in on unsuspecting soldiers at 50 mph and be gone before any return fire occurs (night ambushes with dagonightvision goggles would be viable).
Finally, remember this: Humans are just as (more) vulnerable to bullets. Even if dragons are larger, they can fly and provide air support out of range of counterattacks (because gravity).
TL;DR: Dragons are, at stock configuration, weak. They do have a niche due to their ability to be ready really fast (unlike planes) and not being incredibly loud (unlike helicopters), and their lack of maintenance, but they’re pretty much infinitely slower than planes, have pretty much no carrying capacity, and have garbage durability if they can be effectively made completely useless by one lucky shot with a revolver (whereas a plane has somewhat decent armor).
P.S.: Dragons too weak? Buff them. You’re the writer. Make up something (maybe the dragons evolved to have a ton of muscles in their wings to allow for stronger armor?).
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Helicopters? Give the dragon a helicopter version of a sidewinder. The dragon comes in at treetop height (they're good at low level flight), pops up and launches the missile. The helicopter also has heat-seekers but nothing for them to target, it can only return fire with guns and the dragon doesn't get close enough for that. (AFIAK nobody has put a radar-guided missile on a helicopter and even if they do it's not going to track a dragon very well as they're organic, not metal.)
(The different version of the missile is because a standard aircraft-launched missile has a minimum airspeed the dragon isn't going to meet. Most US missiles also come in versions with an extra rocket booster that gets them up to the speed the missile needs to fly.)
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Dragons are large. They fly, not particularly fast, but are very maneuverable. They're armored, but vulnerable to heavy weapons. Sounds like an attack helicopter.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OXY1M.jpg)
Exhibit A: [A mechanical dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_AH-64_Apache).
Attack helicopters operate in very hostile environments using terrain as their primary defense: you can't hit what you can't see. A dragon would be even more capable of hugging the terrain, and even landing and proceeding along the ground. Attack helicopters often hide behind hills and ridges only popping up for a quick peek or to fire a missile before descending back into cover. A dragon would be even more capable of this tactic, they could crawl up the hillside and use their long necks to peek over.
You can supplement your dragon with carry an electronic warfare suite powered by a small generator. While a search radar might be too large and power hungry, [laser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_warning_receiver) and [radar warning receivers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_warning_receiver) are plausible; a simple tone in an earpiece would give them advance warning of a guided attack. They could carry [electronic counter measures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_countermeasure), everything from [flares](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_countermeasure) and [chaff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_jamming_and_deception#Mechanical_jamming), to sophisticated jamming equipment.
While an attack helicopter has advantages in search radar, dragons have a great advantage in [situational awareness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation_awareness). A helicopter pilot is sitting in a cramped, noisy cockpit with restricted views. A dragon has no such restrictions and is in their natural element. Ambushing a dragon in flight would be much harder than ambushing a helicopter.
Your dragon has an integrated flame thrower for close work, people are terrified of flamethrowers. They can supplement this with fire-and-forget weapons like the [Hellfire anti-tank missile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire). And they can deal with pesky air attacks with [AIM-9 Sidewinder anti-air missiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder). Just like an attack helicopter.
And like an attack helicopter, your dragon will have support. In [How To Train Kill Your Dragon](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/59923/760) I explained how a single dragon vs an entire Marine Expeditionary Unit was no contest, the dragon was going to die. In contrast, you're talking about a dragon as an integrated combat unit. While we discuss head-to-head match ups all the time, in combat everything is integrated. Your dragon isn't going in alone. It has air cover. It has recon. It has other friendly units on its flanks. Rather than worrying about what happens when your dragon gets shot, the question is how it works with other units to *not* get shot. An integrated unit uses their strengths and relies on their buddies to cover their weaknesses.
As for bullets, its your world, make your dragon's armor as thick as you like. You could declare that its armor is effectively invulnerable to rifle fire, and you'd need a [.50 cal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.50_BMG) or better to harm it; those are pretty rare. Maybe armor scales (haha) with dragon size, the larger dragons are less vulnerable, the smaller ones are more vulnerable but more nimble.
Anti-air weapons, particularly missiles, are not particularly powerful. They don't need to be, with a few exceptions air targets are largely unarmored and fragile. Anti-air weapons are designed to spray shrapnel like a shotgun to maximize their chance of hitting the target. Depending on how you define your dragon's armor, this shrapnel can be simply annoying. Or it can be wounding enough to send the dragon back to base to heal, a [mission kill](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mission_kill), but not knock it out of the sky like it would a conventional aircraft. In a world with dragons they may become more powerful, but this would come with a trade off in size, cost, speed, and maneuverability. The more it costs, the fewer a dragon has to face. This leads into the final point.
Even the thinnest tank armor is effective if the enemy doesn't have anti-tank weapons, and most soldiers do not have anti-tank weapons. A dragon that can shrug off even [intermediate rifle fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_cartridge) like [5.56 NATO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9745mm_NATO) is very dangerous; most soldiers are not armed with anything heavier.
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I don't see how a pistol could harm a fully grown mature dragon, the way I imagine it - scales would harden up with maturity becoming a full body bulletproof suit. Older the dragon, harder those scales become.
And lets admit it, no one is shooting down a dragon with a nuke/ICBM. We do not use them to shoot down planes in wars we have right now, why would they be used against a dragon? Not realistic at all. As a human I would try to shoot down a dragon the same way as a helicopter or jet plane.
Even then, modern aircraft can evade missiles, I do not see why a dragon cannot do the same. Fire up an object in front of you, fly through, missiles detonate in flames behind. Dragons have brains and senses, so they will use them same as people do now or better.
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Have your dragons fly above the range of typical small arms and outfit them with the 25mm APW from Fallout:New Vegas.
This will force the enemy to commit anti-aircraft resources (fighter intercept, helicopters, anti-aircraft missiles) to counter your dragons. While those resources are busy, send in swarms of fighter jets that cause even more damage.
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Your dragons have really good armour, organically grown into their hides. The substance is [graphene](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26626-bulletproof-graphene-makes-ultra-strong-body-armour/).
I'm not an expert on modern warfare, but I'm guessing if it can stop bullets then missiles would probably not be effective against them either.
Also, bear in mind, your dragons don't have to fly high up in the sky the way that planes do. It could strafe low to the ground and therefore be a lot harder for SAMs to hit. After all, your dragons mainly attack by breathing fire on surface combatants, so they want to be close to the ground anyway.
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What a useful combatant! A dragon can carry heavier guns than a human. Still less than a tank, but it's better at climbing over rubble, and if the footing's too bad, it can just fly. Trouble with a sniper in a high position? Let the dragon circle around and take him from behind by flying.
Better yet, it can do stealth missions to far behind enemy lines.
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Since we're dealing with mythical fictional creatures here, to be fair, we can use any and all abilities of any similar creatures. Godzilla could heal, regrow from a severed limb, and shoot devastating beams of destruction. Dragon scales could be 1,000,000 times stronger than the strongest metal known to man, making the scales impenetrable. Any creature capable of withstanding the chemical forces necessary to breathe fire could melt metal on impact or generate electromagnetic forces that repel ammunition back towards attackers. A dragon is what you make it, like anything else.
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[
So I'm the owner of a startup which is going to make our lives easier with custom-DNA creatures! Our few first products are selling very well and nothing was wrong until last week's events.
Another company has bought one of our products and just decoded the entire DNA sequence, then changed a few things and resold them as their own, consuming our income. It's pretty bad for us, but still ok, because we are able to sue them.
Now imagine if some terrorists stole our viruses (nothing illegal, we use them for therapy) and changed (well-developed, readable) code to do some really bad things (like just killing for a start - or even worse).
So our plan is to set up some sort of encryption! But it seems hard to do.
Is there any easy way to set up encryption, or at least make DNA way less readable?
Bonus points for
* Encrypting RNA too
* Cells dividing without a decryption process
* Some DNA variations
* Making protein sequences harder to find as well
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# Will not happen in foreseeable future
Let me show you [this XKCD](https://xkcd.com/1605/) first:
[](https://xkcd.com/1605/)
>
> [White Hat, holding a laptop, is talking to Megan who looks at her smart phone.]
>
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> White Hat: Biology is largely solved. DNA is the source code for our bodies. Now that gene sequencing is easy, we just have to read it.
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> Megan: It's not just "source code". There's a ton of feedback and external processing.
>
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> [White Hat, opening his laptop, walks toward a desk and chair past Megan who holds her arms out.]
>
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> Megan: But even if it were, DNA is the result of the most aggressive optimization process in the universe, running in parallel at every level, in every living thing, for four billion years.
>
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> White Hat: It's still just code.
>
>
> [White Hat sits down at the desk with his opens laptop, while Megan looks over his shoulder.]
>
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> Megan: OK, try opening google.com and clicking "View Source."
>
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> White Hat: OK,I-...Oh my god.
>
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> Megan: That's just a few years of optimization by Google devs. DNA is thousands of times longer and way, way worse.
>
>
> White Hat: Wow, biology is *impossible*.
>
>
>
## What does this mean, specifically to your question?
1. DNA that codes protein has to be in specific order. There are no two ways to code one protein, not really.
2. DNA is already so complicated, interlinked, illogical, its results dependent on effects of totally other parts of DNA, et cetera (see [Non-coding DNA article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-coding_DNA) if you are interested), that all complications you can add on purpose will be very, very insignificant in comparison to what nature already did. Thus, if someone can crack what nature did, your additional layer of obfuscation wouldn't really change anything.
2a. Even for viruses - if someone wants to modify and use them on humans effectively, he must be able to decode and understand human genome - virus would be easy for someone with such capabilities, with the very, very limited space you have inside a virus.
[Answer]
**Chimera.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/UL5Vy.jpg)
<https://www.boredpanda.com/chimera-cat-split-face-different-eyes-gataquimera/>
>
> Quimera may be what’s known as a Genetic chimera, a rare natural
> occurrence whereby an individual is made up of cells from at least two
> different original eggs. They fuse together to become a single
> organism, whose DNA is from two completely different individuals.
>
>
>
A normal organism arises from a single cell. Barring somatic mutation, each cell in the creature carries the same genetic code. Your competitor can swipe a hair and decode the genome from it.
Chimeras like this cat can occur naturally. Two eggs fuse early on and the resulting creature is a balanced mix of 2 genomes. The genome decoded from one hair might not be the same as that decoded from another.
You take it a step further. Your custom creatures are all chimeras, not of two but of many, many different engineered "eggs". Most of these cell lines have genomes which are purposefully defective and a creature arising only from one of these defective genomes would be a freak or nonviable. But together in your chimera, the mutant genes of some cells are compensated by strength (or just normalcy) of the adjacent cells. The mix of cells used to construct your chimera is not random - for example one might have a high population of a given mutant type in the liver, where their excess protein product can rescue the remainder of the organism which is deficient in that product. You would not know that if you just sequenced the genome from a stolen hair.
Your competitor would need to sequence many, many cells from the whole organism, deduce what parts are bad (or are they bad?) and what parts are good, and hope to recreate the many lineages used and combine them in the right proportion to replicate the creature.
Genetic engineering animals is old hat - you can buy glowy engineered fish at Petsmart. But creating a chimera from engineered lines is taking creature creation to a whole new SF level.
[Answer]
You don't need to encrypt the DNA sequence in order for other people to be unable to use it.
A DNA molecule has no intrinsic meaning, meaning that while you might be able to discern patterns, you will never get all of the information of an organism purely by looking at its DNA.
Let me explain this with an analogy to language. If I gave you a book in a language you don't read, you would be incapable of understanding it. You know it's a book, and you know that it has meaning, but you can't reverse engineer it without testing things. For example taking a sentence and repeating it to someone who does speak that language, or re-arranging words and testing if they have the desired effect when you speak them to someone who understands them.
A code, in this case the genetic code, requires a decoding system in order to contain meaningful information. In biology, the decoder is constituted of many other parts of the cell, including but not limited to the transcriptional machinery which transcribes the DNA to RNA, the translational machinery which translates the RNA to proteins, the epigenetic machinery which controls which regions should be transcribed, cell signalling pathways which modulate the previous systems based on external and internal factors, and so on.
So it all comes back to the egg cell. It's not just a DNA molecule on its own. It's a DNA molecule in a very specific cellular context, and in the case of metazoans it's also a cell in a very specific organ context. A human egg cell can't develop in your bladder. It has certain requirements which are (typically) met by the uterus.
If your creatures have sexual reproduction, you can engineer a breeder strain of the creature which gives birth to sterile progeny. To avoid the possibility of in-vitro fertilisation you can engineer them to give birth to a progeny lacking the equivalent of a uterus, or you can systematically perform hysterectomies before selling them.
If you really want it to be incredibly opaque, then you have to modify the way the various machineries I mentioned earlier work:
* Change the start and stop codons by modifying the transcriptional machinery to recognize different patterns. You'll also need to alter the transcription start site sequence.
* Scramble the genetic code by making the various tRNAs correspond to different amino acids, which will force would-be thieves to conduct experiments in order to figure out what your proprietary version of the genetic code corresponds to.
* If you're using pre-existing transcription factors, perform directed mutagenesis experiments to make them recognize different sequence motifs.
As for making the DNA difficult to read and interpret, here are a few ideas:
* You should include many very long stretches of repeated regions in its DNA, as well as transposons. These make it much more difficult to assemble an organism's full genome. We're starting to be capable of tackling that problem with the third generation of sequencing methods which generates long reads that can resolve these repetitive sequences.
* Add many pseudogenes to confuse interpretation, these are DNA sequences that look like genes and are recognized by automated tools but aren't functional as such.
* Systematically scramble the genomes, in some single-celled organisms it has been shown that you can cut and randomly ligate large stretches of the genome without any major effects on fitness. If you don't mind each creature being uniquely sterile it might be possible to start with a freshly re-arranged egg cell without too many negative consequences for the creature's health. You probably do want to keep specific syntenic blocks together but if you define the acceptable regions to cut then it should be fine.
Ultimately you want to make the cell different enough to ensure that in order to steal your creature, one would have to study it for so long that it's easier to just design their own original creature. Don't forget to make sure the creatures released to the public are incapable of reproducing.
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This is already a solved problem, but the solution is not encryption.
The current solution is to have incomplete DNA. In particular, the DNA misses the code for an essential protein in development. That's no problem for you: you know which protein is missing, so you add that to the diet of the juvenile creatures. Once they leave your lab, there's no trace left of this mysterious protein or the DNA which encodes it.
We use this technique today to release Genetically Modified organisms into the wild. As they cannot reproduce, unintended dispersal of the modified genes is also prevented.
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Combine any of the following:
1. **Use your own proprietary amino-acids.** Bonus point: Everyone has to by your food for their creatures and the viruses can only grow in your vats, just watch who buys it. It will be harder to read sense into your genetic code, at least your oponent cannot just use normal DNA code analysis tools without thinking for himself.
2. To make it even harder: **Invent your own biological system.** You might still want to use things like "proteins" and distinct molecules to transfer genetic code (something like RNA, DNA etc.), but change the aminoacids, the nucleobases and as much other things as you want. Problems here: It's not easy and might not be edible and as long as the creature itself can reproduce and "live" everyone with enough money and time can analyse it.
3. Killersolution: **Don't give away reproductive systems.** Put relevant reproductive information (with some proprietary specialities) on a special chromosome etc. on only one gender and never sell creatures with it (and don't let spies steal them).
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To add to what Mołot said: it's really not just code.
RNA is read and decoded by [ribosomes:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome)
>
> The ribosome (/ˈraɪbəˌsoʊm, -boʊ-/]) is a complex molecular machine, found within all living cells, that serves as the site of biological protein synthesis (translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules.
>
>
>
They know how to read RNA in a very specific way only. Every three bases that come in translate to a specific amino acid being linked on the output protein. If you just plainly "encrypt" an RNA sequence, ribosomes will read it without decryption. The output protein will be completely different from the original.
On top of that, not all base trios encode for an amino acid. There is code for "end of protein" as well. Encrypted DNA would have those at very different places in the very least.
Your encrypted DNA would be no different from "junk" DNA, which codes for nothing meaningful. Human DNA is already full of that.
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I've got a very... computer scientist's answer to that. A decade ago there was a [programming contest](http://save-endo.cs.uu.nl/) that basically mimed the DNA – RNA – protein chain. You should produce not the source image, but the target image, the painting operations were basically the RNA instructions, constructing the protein. The contestants were expected to meddle with the "DNA".
To make it harder and less straightforward, the actual "DNA" program encoding used in the task did around 20000 copying and subsetting operations on the more or less complete chunk of the DNA "text" before doing its actual job. People who were not quite diligent with implementation details had much less luck *quickly* executing this code.
Here are the [gory](http://www.cs.uu.nl/research/techreps/repo/CS-2007/2007-029.pdf) [details](https://jochen-hoenicke.de/icfp07/prefix.html).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wSiGz.png?s=256) [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uQiUj.png?s=256)
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The big problem here is that the organism has to be able to decode its own DNA. Therefore the "decryption mechanism" has to be built-in in the organism.
You can make it more obscure by hiding the important bits in lots of junk DNA. You can make decoding and encoding more difficult by using things like non-standard base pairs, and non-standard amino acids. Then the competitor can't just use off-the-shelf products to do their cloning with, they have to develop the same infrastructure from scratch your company uses to engineer them.
But ultimately, you can't hide the genetic code from a well funded opponent, because the competitor can just reverse engineer what the organism does to read its own DNA.
[Answer]
Every cell in your body already does this, you just might not have noticed. You didn't notice because you didn't grow an extra limb or eyeball, which might happen if it wasn't for this.
You ask for encryption. Now one thing you can do with DNA is encypher it, which is kind of what [Mołot's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/127853/2252) went towards. This is not as much encryption as merely obscuring the data. Everything you need to decode the data is present, it just might be difficult.
If you want encryption, then what you want is a "key" such that anyone who knows this "key" can decode the data properly. Someone who doesn't have this "key" cannot.
So I say every cell in our body does this, because they are differentiate. Every skin cell has "forgotten" how to become a liver cell. Every nerve cell has "forgotten" how to be a pancreas. If any one of them knew the magic key that would bring them back to being a "stem cell," then they could change their role in the body. But without that key, they remain differentiated.
Now this may just be enciphering. We've made great strides in building keys that teach cells how to become stem cells. So it *looks* like the keys may have been there all along, but it's also possible that it just plain doesn't work that way and that the keys are permanently lost.
There are some solid examples of permanently lost capabilities. Red blood cells shed their nucleus before moving out into the blood stream, so they truly lack the knowledge to be able to reproduce.
So to truly encrypt the data, you need something that functions as a "key" which you can introduce during construction and remove afterwards. What you probably want is a protein structure which can do the decoding on RNA strands before they are used to assemble the proteins. In your "pure" strand which knows the key, this protein structure is encoded into the DNA, and gets built as the creature grows.
At some point you introduce a virus with a "kill" signal. This signal triggers a mechanism in that structure which has a CRISPR like effect which excises the DNA "key" which can produce that structure.
Proteins don't last forever. So after a short while, every copy of this decoder protein is gone, and because the code to generate them has been excised, no new proteins will be created. Now your creature no longer has access to those encrypted DNA strands.
You'd probably keep a breeding stock that has never been exposed to the virus, so they keep producing new children with this capability. However, I recommend keeping the sequence in some safe somewhere, so that if a virus happens to hit your breeding stock, you haven't lost your keys.
[Answer]
I feel like some of these answers don't quite cover the spectrum of plausibility. I agree that it's currently unfeasible to encrypt DNA only because they methods we have to read and write DNA also requires us to work in a framework of existing life. Because of this, @Thymine's answer isn't sensible since you would need to rewrite the entirety of how DNA actually operates (or, more basely, how proteins function) to make it an "unreadable language".
However, DNA can be expanded. There are several labs that have created new "letters" of DNA. Floyd Romesberg's team added two new "letters" and have created entirely novel proteins. But they are still read and written using an expanded version of the existing known framework. Expanding the codons available, creating new mRNA and tRNA would certainly make things "unreadable" for a short time, but I would imagine you would need a novel approach to mRNA and tRNA and how they work on the new codons, and the new codons would need to perform the important functions, if you wanted it to remain unreadable without significant research.
This episode of the After On podcast could help you wrap your head around some of the basics of this approach: <https://after-on.com/episodes-31-60/031>
Edit: for a brief article about Romesberg's team's work: <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-add-two-new-synthetic-letters-dnas-alphabet-180967402/>
[Answer]
**DNA is already encrypted. You just need to change the key.**
The central dogma of molecular biology is that a DNA molecule encodes an RNA molecule which in turn encodes an amino acid sequence which folds into a protein. DNA to RNA to Protein. Now the DNA to RNA encoding is 1-to-1 and straightforward, each DNA base corresponds to its RNA counterpart (with the exception of uracil but if we start talking about every exception in biology we will never get anywhere). However, the RNA to protein code is entirely arbitrary. There are 4 RNA bases ACGU but 21 protein-building amino acids. So, life uses a 3 RNA-base sequence to encode each amino acid. These are called codons and are encoded by small RNA molecules called transfer-RNAs or tRNAs. Each tRNA basically has a codon recognition sequence on one end that will match up with the RNA codon and an amino acid on the other end that will get added to the protein as depicted below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LXLGE.png)
This code is entirely arbitrary. There’s no reason CGA *must* code for Arginine. It just does. To change this code all you need to do is replace the tRNA responsible for matching Arginine with CGA with your own that matches CGA to a different amino acid. If you replace every tRNA with your own version you’ve effectively “encrypted” the genome. You’ve completely changed the meaning of every DNA base in the genome. Someone who merely sequences the DNA of your organism will not be able to make any sense of it. Without knowing what the start codon or stop codons are you can’t even effectively distinguish real genes from the rest of the genome. They won’t be able to add any functioning genes to your organism until they decipher the new code. Importantly, it is currently much harder to work with RNA and proteins then it is for DNA so “decoding” the new tRNA code is not trivial. You can even take additional steps to make this more difficult. Hiding your tRNAs in repetitive sequences that make them difficult to sequence and including lots of “red herring” sequences that look like tRNAs but don’t quite work for various reasons, or even making more fundamental changes to the tRNA metabolism process so that you can’t predict the amino acid a given tRNA would carry based on its DNA sequence.
**EDIT:** To address the concern that this "encryption" will be too easy to crack. Transfer-RNA encryption will not be vulnerable to frequency analysis for several reasons:
1. The genome is large while the portion “encrypted” is quite small. Only about 1% of the genome will ever actually be translated into protein. Without knowing the tRNA code an attacker has no sure way of identifying where this portion is. Regions of the DNA aren’t simply labeled genes. This means a frequency analysis will be swamped by the rest of the genome that does not follow the same frequency distribution.
2. Describing the encryption as monoalphabetic isn’t exactly correct. Because there are 64 different possible 3 base codons but only 21 amino-acids that need to be encoded. Therefore there are necessarily many alternative ways to [encode each amino acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_codon_table). This is somewhat analogous to homophonic substitution and will make frequency analysis even harder.
3. Another difficulty the attacker will face is that each base can be interpreted in 3 different “frames”. Without knowing the start codon you don’t know the frame of the sequence so for any given sequence there are 3 possible interpretations of the sequence which are all equally valid without knowing the tRNA code.
4. A final complication is the existence of [RNA splicing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_splicing). Eukaryotic genes contain sequences known as introns which are variable length interjections in the DNA sequence of the gene that will be removed from the RNA after it is produced. This means a gene isn’t a single contiguous block of message, it can be interspersed by dozens of variable length non-coding sequences. Additionally, these introns do not have to be a multiple of 3 in length so the frame is likely to shift after each intron.
5. The size of the genome allows the creator to potentially include multiple fully functional gene sets into the genome which from any cryptographic appearance are indistinguishable from the genuine article, but to the organism are of course gibberish. So even if we allow, given all the above, that an attacker can identify potential tRNA codes there is still no way for them to know which of the 20 copies of every gene is actually the functioning set without further experimentation.
With regards to known-plaintext attacks, that’s simply a matter of changing and obfuscating the genome to the extent that it is no longer recognizable.
Now, I’m not trying to argue that this encryption is immune to decryption, but it certainly isn’t trivial. In my opinion, the easiest means of decryption will likely be biological experiments. Potentially sequencing the RNA and analyzing that since it will mostly contain exonic sequences will make decryption somewhat more tractable although you can combat this by producing many nonsense RNAs as well that sit around without even being translated. Another methodology would be to introduce various known sequences to the organism and then look for protein products that could correspond to the introduced sequence but this would be tedious and again there are various countermeasures that could be employed.
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# Homomorphic Encryption
Homomorphic encryption allows you to do arbitrary operations on encrypted data. You don’t need to decrypt it , you just need an encryption scheme that allows that.
There are homomorphic compilers that can compile a source code that is already encrypted to prevent reverse engineering.
You can take the same approach, encrypt your DNA, develop a Ribosome that can create proteins from the encrypted DNA and you are good to go. No one can read your DNA and modify it.
Only thing is, homomorphic encryption is currently still being explored and there are no real world applications that use it regularly. It also slows down operations by a huge margin. It’s still a developing process.
[Answer]
There could be a way.
First of all, you will want to add much more proteins to the DNA to make it polluted, but should not mix with the sequence that your organism need. Genes that are not active are called recessive genes.
You can have much bigger list of recessive genes, that would be impossible to detect the dominant. Putting genes from human limbs to a snail as a recessive genes will be a good step in that direction.
Those recessive genes, will prevent any further development or copying the organism. Imagine this like added "salt" to the DNA, that will result in some instant deadly disease if modified. Splitting the DNA is still need in order the organism to grow, but the recessive genes will not mix with the dominant. Maybe you should also have a huge list of deadly disease that you will put randomly in your organism.
Cloning would be possible tho.
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[Question]
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In my story, a whole scientific mission will land on a desert planet whose temperature in the day reaches sixty degrees Celsius, they will land near the North Pole, specifically next to a Great extinct volcanic mountain 15 km high with cinder cone shape.
Assuming (mostly unrealistic) that strong winds and deadly dust storms always come from the same direction, **can the scientific mission be safe from the damages of these winds and storms if it uses the volcanic mountain as a shield?** (That is, to land in a place where the volcanic mountain will serve as a shield protecting them from winds and storms)
```
(to scale)
```
*Note 1: I mean winds of about 160 to 240 kph here*
*Note 2: The atmosphere of this planet is similar to that of Earth, but the gravity is slightly less*
*Note 3: If you find this kind of wind unrealistic then please give me your advice (And if you don't have advice, do nothing)*
*Note 4, which I think is unimportant: Specifically, the scientific mission will land at latitude 70 N or so*
[Answer]
**Your party lands in a crater like that of Haleakala.**
<https://hanahou.com/14.4/quiet>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9q5qZ.jpg)
>
> Of course, national park status alone isn’t enough to make a place
> quiet, as any visit to Yellowstone will prove. But here an unusual mix
> of other factors comes into play: Huge sections of Haleakala are
> almost devoid of life, so there are no leaves or animals to make
> sound; the bowl and the cinder cones offer shelter from the wind; even
> the altitude, which keeps the crater cooler than the lowlands, slows
> and changes the way sound moves across the landscape.
>
>
>
Haleakala in Hawaii is a giant shield volcano as I imagine your volcano must be. Down in the crater, it is preternaturally quiet. The linked article does a good job of conveying both the silence. It is also eerie and bleak.
Set your party down in the old caldera. They will be protected there and you can also use elements of the actual Haleakala caldera for your story. If your party then ventures out into the surrounding lands they could go up and over the edge, or through a lava tube that pierces the wall.
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Probably not. The trouble is that while mountain **chains** can and do divert wind patterns a single mountain generally wont 'block' wind flow. What it will do is disrupt it. I suspect but cannot prove that it would disrupt the liner flow of the local winds and create vortex patterns as the wind current is 'split' and rolls around opposing sides of the mountain. Then on the 'lee' side of the mountain i.e. that side of the mountain that is opposite the direction the wind was flowing from the two streams would meet as opposing spiral flows that would cause turbulence as they recombined.
Immediately right up close against the side of the mountain there *might* be a degree of protection i.e. wind speeds would be reduced. But as you moved away the mountain the spiraling wake patterns of the wind generated as they rolled around the 'leading edge' on both sides would collide and recombine chaotically with sudden changes in speed and direction. So the result would be more turbulence rather than a island of calm (except perhaps within a few hundred meters of the base).
You really need someone with the appropriate software (e.g nautical or aeronautical engineering) to model it so that you get an accurate picture of what to expect. And they would need more data to feed into it.
[Answer]
# You never miss when you mark the bullseye after you throw the dart.
Your pole has complex wind systems and rugged mountains. You would need a supercomputer to simulate where the wind is lowest. Or, you could use a planet to do the simulation ... *your* planet. As in - look at the wind patterns in the polar region, see where they are weakest, and then say oooh, there's a sheltered spot to land a mission. Easy peasy.
Just make sure there aren't any terrorists on the loose with family atomics!
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If you want it to provide serious protection, you do not want a simple conical mountain such as you depict.
What you want is a situation like Mount St. Helens, where the last explosion blew a cavity into the cone. A deep cavity.
This will not provide perfect protection, but if you situate it just right, it will ensure the majority of the wind goes "over their heads."
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The mountain may to some extent protect them from winds coming from the other side, but it will also create its own winds, which can be stronger than the oncoming ones. Most mountain ranges have their own winds, with local names, like the "Washoe Zephyr", of which Mark Twain wrote:
"The "Washoe Zephyr" ... is a peculiarly Scriptural wind, in that no man knoweth "whence it cometh." That is to say, where it originates. It comes right over the mountains from the West, but when one crosses the ridge he does not find any of it on the other side! It probably is manufactured on the mountaintop for the occasion, and starts from there." (<http://www.twainquotes.com/Zephyr.html> )
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This isn’t an answer, but perhaps more of an alternative.
With a massive volcano like that, there will almost certainly be extensive cave systems nearby (look up “lava tubes”). Perhaps your party can seek shelter within these caves during windstorms, or maybe they establish their entire base on the interior of the volcano. If that’s the case, an impending eruption could also make for quite a nice storyline!
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I was windsurfing once near [Kalepolepo](https://goo.gl/maps/oww2NMxZNi2FBoEf9) on Maui when the wind gradually died to absolutely nothing. And I mean nothing (had to derig and paddle back in). Shortly afterwards a friend called to say I should head over to [Kanaha](https://goo.gl/maps/FYjVcQeHokBGNu5J8) where it was blowing 30 knots. What had happened was the wind had swung northwest and Kalepolepo (along with most of Maaleaea Bay) was completed sheltered from it by Pu'u Kukui. Like I said, there was not a breath of wind, yet it was blowing 30 knots an hours drive away.
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Sure it will and it does protect them, assuming wind patterns are more or less consistent as you said it is, which is realistic enough, not like you say "unrealistic", wind patterns are a thing.
A single mountain is a bit on unrealistic side of things, however, let's omit that
It is 15 km high, and it is probably twice as wide at least 45-degree slopes(which isn't a random number), which makes it 30 km wide at its base.
It is possible to dream about a mountain chain, but a few km high, 10's km wide wall as good as a mountain chain for some area bhind it.
How big is that area is hard to tell without some aerodynamic simulation of such a cone, but it km's from its foot, you can place a city there, probably.
So yes, the answer is - yes, that mountain will offer protection.
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You have an example of this in the real world - the Indian subcontinent, which is protected from the winds that blow across Tibet and Central Asia by the Himalayas. It gets terribly hot in the subcontinent as a result, and that results in the monsoons.
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A single conical mountain is unlikely to have too much of an effect at its foot.
You can get around this by having a cliff on the leeward side of the mountain, allowing the base to be much closer (horizontally) to the peak, and much more covered by the wind shadow. The balance would be that they would be at greater risk of landslides.
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A single mountain isn't going to do all that much about the winds because the wind will just flow around the mountain. However, if you have a few mountains together the wind flows around the group of mountains, leaving a sheltered spot. This is basically a three-sided version of the crater answer.
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The mountain will most likely not provide significant protection.
To be able to answer your question better, we would also need to know size of the planet and rate of rotation around it's axis, in addition to gravity. If those are also comparable to Earth, then weather systems will have similar size and dynamics. Typical horizontal extent of non-tropical storms (e.g. hurricanes) on the Earth is on the order of 1000 km. This is much larger than the mountain in your scenario and it will not present significant obstacle to the storms. The mountain protrudes to stratosphere which helps, however, only by a very small amount (tip of the volcano). In order to create significant obstacle to weather sotorms, a mountain would ideally be a long range (north-south direction) with length of ~1000 km or more, and it would work even better if the height was up to the stratosphere or higher. For example something like the Cascades with the embedded volcanoes (Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood,...), but higher on average.
On the other hand, the mountain would help with reducing risk of other types of storms (smaller in scale) and tornadoes.
Geographical location of 70 deg N is important, but it depends on the planet size, rate of rotation, temperature difference between poles and the equator (as mentioned before), what significance it will have on the type and strength of the storms at that latitude.
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[Question]
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The time period is ~medieval. Imagine two characters who are physically fit. One comes from a city, the other has lived his life in the forest. The total distance they'll cover is ~170 miles. The terrain being covered is a forest. The season is late Spring to early Summer so snow is not a factor. The only major obstacle is one river. One of the characters knows the forest well so getting lost is not an issue. Food supplies will need to be hunted/gathered for the most part. (One character has a hunting animal to help with this.) As there are hostiles in the region, inconspicuous camps are important.
Right now I've assumed 6-8 miles per day average for a journey length of 18-28 walking days. Adding in rest days once in five and that would put in 3-6 more days for a total of 21-34 days. Is that accurate at all?
Edit: I forgot to explicitly state they're walking.
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It would depend about how well the 'ranger' knows the forest.
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> the other has lived his life in the forest
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In the forest, or in This specific Forest ?
Because it will change things a lot. You later state that the ranger knows this forest well, so my assumption is that he lived in this forest.
The river will not be a problem, the ranger knows where fords are (And more globally, there will be no backtracking).
If people lived 'in it', it's not a primordial forest.
While it's not a managed forest with actual road, it's safe to assume there are at least hunting tracks.
From my point of view you can go with the fast propositions.
Around 10-15 days, 25 if you add 'events' will seems correct.
Less than this will pass if your characters are clearly above average. But for more than a month, you will need to 'help' your reader to understand why it was so long.
[Answer]
**TL;DR -- 11 days**
There are many factors involved, which makes this a difficult question to answer with a single number. But let's try.
The standard accepted answer for Roman legionaries is 20 miles/day (nice discussion here: <http://www.romanarmytalk.com/thread-5631.html> ), which would give you 180/20 = 9 days, with an 5-hr marching day a speed of 4 mph. This is fully loaded with gear, and having to build a fort in the evening. This is a standard, *not* a forced march. But those cats didn't have to forage, and, well ... hostiles would be smart to dodge *them*. How does that affect things, hmm...
According to the accepted answer here ( [How long per day does it take to forage/hunt for food?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/54972/how-long-per-day-does-it-take-to-forage-hunt-for-food) ) in relatively bountiful terrain you can get away with 3 hrs/day for hunting/foraging.
We also need to set aside some time for dodging enemies. This is wildly variable, depending on amount of cover, how sparse the enemies are, and so on. I'll suggest that just to get some numbers on the table we assume two hours of cowering under a bush every day.
So that gives us 10 busy hours per day, leaving plenty of time for making camp, having character-establishing scenes, and getting some rest.
So, if you accept this teetering stack of assumptions, you still can make 20 miles/day and make it in 9 days. Throw in an extra day for crossing the river, and another for some emergency.
I'm going to say 11 days, including a little bit of buffer.
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Let's look at a very real worst-case situation. The Mormon Pioneers travelled from Nauvoo, IL to Council Bluffs, IA between February 2 and June 14, 1846. Nauvoo, IL is on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, so we can ignore it, that means only one substantial river. the Des Moines. It's plains (nor forest), but it's also 300 miles, and the weather stank. Rain, mud, etc. People were walking, pulling handcarts, and driving teams. There were Indians, so hostiles are equivalent. They carried their food and hunted irregularly, so that's an advantage. It took them 131 days.
Your guys are a small group, walking, in a forest. Easier as two guys, harder in a forest, hunting slows them down. You don't mention inclement weather (mud's actually harder to walk in than hardpack snow), but it will happen over that distance and time.
**Worst case: 74 days.**
Now let's look at an equally real best-case example some [U.S. Civil War armchair experts](http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107050) suggest that 10 miles a day was liesurely and 20 miles a day was common, "but pushing it." These guys have regular rest breaks, but they also have all the food in carts behind them. No hunting at all, nothing to do but walk. They were using roads, not enclosed forest (uneven ground), and we're assuming no Confederates upset the march during the day. Let's use the average of 15 miles a day.
**Best case: 11 days.**
I'm a huge believer in Murphy's Law, which stated the way I think is appropriate right now says, "If anything makes your story appear to easy or convenient, it probably is." Therefore, let's use the universal law of averages to suggest:
**Expected transit time without remarkably good luck: 40 days or 4.25 miles a day.**
* Your audience would likely suspend their disbelief if you called it a month and they "got lucky" with no major bad weather.
* Two weeks is unbelievable, not with the need to hunt, avoid hostiles, and no roads. They'd be running when not hunting and hiding.
[Answer]
Doing 20 to 30 miles with out to much weight is very doable, even for the untrained but fit. The next day is painful, but doable. It's the progression of long walks that wear you down. May I suggest you do a bit of walking yourself to try this out? Find a nice 25 mile stretch to walk, and go do it, you should be able to so in about 7 to 10 hours. Take a companion, that makes is better & easier. (don't forget water, food and a toilet roll if you go into the big(ger) outdoors)
You have some excellent answers for non-optimal conditions. Let me enlighten & entertain with some more extreme options. All these answers are best case scenario's.
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**[Loaded Marches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_march)**
You just keep on walking, and you can keep on going quite well. With 20 to 35 miles a day doable on very good ground, you could do the trip in 4 to 7 days. Not much time for foraging, but you will very likely outpace any pursuers.
**[Kennedy Style Marches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_march)**
They found that you can do 50 miles in one day (20 hours). You will be extremely tired after that. If you are trained for this and have enough food, you can make the trip in a bit under 4 days. If you walk one day, rest one day, you will be arriving on the 7th day. This will make you hard to intercept, as you will move longer distances then expected.
**[Ultra Marathon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon)**
Somehow, both of your heroes are capable of an ultra marathon. They also aren't carrying any gear. These lads (and ladies) do 10 mph. For up to 24 hours at a stretch. If all goes well, it only takes up to 17 hours this way.
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But all these options are for the trained and (very) capable. Happy camping (and walking)!
[Answer]
It depends on the forest.
Assuming a virgin forest, the river might be the only highway through it (not an obstacle).
You might be surprised at how impenetrable a real forest (not a man-made, managed forest) can be. [Nicky's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/96068/28494) reminds me of forest in Western Canada: where the "rotting wood" might be fallen trees 3 metres in diameter (difficult to climb over, walk around, or navigate in).
I can't easily find photos to illustrate, perhaps because people can't go there (physically unable and legally forbidden), and it's not very photogenic, but [here for example](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_log) (next to a boardwalk):
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest):
>
> Typical characteristics of old-growth forest include presence of older trees, minimal signs of human disturbance, mixed-age stands, presence of canopy openings due to tree falls, pit-and-mound topography, down wood in various stages of decay, standing snags (dead trees), multilayered canopies, intact soils, a healthy fungal ecosystem, and presence of indicator species.
>
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See also [Pit-and-mound topography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit-and-mound_topography) -- the soil is uneven, your feet sink into it some, there's rot and fungus and you can't see far etc.
Your estimate of 6-8 miles per day implies maybe 1 mile per hour, which is only 3 or 4 times slower than a walk in open country. I guess it could be 10 times slower than that, e.g. an hour to go a couple of hundred yards.
In my (very limited) experience it can be more like trying to climb through it than walk through it.
[Answer]
These people are not lazy unfit modern people. Their primary transport is walking in an age when you walked or stayed home. This means that their baseline of physical fitness is higher than ours.
Their **required gear** is considerably more basic than ours. We'd carry changes of clothes, cooker and fuel, tent, sleeping bag etc. etc. that these people wouldn't even think of. Sleep under a tree with maybe a bedroll, (folding) hide pot for cooking, firelighting equipment, bow for hunting.
**Terrain** is against them, no modern or Roman roads to speak of, uneven ground, forests can be surprisingly open at ground level, or totally impenetrable due to undergrowth. Occasional forest fires and browsing animals will keep this clear, depends on your environment. If it's clear then an open forest can be very easy soft ground to walk for miles at a time.
**Modern experience** (personal), we used to do 50miles in 4 days in [wild country](http://www.dofe.info/en/content/cms/leaders/expedition-areas/) carrying full kit (1/3 body weight) while being experienced but not especially fit city teenagers. We did this in the knowledge that we could have covered that distance much faster without load, easily two days even on that terrain.
**Hostiles** are possibly irrelevant. You're talking about an age with a much lower population density, once you're a day's walk from a town you're unlikely to see anyone unless you're on a direct route to the next town and even then merchants and highwaymen only. People didn't travel much, soldiers would be on the roads not in the back country, highwaymen would be on the roads to find targets, no point being in the back country. The adventures will come at the river, the rest is just a lot of walking.
# Estimates:
If they want to make a route march of it and get lucky hunting: 9 days or fewer.
Steady walking with a little time to gather food: 12-15 days.
# The river
This is actually the biggest problem, it could add several days to find a crossing. They probably can't swim, there probably isn't a ford, there won't be a boat unless they find a town which I get the feeling they're avoiding. They'll have to follow the river a considerable distance to find a suitable place to cross, the first crossing inland from the sea will almost certainly have a town or village. Depending on avoidance of others/country/terrain/river width/speed/etc. add 1-6 days just to cross the river.
As an example, Harwich and Felixstowe\* are port towns on the English East coast. They're a few hundred meters apart. To travel from one to the other without a boat is [over 30miles](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/51.9627014,1.3439624/51.9349266,1.2650727/@51.9587075,1.1721828,11.5z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!3m4!1m2!1d1.1092752!2d51.9389905!3s0x47d90b827897787b:0x1c76b6a96248b384!1m0!3e0), even using the new Orwell bridge. Without a crossing a river is an impassible barrier.
n.b. For a modern hiker on a known trail: The [Pennine Way](https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/pennine-way), 268 miles, can be done in around 3 weeks with no particular hurry, carrying full kit.
*\*Arbitrarily selected because I know the towns not for any other particular reason, I'm sure there are equivalents requiring far longer detours.*
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Much depends on the nature of the forest! In New Zealand's sub-alpine rainforest (say on the West Coast) in the absence of tracks, one or two miles A DAY can be the limit of your ability. This is without hacking undergrowth with machetes, just dealing with the terrain, deep in moss and rotting wood. Carrying food, no shortage of water (solid drizzle for a week), nothing to hide from.
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Me and my friends did a few distance day hikes. We covered 32 miles with a 3000' drop then climb (Havasupai Trail to Colorado and back) and 28 miles with a 6000' drop then climb (North Rim of GC on North Kaibab). The first hike was completed in 16 hours and the second one took only 12. So in these cases the elevation was much more strenuous, but we weren't foraging either.
I would cut down the hiking time to 8 hours for the forest and assume that we were averaging 30 miles every 12 hours and you get a leisurely average of 20 miles a day. So 8-9 days. Actually, you could pack enough bread, dried meat, and pulse to make up for most of your food for that period.
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I used to take teenagers on backpacking trips in Willmore Wilderness in Alberta. We traveled in fall, so our day was more constrained by daylight. We had little problem covering 15 to 25 km/10 (10 to 15 miles)
* As people harden to the trail, the distance you can go each day increases. Part of this is increasing strength, much of it is learning how to move so that it takes less energy.
* We did about 1/3 of our distance off trail. Below tree line this doubled the time it took per crow mile. We were both slower, and had to detour more, and there were stops of the 'How the f\* do get around THAT' Above tree line it made very little difference.
* I've also traveled in woods on the west coast. Whole different ballgame. Harder to keep a straight line. Harder to get direction from the sun.
* The fur trade in Canada was all water based. It was MUCH faster to travel by canoe than by anything else until the railway came into play. An express canoe routinely did 60 miles a day. I've done 67 miles in a day. (Crossed Cree Lake in N. Saskatchewan) But I couldn't do that on a daily basis without a lot more experience and training. We typically did 40 miles a day of flat water travel.
* Lagemodiere took the news of the clash between rival fur trading companies from near what is now Selkirk, manitoba to Montreal, a distance of 1800 miles in 5 months in winter, foraging. On some days he covered better than 50 miles on snowshoes.
So: Minimum time for fit people, who can carry a few days food (and so not have to forage) 4 days. This assumes open forest -- not much brush to tangle with, good weather.
I would budget 2 weeks. This would be 17 miles a day (10 days) + slop for avoiding hostiles, hunting down a deer, and turning it into jerky and moccasins.
Bad weather, bad terrain, make it as long as you want.
On the trips I ran, I budgeted 10% for weather too bad to travel. Mostly snow or wind driven ice water rains in the mountains and wind on canoe trips.
[Answer]
At a moderately swift pace on even (city) terrain, I have been able to cover about 5 km (about 3.1 miles) in an hour or so. I wouldn't have called myself fit-fit - I doubt that I would have been able to cover 6 miles in 2 hours, or 9 miles in 3 hours, for example.
So if you slow that down for factors like hunting on-the-go, terrain and increasing fatigue, and because I like nice, round numbers, they might make 2 to 2.5 miles per hour (thanks @Rekesoft!).
Potentially your forest dweller could range ahead, as (s)he would be more mobile in an area that they are familiar with and find a suitable camp ahead of time. On the other hand, since secure and concealed camps are important, they may have to stop a little earlier some days when camp sites are sooner, with none being found later.
Considering the time of year, a travelling day might then have twelve hours (latitude might affect this. I know it gets dark later closer to the equator than it does towards the poles).
So. With all of the above factors added together and also adding in rest breaks, I would give average time traveled per day to eight hours (so, you know, a normal working day).
Averaging 2.25 miles per hour and pushing themselves, your team could travel approximately 18 miles a day. Allowing themselves rest days would depend on in how much of a hurry they are - they might opt to keep moving in a period where they were excessively delayed, for example. Even so, let's put in one rest day after every 5 days (so every 6th day).
By my calculations they would be able to make the journey (sans rest day) in about 9.5 days, so including a day of rest in the middle of that, 10.5 days. That river would also slow them down - they would have to hunt around for a ford of some sort, or swim it, so I would add another day for that. So 11.5 days.
Mind you, I'm no hiker, so someone with experience with that might give a completely different number.
EDIT: I asked a friend who does hiking how far one can travel in a day, and his reply was between 8 and 22 km (so between 5 and 13.5 miles), depending on terrain. The average of that is 9.25 miles, which would extend travel time to roughly 18 days. Add in rest 3 rest days and your travel time would be 21 days.
[Answer]
Been there, done that, though I was alone, and the "hostiles" were known as "rangers" and "child protective services".
First, having to forage slows you down. A lot. You'll see people saying they can go 20, 30, even 50 miles in a day. But this is based on having a reliable supply of food, and usually on having a reliable source of light to let you set up camp after dark. Looking for food takes time, getting your camp chores done before dark takes time, and if you're traveling for more than a few days, maintenance such as repairing damaged gear takes time. Figure that at least half your daylight hours will be spent doing something other than covering ground.
Second, your speed for those few hours you are traveling is determined by the terrain: pushing through a hilly, brush-filled ravine is much slower than walking along a pre-existing trail. My best day, there was a recently-used logging road going my way, and I covered nearly 25 miles. My worst, I had to pick my way through swampy, heavily-overgrown ground, making slightly over a mile in five hours of travel.
Hostiles who are just casually looking for you don't slow you down much. Forests are big, people are small, and the main concern is that you need to keep your cookfire from being seen. You need to look for exceptionally dry wood to avoid smoke, and you need to extinguish it before dusk, which keeps you from hiking all day no matter how much food you have.
If you're avoiding trails, either to keep from being seen or because they don't go where you want, a rough estimate is that you'll average two miles an hour in open forests, or one mile an hour if there's significant undergrowth. If you've got a trail you can follow, three miles an hour, four if the terrain is exceptionally flat. Figure you can spend half of each day's usable light traveling.
In late spring/early summer in temperate latitudes, this works out to a low speed of eight miles a day (constantly pushing through underbrush) to a high speed of 30 (a road goes where you want). Throw in a couple of bad days, and you'll cover that 170 miles between one and four weeks. Personally, I'd estimate three.
[Answer]
Average person can walk 18-25 km daily in 3-5 hrs at pace of 12 minutes per km. But condition is quiet difficult in forest but still he can travel 13 km or 8 miles per day with sufficient food supply. So any forest raised person can achieve this if he knows forest very well in 18 days most. Other city person can do that in 21 days most.
But i still think this can be done in 11 days at 25km per day.
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For hill-walking on trails, a rule-of-thumb is 10 minutes per 1km, plus 10 minutes for every 100 metres of ascent; there is no reduction for decent; indeed for steep descents some allowance should be given for this. In imperial system, this is approx. 15 minutes per mile, plus 15 minutes for a 500 foot ascent. I can't remember how many km this can be kept up for.
You might get a more accurate answer on the GreatOutdoors.SE [ <https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/> ]
[Answer]
There are several super long endurance races (longer than a marathon) around the world.
The Jungle Marathon lets you sign up for a couple of options, including a 254km (~158 mile) run.
<http://junglemarathon.uk/brazil-race-information/>
According to CNN, it goes for 6 days.
<http://travel.cnn.com/explorations/escape/worlds-toughest-endurance-challenges-152211/>
There are other ultramarathons that can be found. I just found another one that states he went 350 miles in 7 days, pulling a sled in Alaska.
<https://gearjunkie.com/winter-ultramarathon-expert-advice>
So, if your guys are really fit and desperate to get where they are going, they can get there Real quick.
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[Question]
[
In several fantasy works they have the iconic dragons, giant reptile creatures and that commonly breathe fire. In some works these creatures were tamed and trained to serve as military weapons in wars, making it rare or even impossible to find wild fire dragons. However, in other works the dragons are generally wild and many even live in forests and that is where the problem lies. Many wild landscapes in which these dragons live are often quite green and full of trees.
**What would a territory inhabited by wild fire-breathing dragons look like, would it be as green as in the popular imagination?**
Note: forget about magic, talking trees and anything else fantastic that contributes to plant growth. In this case, only dragons are real and the rest of things follow the natural laws of our world.
[Answer]
# Lush, Lush, Lush:
You need an environment suitable for the support of a large predator the size of a dinosaur, with the metabolic rate to support both flight and flaming gasses to boot. An environment that won't be devastated by fire every time your dragon gets into a tiff with something.
In short, you need the kind of lush environment filled with large prey animals that was present to support the dinosaurs. You want an environment similar to the [Jurassic period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic), with abundant forests and high CO2 levels and temperatures. Big jungles, vast polar swamps, and food, food, food everywhere. Otherwise, your dragons will simply starve to death, and the only trace of them will be in a fossil record.
As an added bonus, high levels of moisture and constant rain to support all this vegetation mean that it's unlikely for forest fires to be rampant, even if the dragons spew fire everywhere.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ePaCv.jpg)
This does not mean it's the ONLY environment that could support dragons. A plains area with abundant large herbivores would provide herds for dragons to follow, only roosting (?) during an egg-laying/raising season. An oceanic area with large aquatic mammals that can be targeted when they surface could provide a unique feeding opportunity (but would require a swim-capable dragon). Non-flying dragons will have slightly different requirements, but will work in vegetation too thick for flying dragons to hunt easily in (like dense jungle). Most dense non-tropical forests probably don't have the food supply to support a dragon.
[Answer]
**Fire can help forests.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jEQgO.jpg)
<https://www.facebook.com/OkaWenNF/photos/central-washington-good-fire-planned-on-over-11000-acres-this-fallfrom-the-canad/2303697833081055/>
<https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfire-western-forests-have-a-fire-debt-problem>
>
> Forests need ‘good fire’
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> Forests across much of North America need fire to maintain healthy
> structures and watershed conditions and support biodiversity. For
> centuries, Native Americans deliberately set fires to facilitate
> hunting, protect communities and foster plants needed for food and
> fiber.
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As Native Americans used to, the dragons help the forest with fire. It also helps themselves. Opening things up and fertilizing with ash lets new growth thrive, and the things that come to eat the new growth are the things the dragons eat. Old and lucky trees in this forest can withstand the regular small fires the dragons cause, like redwoods and oaks do in our world.
In our world, lack of regular fires is the problem and consequent "fire debt" - the accumulated wealth of carbon burns so hot that everything dies.
Dragons prevent that. Theirs is a life giving fire. Unless you actually catch on fire; then you die. But otherwise lifegiving.
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Lions and all predators can kill, but are not on a killing spree every moment of the day.
Similarly, that an animal can breathe fire it doesn't necessarily mean it will do it 24/7.
Occasional fires started by the dragon might happen, as already happens with lightning started fires, but that's nothing that a healthy and adapted environment cannot manage.
It's definitely possible that a wild dragon environment is forest like.
[Answer]
## Dry and grassy
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DJcVO.jpg)
As large, flying animals, dragons need wide open space to hunt. They can’t fly through dense forests without crashing into trees, so a forest is actually a very bad environment for them.
Instead, dragons would live in a savannah, prairie, or grassland. There should be more than enough herding animals to eat.
The dragon would maintain its territory by burning down any trees that try to grow. In addition, it might regularly use fire in interspecies combat, or in hunting. The regular fires would mean fertile soil.
Note that this means dragons won’t live in areas that are too wet; wet trees are hard to burn down, and trees might pop up faster than the dragon can remove them.
[Answer]
Opening: *"What would a territory inhabited by wild fire-breathing dragons look like, would it be as green as in the popular imagination?"*
**Nice and green, full of life.**
Wild Dragons are predators. What evolutionary purpose would be served, to destroy food ? And if it were accidental: why would a dragon need to use fire for hunting ? It hunts from up in the air, surprising prey on the ground, like eagles and falcons do. Only difference is: dragons pick up cattle, not mice.
**Mating season**
Dragons can ignite and maintain their fire for a short while, but a "reload" will take hours. Only male dragons sometimes waste their fire in the open. When it is mating season, the dragon will do its fireworks. It's in the open field and looks spectacular, but it will not hurt the trees, or other animals. Dragons are uncommon species. The purpose of the fireworks is to lure females from far away. The dragon will spew its fire upward, the flames will not reach the ground.
**Reverse thrust for landing**
There's one place that will *not* be nice and green.. and that is the immediate vicinity of the nest of the Wild Dragon, up in the mountains. Frequent dragon fire will cause a desolate landscape, not allowing vegetation anywhere near. Reason: a flying dragon cannot hover. When flying, the heavy dragon always develops a considerable forward airspeed. Approaching the nest, it will use its fire breath as a reverse thrust, to slow down and land safely.
**Wild dragons use their fire to bake meat for offspring**
This is a little known fact about dragons. Life expectancy of these animals is 300-800 years. Dragon offspring will stay in the nest for many years. When a dragon feeds offspring, it will behave like a large preying bird: they pick up their prey alive and drag it into their nest, where it is killed and fed to the offspring. Because dragon offspring has only rudimentary teeth and a very slow immune system at first, dragons have the habit to bake their meal.
[Answer]
**Mountainous as heck**
Your forests fill relatively well separated alpine valleys, with lots of glacial lakes. The dragons roost in the mountain peaks. Fire breathing has evolved here for a couple of reasons, from your average, winged, non burny giant flying lizard.
The first is hunting - we see this behavior in firehawks, where they seem to use burning things to flush out prey. While the dragons are too big to maneuver among the trees, they simply set fire to one end of the valley, and the animals living there panic and run. They can then either pick them off with controlled flaming, or dive down and grab them as they flee into the water.
The second is thermals - being able to set fires makes flight easier for these big, ungainly flying things. They may not be able to get over the mountains without this help.
From this, I'd propose a proto-draconic ancestor - much smaller, with limited fire starting ability. These dragons would be closer in size to flying lizards, and would use a limited fire breath to ward of predators. Eventually, they start using little blazes to fly greater distances, and even starting fires to migrate to new valleys.
I'd also propose a dragon life cycle - dragons hibernate for long periods, perhaps into the multiple years, probably high up on the mountains. Every few years, they emerge, set fire to the valley, mate, gorge themselves on prey that's either been cooked or picked off from the lake, lay eggs in the embers, and then return with their young to the top of the mountains, where they hibernate in caves.
It solves for the ecological devastation issue of a giant burning lizard, and matches with other highly destructive lifecycles we find in nature (i.e, locusts), where a swarm emerges after a long period of hibernation.
[Answer]
I don't think that dragons would get along well with forests. While forests do need the occasional fire, a fire every couple weeks is just a *tad* too much for the ecology to handle. Therefore, I'd like to suggest an alternative.
## Chaparral
Lit. "Place of the scrub oak"
Fire-breathing dragons would probably love chaparral, and the chaparral would love them back.
Predominated by scrub oaks, sage, and other herbaceous plants, chaparral is home to lots of deer, elk, and other such tasty critters. Additionally, dragons don't need to worry too much about knights (their natural predator), since the hilly terrain and the plants' density would hinder their travel. For that matter, the dragons wouldn't need to worry about people in general, either; while it's possible for people to live there, they have to rebuild their houses every couple years.
That brings me to my other point: dragons' fire wouldn't be ecologically destructive in chaparral. Wildfires are a common occurrence there, and are in fact necessary to revitalize the soil and get rid of old, dead growth.
EDIT:
If you're a stickler for "dragons in forests," it is worth noting that some variants of chaparral can be a sort of low forest. It's not quite verdant forest, but it's as close as you're probably going to get. For visualization purposes, take a look at this picture of a Scout camp in North Texas:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8z4pr.png)
[Answer]
## Dragons Don't Breathe Fire...
All the time. Or even most of the time. When hunting a dragon will act more like a bird of prey; Diving at prey animals from on high and ambushing them. The powerful claws, fangs, and even tail can all be used to kill prey before they even have a chance to run or fight back.
## Except For Self-Defense
Which is good, because things get heated when dragons feel threatened. Dragons act like any other big predator and eat their meat raw. The fire breath they are so well known for is not used in hunting and instead is a means of defense that is mainly deployed against the few creatures desperate or mean enough to attack an apex predator. Against other dragons the fire is less effective as a weapon (given their natural resistance to heat) but can be blinding, which provides opportunities to attack or flee as necessary.
## Two's a Crowd
A single dragon in any environment is not going to cause too big of an impact compared to any other large apex predator. They would probably have a larger hunting ground, since they can fly and will need to cover a wide area to prevent exhausting food, but for the most part I would not expect a single dragon to cause too much fire damage in their living area.
The problem comes when other dragons are added to the mix. Dragon fights are famed for their collateral damage. Older dragons are smart enough to take the fight away from the most flammable parts of the territory, but a fight between younger dragons can and has led to such widespread destruction that even the victor had to move on and find a new home. Less common are fires that were caused by non-dragon aggressors against a dragon. Typically this is a desperate animal or pack of scavengers attacking a weaker dragon. Usually a few small spurts of fire is enough to scare off the attackers and the dragon is very injured they can use their powerful wings to put out any errant flames before they spread too far.
[Answer]
Dragons are in essence overgrown lizards with wings. They love to sunbathe and like hot-ish environment, hence I present to you: the **desert dragon**.
Nobody knows what came first: the dragon or the desert. Some ancient tales report the deserts to be lush and green before the giant lizards took root - but nobody knows for sure.
Be it as it may, dragons and desert are well suited to each other:
* plenty of hot sand to sand-bath
* almost no combustible material that blazes up if the dragon sneezes
* deserts being inherently dangerous to humans - so not much danger of tin-boxed would-be dragon slayers pestering the dragon
And only one to four hours of flying away: plenty of food and funnily screaming small-ones when the dragon touches down, breathing fire and taking the livestock away.
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And then there are the other dragons - preferring swamps and breathing poisonous gas, delving into the deeps of the sea and spitting chlorine gas - or even weirder ones. But you only asked for firey-breathy ones.
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[Question]
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I've always considered teleportation to be one of the most under-rated super powers in all ways, but at the moment I'm thinking through the ramifications of personal teleportation as a superpower in fights both large and small. The "best" use I've seen for teleportation would possibly be [Nightcrawler assaulting the White House in X-Men 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StnmzjqMKRo)
In that case, teleportation is being used simply to give a large advantage in an otherwise normal fight. I suspect though that there are ways to use teleportation itself as a weapon, aka to injure/kill more directly than simply moving yourself around the battlefield to stab/punch/kick from unexpected locations. The only example I can think of where teleportation was used more directly as a weapon would be in [Jumper](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/) when a Teleporter (aka someone who can teleport) teleported a moving bus directly at Samuel L. Jackson's character.
At the risk of becoming too broad, I'm interested in ways in which personal teleportation might be used as a weapon in "fights" both small and large, i.e.:
1. Killing/incapacitating individuals
2. Killing/incapacitating groups of men
3. If possible, mass destruction on a large scale (blowing up cities?)
Obviously the options available to a Teleporter will depend on the mechanics of the teleportation. This is world building though, and I am indeed trying to build a world, so I'd like to leave the precise mechanics open. I would accept whatever mechanics allow my character to do the most damage. In general though, I'd limit it to two rules:
1. The Teleporter can teleport themselves and/or any object (including people) they are touching, with a total mass limit of roughly double their own mass
2. People/things/self can only be teleported to places which the Teleporter has previously visited in person
Given these limitations, just how much damage can my Teleporter do, and what will be an effective strategy to quickly end fights?
[Answer]
The following assumes that, like in most universes, you cannot simply teleport *part of* an object or person. That would be... too easy.
Another assumption is that the power is "designed" to be safe for the user, so momentum, pressure etc. are adjusted reasonably well to the target frame of reference.
**The environment is your greatest weapon**
There aren't many threats that cannot be dealth with by teleporting them into mid-air, the deep sea, space, a sealed mine or a prison cell. Anything your character touches can be considered out of the fight. Sure, some of these locations are more exotic than others, but even if you want to keep the ability secret and cannot accept help from others, a sufficiently effective death trap can be improvised on a budget by e.g. renting a boat, buying a plane ticket or just crossing over a deep pit with a length of rope (that you remove afterwards).
**Conventional weapons and transportation work just as well**
Logistical limitations don't apply to you. Screw getting your own hands dirty, just provide an army of your choice with a steady stream of personnel, supplies and intel. That'll do more than a single person ever could.
If you don't like other people risking their necks for your cause, get a fast vehicle (refueling at will means unlimited range) or at least heavy body armor for "lucky bullet" protection and stock up on heavy weapons. You don't need to reload, you can switch between weapons and angles of attack pretty much at will and *no one* can ever take *any* territory from you because the second you feel like it, they'll sit on a pile of armed bombs. Still too risky? Make contact once, then teleport home and port in a steady stream of drones.
"Suicide" bombings are also an option, but I don't like those as much because you still need to get in range, and as we've already established, anything within touch range is doomed anyway. And anything a person could reach, a teleported missile or drone will have a much easier time with.
**Never underestimate gravity**
Assuming you're
* ok at math
* able to retain momentum when teleporting
* able to afford a handful of trips to orbit
nowhere is really safe from orbital bombardment. You'll have to experiment a bit to work out what types of ammunition work best but if you want to flatten a city, that's probably the way to go.
[Answer]
So like Friendlysociopath used, I will be borrowing from anime to answer.
## A Certain Scientific Teleporter
In the series *A Certain Magical Index* and *A Certain Scientific Railgun* we're introduced to a character who can teleport. They're a part of a neighborhood watch-like program (so they don't go about killing people) but they have an unusually high combat incident count. Their main line of attack is to teleport metal darts into the clothes of opponents and pin them to surfaces. Usually they knock them against the surfaces first (satisfying a more narrow application of the "Must have visited this place before" clause). But they have a brevity of application to their powers.
1. They can teleport objects into people. So if you're a teleporter looking to just end any 1v1 engagement, teleport a needle into their heart or brain. Done. Assuming the "visited this place before" means only that you've physically seen it. But if we're more specific (e.g. you've had to have touched the place before") then we still have the standard option of restraining people with heavy objects once you've touched them.
2. They can teleport material into structural supports and bring down buildings. Again, assuming you just have to physically have seen your target place before then you can just teleport glass panes from a building's windows to their structural supports and down goes a couple hundred million dollars not to mention the mass panic. Although, this involves changing the orientation of an object in teleportation. Another limitation. But if you have to touch all of the target you're teleporting to then bringing down buildings is a little out of reach. However, you can still cause mass panic because...
3. You can teleport double your mass to the tops of buildings and have them come crashing down. 140kg dropping 20 stories will hurt a great deal. Again, if you only have to have seen the target, dropping 140kg asphalt balls from the cloud line will be incredibly damaging depending on cooldown times or other physical limitations. The character in question doesn't do this but a Rival teleporter does try to do this to crush the character.
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So you have options in combat when it comes to being a teleporter. As others have said you can really abuse the rule and win a lot of fights just by sending an opponent free solo skydiving or jamming their own weapon into their brain. On a less lethal note, dropping 140kg's of sand on someone will buy you time to incapacitate them or kill them. Teleporting 140kg's of industrial staples will pin someone to a surface or fewer metal stakes will do the same. Even just threatening teleporting a needle into someone's brain will stop a lot of fights.
Against groups, like IT Alex stated, teleport them away till you get down to a manageable number then start incapacitating or killing as you see fit. If you have to fight full groups, hope for the environment to be in your favor and teleport holes into the ground in front of people and use that dirt to cover someone. Or start throwing javelins at people.
And if you're just in it for the mass panic, you have too many options to count. You can't blow up cities but you can royally mess with them. Teleport small pieces of bridge supports away, drop asphalt boulders from on high, ruin electrical substations, even destroy buildings. You can cause quite a bit of damage in a very short amount of time with little effort.
[Answer]
**Air Drop**
In X-men: First Class, a guy with Nightcrawler's powers kills people by teleporting into the air with them and then dropping them while he teleports back down. Since he can teleport right up to someone to grab them, there isn't much defense against this. You specify only places he has been, but as long as he's gone skydiving even once, this shouldn't be a problem.
(Others mentioned that specific attack in the comments section. I just noticed, even thought they posted before I did. Credit should go to @Willk and @BKLassen. Or, should I just delete that part?)
**Partial Teleport**
If your teleporter doesn't need to take the whole object or person with him, he could put his hand on a guy, and teleport away with only part of them. Instant decapitations, or 'Disarming'.
[Answer]
This power would be extraordinarily useful. Anywhere this person has ever been, they can make "anything they touch" appear there.
# Convenient death trap: arrange to send folks to kill zones
Make an expedition to the North Pole (which will kill probably even many supers unprepared to be sent there in very short order). Take an airplane ride with a window seat, then simply teleport anyone the person wants to get rid of there.
Or just get a secret lair. Build a sub-sub basement. Surround it with chain link fencing, then flood it with water. Teleport people there to drown. Much less public that way. People just disappear and aren't found in spectacular, publicity-generating ways (like falling out of the sky randomly over the Midwest, or a huge pile of people killed via exposure being found at the North Pole).
If the user doesn't want to kill their enemies, and has resources, like they're Batman, build a prison. Hire a bunch of superpowered guards. Spend a few minutes locked inside a 2-foot by 2-foot square closet surrounded by powerproof glass, and you've got an intake cell where your new inmate materializes. Repeat, and you can handle multiple incoming bad (or I suppose good) guys simultaneously.
# Anywhere the user has, or might have ever, been is not secure
Anywhere they can break into, or might have ever broken into, is not secure. Any place they might have flim-flammed their way past the front desk in disguise (think civvies), even briefly, is not secure. Any place they've ever worked cannot be considered secure. Note that the list of such places is *vast* because you won't know where they've been. This remains true as long as they live.
They can take a tour of the White House, even the unsecured parts, in disguise. Twenty years later, they could decide 'screw this, time to assassinate the President' and now you've got a problem. They can take a job as the janitor of an office building where someone they're targeting works. Failing everything else, they take a job working for [these guys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnmcRTnTNC8) and then pretty much learn how to get anywhere they want.
Seriously, watch the video, it exposes how much even 'secure' locks mostly aren't. All this person needs to do is pop a door when nobody's around, or maybe when people are around and you just do the 'elevator repairman' schtick (again from the video).
TL;DR - This person can get almost *anywhere*. And if *they* can, then *anyone* who can engage their services can also. If you want in, and either can pay, or convince them to help you, a plan can almost certainly be arranged to give the teleport user the ability to get your entire crew in. This person can also assassinate a *lot* of folks by finding their office, then teleporting hand grenades or nerve gas canisters or even assassin droids in.
# Devastating force multiplier
Combat effectiveness is not all about kicking ass and taking names. Some things don't directly bring the thunder, but are good at making the thunder your other folks have got more effective. The military has a name for this; they call it a [force multiplier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_multiplication).
In addition to the direct usefulness of teleportation in a fight (being untouchable, being able to kill at a distance, being able to take people prisoner just by touching them, etc) teleportation is a devastating force multiplier.
The way you have set this up, teleportation is a highly effective force multiplier, because the teleporter can bring a whole team of capes along for the ride. And they can get to the scene much quicker than if they had to take the Batplane or whatever. As established above, if the teleporter spends a lot of their time travelling around, considering it their job to spend a lot of their 'off' time expanding their potential teleportation destinations, they (and their backup) will be able to almost instantly appear to disrupt the plans of their adversaries.
Instead of being able to count on it taking (say) between 20 minutes and an hour after the alarm goes off, until the Superfriends show up (because even if they're all on duty right that second they still have to physically go to the place), with Mister Panopticon on their side, they can appear in *under a minute*. I.e. if you want to attack something they care about defending, you have to assume they will be on you *immediately*. Smash-and-grabs, where the idea is you're gone before anyone shows up, are out.
Likewise, if the Superfriends want in, you have to assume they can get in anytime they want with no warning. They will simply teleport a whole crew of heavy-hitters somewhere inside your security perimeter. You can't rely on being able to buy time, keeping them tied up at the front door so they don't get into the sensitive parts of your facility. You can't really have a security 'perimeter', you have to have very high security basically throughout any facility you want to keep these folks out of.
[Answer]
>
> The Teleporter can teleport themselves and/or any object (including people) they are touching, with a total mass limit of roughly double their own mass
> People/things/self can only be teleported to places which the Teleporter has previously visited in person
>
>
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If you've ever watched Darker Than Black the protagonist faces someone with a teleportation power. Except instead of teleporting themselves they teleport a fist-sized bunch of matter- which they typically use to swap pieces of building with the heart of the person they're trying to assassinate.
[Answer]
Well, one less lethal thing no one else has pointed out is instant incarceration. The teleporter visits a jail cell or a bank vault, which is then locked. The teleporter doesn't even need to be let out, of course, because they can take themselves out at any time.
Once in conflict with someone, the teleporter need only touch their opponent to teleport them away, into the locked cell or vault. (Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.)
For a more lethal version, the teleporter need only enter an incinerator when it's not on, and then have it fired up after they leave. (Tap. You're toast.) This idea could be extended to any dangerous environment where the danger can be easily turned off and on: inside an nuclear reactor, directly above an industrial metal shredder, a large container filled with acid or toxic gas, etc. Heck, the teleporter could even go in a deep sea submarine once, and then teleport people to the bottom of the ocean.
[Answer]
Unfortunately, the limitation of places he can teleport to by having to have been there at some point makes him a better defensive fighter than an offensive. Having sufficient time to prepare, he can literally attack from anywhere within an area.
One on One.
Your teleporter should teleport twice his mass in an entangling object over a wide area (nets, barbed wire, fishing line) to immobilize his opponent. Then, teleport a pointy weighted object on top of them. Having been entangled they will have a hard time dodging and each dodge they succeed will make them more entangled and less able to dodge the next one. Alternatively, teleport behind them and touch them to teleport them to a location that you have sky-dived (without a parachute).
Multiple opponents.
Survival should be paramount in a one on many fight. Teleport and touch a combatant and put them literally anywhere other than the fighting location until it is 1v1. You could even use the mid-air approach from previously. The key is to not fight disadvantageous fights and instead make every fight fair or in your favor.
Mass Destruction.
No more so than the average person. The only caveat is that what would normally be a suicide attack for most people is now survivable via teleportation.
Most people would be unable to track and/or stop your teleporter. If he can teleport as fast as he can think then he would be able to (with practice) eliminate people within seconds.
[Answer]
My answer works on Three assumptions:
1: The person using the teleportation power can teleport parts of a object he/she is touching.
And/Or
2: There is little/no cool-down in-between teleportation attempts.
And/Or
3: If the teleporter can choose how precise the "location he has been" part is.
Most organisms cannot function in combat without a brain. So if assumption #1 is correct, then you can not only quickly kill them, but also merely incapacitate them by removing things such as clothing, weapons, limbs, or possibly just all the air in their lungs.
All people need a defense, whether it is armor, wits, luck, or a combination of said three. Teleporters have a fourth if assumption #2 works: By constantly teleporting the area near them away, you create what essentially is a wormhole that they control in order to not only prevent damage, but maybe also send the damage right back at the aggressors!
If you have in combat and holding a sword (example item), you could teleport the hilt of the sword right next to the opponent's forehead, with the blade orientated towards the brain. Voila! Sword has now been stabbed though whatever armor the guy has, and is now in the brain.
This answer focuses on on-on-one and can be extended to one-on-multiple.
[Answer]
Other answers have covered fairly well the options for one to one combat, and even vs groups. This answer poses a solution to mass destruction.
The only restriction is enabling partial teleportation.
Here's a few ideas, depending on how extreme you want to go.
1) Shockwaves. Teleportation should always produce a shockwave. Consider, what happens to the air that used to occupy the space the teleported object now does? As you've defined the ability (must be touching thing to teleport) they could not possibly swap the air and the teleported object. So the air must remain, pushed out at hyper velocity by the sudden presence of something teleporting in. Boom, shockwave!
2) Since you are already moving matter out of the way (air) what happens if you teleport an object into something more... substantial? Imagine teleporting a 200 pound block directly into the same space already occupied by another 200 pound block. A rather impressive explosion should result as most of the chemical bonds in whatever used to be there are suddenly broken all at once. At the very least, it generates a shockwave as before, only with a large amount of shrapnel mixed in.
3) Let's take his to the logical extreme: use simulations partial teleportations to compress an object down to a single point. Literally. Depending on how precise and accurate your teleporter can be, this should result in a nuclear explosion, as the an entire 200 pounds of atomic nuclei are forced into the same space, destabilizing them and causing them to break up. This should result in a nuclear explosion. Depending on material teleported, it may just result in irradiating the surrounding area with exotic particles (you might even want this outcome, kill the people, leave the buildings...). Alternatively, it also might form a black hole and destroy the Earth. Be careful with this one...
As a disclaimer, I haven't run the numbers on any of these situations. They just seem like logical consequences based on my understanding of physics. I'm be happy to be corrected if someone else cares to do so.
[Answer]
## Flechettes as anti-personnel weapons
Your best bet for taking out groups of individuals in the open in a dead-simple way is WW1's air-dropped flechettes:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zkgcr.jpg)
They weighed about 20g each, so you could easily teleport a box of about 7,000 of 'em up into the sky above whoever's day you want to ruin:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NHO8P.jpg)
They're pretty effortlessly lethal over an area of a few hundred square yards.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/u2kol.jpg)
And unlike the poor airplane pilots, you don't have one box of 'em, you have as many as you need. And if custom flechettes are out of your budget, just teleport boxes of nails. Those are free w/crime. :P
[Answer]
A lot of cool answers here. I was thinking in little different approaches.
**Reactive components**
You can have two recipes of chemicals not dangerous but reactive between each other. (like metal and chlorine, for example) And just teleport with both hand in the face of your enemies.
**No hands**
You can have some flammable liquid, like gasoline, in a camelbak, and just suck it and teleport it with your tongue. Now you only need some type of ignition. (Maybe like in the previous point)
**Sand, gravel or any amount of small objects**
You only can teleport something of double your mass, but one grain of sand or a little peeble it's ok. Now... put your hands on the ground and you basically can start a nonstop rain of sand, gravel, stones or whatever.
**Same but with water**
Same as before. One drop of water is nothing and you are basically able to flood a fucking country with the water of a sea. That's a massive destruction.
[Answer]
The question of what happens to the atoms at the destination of the teleport when the person appears. Clearly they must at the very least be moved out of the way, if not exchanged (i.e. moved to the place where the teleporting person came from) or destroyed.
That makes merely teleporting into the space where a person or object is a powerful weapon, as all or part of them will be instantly displaced.
[Answer]
Consider the original Jumper **book**, not the Hollywood mess. In the book his teleportation is limited to what he is carrying.
He uses it for combat in two ways:
1) Grab someone, tip back (so their feet come off the ground) and teleport next to a cliff (in the book he can only teleport to where he's been or where he can see) next to water. Let go, teleport away. If you want a lethal combat option (he didn't) the same idea but without water.
2) Swing a weapon, teleport while it's swinging.
[Answer]
You really need to read the entire *Jumper* series. In the interest of answering the question, spoilers abound:
In the first one,
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> Davy figures out how to grab people and teleport them over a pit in the middle of nowhere. Very effective at taking out terrorists.
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The second book has
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> Davy chained up and fitted with a debilitation pacemaker. He figures out how to flicker back and forth really fast, what he ends up calling twinning. A side effect of this is that fluids can sneak through with him. He ends up destroying the house he is kept in by flooding it with water from the ocean.
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In the third book,
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> Davy's daughter is now a teleporter, and figures out that instead of just matching speeds with a destination like Davy realized he automatically does in the first book, she can alter her speed. In the climax of this book, she is held from behind by a garrote. If she jumps normally, she would take the attacker with her and die. She adds velocity backwards, escapes the garrote, and nearly kills her attacker.
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In the fourth book,
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> well, she can fly now. So she does the only logical thing and finances a new type of spacesuit so she can start her own space program. I'm sure dropping things from orbit could be considered weaponizing teleportation.
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In the climax (this really needs its own spoiler section, so mouseover with care)
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> she is strapped down in a dungeon that is waterproof in case she tries her dad's water trick. But, uh, you remember how she's just spent the entire book developing her space program? Yeah, she attacks with the cold, dark vacuum of space. Even more brutal than the water.
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[Answer]
simply calculate the coordinates of where your enemy is and teleport a screw or any other object to his neck
[Answer]
## Teleportation in gradually increasing stages:
This answer aims to complement other answers by mentioning how the ability to teleport can progress in methodology and power. The assumed limits are: Mass is limited related to the users' mass (twice the mass as baseline), can only teleport to places one visited.
1. Self-Teleportation: The user can teleport himself in and out of combat. He'd use weapons and the environment to his advantage. Requires preparation by visiting the area. Nice for retreat and utility, not really effective in combat.
2. Teleport objects and others: The user can teleport others he touches. Still needs to get close to the target and touch it for a sufficient time (which would be the main difficulty). But this is a potential kill move already.
3. Able to negate and redirect (but not create) kinetic forces. Allows jumping off cliffs and teleporting without suffering fall damage. With enough training it would allow flight, by redirecting falling momentum.
4. Increase teleportation range beyond touch by connection via air - which requires an understanding how to teleport gases. Efficiency diminishes over distance and air density.
5. Able to teleport other objects not only by touching, but with any body contact. In addition the required teleportation time could become near instant. Able to protect oneself by teleporting incoming projectiles away or even reflecting them.
6. Grasping how and why objects can only be teleported as whole objects, and surpass that limitation by learning that with enough force applied objects can be ripped apart via teleportation, effectively toying with atomic/molecular bonds itself.
7. Ability to increase the "already visited" area by focussing and expanding it through vision, however rather slowly.
8. Instead of only being able to negate momentum, the user harnesses the ability to negate cosmic forces working all around the universe in a local area, effectively speeding up objects locally upon teleportation to potentially extreme velocity in any direction. This would weaponize relatively small objects to devastating projectiles melting themselves through anything and creating apocalyptic explosions.
[Answer]
If you could make things teleport like Nightcrawler from X-Men or Glimmer from She-Ra, there's a lot of crazy shit you could pull off. Teleport inside someone so that they explode? Check. Fire a gun, and teleport the bullet so that it never misses? Check. Teleport someone a hundred feet into the air at least, so they fall to their death? Check. Heck, I even have a character kill one of my main antagonists by teleporting her to the center of the Earth, but again, that depends on teleportation range. And with the gun thing, if someone fired at you, you could teleport the bullets so that they hit them and not you.
Or, you could swing a sword around, and teleport to dodge and make sure that your strikes never miss.
[Answer]
I don't know, that sounds overpowered and a bit silly. Teleportation with limits is much more interesting. Like not being able to teleport others out of danger, or not being able to teleport sufficiently far away or more than a few times in quick succession. In Project Horizons there was a character who would teleport behind someone, stab them with a sword, grab their gun and shoot their buddy, use them as a shield, teleport above another guy, crash stomp them, shoot another guy in the head, drop a grenade and teleport out the door and stroll away all while singing a happy song.
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[Question]
[
Religious rights are protected, and freedom to religion is secured, how can we reduce religion in a country without breaking religious rights laws.
**Here are some examples:**
* Ban religious schools (perhaps indirectly by only allowing state-schools)
* Teach atheistic/spiritual/non-religious philosophies in state-schools
* Ban organisations like halal certification
* extra "humanitarian" tax on religious organisation profits, which is spent towards healthcare & welfare
* Full financial transparency for any religious charities
* Make non-profits pay tax on profits (If you don't make a profit, you won't pay tax)
* banning public praying
* banning public religious preachings
**How else could you legally reduce religion?** (without too aggressive laws)
**Notes**
* This is in a dictatorship, where the dictator wants to pass grey-area laws which aren't too aggressive, but can also slightly break some religious freedom
* The dictator is worried about international attention, and if extreme anti-religious laws are made, then other nations will intervene. It can't be aggressive enough to trigger a *casus belli*
* The world is like ours, same day and age
**Bonus Question**: How would you prevent domestic religious teaching?
[Answer]
what you actually need is just real separation of state from church.
So:
* No inviting of church officials to any government event
* No attendance of government workers to church events AS government workers (so a mayor can go to church but on his own private expense and there he is John Smith not a mayor)
* No national holidays (free from work) based on religious events. Free from work days are based on best interest of citizens.
* No tax exceptions for church
* No government subsidize for church
* No presence of religious beliefs/fetishes/totems in public spaces and non-private sectors.
* No religious teaching in schools - instead a focus on science/ethics
* No special privileges for church officials (religious schools need to meet the same criteria as regular ones)
* Religious officials are pursed with the highest available punishment. (If you break the law and your religion clearly forbid what you have done you get maximum sentence)
* In disputes between a citizen and religion government always side with citizen.
[Answer]
I think you actually want to do the exact opposite of what you're thinking.
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In [this 2009 Gallup poll](http://www.gallup.com/poll/142727/religiosity-highest-world-poorest-nations.aspx), let's compare a few countries.
Percent of adults who answer "yes" to "Is religion an important part of your daily life?":1
* Sweden: 17%
* Denmark: 19%
* Norway: 21%
* UK: 27%
* Netherlands: 33%
* Germany: 40%
* USA: 65%
* Turkey: 82%
* South Africa: 85%
And what you see is that the more a free country does to establish its official religion (while still allowing freedom to others), the less religious the people are.
So, here's what I'd suggest:
* A Lutheran2 state church, the Church of Albertland.
* Everyone is an Albertican by default. You're perfectly free to worship otherwise, but you have to file out paperwork to be taken off the Church's official rolls.
* The King (a powerless figurehead, but important to the people) must be Albertican—for traditional reasons, of course, but also because he's the figurehead of the Church as well as the State.
* The ceremony investing a new King is highly religious.
* Government holidays are officially based on the Church's holidays.
* Any member of the Church of Albertland can tithe up to 10% of their income to the Church.3
This is loosely based on an amalgam of the Scandinavian/Nordic and Benelux countries through most of the 20th century.
Also, notice that Sweden, after partial disestablishment in 1996 and complete disestablishment in 2000, has been becoming more religious again.4 So, don't stop until you get all the way there. :)
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Of course if you throw in more countries (or just look at the title of the survey's release publication), you find that there's another, even higher-correlated factor.
Quality of Life is the best predictor of low religiosity. (Low crime, low income equality, high literacy, and other factors also correlate well, but then they also correlate well with Quality of Life.)
So, you might want to just create a utopia where poverty is nearly eradicated, crime is at an all-time low, people live in clean and pleasant spaces, and everyone feels engaged in their government. That might have some nice side benefits besides reducing religion.
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1. I skipped states that aren't free in the first place, and states that had, e.g., three generations of Communist government trying to stamp out religion, and Catholic states (but notice that Germany includes Bavaria, which might affect their position…). But even if you include *everyone*, only Estonia and Czechia are in the same ballpark as the Scandinavians.
2. Calvinism, and whatever you want to call Anglicanism, will apparently work too.
3. In other words: Everyone just pays their income tax, the same as always. But if you check the box, or are an official CoA member, or whatever, the government takes part of your tax check—the first 10% of your income—and gives it to the Church instead of putting it toward the general func. I'm assuming rich people don't pay less than 10% income tax, so this might not work in the USA, but then you've got bigger problems…
4. Although much of this is due to first-generation immigrants with Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Muslim faith, and much of the rest is people joining the Free Churches, not rejoining the Lutheran.
[Answer]
# Fill the needs that religion provide for
>
> The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. **Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification.** It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
>
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> Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. **It is the opium of the people**.
>
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> The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. **To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo**.
>
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> *Karl Marx — From the introduction to **A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right**, 1844*
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This is a very difficult passage so I have highlighted the core. Religion is not merely pointless delusion; it fills certain needs that humans have.
* We ask difficult questions...
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> There are, of course, many problems connected with life of which some of the most popular are, “why are people born?”; “why do they die?”; and “why do they spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?”
>
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> *Douglas Adams, the **Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio play**, fit the fourth*
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* We want to know how do the right thing towards one another.
* What happens after we die? Is that really annihilation, or do some part of us and our loved ones continue on?
* What are we supposed to do while alive, apart from surviving? Is there [something we are meant to do](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life)?
* What really happened at the start? How did life come about? How will it all end? What is beyond that which we can see?
* Help, my child is dying, please save them!
If you want to defeat religion, you have to make sure you provide something better.
## 1. Revoke all religious privilege
Churches thrives mostly in part because they still enjoys privileges that few other organisations have. You need to fix this:
* No state sponsorship
+ Abolish the [state church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion)
+ Make churches be opt-in, not opt-out
+ No tax collection for the benefit of any church
+ No tax breaks for churches
+ Do not allow minors to be a member of any confessional. Entry into a congregation **must** be a conscious choice made by a consenting adult.
+ Make everyone that has not entered the church by their own volition (such as on birth or by their parents) be non-members. If they want back in, they must apply for it, when they reach the age of full consent.
* No legal privilege
+ [Religiously inspired arguments may not be used for legislation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause)
+ [Abolish all blasphemy laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law)
+ Make religious groups **not** be [protected groups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group)
* No educational privilege
+ Abolish [religious **instruction**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catechism) in school. [Religion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial) may [not be taught](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard) as [fact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District).
+ Enforce religious studies in schools, teaching **about** religions, as many as you can fit in. Teach about where the religions have gone wrong and encourage children to find logical errors and inconsistencies in the religious teachings and texts.
+ "Faith is not a virtue". Make it a "sin" to take things on faith, foster a spirit of science and enquiry.
>
> [Constitution of India, Part IVA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Rights,_Directive_Principles_and_Fundamental_Duties_of_India#Fundamental_Duties), **Fundamental duties**, exerpt
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>
> It shall be the duty of every citizen of India —
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> * To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform
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Most importantly: **enforce all of the above with the strictest of vigilance**. Any hint, suggestion or argument against any of the above will be met with **fierce** opposition.
## 2. Challenge and undermine religious claims
Religions makes claims. All religions claim: *"This is the way things are, this is how we should make them be, and here is how we and you should go about achieving that"*.
Break that down, all of it. Remove religion from the public discourse by harshly attacking any and all claims that stem from faith.
>
> — We should permit [questionable practice]
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> — Why?
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> — We should do that because it is in accordance with the holy scripture and the divine will.
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> — No no no, if your deity wants to have a part in this debate, then they must bloody well come here and make the argument themselves! Not good enough.
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And as it happens, there are lots and lots of people that **love** to tell people that they are wrong about things.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hj0XH.png)
*xkcd #386: Duty Calls*
Endorse, aid and support any and all skeptical and religiously critical organisation you can find. Skeptics and humanists in particular. They will do a great job for you in undermining religion. Just give them a platform and you will get earnest and well read arguments against religious influence.
## 3. Become religion's best defender
This sounds paradoxical, but do consider that there are literally **thousands** of different denominations around the world. What you do is you say "We are not giving more or less privilege or hindrance to any one particular religion... **all** are equal. We will give everyone equal rights and equal protection".
First, this means that no denomination can claim that **they** are the bearers of The One Truth™. They cannot elbow their way ahead and claim more room than anyone else. They must **all** share the public attention equally. They cannot [muscle their way over any other denomination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States#Jefferson,_Madison,_and_the_%22wall_of_separation%22).
Second, parody religions will sprout like weeds, highlighting the ridiculousness of religious practices.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1DkO5.jpg)
*Member of the [Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster) wears official religious headdress on driver's license, as exempted for in Utah*
With this you essentially reduce religion to be no better than people's bare opinion, since your choice of religion is a subjective, opinionated choice
## 4. Provide a better alternative
This is the hard part. What you have done above is just to **take away** religious influence. Now you need to fill the void with something else.
You must provide the following:
* A sense of community
* Non-religiously inspired ethics and morals
* Answers to hard questions
+ Let "We do not know. We are working on finding that out" be an acceptable answer
* Effective healthcare that saves people from (apparent) certain death
* Comfort in times of anguish and sorrow
* Non-religious disaster aid, that outshines the religious counterparts
* Non-religious holidays, reasons for joyous celebration
* Non-religious **culture**
# 5. Believe
You need the **believe** that all of the above is done for the betterment of society. You are doing it for the people, for the children, for the weak and disadvantaged, for every citizen in your realm. Let it be indoctrinated into every person that holds an office of some sort; every into official that is in service of the state, that this is for the **good of the people**.
Finally... should this message be indoctrinated into the people? I would say: **no**. People tend to be stubborn and get into opposition of the people in authority say you should feel. So on the contrary: **avoid** making public pronouncements that your aggressive anti-theism is for their benefit, because that will just make them suspicious. Keep the indoctrination to the officials, and let the people just follow without knowing that this is what they are doing.
[Answer]
## Leverage state-controlled media, police force and intelligence
You don't *need* changing the laws. Accidents happen, however lately they seem to converge on religion practitioners. Start with your own supporters by being openly atheist, anybody would want to mean something will follow ...or fall. You can improve the effect by founding some state-run organizations for wide public offering company of like-minded people and answers to your problems (support your dictator!).
Next up, opposition:
You know that famous religious activist that "spends all his time on charity"? It would shame if some evidence would be miraculously found he has been embezzling the charity's money.
The news would broadcast stories about religion being full of charlatans: Miracles explained by science (bonus points: it was 'proved' to be a trick - fishing lines tied to crosses were found, etc.), terrible death records of faith 'healers', you name it. Likewise make sure any real crimes made by clergymen make it to the front pages.
**tl;dr**: dont (just)ban, *show* your people which way is the wrong one and offer an alternative which leads to success (like yours) at the same time. Painting all clergymen immoral charlatans while offering an state-run alternative organizations for people to flock under should do the trick.
[Answer]
You've already listed most of the methods to reduce the impact on religion and Justin Thymes comment pretty much stops the rest.
I think the biggest issue would be that there are some close knit religious groups who support each other by offering shelter, jobs and security among themselves. You could stop this by having a job registry, where all jobs must be advertised via this registry and the registry will decide who is best suited towards a job (basically a national hiring agency). All jobs must go through this registry. This allows you to mix more religious people into more open settings and hopefully this educates them and helps them become less religious.
Another key point you brought up is education. I'm not sure on any official data, but I believe that the more educated people are the less likely they are to be religious. So education is key. Teaching not just creationism, but evolution and the formation of the universe would definitely help with that. In particular, teaching about all religions equally might bring about some interesting consequences. That way you might logical reach a conclusion that Gods aren't real because there are so many different ways the universe was created by Gods.
You could also force all buildings to share similar appearances (overly aggressive home owners association anyone?) and this includes temples, church and places of worship, After all it shouldn't be about the outside appearance but the act/gestures you perform inside. Basically remove symbols of religion from out country arguing that it ruins the appearance of a street or maybe forces religion on another person who might just look at it.
You can also do things like actually enforce the separation of church and state removing anyone with religious ties from high positions and replacing them with none religious people (Stares sadly at america). You could argue that this way, their decisions will be based on facts about issues, rather than arbitrary laws of a non-existent god. You could also combine this with a no false or misleading advertisement rule that will stop any form of media from advertising or broadcasting advertisements and promotional bits related to religion because it is misleading in its teachings. (also to stop those televangelists).
Finally you could also promote the use of certain words like God and Christ and incorporate them into swear words. While it doesn't really impact the religious beliefs so much, it should erode the meaning and impact of the word itself. Like is Jesus Christ was a word that was associated with disasters, it will become less associated with the actual religious figure when its used very commonly in everyday life. (kind of like how swear words are used so often now-a-days they basically aren't swear words anymore).
[Answer]
# How About Jizya?
This one has the benefit of being historical.
You say that your goal is to reduce religion, so I'm taking that as meaning that eliminating it altogether runs counter to the goal, so why not a jizya against all religions?
Jizya was a policy put in place by the Ottoman Empire on *dhimma* (generally Jews or Christians, but could be any non-Muslim), only you're going to put it on all religions. It's a special tax because protecting religious freedom isn't free, and it doesn't make sense to force non-believers to pay for that, right? It doesn't even need to be an extreme tax; it could be rather modest so as to not upset international relations too much.
This has the effect of scaring away all casually religious people while not discouraging the die-hards. Societal pressure to "conform" will now push people away from religion instead of towards it. Religious people will still exist, and still be free, but their numbers will go down somewhat.
[Answer]
## Introduction
There are several common misconceptions about this topic, inviting some answers and comments which are not more than tribal signaling ("look, I also don't like religion, so I mumble something about science and education, and how religious people hold stupid obsolete beliefs which will be soon eradicated by science!")
There has been indeed a significant drop in church attendance in the Western World during the last 30-40 or so years. (it seems the question is mostly focusing on this, and asks for an alternate history where this process would be much stronger). So, let's study the causes of this process, in order to envision a world where this effect was stronger.
So, why did church attendance and the importance people assign to religion drop so much during the last few decades? For some it would be tempting to say *"Science! In the old days people didn't know anything about how the world functions so they invented gods, they thought they are living on a flat plate in the center of the universe with supernatural beings sitting on the clouds, but science has shown us how the world works instead!"* - this is of course utterly wrong, and not much more than a severe misunderstanding (or even strawman argument) about how religious people think.
## Causes?
Take a look at the last few decades in the Western World. Is scientific literacy really better now than it was a few decades ago? Everyone knew what causes lightning, no one thought it was the deity of thunder. Everyone knew about the shape of the Earth, the Solar system, everyone knew about bacteria and viruses. I would even bet that people knew more basic scientific trivia (names of the planets, space programs, and so on) a few decades ago than now, merely because of the sheer amount of information and entertainment dumped on us today makes people less focused. With the recent explosion of moon landing denial, anti-vaccination, alternative medicine, and flat earth beliefs (very few of their adherents having any religious motivation at all) it seems that scientific knowledge among the general public might be even lower now than it was a few decades ago.
**You know what else dropped at a similar rate as church attendance?** Time spent with friends and family. Time spent relaxing in nature. Was it also because of people "waking up from a life of medieval misinformation"?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pbLsH.png)
No, it's simply because the current world offers a lot more distractions, more affordable entertainment, and a lot more ways to fulfill our needs (real or perceived).
## The difference
In order to have a world with less religion, that world has to have more ways to fulfill the needs which religion fulfills.
There was and is and will always be a hardcore group of people who believes no matter what, and one who doesn't believe, no matter what. The majority is in between. They practiced religion for the needs it fulfilled: a sense of community, a scene where they can meet and socialize, a sense of belonging to a group, and maybe some longing for a spiritual experience.
Now, thanks to the internet and more affordable entertainment, people have less time and feel less need to think about things they cannot immediately use or consume. They have a quick access to fulfill their desires almost instantly. There remains no longing for something more.
Now, thanks to more wealth and less day to day hardship, people can afford to live alone, and to rely less on other people. They feel less need for a community.
Propaganda against religion rarely works. Enforcing or brainwashing people to believe that religion is evil? Seriously, now I'm asking all atheists who read this: how many times did it happen to you, that you went up to some religious people, pointed out what you believed to be a big inconsistency in their religion, told them their beliefs are stupid, and then they suddenly went "wow, thank you for pointing it out, from now on we are no longer religious"?
What works is other things fulfilling the needs which religion fulfilled. For better or for worse. Because it will reduce many other things besides participation in religion.
Note: the main weapon against religion is not atheism. It's materialism and apathy.
## Your world
So what do you need? The changes in the entertainment industry, wealth, materialism and society which already happened in the real world, but in a more exaggerated way. Make even more ways for people to occupy their time. Make them feel even less need for social contacts. Make the world faster. Give people so many choices to fulfill their immediate desires that they don't feel the need for something deeper. There will still be people who feel a need for spiritual experiences, but you can fulfill it with astrology, or with an amalgamation of various philosophies, including religions, in a way which is no longer religion, but the spiritual aspects of many religions mishmashed into some easily consumable package, which leaves the core concepts of the source religion completely out.
[Answer]
If you have plenty of money , make people more technlogy oriented i.e -
1) Give free High speed fiber net all citizen's.
2) Free Gadgets like Laptops , mobile etc . This is to make all citizens gadgets freak . Like always new technology to be provided .
3) Create more programming jobs , start paying them high . Because once people start coding they get everything is fair in this world ," you do mistake then you get errors ". People will learn there lesson and be more logical and forget about God which exists now.
4) Promote sci-fi movies and new movie techonogly , when people can see how wild there imagination goes they feel like god and forget about god which exists now.
[Answer]
There is one important real life example that I did not see mentioned in the other answers and that is eastern Germany. Even decades after the fall of the Berlin wall, you can still clearly identify the former GDR by just looking at a map of Germany,
[colored by religious views,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Germany) even though both halves should have started on roughly even levels half a century earlier.
The state also fits your idea of a "moderate dictatorship". While the ruling party generally wasn't beyond throwing dissidents and opposition into jail (or even sentencing them to exile or death), most of the population lived comparatively (to other similar regimes) safe and free. Essentially as long as you (or members of your family) did not speak up against the government and its ideologies, you were guaranteed a normal boring life, that is education, a fixed job, a home and maybe at some point even your own car or the opportunity for a holiday in a far away (socialist) country.
The main reason for irreligion in the GDR seems to be directly linked to this. Since most of your fate is state controlled, to become somebody, you'll have to appear like a model citizen. Sure, you can actively participate in your church (They tried to forbid this initially, but quickly relented). But thanks to the Stasi, the state will take note of this. And if you want to go to university or get a promotion in your job, they will then look at your file and tell you about Marx' and especially Lenin's views about religion and how you do not seem to be quite suited for such an important socialist position.
This essentially was an open secret. So while many may have still practiced their religion in private, they will have tried to look like a modern atheist in practice.
Now add one or two generations. You grow up in a place where most people outwardly appear to be atheist. The few people you see, that still go to church never seem to have achieved anything in life. In school you are taught that religion is just the "opiate of the masses" and that you should instead believe in science and progress. Your parents might have taught you a prayer or two in private but will probably not even have baptised you, out of fear for their and your future career.
In this environment you'll most likely develop into an atheist. Sure, at some point, you might realize what has happened, but by then it is most likely too late. Just knowing what prevented you from becoming religious will not suddenly turn you into a believer.
Of course this is a simplification and the reality is a bit more complex. For example there has always been a small core of religious people and a big difference in importance of churches between cities and countryside, but the general idea is clear.
[Answer]
* Similar to one answer above, you can have a "poll tax" on those who are religious similar to how Muslims were told in some old Muslim nations to have non-believers pay a tax called the [jizyah](https://www.britannica.com/topic/jizya). This tax applies to a religious population with a steep fine for those who lie.
* Promote an idea of trustworthy atheism. Many Abhramaic faiths believe in [original sin](https://www.britannica.com/topic/original-sin) and [Fall](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fall-of-Man) of Man: the idea that humans are innately sinful & selfish & need a higher power to 'save them from themselves'. Because of this, a non-theistic dictatorship or society could depict the religious as untrustworthy cynics who only do good because a higher being will reward them & spiteful towards their fellow man. On top of that, have a more optimistic ideology stating that people are innately good and that concepts, like humanity being selfish & needing to be 'saved' by a higher power, are ridiculous.
* Tax religious organizations and use said tax for your own group of [micro-apartments](https://bungalow.com/articles/micro-apartments-just-how-tiny-are-they) for the poor to help end homelessness and provide plenty of charity for the people. You can also use money from the poll tax for this purpose to make any complaining religious person look 'selfish'.
* In addition to the trustworthy atheism narrative mentioned above, make religious people look 'selfish' since they only do good because they think a higher power will reward them. Use the organizational charity above to show good non-religious people helping others for the good of humanity compared to the religious cynics who only help because their gods and goddesses will reward them.
* There are plenty of nontheistic philosophies that exist and 'nontheistic religions' that are philosophies explaining the world without needing a God. So, less mystical non-theistic philosophies like [humanism](https://www.jstor.org/stable/41820353), rationalistic versions of [Ruism](https://books.google.com/books?id=KykM1DhBxd8C), [Epicureanism](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/), and such can be considered exempt from things like the tax while being seen as accepted ideologies for humanity's personal & ethical needs.
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Not an astronomer (obviously), but had a curious question. Is it possible to have a planet such that:
* Its star is right on the edge of a nebula
* The planet happen to be in the goldilocks zone and has the right atmospheric makeup to support life
* This planet's orbit takes it in an out of the nebula, creating a "Nebula Season"
* This season is observed by its inhabitants by the sudden lack of visible celestial bodies in the sky (due to the nebula. Can be gradual but should be a notable difference between June and December, for instance). Perhaps like the effects described in: [What would skies look like on Worlds inside Nebulae?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/4875/what-would-skies-look-like-on-worlds-inside-nebulae)
**Is this scenario possible? Can such a star system exist in such a location? and Bonus: Can the Nebula be dense enough to produce the mentioned effect?**
I'd be happy if you'd correct my assumptions!
[Answer]
No, for several reasons.
1. "Edge of a nebula" is a very fuzzy region. A typical nebula is tens to hundreds of light-years across, tapering out over a long distance -- the sharp edges seen in photographs are due to how far we are from them.
2. Nebulas are incredibly diffuse objects -- if you were to capture a chunk of one, any laboratory on Earth would consider it a high-grade vacuum. They only appear dense because of how thick they are (see point 1).
3. Light exerts pressure. Not much pressure, but nebula gasses don't weigh much. A star will very quickly clear the nebula from its immediate area, creating a clear bubble a significant fraction of a light-year across.
See [Wikipedia's article on nebulas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula) for more details.
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It doesn't need to orbit in and out. It can face it or face away from it.
When on the side of the sun away from the nebula you see the stars and the nebula would be behind the sun. On the side closest to the nebula you see the nebula and the stars would be behind the sun.
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[Mark's answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/108128/21222) is right on spot.
I'll just add for a planet to be habitable like Earth, it will probably take billions of years. During that time, planets within a star system will have cleared out any debris from the star's formation that is close to their orbits. Any mass of dust, rocks or ice that does not make it into a planet, and does not get captured by one, should become part of a belt or a cloud outside any planet's orbit.
If your planet is young enough that there are still nebulae remains within its system, and crossing its orbit, it will probably be going through a [hadean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadean) phase. That would not be inhabitable.
[Answer]
Going by the title of your question alone:
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> Can a habitable world exist that would orbit in and out of a nebula?
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The answer would be yes. As the planet orbits its star that orbits the center of the galaxy, the planet and its star could enter a nebula and pass through that nebula for thousands or millions of years and then emerge on the other side of the nebula. And then, after making a full orbit around the galaxy lasting for maybe two hundred million years, the star and its planet might reenter the nebula again if the nebula was still there.
Of course entering the nebula every 200,000,000 years is not exactly like having a regular "nebula season" every year, but at least it is possible.
Exoplanet GU Piscum b orbits GU Piscum at a distance of about 2,000 astronomical units and thus the opposite sides of its orbit are separated by a distance of about 4,000 astronomical units. An astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun. Thus a planet with such a wide orbit as GU Piscum b could travel about 2,000 times farther into and out of a nebula's borders than a planet with Earth's orbit could. I don't know if a nebula would have border sharp enough for that to make a difference.
Of course a planet with such a wide orbit would probably be many, many times as far from GU Piscum as the outer limits of GU Piscum's habitable zone, so unless there is a very exotic and alien type of life on that very cold planet there would nobody to notice the nebula seasons.
Of course there could be something like a brown dwarf star orbiting a star at a distance of 2,000 Astronomical units and there could be a habitable planet orbiting the brown dwarf very closely, close enough to be heated to a habitable temperature.
Of course the year of GU Piscum b is calculated to last about 163,000 Earth years, so the natives would probably not live long enough to notice nebula seasons.
Among the smallest known nebula types are planetary nebulae, emitted by stars during a certain brief phase of their lives. At any one moment there will be only one planetary nebula for millions of stars. Planetary nebulae are about a light year in diameter, and thus about 63,241.077 Astronomical units wide. So even if a planetary nebula has a relatively sharp border, a planet of a star right at the border of the nebula, with an orbit only a couple of thousand astronomical units wide, probably isn't going to take travel into very much denser or thinner regions of the nebula.
Furthermore, most nebulae are much thinner than the thinnest vacuums which can be produced on Earth. Astronomical photographs of nebulae are taken with long exposures many thousands of times longer than the time it takes for a human eye to see successive images. Thus nebulae look bright and opaque in photographs but look pale and translucent when seen through telescopes.
So the sky probably wouldn't look much different when a planet was deep inside a nebula than when the planet was outside the nebula, and people on even the widest orbiting planet wouldn't live thousands of years to notice what little difference there was.
[Answer]
Not as you describe for a whole planet (Mark's answer), but you could achieve a similar effect for 1/2 the planet (actually far less due to the visible sky at various longitudes and latitudes).
1. If it were tidal locked one side of the world would always be facing the star, while the other side would alternate between facing the nebula (Nebula season) and facing the visible universe (Star season).
2. If the day and year were equal in length one side of the planet would always face the nebula (Nebula season), while the other side would always face the visible universe (Star season).
For both scenarios playing with the axis of the rotation could add some variety by mixing meteorological seasons with celestial ones.
Whether such planets would be inhabitable becomes a new question however, as being tidal locked or having other convenient orbital mechanics pushes the planet well outside earth-norms.
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Yes. We look up and things astonish us. If your world is fictional, by all means - yes - make it so. A nebula spire pulled toward a blackhole for instance... is obviously not impossible - in the vastness of the cosmos.
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[Question]
[
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xyUAg.png)
# Background
The known world consists of dozens of continents floating in an airy void. These continents range from small islands a few square kilometers in size, to great land masses up to 1,000 square kilometers and more.
In these regions, there is a human society, strongly divided into castes. The proprietors, sorcerers, and merchants all live together in each continent, but rarely intermingle. Mining is a strictly a job for the merchants; the other classes wouldn't touch it. Most of the surface land on each continent belongs to the proprietor's class, so the merchants have limited options for mining.
But the underside of these continents is unclaimed. A detailed in popular imagination, the underside is simply and exposed rocky surface, with all sorts of minerals visible to those who care to look. **How can the merchants mine and transport minerals available on the underside of the floating continents?**
# Restrictions
* The continents float by an unknown mechanism. Gravity otherwise works as expected; if you fall off you don't come back.
* The continents are roughly hemi-spherical. A continent 10 km wide would be 5 km deep.
* The continents all float at the same 'level.' Ships can float at the same level as well to trade between continents, but they can't go down to the underside of the continents.
* There exists magic, but it is the province of the sorcerer caste, and is not available to the merchants.
* There are various flying beasts, drakes in particular, that could be of use, but they belong to the proprietor's class, and are similarly not available.
* Most surface land belongs to the proprietors, so the goal is to start mining from the sides or bottom.
* There is no chance the sorcerers or proprietors would assist in a business venture with the merchants.
[Answer]
## ~~Diving~~ Mining bells suspended from ships
Your merchants have access to ships, and probably more so than the other castes.
The ships themselves may not be able to go under the floating level, but as the continents themselves show, they should be able to carry quite a load suspended underneath.
A mining operation starts with one ship floating near the edge. It lowers the mining bell, a large cage with enough room for several miners, holding tanks for ore and equipment racks. The mining bell has one side with sliding doors, wheels (aligned vertically) and a ballista loaded with harpoons.
The bell is lowered by a long chain until it's roughly at a level with promising deposits. The crew then fires the ballista repeatedly until at least three harpoons lodge themselves in the vertical rock face. The chains are then reeled into until the bell itself is lodged against the rock. (My extremely basic MS Paint skills make it look like this:)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/eS64e.png)
The sliding doors are opened, proper hooks are secured in the rock and the digging commences. When the easy to reach deposits are gone, hooks are secured lower and the bell rolls down the rock face using its wheels, always anchored to several hooks. Should the fastening fail, the mining bell will still hang from the ship's chain.
# More advanced mining
If you want operations to be more advanced, the next logical step would be to construct a base station (actually top station) at a level reachable from the ships, before the curvature of the continent becomes too pronounced. This station would be inside the rock with a large wooden receiving platform where crews and supplies are lowered and ore plus offduty crew sent back up.
From there, vertical elevator rails will be built down along the rock face, because digging in and then down is too expensive and boring. When the overhang becomes too much for the rails to carry loaded carts without tearing free, the digging goes inwards or branches off to the sides.
## Alternate scenario
If the floating force is much stronger than gravity, an alternate option is for mining to start with the bells as above, but then the crew anchors a second chain directly to a large block, gets to a safe distance and detonates explosives around the block. Hopefully, the block will swing free and can then be hoisted up to floating level, at which point miners can more safely extract the ores.
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Physically hold your miners over the side. Send them down on ropes, or set up scaffolds and other works that anchor into the rockface beside/above them. This would be a complex undertaking, but compared to construction scaffolding, or the elaborate works that were used for mining in the real world, they're not out of scope with what you can do with basic tools and a lot of motivation.
It should go without saying that this will be dangerous work. The slightest mistake and you could be swept from the scaffold to certain doom, or a whole platform could collapse and kill entire work crews. Again, though, mining was (and is!) a dangerous proposition in the real world, and yet it got done. Largely this was through slaves, or whoever was at the bottom of the local labor market - people who had few if any safer alternatives to pursue.
The other problem is how you get the spoils. You'll need to arrange your platforms rather cleverly to make sure that what you're mining doesn't just fall off the continent, and that you can drag it back topside when you're done. On the other hand, you can simply drop your overburden (underburden?) into the abyss after tunneling, something I'm sure real miners would love to be able to do.
[Answer]
>
> How can the merchants mine and transport minerals available on the underside of the floating continents?
>
>
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* Dig tunnels
* Harvest minerals from within the tunnels
Once the underside has been reached
* secure miners with ropes
* send miners to build a network of anchor points on the underside
* have miners harvest minerals from underside using said network of anchor points and carry them on the upperside using the available tunnels and facilities.
NOTE: secure miners with rope before reaching the underside. Else they will fall down as soon as the passage is open.
If the proprietors are so insensible to the scent of money to not allow digging tunnels from their land, you can reach the borders of the continent and from there secure wooden/metallic frames descending along the side. At any convenient level you can then start digging inwards.
At the very beginning it will look like [this](https://www.boredpanda.com/worlds-most-dangerous-hiking-trail-huashan-mountain-china/):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wNjms.jpg)
As bonus point, you don't have to worry about carrying valueless material up: just throw it down.
[Answer]
## Submarines
Ok so I would say use submarines.
If you have ships that float and humans that fall there must be some point at which ships sinks. If you load enough humans on a ship it will go down. Now lets replace humans with sand (no particular reason but it's slightly more humane when you want to go back up...) And get ship to sink slowly. There are to options what will happen then. First one ship stops sinking after it reaches some depth. Second it will just sink indefinitely. while first one is better for us we can live with second one easily. What you now need is some way to power the ships. I think merchants should be pretty good at this but if they have any problems just use some sort of railing system (the boats are almost weightless so that should be easy enough). You will need some sort of platform for your miners and it has to be on top that should be ok se long as railing system support these big mining ships. and you can use light fast ships to create attachments for "rails". You have to balance the weight of the ship as you mine but that seems like part of the fun. If you drop too much contraweight your miners are 2D now if too little they end up in abyss.
[Answer]
# Harnesses.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/faDUs.jpg)
Think something similar to rock climbing, but in reverse. You hang tools, netting, and drilling items over the side connected to ropes and cables, and from there use a series of hanging excavation buckets to raise it up to the top, where it can be refined further into useful metals.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3D0fC.jpg)
Depending on the type of mining (marble mining for example is in large chunks or slabs usually, whereas the process is different for materials like coal or precious metals or salt, etc.), the lifting process might be a bit different but the mining process itself should be the same.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/FIvp5.jpg)
[Answer]
For really big islands it could be a problem, but for smaller ones...
Have something like four or six ships connected by a veeeeery big net/network of flexible bridges. They go around the island with the net very low under the island and then pull it up so that it goes against the cliffs.
Have people work on these nets/platforms and when the work is done, just lower it again and go away.
You may still need to have people to climb the cliff with ropes and scaffoldings, but at list you won't have trouble getting the ore back.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Y7JHV.png)
[Answer]
Keep in mind that one of the main issues with mining in pre-modern times was getting rid of the water - that's what limited the depth you could reasonably mine into. If you can't drain the water, mines will quickly flood and prevent further mining.
In your scenario, this limit wouldn't exist - you could relatively easily keep drainage tunnels to the sides of the floating islands, allowing you to dig pretty much wherever you want, as long as you started on the sides or the bottom.
So suspend a bunch of miners from a ship and have them mine out an initial tunnel. After that, all you need to do is dig up at a certain angle to keep the water draining. You don't need to remove topsoil, you don't need to bother with getting permits from the top-side land owners etc. As long as you don't endanger the structural stability of the island or its water stores, you pretty much eliminated most of the technical difficulties medieval miners had. And if you *do* endanger those... sounds like a pretty cool start of a disaster story :)
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the question fails to address hydro static equilibrium. the density of the air beneath the continent must be greater than the continent itself, it were to float using buoyancy force... which it doesnt... the problem with ignoring hydro static equilibrium is present in allowing ships to sail from one continent to another (which implies a sharp density gradient). therein are two things implying hydro static equilibrium.
any answer will have to address the immense pressure that would be present beneath the continent. (gravity otherwise works as it should). any miner would need pressure protection and significant 'dive' weights, as each miner would be very buoyant.
[Answer]
In addition to all the practical suggestions about the mechanics of mining, you might like to consider the socioeconomic aspects. How did your landowners get to be landowners? Probably by having a bigger army than their predecessor. If so then as soon as mining becomes profitable some landowner is going to go to the miners and make them an offer they can't refuse.
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[
It turns out that all of the deities and various demons, angels, and spirits are real. The super natural world took a hiatus since the dark ages for reasons not relevant to this question and for equally obscure reasons just all decided to come back out of the blue. So now you have divine and semi divine beings in modern society. My story takes place in a small town where police and jail staff are struggling to handle the influx of paranormal related criminal activity. One of the issues they face is that minor demonic possession presents similarly to paranoid schizophrenia.
So when they get a guy in their exorcism wing what would be some ways to determine supernatural symptoms from regular old crazy? (For minor demon possession obvious things like speaking ancient Aramaic, turning their head backwards, and crawling across the ceiling don't happen.)
[Answer]
Mental illness such as schizophrenia is diagnosed based on symptoms. If something is causing symptoms truly identical to schizophrenia, it's going to be very difficult to figure out that the underlying cause is different.
So something will have to be different.
One possibility is that the symptoms are different in some subtle way. For instance, the most famous symptom of schizophrenia is hallucinations. But these hallucinations are usually auditory (hearing things that aren't there), less often visual (seeing things) or tactile (feeling sensations that aren't there, like bugs crawling on your skin). They almost never manifest as smells or tastes. Perhaps demonic possession tends to include hallucinating the smell of brimstone or a bitter taste, along with its other effects.
Another possibility is that the underlying cause of demonic possession is easier to test for. Someone who's possessed might react to the touch of holy water or consecrated Host even while unconscious, which a schizophrenic wouldn't, even if they believed they were possessed or had a paranoia of Catholicism.
[Answer]
The key to this is that you don't need to tell the difference until later. If you can't identify which condition your patient has from symptoms alone, the easiest way to deal with it is to treat from quickest and most likely to rarest or most complex.
Since you're in a highly occult environment, basic precautions should be taken.
* Build your facility on holy ground.
* Bless the water tanks on a regular bases so everything other than drinking water is holy.
* **Exorcise all patients as part of admission procedure.** If they're not possessed then there's no problem, if they are then at least one problem is now sorted. They might still be criminally insane or paranoid schizophrenic, but at least they're not possessed any more.
Then you can proceed with treatment as usual for any remaining conditions.
[Answer]
>
> demons, angels, and spirits are real...
>
>
>
**Set a thief to catch a thief.**
If you are having trouble with the first of these, recruit one of the second or third on the list to help. If demons can possess a person, angels should be able to also. The angels, though, are austere and haughty - sort of the equivalent of calling in the feds.
A very anime-like option is for a person possessed by a demon to act as the finder. The demon performing this role would be a sort of demon cop; there are rules demons are supposed to obey and this demon acts as an enforcer. Usually it has one particular host but when pressed can jump to a different one. The weapons and methods useful against possession work on the demon cop too. The angels do not like working with this demon cop.
Spirits are a wild card and good material for the second season of this show. They can be mistaken for demons, or even angels and for their own reasons might masquerade as one or the other but they are neither. Some are spirits of dead people. Some are the spirits of nature forces not allied with heaven or hell. One might be an unnatural Outer forces older than heaven or hell - it is one of these that might induce the angelic and demonic forces to cooperate.
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If there isn't some expert who can come in (likely having the knowledge of the truth before the rest of the world) and give them the answer, it would be this; the same way a medical doctor can tell if you have one sickness over any other.
Tests.
What separates possession from any other sickness? Surely someone would figure that out pretty quickly (at least as quickly as a small town building an exorcism wing in a hospital/jail).
If you were asking what sort of tests the only bit about schizophrenia that I can remember that is useful is that there is a very specific age range that it tends to happen in so if it happens to someone outside of that age range that would be a good first indicator for more tests.
[Answer]
In real life, doctors usually have to deal with infections in a similar way. A patient might come in with a set of symptons that will match a number of different diseases which are all common in the area where they work.
For example: in a tropical country, a patient may present headaches, fever, shivering and vomiting. A doctor will not know at first sight whether that patient has got Malaria, Flu or Dengue. Might even be something else, other than those three. So they start by treating the symptoms first, in a palliative manner. They will deal with the disease more specifically later once lab tests have been performed.
If you can't figure out demonic possession from schizophrenia, you may as well have to follow a similar route. In either case, you will want to isolate the patient and provide them a safe environment (i.e.: a padded room where they won't try to kill themselves or other people). That might give you enough time to find an occultist who can diagnose demonic possession, or a psychiatrist to find out whether it is schizophrenia.
If neither type is available in short notice and you don't have some padded rooms available... Then you will have to resort to good old fashioned frontier medicine. **Apply the exorcism first, and ask questions later**.
One way to exorcise ghosts and demons is to pick up a holy object, such as a bible, and transfering energy from them to the possessed person. Such transfer may be kinetical in nature, given by the formula $e = \frac{mv^2}{2}$ - that is, a one kilogram bible hitting a minion at one meter per second will impart them with half a joule of redemption. You may a few dozens of joules of applied grace for the exorcism to be effective.
If you lack holy objects, you can channel sacred light by chanting. See how Dr. McNinja uses this technique to fight a host of ghosts:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MTXGX.jpg)
The advantage of this approach is the prognosis. If it was really a case of possession, then you have solved it. If it was not... Well, at least the patient has been pacified. It should be easier for the shrimps to handle them from that point on.
[Answer]
It would be possible to create an area or tools for diagnosis. A pentagram made for protection in a room would suffice. If the subject was unable to pass through the room to the other side they would be possessed by a paranormal entity. Similarly a worn pentacle could be used as a diagnostic tool. Both are supposed to provide protection from magical attacks, spirits and demons. Another approach would be a spot test with holy water.
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IDK if someone already said this but aside from the good ideas above such as hallucinating the smell of brimstone (because tactile/olfactory hallucinations are so rare), using holy water or crosses or the like that only possessed ppl react to, if you'd like it to be more subtle perhaps an MRI or CatScan would show the difference for whatever reasons and you could get really sciency with it w a lot of jargon. This could pose problems for your small town dept. as they don't have such resources hand must resort to less certain methods.
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**This question already has answers here**:
[For how long after an apocalypse would modern cars remain usable?](/questions/81560/for-how-long-after-an-apocalypse-would-modern-cars-remain-usable)
(11 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
Typically, gasoline has a short shelf life (some months, maybe a year). This is handwaved in some post-apocalyptic settings where the writer wanted vehicles to play a major role (such as [Mad Max](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Max_(franchise)) — unless there was an explanation that I don't recall).
I would like to create a similar setting, but without having to handwave that detail. Are there plausible ways for modern-day passenger vehicles to remain operational in such a setting?
[Answer]
Modern gasoline has a shelf life problem because it contains ethanol, which, over time, absorbs water. If expired fuel is in a container, it is relatively easy to separate ethanol/water phase from "real gasoline" (hydrocarbons) and use it. If expired fuel is already in the tank, the task gets more tricky, but still doable by low-tech methods.
[remove water from gasoline](https://itstillruns.com/remove-water-gasoline-5042266.html)
P.S. There was probably no E10 fuel yet in 1970/80s Australia, so gasoline was eternal :)
[Answer]
Several alternatives have been offered, including coal liquefaction, brewing your own ethanol, stripping water from old hydrocarbon fuels and so on. One alternative which hasn't been mentioned yet is "[wood gas](https://infogalactic.com/info/Wood_gas)".
This was done during the Second World War when gasoline was being rationed, and used a process called [pyrolysis](https://infogalactic.com/info/Pyrolysis) to burn wood or charcoal in a low oxygen environment inside a "[wood gas generator](https://infogalactic.com/info/Wood_gas_generator)". The gasses emitted from the process were full of combustable products including Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide and various aromantic hydrocarbons in low concentrations. This was fairly inefficient and low energy fuel, but with some adjustments 1930-40 era engines were able to use this.
A wide variety of different gassifier designs can be found [here](http://www.driveonwood.com/library/free-gasifier-plans/). The FEMA design is deliberately simplified so use in a post apocalyptic environment can be assured since it needs no expensive or hard to create parts, but can produce a lot of tars which gum up the engine. The Imbert designs is the classic WWII era one, while the Keith gassifier is considered the gold standard today.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/gRj7f.jpg)
*wood gas generator attached to car*
I advise anyone to carefully study the system before building your own, since Carbon Monoxide is one of the products of this process, and is *very deadly*. Don't play around if you are not sure what you are doing.
Cross section of a modified Keith gassifier.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rWzGd.jpg)
*The air enters at the bottom in blue, warms up as it flows through the heat exchanger, and warms further flowing past the warm gasifier itself. This preheated air adds substantial energy to the combustion, increasing the efficiency. Also notice the dual pipes exiting the gasifier; these are 3" pipes. They go into the settling chamber, expanding and slowing down. This causes them to release some of their energy to the heat exchanger, and some of the dust settles out. Gas exits near the top of this chamber, again in two 3" pipes, right into the cooling rack.*
[Answer]
You can turn coal into oil; process is called [liquefaction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction).
It is not currently economically useful, but it's not very complex and any steampunk technology can do it.
Note here still are many open-sky or otherwise not very deep coal mines that would be accessible to post-apocalyptic setting (not to mention coal can be manufactured from wood), where oil is much more difficult to reach.
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Maybe Gastown was natural gas. Or biogas! I see gas powered vehicles going around town all the time now. Lots of buses.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Zio4S.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/IH8Ua.jpg)
Your postapocalyptics can use a fermenter to generate their own biogas out of mutant corpses, wilted flowers and their own bodily secretions. You might want some barbed wire on the sides of the Biogasbuss to make it properly MadMaxy. Also cover up that "grenare värld" heart with some skulls or something.
[Answer]
## Fuel has a shelf life
Different fuels last different lengths of time depending on different storage characteristics. But, in the end, no petroleum-based fuel lasts forever in common real-world storage environments.
## Biofuels and other alternatives to gasoline/petrol
Dump gasoline/petrol based cars. Those fuels, especially with today's use of ethanol-additives, won't hold up. Stick to diesel engines. Vegetable oils, animal fat, etc., can be burned in these engines. Sure, it's hard on them, fuel economy goes down, etc. but the engines can run, which is far easier to generate locally than any other modern engine fuel.
# Bigger problems exist
Even if you solve your gas problem, you have bigger worries. If you have modern engines, then you have to worry about parts that wear out, sensors that fail, electronics, batteries, rubber and plastic parts that degrade over time, belts, etc. For all practical purposes, *none* of these parts can be fabricated in your post-apocalypse world.
So your engine has a shelf-life. As do your tires, your fuel lines, your...
Yes, you can restore older engines to life with much care and feeding on the mechanics' part. But that still depends on scarce resources: parts, skilled labor, patience, and spare time.
## Focus long term
Use the engines you can get for as long as you can, but don't get attached.
Instead, as soon as your world is stable enough to survive day-to-day on, begin working to decouple your survival from modern vehicles. Clear roads and bridges, dig your pits etc. with the construction machinery while it works. But assume that within the next 5 to 20 years, you will hit a wall where any given vehicle will fail beyond repair for some reason or other. Maybe because you can't scavenge a spark plug that fits. Or that rubber fuel line dry rots. Whatever. But you can't go back to the store and buy a new one.
So focus on phasing out the vehicles so they aren't required for survival. Start learning to breed and ride horses, for example.
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Steam transport allows to burn anything. This is the reason why Russia still has steam locomotives that are conserved and waiting for the apocalyptic times when oil will not be easily accessible. During the great depression in the USA people burned grain in locomotives.
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You can convert a lightweight internal combustion engine to steam, it is even easier with 2 cycle engines. You have to cut and weld the cylinders and making a new crankcase improves the efficiency a lot, but a decent mechanic could do it. Some engines (tall double acting cylinders) work better than others of course. You don't get the same power you do with petroleum fuels, but it will run around just fine. You can still get high speed you just do not accelerate as fast.
People have even converted trucks to run on firewood. And of course a mechanic with some fabrication skill could just make a steam engine. As a bonus if you design them right steam engines can be used to purify water as well, always a bonus in a post apocalyptic setting.
Also consider a liquid burning steam engine will burn expired fuels just fine.
Alternatively you can re-refine expired gasoline into usable gas, it's not to mechanically difficult. It will run out eventually but this will extend the time you can use unaltered cars.
Finally many vehicles are made to run on kerosene which is both easier to refine and has a far longer shelf life. Propane is even better with an unlimited shelf life. Besides existing engines that run on it converting a gasoline car to run of these is not that hard.
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Lets go to Barter town! Barter town has methane! Barter Town has Pigs!
Pigs poop and methane cometh form pig-s#$t.
Ok, what is my point here? The internal Combustion engine, in theory, runs on a fuel being aerosolized, mixed with air, then detonated in a sealed chamber to generate lateral movement which is then turned into rotational movement which then, through a series of gears to produce work....That means that with a variety of fuels you can do this. It doesn't have to be petroleum based. In fact, there is a very wide range of options, including methane derived from pig-s#$t.
though if you chose that, you'd have to sing a top 40 hit while wearing a chain mail dress.
Anyway, what it really comes down to is how much work do you want your characters to have to do?
Biofuels are relatively easy, if not high yield. Diesel engines, according to legend, were built in the first place to run on peanut oil. Anyone who has abused themselves with flaming drinks knows about ethanol. You just have to remember that if you are using food crops for things other than just food, you have to hold back enough so you won't starve.
Wood Gassifiers are good. So is plain old steam.
Here is what you can do.
1) Pick an alternative fuel...any fuel.
2) Google "downside of ...."
3) bingo, you now have a pretty good idea of how much work your characters will have to do.
If you do it right, you get realism and some very good plot devices all in one shot.
Who runs Barter Town?
*The lady singing a top 40 song while wearing the chain mail dress*
[Answer]
What is preventing the brightest of the post-apocalyptic population from banding together and frugally using what yet-to-expire gasoline they have locally to journey to known petroleum repositories within their calculated travel distance and refining it---and the collected old gasoline---on demand? What has the proposed apocalypse wiped out? I mean my distant relatives made their own acetylene. How hard could it be to learn in a survival situation?
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Post apocalyptic world we will naturally discover that the most abundant element on earth, hydrogen, H2 can be generated at the point of use from water using not electrolysis but harmonic frequencies, spontaneously releasing vast amounts of energy. to put this another way
>
> "If energy fails, life fails so when the sun burns out it's lights our"
>
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>
Now that is an apocalypse.
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[Question]
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Would it be possible to have a region on a planet that is not near its poles that has below freezing temperatures most of the year, while having more temperate regions both above and below it? If so how? Would the sun have to do a weird? Would the planet need to be an odd shape? Is it just impossible? Also, the planet is going to be lower mass than earth, and and needs to have a stable climate capable of sustaining conventional life in the temperate regions.
[Answer]
As Raditz\_35 points out in comments, mountains - even equatorial ones - are colder at higher altitudes. For instance, [Mt. Kilimanjaro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro) is only three degrees off the equator, but its summit is cold enough to host glaciers. But what you want isn't just one mountain, it's a whole ring of them, mostly along the equator.
Enter [Iapetus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_(moon)), the eighth moon of Saturn and the third-largest. Among Iapetus's features is a [pronounced ridge of mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_(moon)#Equatorial_ridge), some as much as 20 kilometers high, and over 1300 km long (longer if one takes into account isolated peaks that fall along the same line in both directions). This ring follows the Iapetian equator for no clearly-defined reason. It may be a remnant of some earlier phase of planet formation, such as former planetary rings, or it may have been caused by Saturn's gravity as the moon cooled. It might even have formed through the same natural buoyant forces that cause continents on Earth. Whatever the case, if Iapetus had an Earthlike climate on its plains (and I must stress that it absolutely doesn't) the ridges would be frozen solid for most of their height. Obviously you'll want your equatorial ridge to be a smidge less pronounced.
[Answer]
**You can do it with elevation.**
<http://www.estarte.me/world-temperatures-map.html/world-temperatures-map-file-annual-average-temperature-jpg-wikimedia-commons>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Uijg0.jpg)
Here is a map of average temperature on Earth. I have labeled the Andes and the Himalayas. They are high elevation areas and you can see they are substantially cooler than adjacent areas at the same latitude (same distance from the equator). The Himalayas are more a patch than a strip but otherwise are exactly /a region on a planet that is not near its poles that has below freezing temperatures most of the year, while having more temperate regions both above and below it/.
You could accentuate this. Make a high mountain range where you need it to be cold. It does not need to be steep mountains - it could be a high plateau. The higher it is, the colder it is.
[Answer]
### Yes - based on the planet's rotational axis
A cold climate (wherein "cold" is relative to what we consider "conventional life") in the "middle" (by "middle" assuming "equator" - ie, on the crust but centrally according to the longitude and latitude of it's rotational axis, and therefore not a planet's core) is most **definitely possible**
In fact, [Uranus spins "on it's side"](http://www.scienceiq.com/facts/uranusspin.cfm) - at least how we think of "sides" in space. A neat [youtube video off planet axis is here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY6Pya_0OuU)
Depending on it's directionality, a planet whose spin (like Uranus') is perpendicular to it's sun, the the north/south poles would be more temperate than it's equator. In other words, if you "flipped" the earth such that the equator was rotating at a different angle relative to the sun, then the poles would be more temperate with a different climate at the equator - whether hotter or colder.
[Answer]
Imagine a world at the L5 point between a binary star system, with it's rotational axis pointing at the suns. This planet's coolest area would be the belt around the middle.
[Answer]
# Asteroid Belt
Maybe perpetual darkness via an extremely dense ring of asteroids around the planet. Because it is always dark and receives very little light (energy) it gets very very cold. Could be that this is enough to give you freezing temperatures.
How to explain an asteroid belt dense enough is another question. My suggestion would be that ice moons are orbiting the planet with a liquid cores. As they orbit the planet they get squeezed and released (tidal forces) which releases water which gets pulled very slowly towards the planet and creates this ice asteroid field which reflects the light coming in. (I think this is how they explain the rings of Saturn currently)
[Answer]
As others have mentioned, altitude would be your answer. Since that's already established, I'm going to suggest a couple ways a tall ring around the equator could be accomplished.
# Planetoid Smash
In the early days of the planet forming, another planet of a similar (small) size was forming as well in the neighborhood and while they were both still semi-molten, they bumped into each and stuck together. This could have left a raised band between the formerly two planetoids as they smashed together.
How uniform or weathered this ring is is up to you.
# High Spin
As we know, the Earth bulges slightly around the equator, due to it's spin. Again, before your planet fully solidified, it had an abnormally high rate of spin, causing the bulge to be more pronounced than normal with it ending up as tall as terrestrial mountains.
Whether it still has that high spin is up to you.
The high spin rate would probably have a more uniform ring, but a non-uniform ring could have valleys and holes/caves that could allow easier travel between the hemispheres.
[Answer]
**If you set the axial tilt to a certain range, the equator would become arctic and the poles would be tropical.** I believe it's 45 degrees, but I could be mistaken, Artifexian's youtube video on the topic of Axial Tilt covers this if I recall correctly. (I can't check at the moment)
[Answer]
Your planet is an odd one: It has no axial tilt and no seasons.
In old days, in the time of magicians, they wrought the Bridge of the World to feed their lust for power. Six great towers to the sky were created *(beanstalks)* and they became the pylons for the Bridge.
Ok, ok.
6 beanstalks. From there, you build a ring city around the earth over the equator. This city could easily expand to be quite wide -- 20-100 miles which would create a permanent shadow band along the equator.
It would much like the temperature drop that comes with a solar eclipse, but it would keep going. At some point the temperature is balanced by cold air settling and rushing out from the Shadow Lands, and warm air rushing in. I don't know how effective the circulation would be.
[Answer]
For an inverse real world effect look on Willk's global temperature map at the nice warm (yellowish) streak going up the West side of the Bristish Isles and far to the North.
This is caused by the Gulf Stream carrying warm water northwards and the Atlantic Conveyor carrying the cold water back below it for reheating.
Without this I'm told that the British Isles would be permanently ice-locked. I'm not sure that's true but they would certainly not be the balmy sunny subtropical place they now are. Hey! Wait .. :-). Drop the British Isles into the Southern Ocean at correct latitude and it lies wholly below NZ (bottom right on the map) - and Invercargill, at the bottom of NZ, is not known for its halcyon winters.
[Answer]
# Volcanic Fallout
The prevailing surface winds at the equator are due west (balanced by high level jet streams off the equator blowing due east.) With active volcano(s) at the equator, the fallout would be carried due west and under the right circumstances might create a band of cool at the surface.
The largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the last 800 years was <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora> (indonesia, 8 degrees south of the equator.)
This certainly had climatic influence, though perhaps not as local as you are looking for. Sulfuric acid in the atmosphere from the eruption, with max intensity in April 1815 reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface. This caused "the year without a summer" as far away as Europe and North America in the following year 1816, resulting in a 3C temperature drop in France and the worst famine of the century. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer>
# Peak annual temperatures on earth are not highest at the equator
It's also worth noting that peak (as opposed to average) annual temperatures are highest a little off the equator. For example in Africa peak temperatures occur not at the equator but in the deserts of the Sahara and southern Africa.
[Answer]
As @Willk pointed out, you just need altitude.
Now the question is: How do you get that altitude in a band around the equator.
You could figure that with plate tectonics moving things around, for a brief time (in a geological sense), mountain range could line up on or near the equator.
Another, more believable, solution is to have a super earth with a high rate of spin. This planet will tend to bulge out at the equator. If the bulge is significant enough, it will get large enough for there to be a difference in the perceived gravity between the pole and the equator. This would allow mountains to grow higher on the equator. Look at [Mission of Gravity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_of_Gravity) by Hal Clement as an extreme example of this type of world.
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[Question]
[
**This question already has answers here**:
[I'm stranded on an alien planet. How can I tell what's good to eat?](/questions/26426/im-stranded-on-an-alien-planet-how-can-i-tell-whats-good-to-eat)
(7 answers)
[How to tell what can I use in space bistro? [duplicate]](/questions/62273/how-to-tell-what-can-i-use-in-space-bistro)
(2 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
**You've landed on another planet. There are some forms of plants and animals on this world but how do you know what is safe to eat?**
Obviously we went through this on earth, finding the right berries and such that wouldn't make us ill but is there a better way than trial and error? A small crew wouldn't want to risk being without one of its members (either through illness or death).
In terms of their abilities they've the technology to make interstellar travel and survive that. Their ship does have the ability to grow a variety of foods so initially they're in no rush so we can have some tests which take a little longer. Imagine the technology as sufficiently advanced that if we've identified something today that it could be testable.
---
This question is about a team of qualified people, chosen for an interstellar trip. In [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/26426/im-stranded-on-an-alien-planet-how-can-i-tell-whats-good-to-eat?noredirect=1&lq=1) solutions are for an individual stranded in a life or death situation (no one can say 'Hey, if you had a mass spectrometer and three months you can do this check' - it clearly isn't feasible for that question but is for this one. [This question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/62273/how-to-tell-what-can-i-use-in-space-bistro) is marked as a duplicate of that other one.
The background of this question is that the crew have gone out intending to find new worlds, they collect data on each world they pass and, if they seem more viable for life they land and assess the planet. A food source is one of the things they check for.
[Answer]
**A multi-pronged strategy.**
* First, simple chemical tests would be performed for heavy metals and strong acids/alkalis and to give a general profile of the plant or animal's chemical composition. Gas chromatography should throw-up a number of interesting results and help identify known poisons. This, whilst being careful to identify any specific part of the organism which could be toxic - think of the puffer fish, a delicacy, but deadly if not prepared correctly. - This would filter out some obvious toxic candidates. Look out for chirality too, the "handedness" of molecules makes a big difference to compatibility.
* Mice would be fed a diet with the addition of these various food stuffs in a clinical trial like way with a control group fed a known safe diet. Blood workups would be taken, testing for unusual changes including signs of stress and hormone levels. They would be observed for behavioral and digestive changes and any signs of poisoning or infection by parasites. Pregnancies would be allowed to go to term and the newborns examined for any mutation or abnormality (preferably their genomes would be examined for mutations outside the normal statistical range). Eventually culling them and dissection of some would reveal any signs of cancerous growths or other unwanted effects. - Another stage further towards the goal.
* Microbiological screening would be done with a variety of human tissue cell cultures to establish if any toxins present can damage them. Some candidates would be; liver, kidney, smooth and striated muscle tissue, nerve tissue, pancreas and skin.
* Tentatively, human volunteers would gradually introduce some (small at first) samples into their diet, being closely monitored for effects (it might be as well to have a control group here too and make it double blind - ie neither the doctors nor the test-subjects know who's getting the "real thing" till after a the test has gone on for a while). If satisfactory, the amounts in the diets could be increased in stages.
This whole battery of tests would be performed on a variety of samples, soon it should become apparent the sort of toxins present or likely to turn up as a profile of the ecosystem's chemistry becomes clearer. Eventually, assuming any compatible substances are found to be both nutritious and safe a diet could be formulated suitable to sustain life. At that point, flavor, mouth-feel, and smell gain importance.
[Answer]
Apply the [Universal Edibility Test](https://www.backpacker.com/skills/universal-edibility-test) (it is universal!).
Summary:
>
> 1. Separate the plant into its various parts—roots, stems, leaves,
> buds, and flowers. Focus on only one piece of the plant at a time.
> 2. Smell it. A strong, unpleasant odor is a bad sign.
> 3. Test for contact poisoning by placing a piece of the plant on your
> inner elbow or wrist for a few minutes. If your skin burns, itches,
> feels numb, or breaks out in a rash, don’t eat the plant.
> 4. If the plant passes the skin test, prepare a small portion the way
> you plan to eat it (boiling is always a good bet).
> 5. Before taking a bite, touch the plant to your lips to test for
> burning or itching. If there’s no reaction after 15 minutes, take a
> small bite, chew it, and hold it in your mouth for 15 minutes. If
> the plant tastes very bitter or soapy, spit it out.
> 6. If there’s no reaction in your mouth, swallow the bite and wait
> several hours. If there’s no ill effect, you can assume this part of
> the plant is edible. Repeat the test for other parts of the plant;
> some plants have both edible and inedible parts.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Don't bother.
There is no reasonable chance that any non-earth life will be "edible".
The human digestive system can only derive nutrition from a tiny fraction of the lifeforms on Earth. That's true of both biomass and number of species. And for the lifeforms we can eat, we can only eat a fraction of them. We can't eat wood, chitin, bone, hair etc.
We will have to bring all our food with us, and have our bacteria and plants convert base materials into food for us.
[Answer]
Bring a monkey and eat what it eats.”
I have no supporting evidence at this time but an old saying in my area is “bring a monkey and eat what it eats”
It may come from the fact that monkey is so close to human such that if something is safe for monkey, it is safe for human. Birds, on the other hand, can eat stuff that is not suitable for human.
[Answer]
The best method is a tiered combination of methods. Under the assumption the colonists are trying to find a suitable food source before their own stores run out a tiered approach is best.
1. Common sense, don't eat scavengers or parasites (both mobile and not), be wary of anything immobile, don't eat anything that is dramatically colored compared to other wildlife. These are all things that make parasites and toxins more likely.
2. Chemical analysis to make sure no obvious toxins are present, common elements on one planet might not be on others, arsenic might be widespread. The local wildlife will have evolved with it and thus it will be harmless to them but toxic to humans. You will also want to do this for nutritional information, eating all the local wildlife you want will not help if none of the local wildlife has any vitamin B, or only has lefthanded nucleic acids. You also need to make sure they use molecules of the same handedness, if not your colonist will be better off commiting suicide.
3. Animal testing, rats or dogs for cost, chimps if cost is not an issue. Of course if you have lots of earth animals you should be eating those instead. If you don't have earth livestock, Start with human gut cultures and cloned tissue instead, otherwise these will be the next step. Consider starting with products fermented by earth bacteria, alien product/earth bacteria cheese is one of the few things with a decent chance to be edible.
4. Cook everything, many parasites and toxins will be destroyed by cooking. It also means they need to eat less of the alien food (cooked food has much higher nutrient availability) and thus reduces chances of an adverse occurrence.
5. The [universal edibility test](https://www.offgridweb.com/survival/the-universal-edibility-test/), Timing is important in this test, and it checks for things like allergic reaction and acute effects earlier tests will miss. You will almost certainly lose people at this stage. Allergic reaction is going to be a big worry since there is a large risk of novel molecules. This is something that can only be tested directly on humans, even tissue exposure test will not catch many allergies, so including this step will be important. Each human will have to do each test for each food but you don't want multiple people testing the same food at the same time. preferably you want days separating them. There will be quite a bit of conflict here as they decide who the most disposable crewmate is. Note you are going to want to add another few steps to this, first prior to injection a pin prick test will be useful. during ingestion testing you will want to start with minute quantities and work your way up to substantial amounts.
All combined you are looking at months before anyone actually eats anything, and depending on the number of colonists years before everyone is eating it.
[Answer]
Why would space travelers "go native" and start eating food that grows on an alien planet?
If their spaceship can keep them alive on the journey to an alien planet presumably it can keep them alive while exploring the alien planet and on the journey back to where they came from.
Presumably the spaceship would have food synthesizers to convert stored materials and waste materials into food and water and enough energy to run the food synthesizers countless times.
Presumable the alien solar system would have many small bodies, comets, ring particles, asteroids, and meteoroids, and many of those small bodies would contain many of the elements and compounds which could be used as raw materials by the ship's food synthesizers if raw materials storage units on the ship leaked and lost a lot of material.
So space explorers would probably not have much need to test alien life to see if it is nutritious and non poisonous.
Maybe people intending to colonize the planet would want to eventually know what native foods are safe to eat.
There are two possibilities.
One, they are headed for a specific planet which they know they can colonize. Presumably they would have extensive reports from explorers about which native plants are edible before choosing that planet.
Two, they are on an expedition looking for a suitable planet to colonize, either for themselves to colonize or else to report as safe for colonization by other persons. Then they would have to do a lot of tests on the native biosphere.
First they would analyse a lot of sample of the atmosphere and water from all regions of the planet and all the various types of habitats, looking for concentrations of harmful chemicals.
Then they would have to inventory all the plant life on the planet, classifying and cataloging thousands and probably millions of species. And a specimen of each species of plants would have to be chemically analysed both for nutritious chemicals and for poisonous chemicals. Confounded by beige's answer suggests a series of various types of tests.
If a strong lack of nutritious chemicals and/or strong presence of poisonous chemicals is detected early in this investigation, the planet will probably not be suitable for colonization, so some planets can be eliminated from consideration. And if the investigation continues long enough for the planet to be cleared for colonization, there will already be a long list of which plants and plant parts are edible, and which are not.
But of course colonists might not want to "go native" and eat plants that grow on the planet. They might simply take gaseous, liquid, and solid matter from the planet and put it into machines that separate it into separate elements. Elements useful for making machines and other items will be sent to 3D printers that can make what they need and desire, while elements useful for making food will be sent to food synthesizers. All of the colony's waste materials will be recycled into the matter supply for the colony.
[Answer]
Assuming a realistic alien world, the simple option is [assume everything is non-nutritious or poisonous](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/57830/plausibility-of-exotic-nutrition/57847#57847). You'll probably be able to get some micro-nutrients such as calcium or iron from native plant life, and if you're very lucky, you'll find something that produces ethanol. Most likely, though, is that everything has the same nutritional value as a rock.
[Answer]
**I'm afraid you're already dead.**
If the world is truly 'alien', it would have evolved a completely different ecosystem, in a completely different way. The odds of the billions upon billions of mutations and evolutionary changing events being identical to Earth's (to our time period too) is *virtually non-existent*.
Even on Earth a small difference in evolutionary biology for, say, bacteria is fatal - imagine a 'bacteria-like' microbe that our immune systems are completely unprepared for on an alien world. We would have no chance to survive.
In fact why stop there? Viruses that our immune systems have gradually grown resistance to are essentially large molecules - having a 'soup' of foreign viruses would completely overwhelm us within seconds, invading through our mouth, and even our skin.
Our bodies have extraordinarily low tolerance - infections and immune responses *are only built for Earth organisms* with structures and chemicals that closely align with what is already evolved. If it varies a little too much from the established norms that our immune systems have evolved to combat than it is quickly fatal (hence, current-day large research into anti-biotics which our immune systems *cannot* handle)
Even if we live in an isolated habitat, any lifeforms we bring from the outside would be saturated in a foreign ecological systems equivalent of bacteria-sized microbes and viruses (or their alien equivalent, which is likely if the foreign ecosystem has grown larger organisms) which would prove quickly fatal and contaminate your internal environment.
Very unromantic I know, but unfortunately true.
[Answer]
No extraterrestrial life form will be edible. To be edible the food should contain nucleic acids or proteins, also fatty acids and vitamins that are specific to erthy life and won't appear in extraterrestrial organisms.
] |
[Question]
[
Suppose in a very very long future, humans have become relative powerful military force in galactic politics due to a very powerful weapon: the ability of creating black holes wherever we want. Now we are safe from other aliens (except for very ancient species, which are peaceful anyway but they could level the entire galaxy if they wanted).
But the Interplanetary Security Council, follow a strict rule: for each weapon we create, we should develop and implement counter-measures on our most valorous planets (Earth first), and they are terrified that now we know it's possible to open a black hole wherever we want. They fear that hostile aliens could steal this tech, or that more advanced aliens might do to us since now we have powerful guns and a violent history, and not to say that we just started a galaxy-wide arms race to black-hole weapons.
Is there anything in the physics of we know now (in the history we do have FTL travel and communication, but other laws of physics are the same) that would prevent us from developing a defense against black hole weapons?
Assume that:
* We have near limitless energy (thanks to fusion power, or whatever is plausible in a few centuries)
* We do have teleportation tech, but is long known that teleporting anything alive results in horrible death due to quantum instability, and the "reaction" that produces the black hole can't be teleported either, the "quantum instability" is enough to trigger it.
* We have the industrial capability to build entire mega-cities in weeks, and raw materials of any kind are not a problem because we have massive infrastructure to mine suns and planets (thanks to a few centuries of limitless energy)
* With near infinite energy and raw materials, we can create all of elements we know of, including creating new elements (might not be stable but still), and we are capable of creating "dark matter" and "negative matter" (it's wonderful what near limitless energy allow you to do right?)
* We have by now very smart A.I. and computers powerful enough to simulate an entire galaxy, and they can assist us on any research we want
* The attack occurs outside our planet, but near or inside our solar system, and start very small (say a small 1m event horizon diameter, so it's needs a few time before eating an entire solar system)
* We have long developed ways to heat our planet and keep an artificial atmosphere with near limitless energy, since we discovered that blowing up a sun is quite an efficient way to bring genocide upon other species, and since keeping Earth intact is our highest priority, any other body in our solar system can be consumed.
The defense can be either active (e.g. shooting something at the black-hole that might make it collapse) or passive (e.g. develop an anti-gravity shield around earth that would repeal the gravity pull from the black hole).
So what are the best bet for Earth to survive a black hole terrorist attack/alien attack? Or there is nothing that could stop the limitless hunger of a black hole?
Edit: It appears that I've overestimated the expansion capabilities of a black hole, but since the reaction that generates the black hole must be transported by a ship, and Earth already haves a massive layered planetary defense is unlikely that an enemy could trigger this reaction near Venus, Earth, Moon or Mars, but they would do their best to trigger the reaction the most closest possible and with enough mass to actually hit the Earth, it's essential that we have a plan if Earth gets into an event horizon from an enemy black hole or will do so in a few hours.
[Answer]
# Physical Paradoxes
>
> *we do have FTL travel and communication, but other laws of physics are the same*
>
>
>
They can't be the same, FTL breaks known physics. A lot.
The speed of light isn't really the speed of light, it's [the speed of information exchange and the speed of causality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo).
[FTL probably breaks causality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light#General_relativity), meaning you can time travel to the past. If so, the best defense against a black hole attack is to time travel back and prevent the attack.
Your FTL tech could be used to defeat a black hole, but we'd need to know more about how it works. FTL has some pretty funky consequences for black holes.
A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong not even light can escape. Imagine trying to swim against a river that's flowing faster than your top speed. But if you can exceed the speed of light you can escape a black hole.
The [event horizon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon) of a black hole is not just the point of no return, it defines an area of space which can *never* interact with our own. Inside the event horizon is, effectively, outside our universe. Once inside a black hole you are in your own universe.
Except with FTL you can come back. This means you can bring information *out* of a black hole. With FTL, [we can interact with another universe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8bBhkhZtd8).
>
> *We do have teleportation tech*
>
>
>
Without putting some careful limits on it, teleportation means infinite energy. Teleport something high in the air, extract energy from it as it falls, repeat.
One way to avoid this is to make the energy cost of teleportation equal to or greater than its [potential energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy) gain.
[But let's forget about that for the rest of the answer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVfpUBtdGLs#t=0m26.7s).
---
# Original Answer
You have bombs [you can drop anywhere, there's no defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_%28missile%29), and they're [infinitely powerful](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W80_%28nuclear_warhead%29). Not too different from reality. Just as in reality, you don't fight overwhelming military force with military force. You conduct [asymmetric warfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_warfare).
* Hide. You can't hit what you can't see.
* Make the environmental cost too high (it eats planets).
* Make the collateral damage too high (did we mention it eats planets).
But you obviously want a direct counter-measure. In order to do that we need to [make some things clear about black holes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZWPBKULkdQ).
**Black holes don't have any more gravity than a normal object.**
When a star collapses into a black hole, it doesn't suddenly suck everything in. It has exactly the same gravity as before. You wouldn't notice... gravitationally speaking. If you're not killed in the nova (which blows off mass *reducing* the gravity of the black hole) you'd freeze to death because your local star just went out.
This is the key to how we're going to get rid of this thing. A black hole can still be treated as a point mass. It's still subject to the law of gravity.
As an alternative weapon you could make [neutron stars](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/18414/what-single-element-could-destroy-the-world/18426#18426); they would do the trick just as well. Or you could create a normal star; just as much gravity, and it will burn you to a crisp from millions of miles away! It could be a wonderful terraforming device, or a hideous weapon.
**[Black holes evaporate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation).**
The smaller the faster. Unfortunately your one meter black hole will take too long, probably longer than the age of the universe.
**Black holes radiate tremendous energy.**
...when stuff falls into them. This is called the [accretion disc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc), and it's actually rather hard to fall into a black hole once you're orbiting it. To "fall" into a black hole you need to expend thrust to brake.
As it consumes stuff in our very, very cold outer solar system, our black hole will start to radiate energy from its growing accretion disc. This is how we can detect it, and we want to detect it while it's far away and small.
**Black holes have only three properties.**
[Mass, charge and momentum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Properties_and_structure). When matter falls into a black hole it retains these properties. This is very important for your question, especially momentum.
**The Earth can be torn apart by its tidal forces.**
The Earth doesn't need to cross the event horizon to be destroyed, it can be ripped apart by [tidal forces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force). The side of the Earth facing the black hole is $13000 \; \text{km}$ closer to the black hole than the far side, meaning the gravitational pull is stronger. As the Earth gets closer to the black hole, this difference gets so strong it rips the Earth apart.
The point where a body is ripped apart by tidal forces is called the [Roche Limit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit), and we don't want the Earth getting any closer to your black hole than that.
**Now back to our problem.**
>
> The attack occurs outside our planet, but near or inside our solar system, and start very small (say a $1 \; \text{m}$ diameter, so it's needs a few time before eating an entire solar system).
>
>
>
Will this thing eat the entire solar system? Its gravity is related to its mass. So...
**How much mass does a one meter diameter black hole have?**
When you say "$1$ meter in diameter" I presume you mean the diameter of its [event horizon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Event_horizon). We need its mass. $R$ is the event horizon radius. $G$ is the [gravitational constant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_constant). $M$ is the mass of the black hole, $c$ is the speed of light.
$R = \frac{2GM}{c^{2}}$
Solving for $M$...
$M = \frac{c^{2}\cdot R}{2G}$
Plug in the numbers, $R$ is $0.5\;\text{m}$, $G$ is $6.674\cdot 10^{-11} \; \text{N}\cdot \frac{\text{m}^{2}}{\text{kg}^{2}}$, $c$ is $3 \cdot 10^{8} \; \frac{\text{m}}{\text{s}}$.
$M = \frac{\left(3 \cdot 10^{8}\;\frac{\text{m}}{\text{s}}\right)^{2} \cdot 0.5 \; \text{m}}{ 1.3348 \cdot 10^{-10} \; \text{N}\cdot \frac{\text{m}^{2}}{\text{kg}^{2}}} = \frac{4.5 \cdot 10^{16}\;\frac{\text{m}^{3}}{\text{s}^{2}}}{ 1.3348 \cdot 10^{-10} \; \frac{\text{m}^3}{\text{kg} \cdot \text{s}^{2}}} = 3.37 \cdot 10^{26} \; \text{kg}$
That's a little more than half the mass of Saturn. Saturn is a big gravitational player, but it hasn't hoovered up the entire solar system. This thing is going to have to get pretty close to Earth to mess with it, and it's not going to be gaining much mass on the way.
**What is the Roche Limit?**
As mentioned earlier, a black hole can rip the Earth apart with tidal forces if it gets too close. How close? We need to calculate the Roche Limit.
$d = r \cdot (2 \frac{M}{m})^{\frac{1}{3}}$
Where $d$ is the Roche limit, $r$ is the radius of the Earth ($\approx 6300 \; \text{km}$), $M$ is the mass of the black hole ($3.37 \cdot 10^{26} \; \text{kg}$) and $m$ is the mass of the Earth ($6 \cdot 10^{24} \; \text{kg}$). I got $30400 \; \text{km}$.
Depending on its trajectory and speed, it will probably pass harmlessly through our Solar System, maybe mess up the orbits of a few planets that we can correct later. But let's assumed it's aimed at Earth. What can we do?
I'm going to ignore infinite energy and FTL and teleportation and anti-gravity and non-existent anti-particles, because once you have all that you might as well say "magic". Don't need them anyway, we have a perfectly fine way of handling rogue stellar objects using nothing more than Newton's Law of Gravitation.
**Use a [Gravity Tractor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_tractor)!**
No, it's not a tractor beam.
Put a spacecraft in orbit around the black hole and, without touching it, use the spacecraft's gravity and thrust to change the black hole's trajectory to miss the Earth (and presumably go somewhere safe, like a parking orbit around a brown dwarf). Since we have infinite energy, it doesn't really matter how fast or how massive the black hole is, we can keep building bigger tractors.
Hmm... this black hole has the mass of Saturn. The Earth is about 100 times less massive than that. It would be easier to move the Earth (and anything thing smaller than Saturn) out of the way. Just be sure to remember to put it back.
This may sound crazy, but it's the most sensible way we currently have to [defend against asteroids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Redirect_Mission).
**Knock it away by shooting it.**
Since black holes have mass and momentum, you can treat them like a big, sticky billiard ball and smack it with another big billiard ball.
Let's say this $1 \; \text{m}$ black hole is coming toward Earth at high velocity and we detected it around the orbit of Neptune, about $30$ [AU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit) away. We'd probably notice distortions in the orbits of outer solar system objects. This gives us plenty of time to react. Even light takes four hours to reach the Earth from out there.
Momentum is `mass x velocity`. We have infinite energy to play with, and we don't want to make the black hole too much bigger, so we're going to fire a slug at near the speed of light. For best results, our anti-black-hole cannons are positioned above and below the plane of the solar system. That way the slug impacts at a 90 degree angle and bounces the black hole above or below the orbital plane where there's less for it to mess with.
How far do we have to knock the black hole? Will just one degree do? Let's say our slug impacts at $20 \; \text{AU}$ and knocks the black hole out of its course by $1$ degree. By the time it reaches the Earth it will be $\tan\left(1 \; \deg\right) \cdot 20 \; \text{AU} = 0.35 \; \text{AU}$ outside the plane of the solar system, or $52500000 \; \text{km}$. Safely outside the Roche Limit by three orders of magnitude.
**What about shooting it with anti-matter?**
[Another answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/26486/760) said to shoot it with anti-matter, which is a really good idea, which is a really bad idea because [it will just make the black hole bigger](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/209648/what-happens-when-anti-matter-falls-into-a-black-hole/209652#209652)!
But for funsies, what happened if they did annihilate? How big an energy release would it be?
We know the mass of the black hole, $3.37 \cdot 10^{26} \; \text{kg}$, and we're going to shoot another object made of the same amount of anti-matter at it. Plug that into the old `e=mc^hammer` formula and we get... $3.03 \cdot 10^{43} \; \text{J}$. How much energy is that?
* *Merely* [a third of the energy of a supernova](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.034163e%2B43+J)
* $45$ times the energy needed to [blow apart the Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_binding_energy).
* $57$ times the mass-energy of the Earth.
* The total energy output of the Sun over 2.5 billion years.
...going off inside the solar system.
Hmm.
Let's try the gravity tractor.
[Answer]
**Blackhole Defense by Reclaiming the offending Blackhole**
The OP makes it sound like arbitrarily sized black holes can be created at arbitrary locations whenever someone with sufficient authority says to do so. Presumably, these black holes can be removed when they are no longer necessary. If this removal capability exists then defense of the planet is pretty straight forward. Ring the Valorous Planet with gravity detectors linked with black hole reclaimers. Should a blackhole be detected, the reclaimers kick into action and sap away whatever energy/matter is being used to create the attacking blackhole.
The reclaimers could be based on the teleportation technology mentioned in the OP. Just teleport the blackhole (or parts of it) to Sagitarius-A and not worry about it again.
**Make a backup of the planet** then restore it when (not if) something happens. Granted, this isn't specifically a defense mechanism but it is a recovery mechanism. With unlimited storage, unlimited materials and effectively infinite industrial capacity, it shouldn't be hard to just build a new Earth and clone all the people on it.
[Answer]
Throw another blackhole *near* the incoming blackhole, and they would both happily spiral away to unknown destinations.
You have another option too:
Shoot the incoming blackhole with another blackhole made of antimatter. They would mutually annihilate each other. Just make sure you have your safety measures because a pair of matter-antimatter blackholes annihilating each other would create galaxy-shattering flash of energy.
[Answer]
My answer: use the Force, i.e. the electromagnetic force.
Deflecting the trajectory of an incoming black hole is the right idea but it's far harder to do so with gravitation than with electromagnetism, which as a force is far more powerful. For protons it's 10^36 times stronger, which is enormous, even to a hyper advanced civilization.
Let's assume we have only mass, momentum and charge to work with in a black hole.
If the incoming black hole is charged, and especially if it has angular momentum, and thus a magnetic field, then it's rather easy. If the rules allow you to create your own counter-holes, make them with lots of charge and a high enough angular momentum to make a large magnetic field and shoot them in a trajectory near the incoming BH, and work out the classical electrodynamics to make them to attract the enemy BH away from its collision course.
Naked charges tend to end up shielded in Nature as other free charges rush in to counteract the charge, but the magnetic fields can't be (as there are no free magnetic monopoles as far as we know), so that would be the best bet for long-range interaction.
If the incoming BH is uncharged, then you'd have to first charge and spin it up by having some of your own charged BH's collide with it, and then send additional ones near by to deflect it.
[Answer]
There are two radically different cases here, based on the meaning of "wherever you want".
1) "Wherever" means a long range projection. In this case there's no defense, they create a black hole already on target, that's that. Your only defense is to have many planets and hidden bases capable of retaliation.
2) "Wherever" means you don't need local mass, you simply activate a machine and a black hole pops out. (Or perhaps eats the machine, the mechanics don't matter.)
This is not a meaningful threat to a competent defender with the same tech base. Defenses:
A) As others have said, throw another black hole at it. Unlike what others have said it doesn't matter if it's a near miss or a hit. In the case of a hit you now have a black hole with the combined mass **and vector**. Ensuring that vector misses anything vital should be child's play. In the case of a near miss the two black holes will do a gravity assist maneuver past each other, both will be deflected. Again, a miss.
B) If you can create a black hole you have the ability to create incredibly intense gravity. The same tech should be able to deflect a black hole's path.
c) The most hazardous of the three: You have the gravity tech, use it to move your planet out of the way. You certainly can do this, the hazard comes from how perfect your generators are. If they are anything less than 100.0000% even you're going to get earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves.
Edit: I thought of a story where black hole weapons were used. A key factor is that they did not have gravitic tech at all, the black holes were natural.
>
> *Life Probe*.
>
>
>
> The hostile forces aimed **very** carefully at their target and did
> not maneuver when they entered engagement range. Destroying them
> didn't destroy the black holes that powered their drives, turn the
> ships to vapor and the black holes still hit.
>
>
>
[Answer]
Perhaps you CAN create black holes, but if your enemy has more resources, perhaps he can create more of them at a time than you could conceivably counter.
So, I think the most asymmetric defense would be to move the Earth a few hundred thousand miles.
[Answer]
[According to some theory](https://space.stackexchange.com/q/1911/415 "Is there any stable orbit around a black hole?"), we can actually be on the horizon of any black hole without falling into it just like we do around the sun... Speed needed to do that would be big but as we have limitless energy it would not have problem..
We can make a shield around Earth to keep heat inside it, and increase speed of Earth so that we can be on horizon without being sucked into black hole. It is not currently possible as we don't currently have tech for that, but in future it might be possible.
Going through the wikipedia I found another term known as "ergosphere". It states that
>
> **Objects and radiation can** **escape normally from the** **ergosphere. Through** **the Penrose process, objects** **can emerge from the** **ergosphere with more energy** **than they entered. This energy** **is taken from the rotational** **energy of the black hole** **causing it to slow down**
>
>
>
By which we may able to get out of black hole.
[Ergosphere](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergosphere)
[Answer]
You have FTL travel and communication, so you also have time travel. Develop a "big reset button" like Janeway always managed to use in Voyager, to the detrement of real plotting.
Or if time is *self consistent*, make a chronology-active shield in the form of wormhole mouths on either side of the planet. Any incoming projectile would cause a paradox, *unless* it found a self-consistent solution that crashed with its "other" self. Forward used this device in the humorous *Timemaster*.
[Answer]
If you can create unlimited negative-mass matter (a very different thing to antimatter, and often called "exotic matter", a substance which seems to be a prerequisite for warp drives and wormholes in the currently known laws of physics) then you can fire beams of it at the black hole to reduce its mass until it evaporates from Hawking radiation.
As everyone else has mentioned, a 1m black hole is absurdly large. Even a 1cm black hole would be pretty nasty.
] |
[Question]
[
As the title says: How can a warehouse be secured to the point of highest possible security within a **16th century setting**?
The warehouse is located at a harbor and roughly 50 meters in length and 15 in width. It's owned by a really wealthy merchant and stores pretty much anything but weapons. There are other warehouses next to it, but the security of these don't matter for this question, as they are owned by other people. There are roughly three meters between two warehouse.
The warehouse has ten guards as of now, who are personally chosen and paid by the owner.
There is also some kind of harbor watch patrolling the harbor in general. These two groups are unrelated with each other, but cooperate, if needed.
All of them are forbidden to kill intruders or to hurt them more than needed to arrest them.
You can build whatever you like into the warehouse in order to tighten the security, but most of the space should be used for goods, as it is a warehouse after all.
Given these circumstances, how can it be further secured to an extent, where it becomes basically impossible to successfully break in and escape?
Just to make sure: This question is about thiefs, not about organized assaults by masses of armed fighters.
[Answer]
**Guards** - The well-paid guards rotate randomly, so they never know which part of the warehouse they will guard when they will be working, or with whom they will work. This prevents a potential thief from working with or bribing a guard. Four guards patrol the exterior walls, while four patrols the interior walls. They have whistles which they use to sound the alarm. Two guards patrol the roof. Their patrols are worked out so that see each other every few seconds, and are trained to sound the alarm if their coworker is not where they need to be. The Guards have daggers, swords, and a single-shot pistol.
**Lines of Sight** - Around each wall is a walkway, 1 meter in width so that a guard has an unimpeded view of the entire length of the wall at once.
**Dogs** - Trained dogs live in the warehouse. They will sound the alarm by barking at anyone entering the warehouse they don't know.
**Walls** - The walls are thick brick, with windows at the very top (it's dark in a building and natural light is how you light such thing.)
**Lighting** - At night, torches illuminate the exterior walls, so there is no slinking up in darkness.
**Door**- The door is a thick iron, with a window in it so the guard can identify the person who is requesting entry. The door is opened by a geared system since it's too heavy for a man to open by himself.
Note: In the 1500's, guards would not hesitate to kill a thief.
**Additional Note**
There needs to be some response if the alarm is sounded. An easy solution is to have guards work in three shifts of 8 hours. One shift is sleeping, one shift is in ready-status (meaning they are ready to react but otherwise unoccupied.
They could be preparing food, doing maintenance, practicing, etc.) This allows us to have ten men ready at a moment's notice to react, and ten more in reserve.
Thought will need to be given to normal access. If breaking in is too hard, thieves will use social engineering to fool their way in. All additions and removals must be authenticated using a passphrase encrypted by a [cipher disk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_disk). The list of passphrases changes every week. This makes sure the owner actually authorized the addition or removal without having to be present.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xU8Qh.png)
[Answer]
It is impossible to steal something from a given warehouse if the thing is not in the given warehouse.
If the owner is worried about theft at one particular time, he can quietly switch his wares with those of the owner of the warehouse next door, who is a purveyor of fine dungs. The guards and the police are not told of this switch, which is done with much cup-game style comings and goings of boxed goods. In fact much ado is made of heightened security, reinforcing the doors, and so on.
Your thief will by cunning and skill gain entry to the warehouse undetected, exiting through an escape tunnel bored in advance. He will find that he has made off with an urn of dung. The owner will need to reimburse his neighbor for the loss of his dung.
[Answer]
Minor points to guards
1. Pay your guards very well, so much so that significant bribes are insufficient to make them risk a long and valuable income stream as their regular job.
2. Make the guards a corps, rather than just employment.
3. Care for your guards - feed them, arm/equip them well with current arms and armour.
4. Care for their families - any guard injured or killed and their spouse is covered for life, and children till age of maturity.
All this engenders a loyalty amongst the guards who will then put in th extra effort. Compare this with mall renta-cops who don't really care once they clock-out.
[Answer]
Other answers have covered the physical aspects of security, but how about it from the intellectual side?
In every large warehouse, you not only need to know what is there, but where it is. Even back then, manifests were used in the shipping industries.
So here is what you can do to further befuddle potential thieves:
First, require everything to come in to your warehouse in generic, standard sized crates. Number the crates and reuse them. The people who crate the stuff have no communication with the guys who put the crates away in the warehouse. This will make it hard for a thief to attempt to control where, exactly, the goodies are going to be.
Next, Once the crate is put away, number and location are recorded. That way you can track where a crate is in the warehouse and retrieve it when you need to.
Now, for the clever bit. Encrypt the manifests, (retain the original inside each crate). The encrypted manifest is kept in the office (preferably offsite). Using another, different, encryption cipher, encrypt the record of which manifest is associated with which crate. Finally, a third cipher to encrypt the records of which crate is in what location in the warehouse. At the end of the day, destroy any un-encrypted information on crate location, by fire.
So if a thief wants the goodies, before he even contemplates physical access to the building, He has to solve the manifest cipher and locate the right one. Then he has to solve the crate cipher. Then he has to solve the location cipher. That is 3 difficult challenges, each of which can take days. If you are really paranoid, keep the encrypted manifests in one location, the crate records in another and so on, forcing the thief to make 3 break ins before he even gets to the warehouse.
Of course you are talking about 16th century, so it's not perfect. It should be hard enough so that only the really, really determined would even try. Even they might look at the problem and decide to find an easier mark.
[Answer]
**No goods on the ground floor.**
If you can make it a multi-level warehouse, you could have the ground floor devoted entirely to security. With no stairs (ladders for people, a winch for crates/barrels only) to upper levels, thieves would be hard pressed to get in and get out with an appreciable amount of goods, any attempt to steal an entire crate or barrel would require the use of a winch, which would be difficult to do in silence and secrecy. Obviously, stone is the building material of choice here as this is not a particularly fire-safe design.
[Answer]
In addition to physical security you have to consider your staff (the ones who carry the goods around -- you will need them). Does the owner personally check all employees leaving the warehouse? That might put a dent in time avaiable for other business activities. Or do the guards check? Collusion could easily lead to inside jobs being possible, and rewarding the guards for reporting suspicions about the other staff could lead to false reports if they want extra money and general bad feeling between the guards and the staff. That's not good if you want your staff to report attempts to bribe/force them to steal. And there's always blackmail -- however well paid, find an employee with a dirty secret and they're yours.
It's possible that the guards are also the storekeepers, but being able to carry crates/roll barrels would restrict the weapons they could carry.
So trusted supervision of staff is necessary too
[Answer]
There are already good points made on the guards and their treatment.
But the architecture of the ware house can by made more secure:
**No entry to the stored goods (neither for people nor for goods) on the ground floor**
All goods are brought in and out via a crane and the opening window for the goods is on the first floor or higher. People must climb up a ladder (which is removed at night) to enter the warehouse. The guard may have a special guard house or guard room with no direct connection to the storage room.
] |
[Question]
[
In a lot of stories there are fights between man and machine; rogue AI that has decided humans are inferior in some respect and chooses to wipe them out.
What if the only chance for any remnant of our existence to survive was through AI machines? Once made energy efficient and solar powered robots would cause no pollution, fight no wars amoungst themselves and live in complete harmony with each other in a bid to spread across the universe.
Humans will probably never achieve this, they are too busy quarrelling about who owns what. My question is, how do you convince the general population of this? How do you make them value the spread of our technology across the universe over their own lives so much that they are willing to die for this cause? Are you convinced?
[Answer]
I think the best way to make humans give up their humanity is to offer them something better.
Say, for instance, you define a human as a creature that walks on two legs (thank you Animal Farm). Then say someone comes up with a cheap, quiet, solar-powered jetpack. Many people will buy this technology, and some will use it to such an extent that they no longer use their legs. Then one day, you offer a smaller, quieter, cooler jetpack that only works on people who don't have legs. The people who got used to your old model will be greatly tempted by this new one; some will probably get their legs removed in order to use it. After the first few cave, others will see how much better the new jetpack is, and how stupid it is to have legs. Then maybe in a few years very few people will have legs, and thus by your definition of 'human', most humans will have been destroyed.
Now, imagine a human is a mortal being. Offer someone immortality and they will take it. Imagine a human is defined by their intelligence; offer someone the ability to be smarter and they will take it. Imagine a human is a squishy bag of carbon-based life; offer them a robot body that never tires, never gets old, never has acne or cramps or rashes or colds or burns or sores or bug bites or-- well, you get the point. What I'm saying is that there are a lot of things wrong with being human, but it's these very problems that *make* us human. The more we solve humanity's problems, the less human we become. Thus, all you really need to do to make humans give up their reign to robots is to turn them *into* robots.
There may be some Luddites, like some religions that value the innate flaws of humanity, but these people will quickly be run out of business. Imagine trying to get a job when you're competing with super-intelligent robots. They may be able to sustain themselves in their own little communities, but that's a win-win: they're not getting in your way, and now you have little human zoos.
The key to getting this to work is to make it gradual enough to not be noticed. Make every change take place in a new generation; the old may not approve, but the young will be all for it; after all, their definition of humanity will be tainted by the existence of the new technology. Every further generation will imagine 'humans' less as what we know them to be today, and more as the AI that you want.
[Answer]
"How to convince humans to allow a machine take over?" - the answer is, of course, "Gradually." Start with putting one machine into every home, say an AI that is so dumb that it is not really an AI, but just a computational device. Then start adding other similar machines, maybe some that will do tasks like vacuum or have coffee ready. Then put the machines actually on people, small enough they can carry. Make them give a service that people will come to depend on, say communication from anywhere to anywhere. Maybe even make them wearable, like a watch. All along, keep making them smarter and smarter. Give them names like Sirus or Cortina or Alexis, and give them voice interface. Then give them visual interface as well, so they can respond to gestures and expressions (you could introduce that with games). And don't even bother about robot bodies, why not just have them live in the computational ether where they can follow you anyway without moving - why not head towards disembodied AI?
I am not sure where you could go after that, but if you get that far, I imagine the patterns would be there to continue towards ever more ubiquitous AI, and humans would give up their privacy, individuality, and human community without hardly a whimper. Other parts of their humanity would follow as the pattern gets set of exchanging ourselves for machines. Why do we need to interact with people if we have a little machine that will listen to everything we say and act like it is the most important stuff in the world by sharing it with the world.
I don't know, sounds far fetched, but I think you could do something with this kind of gradual pattern of machine takeover.
[Answer]
The main way I can see this happening is out of necessity. Lets say an alien race is attacking earth with vastly superior technology, and they decide to turn to AI to help them in their darkest hour. Then every human on earth (the couple million or so that are still alive anyways) sees AI fighting and destroying the aliens, and defending them against these aliens that killed their families.
At this point you have a vastly reduced / weakened human race, who are now exposed to the remainder of this alien race and the universe in general. This is where they decide to rely on the AI more and more, to the point where they cannot function without the AI. I see this happening over several generations but if you decide to reduce the population more you could shorten that time.
So you end up with a society that relies on AI to function (Factories, Farming, all industries run by AI) and an AI that is becoming more and more intelligent and influential. This is the point at which the AI can begin controlling society and implementing changes. The AI can basically be so ingrained in our daily lives that they can indoctrinate us. If our teachers, entertainment, job, and every aspect of our life is created, chosen, and monitored by the AI, that will be when humans will be willing to die for the cause.
But be warned, this answer can only be implemented with either significant backstory over several generations, or just a society with little backstory and explanation. I would say it depends on what kind of story you are doing and who/what you want it to be about.
[Answer]
The same way you convince humans to accept pretty much anything: *[panem et circenses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses)*.
Give them a comfortable(ish) life; public safety; fun entertainment. Some elements of the former, preferably in addictive form. A vast majority of population will accept (and thus politically enforce, either via democratic voting or more forceful methods) whatever form of rule and system gives them that.
It work(s|ed) for pretty much anything, from populace loving horrible dictators; to Putin love in post-Yeltzin Russia. AI overlords would be absolutely no different (and likely easier to accept, as there's no jealousy of "people" in power)
[Answer]
The roadmap for getting people to accept machine takeover of almost any aspect of our lives is already here to be seen, for example in end-user licences (EULAs) on software people use (update software, add new more onerous EULA), and loyalty cards. Throw in some scary threats people want protection from, and any opposition can be pretty effectively marginalized.
So you offer some service with increasingly intrusive conditions in a [EULA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement) or equivalent. Nobody reads those things, and on the available evidence seem to happily give away almost any rights for a bit of software.
Considering a number of recent events with computer manufacturers, software giants and so on now shamelessly spying on our every move (e.g. [this](http://bgr.com/2015/09/24/lenovo-spying-think-windows-computers/) and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Privacy_and_data_collection) and really, a host of others), the South Park episode ["HUMANCENTiPAD"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HumancentiPad), which was supposed to be an over-the-top-satire now begins to seem rather more prophetic.
In addition, people will (apparently happily) give away large amounts of privacy for the promise of extremely modest discounts or other "rewards" (via the use of loyalty cards, for example).
So, basically, offer people something they want (helpful machines that perform some convenient service), put the less palatable consequences of their choice in a gigantic agreement that nobody will read. Maybe add in the promise of a little discount -- or even just the dubious *possibility* of eventually getting (say) free flights to give up any remaining privacy rights, and then just gradually change the terms over time.
Now to marginalize the opposition. You see this with terrorism threats (even though the actual risks may be quite low) -- play up scary threats people want protection from, and people will go to almost any length - accept almost any loss of freedom - and at the same time, any opposition can be pretty effectively marginalized, by painting them as being disloyal enablers of the threat. In the 50s it was McCarthyism, reds under the bed; more recently, terrorism.
Your scenario was perhaps less dark than one I imagine (you're asking about getting people to accept beneficial machines, I'm mostly talking about getting them to accept a much more Faustian bargain) -- I think you're overly optimistic -- but the basic strategy (which we can already see works really well) is still much the same.
Cue the Simpsons:
>
>
> ```
> Spacewoman: This is the last known piece of art before the collapse
> of Western civilization.
> Spaceman: If only we'd known that iPods would unite to enslave the
> people they entertained.
> (Outside the dome, giant iPods are whipping a group of humans.)
> Slave: What do you want?!
> iPod: Nothing, we just like whipping!
>
> ```
>
>
[Answer]
Machines are not in a hurry, impatience is one of those inferior human traits the machines want to eliminate. Therefore it is not necessary to have humans give up their life; it's sufficient to just prevent new humans to come into existence, and in about a hundred years the problem will have resolved itself in a natural way.
So how do you prevent new humans to be born? The best way is to make humans not desire to have children. So make their environment so that they have great advantages if they don't have children, and lose those advantages if they get children. To prevent accidental children, create an environment where humans rarely meet inperson, by eliminating all needs to do so, and provide sexbots and teledildonics so they can live their sexuality without getting into a situation where children may be conceived. Make sure that everyone knows about sexually transmitted diseases and are warned about the (dramatized) dangers of direct sexual contacts, so people prefer to use the safe technology-aided version. Make having children socially unacceptable, for example through movies and TV series showing people getting into deep trouble because they chose to have children, making clear that the right choice is not to have them.
You see, there's no need to actually kill anyone. Intelligent machines will know that.
[Answer]
Replace humans with robots by transforming humans into robots with cybernetics. [The Ghost in the Shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell) manga/anime describes a near-future heading in that direction. Simply replace natural body parts with artificial ones until people start to question just how many parts can be replaced before the patient's humanity is affected. Solve that social problem, wait for the civil rights dissonance to settle, and when a generation arises that allows someone with a "full-body prosthetic", as they're referred to in GitS, to be elected to a leadership position, your mission is accomplished.
[Answer]
I had a slightly different take I thought I'd throw into the pile.
# tl;dr:
The Machine will demonstrate superior decision making capabilities, and humanity will fall in line, single file.
## One person at a time:
The machine makes good decisions. They might not always be perfect, but the machine would be like a super-sentient Watson; Cross-check available data, rank possible action is order of most-to-least likely to produce desired outcome.
Initially people would ask it things like a joke to cleverbot "Hey [Multivac](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivac), how do I get my crush to like me back?". It would answer with something weird as shit: "Buy a pair of loafers, stand at the corner of 5th and Main, smile at your crush and make eye contact for 3 seconds. Post your results on spacebook, mytubes, and instasnap."
Using the massive database, Multivac can feasibly guess the emotional states and situational requirements required to answer most questions kinda-right. (You crush forgot to get his/her father a b-day present, and your thoughtful interception is the spark that carries you into matrimony.) All it needs to do is be right *some* of the time, and the true believers will convert the rest. Compared to religion, this machine will tap into that superstitious part of the brain too, while actually delivering visible results.
And when its wrong? Well obviously that person didn't follow the direction right. Look at the groupthink in AA or reddit - it's your fault when things go bad for you, not ours. People who don't get results **aren't following direction well enough**, and so they are *totally at fault*, not Multivac.
## Nation-states:
"How do I get elected Senator?", "How do we secure peace in Iraq?", "How do we solve world hunger?".. Larger and larger questions will be posed to this machine, it will become a larger and larger recipient of both data and GDP. The answers will be mostly common sense stuff, but now they will actually get acted upon, because the fear from receivers of its wisdom will drive the populace to **follow directions exactly**, and they won't really notice that they gave up their agency.
## Long-term:
At some point, either people will get disillusioned with the machine ("How do we fix local-valleys water shortage?" - "Genocide the [Canaanites](http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Dt20.16-18) upstream."), or we will become so intertwined with it that we won't be distinguishable from separate entities ([The Ultimate Upgrade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Cybermen)), and so either way it won't last forever. But this is a good start. One correct decision (guess) at a time...
] |
[Question]
[
Alfred is on trial. He stands accused of murdering Frank. He was caught red handed with a knife that tested positive for Frank's blood. He was also seen dumping Frank's body into the river by Bob, Frank's brother, and Mike, Alfred's best friend.
It seems like an open and shut case - except for one thing.
Alfred lives in a world of MAGIC.
Alfred's lawyer tells him to play the 'Illusion Defense'.
The Illusion Defense plays thus - since Illusion Magic is rare but possible, any event can be called into question.
Alfred claims that when he picked up the knife, in his eyes he saw a bottle of water. He also claims Bob and/or Mike were tricked by an illusion as well, and that Frank's body could be anywhere by now. This is complicated by the fact Police Teams haven't found the body yet.
Assuming 1) In this world you are innocent until proven guilty and 2) that CCTV doesn't exist or can just as easily be tricked by illusion magic, how does the legal system protect against 'The Illusion Defense', or how does this Magic World determine the truth in criminal cases?
**Edit - Regarding Magic**
In this world Magic is used primarily amongst the Military and Elites. Basic fireball-esk magic is common enough, to the point where entire military divisions consist of entirely magic users. Less than 1 in 100,000 would ever manifest anything significant on the level of Illusions.
Elites also have access to magic artifacts which can focus an individuals Will and produce various effects. At lower levels it merely improves an individual's health. At higher levels, an individual can fly, lift buildings or in some cases conjure illusions.
There is of course also the omnipresent specter of Forbidden Magic which is where the greatest use of Illusion is likely to be. In short, the most common use of Illusion Magic will be by those committing or trying to cover committed crimes. The rest of the time there isn't really a need for it outside of stage productions.
[Answer]
*"… how does this Magic World determine the truth in criminal cases?"*
A forensic wizard casts a lie detection spell on Alfred. In normal circumstances Alfred could exercise his legal right to refuse to testify under the influence of magic, but obviously if he's using the Illusion Defence he must waive this right.
Alternatively the forensic wizard could perform an object-reading spell on the knife.
Naturally, the courtroom and police headquarters are well warded against crooked magic users attempting to pervert the course of justice.
[Answer]
[The Order of The Stick](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0363.html) touched on this briefly in the opposite sense, that "Detect Truth" can be just as faked as any illusion. So the court can't just "Detect Truth" on our Alfred who is using the illusion defense - because it can be just another illusion. Instead, the witnesses, blood type, and evidence were considered to be more accurate than anything else. I really appreciated this model - as it is, *traditional* magical court systems (See edit below) seem to rely more on tests than anything else. (She floats, she's a witch!, etc...).
**Edit** - For example, the court used by [Azure City](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0267.html) relies solely on a being of pure Law and Good to administer justice - such a system isn't much of a trial. The [Bloodstone system](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0734.html) in the comic is corrupt and just sends everyone to a prison. Both of these examples make fun of purely lawful good or lawful evil systems, while the Cliffport system makes the most sense.
The best method seems to be to put the testing laboratory and the courthouse in [anti-magic zones](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0768.html). While eye-witnesses will tell what they witnessed (as an illusion or not), and a liar will keep on lying, the anti-magic zone will keep evidence as, well - evidence, and not an illusion, and the trial proceeds as normal.
In regard to disproof of an illusion defense, the prosecution should begin with motive and means (who could cast an illusion, wants to frame Alfred and wants Frank dead?) and proceed from there, same as in a case of "I was framed!". It just turns out that, well, illusions make it really easy to be framed, so you've got easier means, but nothing else.
[Answer]
**It heavily depends on how magic works in your world,** in particular:
1. If magic is very rare, then this kind of defence wouldn't much better than a line of defence in our world amounting to "everybody hallucinated". If magic isn't that rare this line will be taken more seriously, but also...
2. ...if magic is a common thing then forensic science/magic would probably evolve in trying to gather proofs of type, intensity, forms etc. of a particular magic involved. If a court is supposed to maintain today's level, there necessarily will be forensic magic experts trying to gather evidence which might or might not support the described line of defence. If there will be sufficient evidence in support or even if a magic expertise will claim consistency of Alfred's description with how such magic is known to work, Alfred might have reasonable chances to defend himself against the charges.
[Answer]
It would be interesting to know if magic use leaves any residue. Stuff like runes, sigils, wards, fairy dust, whatever.
Things that could be found by investigators.
Alternately, like in our world, the police could look for other suspects while still holding Alfred.
Who else has a motive for killing Frank? If Alfred wasn't down by the river dumping the body, then where was he? Where is the body? A good investigator is going to look at all the possibilities, and if the body isn't in the river, then maybe they can look for it elsewhere.
The killer could have actually dumped the body in the river, and used illusions to make himself look like Alfred. And Frank might not have an alibi. But forensics would still be really useful even in a magic world.
[Answer]
Let's break it down. First, we have to assume that, aside from magic, this world is primarily the same as our current world. And thus, the laws of physics and so forth still apply. Second, let's apply the Occam's Razor here and go with the idea that the simplest of explanations is usually the correct one. Based on those two premises, let's proceed.
Here's what we know. Frank is dead and Alfred was seen with a weapon matching Frank's blood and was also seen dumping a body into the river by multiple witnesses.
Alfred's defense was: It wasn't me, someone placed an illusion there and made it look like it was me.
If I was the prosecutor I would test the following:
* Alfred's alibi for the time of the murder and for the time of the body being dumped.
* Any residue from ANY type of spell cast at either the crime scene, upon Frank's body, upon Alfred and upon the suspected murder weapon. I'm assuming spells would leave a finger print and, as such, would be subject to forensic analysis like any other evidence at the crime scene.
* Fingerprints on the murder weapon. (We already know it tested positive for Frank's blood).
* Analysis of Frank's body to ensure the murder weapon was, in fact, the knife or something very similar to it.
* Check to see if there were any defensive wounds on Alfred and/or if Frank has DNA evidence of Alfred under his nails or in his teeth.
* Alfred's shoe size and shoe type and then check the soil in and around where the body was dumped. My guess is that illusions would either not leave a shoe print, or the print they left would be that of the real person dumping the body. If that doesn't work for your world, then change this as necessary.
* Check Alfred's house to see if there were any shoes or boots with mud on them and / or with blood from Frank.
* You specifically said there were no CCTV's, but - since this is a world of magic - does this mean that there is no equivalent to a recording spell? Or maybe Clairvoyance that works in the recent past? Let's see, I think it's called Psychometry.
* If there's illusion magic, then I'm willing to bet there's some sort of equivalent to a Truth spell. As another guy said above, if Alfred is claiming magic was involved in his case, he needs magic to help prove his innocence. And while Alfred's Fifth amendment also applies to 'Magic without Consent,' his not allowing a Truth spell to be cast on him would weigh heavily with most juries against him. (Although, Alfred's lawyer could potentially use an expert witness to claim that Truth spells are not absolutely reliable, and thus not in his client's best interests.)
While most of this is circumstantial evidence; a lot of it would be clear cut towards Alfred's innocence or extremely difficult to explain away. ***"And why, exactly, did this illusionary copy of you have your exact boot size and style while carrying Frank's body? In fact, the exact same size and style of boots found downstairs in your basement... covered with mud?"***
Sure - this kid of evidence is not exactly the same as having murder weapon with prints. But it's very hard to explain away by anyone - even with something like the illusion defense. In fact, the illusion defense makes it even more difficult because the premise there is someone else carried the body and dumped it and they just looked like you.
Just some thoughts. I hope these help.
[Answer]
The first strategy would be likely the same also applied in the real world for things you can't directly verify: Question the suspect in order to find contradictions in his story. The human brain has only so much capacity (well, let's assume there's no magic spell to circumvent that — otherwise, the police/judges are certainly using it themselves so they can detect much more subtle contradictions which non-enhanced human minds would overlook) and thus there's a good chance that if you only ask enough, there will be some contradiction in the story.
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Magic is a threat to any current legal system. The reasoning regarding these legal systems assume things like, say, the word of experts (experienced / proficient professionals who act as the voice on matter for the judges). Magical procedures should be accepted since otherwise they could *taint* the entire process leading to an evidence dismissal as being a *fruit of poisonous tree* (think the hard it is to make a court accept DNA proofs and hidden recording proofs).
For stuff like a murder, you need more than just an illusions test (the defendant claims to been under an illusion and picks a knife which he never used). You must check:
1. Was the user under the effects of *Imperio*? (This was a claimed defense in Harry Potter's canon). If the suspected does not remember anything, consider also he being under effects of *obliviate*.
2. Was the matter/space correspondence altered so that the suspected *actually* grabbed a water bottle, and one split-second later he was found with a knife in his hand?
3. Was he posessed by a summoned spirit? Either by him or someone else.
And questions like that. For that to work, experts should develop *metamagic* skills (spells that may affect or guess stuff about other spells, in the same way that meta.SE sites discuss about the corresponding SE site; your magic world should support some stuff like this in order to have at least a draft of a legal system). And then we fall into a *Petitio Principii*: Does *metamagic* affect itself? Is there a last-word metamagic spell which could unveil the truth about the execution of a metamagic spell (or regular spell) and not be countered/altered anyhow?
Magic is the ability to change the reality somehow. Even if you limit your magic to just violate thermodynamics, it's enough to develop science breaking laws of space and time (e.g. teleport) and would screw your proof system. Even with metamagic, you find yourself in a world where everyone is potentially self-sufficient in power (or at least those who can handle the power).
Think about bitcoins. They are a coin generated by the network itself, with a kind of algorithm (programming could be seen as magic if some laws are respected) belonging to a scheme called *[Byzantine Fault Tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_fault_tolerance)*. The same would occur to the magic: the most people uses metamagic to freeze or *recover* the actually occurred facts (at least 51% of magical skills in the whole world), the most accurate will be the rules. Bitcoin nodes/servers are the wizards here, which process the transactions and maintain the encrypted wallets.
But being that a judge should correlate evidences -by logical reasoning- with facts by stating time, space, and matter being inmutable... What's the relevance of a trial as we state now when those three aspects of reality itself can be mangled? E.g. how would you implement a magic-aware legal system in a country with conflicts like Venezuela? (currently 66%+ people opposes the government and the overall system).
Summary: If the legal system -our current, Roman-based, legal systems- is flawed as it is now many times, and if an evidence corruption can flaw an entire case... How would this system be relevant/accurate when the reality itself is/was/will be mangled? Usually facts... happened. How would you trust any legal system if you can even make (with a combination of magic and our current science status) facts *unhappen*? There would be no fixed reality to judge.
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Previous answers deal with how to use the legal system to pierce the illusion or use forensics to prove it. This is how to cope with undetectable illusions without truth magic.
If there is no way to prove that illusions were not used and no truth magic there is still an alternative, a total ban. Society could make it very illegal to use or know illusion magic with high penalties. With a good deal of effort its use could be rendered very rare and thus in most every case the illusion defense could be reliably discounted.
The same also applies to mind control magic
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One could also think of this as in terms of an insanity plea. It is not an exact science but if you can convince the jury enough, you can get off the hook.
Also adding jury to the courtroom scene might add more dynamic possibilities to your story.
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Even in our justice system, "innocent until proven guilty" is usually interpreted as "proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt". If you would require a court of law to prove the guilt of the defendant beyond *any conceivable* doubt, you would never convict an innocent person... because you would never convict anyone. So a court does not need to be 100.00% sure that the defendant committed a crime. They just need to be *almost* 100% sure.
If a defendant uses the illusion defense, the court would have to estimate how plausible this seems in this situation. Did the defendant have a motive to commit the crime? Does anyone capable of illusion magic has a motive to frame the defendant? Is it plausible that *everyone* involved was affected by illusion magic? Can really *all* the evidence be explained with the illusion theory alone? Or is there maybe some evidence which is actually explained *better* by the illusion theory? The court would take all of that into account and then make their judgment. [*In dubio pro reo*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_dubio_pro_reo), but only when there actually is some doubt.
A witness testimony is not 100% reliable even in our mundane world. People tend to misremember things or even intentionally lie in court. It happens more often than you would think that [people convince themselves of seeing something which never happened](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory). But still, people get convicted based on witness testimony alone. In your world, there is yet another factor which makes witness testimony less reliable. But that won't stop the justice system much from convicting people.
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Assuming CCTV is influenced by the illusion, we can assume that it would have seen the water bottle as well, instead of the knife. Alternatively, it could have seen the knife and the murder instead of the water bottle that had really been there.
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[Question]
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[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EsDMN.jpg)
>
> **Antenna farm as seen on the USS Sulaco from *Aliens (1986)***
>
>
>
We often see menacing sharp communication spikes and clusters on spacecraft in movies, shows, games, and etc. It makes the ship look more utilitarian and imposing. Since I'm a big fan of accurately represented hard science fiction designs, I've always asked myself: *why does it need so many antennas?* Does it make sense logically and realistically to have giant antenna farms attached to spacecraft? Or is this just aesthetic? *(including military, non-military, and station designs.)*
**EDIT** *From comments*
*'Currently designing a Trans-Lunar cargo ship which ships glass manufactured on the Moon to Mars (maybe Callisto). I was thinking it would be automated with the front portion occupied with the main control module were I think putting a small antenna farm would be suitable (would make it look a bit nicer too). The radiators need to be probably hidden within the shadow shield so they don't radiate the neutrons back onto the spacecraft.'* (edit requested by [Elmy](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/53228/elmy))
[Answer]
Have you ever looked at a Navy ship? There are a *ton* of different antennas, each designed to serve a slightly different purpose. Multiple systems usually aren't designed together to work with the same antenna, so you will need a different one for every communication system you have. This image labels the radars specifically, but you will also have satellite uplink, GPS, traffic control, DirectTV, and so many more.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z2h1s.jpg)
Your space ship will definitely require a number of different antennas as it will have a number of complex communication systems. Do they all have to be in the same place for a farm? Not necessarily, and especially in space, you may want some directional diversity. But unless you have a nice radome to cover everything and make it look pretty, you will definitely want a couple areas to place a bunch of antennas together.
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We have real-life examples of jumbled antennas: [antennas designed by Evolutionary Algorithms.](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/exploringtheuniverse/borg.html)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZYvhA.jpg)
A whole ship antenna array would have a design that does not conform to any aesthetic considerations being literally function over form.
They would be complex to compensate for metal in the structure of the craft, adjust the internal phasing, having redundancy against some parts getting damaged, etc.
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You might get some inspiration from real-world spacecraft, like the [Ulysses](https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/ulysses/spacecraft/index.html) and [Gravity Probe B](https://einstein.stanford.edu/highlights/sb5-033106-SV-gps-antennas.jpg).
You'll notice that:
* They have multiple antennas.
* The antennas are arranged *orthogonally* -- pointing off in different directions.
Having a whole lot of antennas all pointed in the same direction might be a good idea if there's a need for lots of redundancy, although I can't think of any such reason off the top of my head.
Alternatively, it might make sense to arrange a set of *radiators* like this -- thermal or otherwise. But that might be outside the scope of your question.
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While they probably wouldn't look like menacing jumbles as in your example pic, antenna arrays definitely can have a functional purposes. Phased array antennas are used in many modern systems; check out the Aegis Combat System for a particularly sophisticated example.
Of course sci-fi spacecraft can have their own in-universe reasons (hyperspace communications needs weird looking arrays, etc.)
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**It not only makes sense, but there should likely be more antennas** (although they may not be visible)
Let's take a quick look at what an antenna is. It serves one primary function: To best balance the impedance (think resistance if you're not an engineer) between the circuit producing/receiving the signal energy and free space.
(overly) Simplified explanation: If you are a photon of RF energy (yes, they are photons... and waves...) and are cruising around on a nice circuit board, zipping around at say 70% of the speed of light following nice gold or copper pathways, you're happy. There isn't much resistance. But suddenly someone gives you an energy drink x10000 (power amplifier) and throws you out in space at exactly the speed of light. You're going to hit lots of shock during this transition. The antenna is kind of like a smooth transition process for you so that you can acclimate to the change.
But back to the matter at hand, why would a space ship need so many?
The answer is quite simple. *The ship needs to communicate*. And being in space, there is *no single direction relative to the body of the ship which it needs to communicate with*. It is quite likely that the ship will need to communicate in many different directions at the same time, using different frequencies.
What this means is that any antenna built on a space ship will likely be used as part of an antenna array. Using fancy digital processing, the antenna 'beam' can be steered electrically while the antennas remain in fix orientation. While an overly-broad statement, the more antennas you have pointing in different directions, the more directions you can focus the RF energy towards without having to rotate an antenna. Also, the more antennas you have, the larger your overall gain is, which in distances of even light-minutes, could very well be important in space.
Also, some of the antennas could be used for directed energy weapons, which it stands to reason may require a massive increase in size due to the power densities involved. And ships need radars and other sensors, either passive or active, which will be looking in all directions around the ship, yet another reason to have more antennas.
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Most of those aren't actually powered antenna - they are unpowered reflectors and parasitic elements to control the radiation pattern, and focus the transmission (like a [Yagi-Uda antenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagi%E2%80%93Uda_antenna) commonly used for receiving TV signals)
While there *are* multiple antenna in the "farm", they are either set up for different radiation patterns, or to send/receive efficiently on different frequencies, since [fundamental resonance of a thin linear conductor occurs at a frequency whose free-space wavelength is twice the wire's length](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipole_antenna#Dipole_antennas_of_various_lengths)
Also - only some of them are for communications. Others are for various forms of scanning equipment, such as [Radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar)
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I appreciate that they are antenaes for something or lots of somethings, however as this is pure SciFi its not actually known what each one does, its just usually explained as the antenae array...
**Possible explanation**
I'm going to make some handwavium up to explain this which would accommodate for this sort of design. i'm not suggesting the below is the actual design of the
Sulaco!
Perhaps the larger spike at the bottom is actually the barrel of a massive anti ship cannon or rail gun, the spikes surrounding it are massive radiators which also protected the gun barrel from being hit as easily.
Above that are some form of transmitter receiver with a few redundancies.
At the very edges could be spikes that actually house point defense systems and countermeasures but the size of the ship means we can't see the detail to explain this.
And then the furthest forward sections are detection systems for maneuvers. you'd want to be able to gauge exactly how far away the barrel of the big gun is away from debris.
I admit this is definitely just adding spiky bits to make it look cool and then adding in some fairly generic reasons for those spikes being there, but its a possible reasoning
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It might be because the ships are upgraded in a progressive process rather than built in one piece.
The reason they are all aimed in one direction is because they are supposed to face backwards, otherwise they will be damaged by interstellar dust.
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[Question]
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So I want my rabbits to have lightning swords. Well it's not literally a blade of plasma but just a metal sword that has a current flowing through it.
What kind of advantages would the weapon bring about in melee fights like duels and group fights?
I would imagine that it would be shocking (pun intended) and would have the capability to paralyze or kill outright since 1 mA is enough to kill humans.
Also I was wondering if there was a way to shoot lightning out from the sword itself and potentially cause arc flashes? It's fine if the sword melts.
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The first day your hero rabbits score some terrific wins against their shocked enemy.
The next day your rabbits notice a peculiar wire running from the each sword blade of their opponents... running down to a spur on their feet that stab into the ground with every step they take.
Your hero rabbits then quickly learn a few new concepts.... such as "grounding", "short-circuit", and "over-heated batteries".
Measures, countermeasures, counter-countermeasures... and so technology marches on.
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Normally, swords (I'm assuming including your rabbits' own) are insulated at the grip, so just clashing blades shouldn't harm the other guy. Hacking into flesh is going to be generally pretty devastating, but I guess your Stun Sword 9000 will go ahead and ensure that one flesh blow takes out the opponent. Plus, striking chainmail might be effective since, while chainmail was typically worn on top of gambesons, I imagine you'd find at least a bit of skin that connected.
As far as arcing, I don't think your power (implied, if not stated) is even close to enough to do anything worthy of note. A quick Google shows arc welders at about 200+ amps, and while I'm not overly familiar with the tools, from what [Youtube shows us](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i97fCSKMtmA) they don't seem particularly impressive as far as being weapons.
Of course you didn't tag this question science-based, so if you're willing to handwave hard science, arcing across and melting metals with a lower melting point, maybe fusing together chainmail links, or even creating gastly burns on victims are all interesting concepts you could consider.
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**Dual Wielding Swords Connected via insulated wire**
**Weapon Voltage (~2000 V AC RMS?)**
The numbers for the resistance of a human body vary a lot, but it seems that with proper contact (such as being stabbed) resistance of a human (between two far points of a body) is between 1k and 100k ohms.
According to this site (which must be legit since it's http:), the amount of current to kill someone is ~0.2 A. <http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/JackHsu.shtml>
If you go with the lower resistance of a human, it would take a voltage difference of just 200 V to kill someone.
This site about the electric chair says that 2000 V (and 15 seconds) were used to electrify people. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/20/the_odd_body_electrocution/>. Unless these rabbits have power electronics, their swords would probably be DC, which decreases weapon effectiveness.
**Advantages**
Making contact with the 2 sides of the opponents armor would make their armor heat up rapidly. The place where the sword makes contact would be spark points, and extremely hot if the rabbit heros have high voltage DC swords. Furthermore, the actual power supplied to the swords can be on a back pack, so the swords can be very light; the main damage being caused by the electricity.
**Means**
Series connections:
All it takes is having enough batteries / capacitors in series to get a large DC voltage. As the power needed isn't actually much (just ~40 W on the 1k 0.2 A model), this is well within reason. A simple mechanical switch that oscillates back and forth would generate an AC square waveform, which could disrupt heart and brain signals. Enimies would learn to fear the clicking sound of death caused by the switches!
**Lightning**
There could be something simmilar to a taser. I cannot comment on corona discharge. Air is essentially non conductive at ~10^(-14) S/m:
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2007JD009716/full>
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But what if the electricity isn't from a couple copper tops? Since we're drifting further into the fiction and further from the science, maybe the rabbits found some plasma crystals and they don't fully understand them either. They just know that if the crystals are secured into a concave cavity in the pommel, and are pricked with a sharp button, the blade is quickly covered in a blue substance and energizes.
Maybe these crystal produce enough energy that when pointed at a large metalic objects, arcing is very possible as the energy at the tip is more focused than around the rest of the blade. The button on the hilt has a detent and can be disengaged at any point, but especially when sheathing.
The crystals will last for years, but weaken over time. The crystals are also not just used in battle but are at the heart of the rabbit's technology.
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Please tell me you're going to include a reference to the Energizer Bunny...
Anyhow, from a fighting situation, I can't imagine there would be too much of an advantage to these swords with real life nature/physics.
If you go from a more science fiction standpoint you could always add in some facet which would have one enemy getting hit and causing a chain reaction to his companions near him. Maybe they could throw the sword like a spear and have it result in a taser-style effect?
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One approach that wasn't mentioned is piezoelectricity.
Wield your blade with piezocrystals and everytime you block attack or your attack is being blocked the crystals get charged and you can discharge.
But your sword must be insulated from you and your opponent must be part of the circuit, otherwise you will get stunned or nothing will happen.
If your sword is harder than your opponents and ha higher melting/boiling/burning point you will:
* stun your opponent,
* damage opponents blade/armor, locally you will melt/burn small ammount of it,
* cause more damage with stronger impacts.
I would also imbue arrows with piezocrystals and dedicated point design.
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Current always flows in a loop. You can't just have electricity flowing into the sword unless electricity is also flowing out of the sword.
You could have it arc/shoot lightning, in which case the return path is the ground. However, you need quite substantial voltages to do this, and there would be lots of opportunities for it to go wrong (lower your sword, and have it suddenly arc to the ground).
An interesting twist would be to give the rabbits 2 swords. Now you could apply a voltage differential between them. No current would flow until they get close enough to arc, and then lots of current could flow. If they block with one sword, the opponent would have a hard time blocking the other sword. If they make contact, they run the risk of creating a short enough path (through them) to close the circuit! And also, it would be terrifying watching these rabbits taunt the enemy by clashing their swords against themselves and watching the sparks fly!
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## Are electric swords realistic?
Well that wasn't the question, but the most upvoted answers claims that they are not. Not sure if current flowing through a metal blade is feasible, but they actually could use a sword-like long shockers for dealing non-lethal damage:
![1]](https://i.stack.imgur.com/443eB.jpg)
[Police Electric Baton](http://www.allproducts.com/sup006/happyhorn/hc810_print.html)
![3]](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zO5zL.jpg)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroshock_weapon>
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In addition to prior suggestions, effects could include:
* Melting or welding opponents armor (if current is sufficiently powerful).
* Opponents parrying with uninsulated weapons or shields could be shocked, in some cases causing them to drop the parrying weapon.
* The blades could have user-triggered magnetic properties possibly allowing the wielder to bind an opponents blade, if it is composed of ferrous materials.
* Jump-starting cars with dead batteries
* Emergency defibrillation
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While an electrical attack could in fact be doable, you shouldn't forget about the practical considerations. Once you have a working system, the primary concern would be weight. A modern lithium-ion or lithium-polymer battery is quite light, and has a high energy density. However, they are surprisingly high-tech devices; without complicated chemistry, precise automated manufacturing, superb quality control, and a dose of computer tech for the protection circuitry they're actually impossibly unstable.
They can catch on fire when they short-circuit, when you discharge them quickly, when you charge them quickly, when you discharge them too much, when you charge them too much, when they get hot, when they get compressed, etc.
That leaves you with much simpler lead-acid batteries, or silver oxide, or some other low-tech process. These are stable and safe, but very heavy. You can fight in full plate mail because the weight is distributed over your body. Strap a car battery to your back and you'll be a very poor fighter.
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[Question]
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If you were on a raft in say, an ocean of blood, and it was very still, would you be able to see the stars of the night sky reflected in it? Would you be able to see your own reflection? How far down would you be able to see? Far enough to see things moving below the surface? Big things? Big carnivorous things?
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Consider two substances with refractive indices $n\_1$ and $n\_2$. The [reflectivity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index#Reflectivity) can be calculated as
$$R=\left|\frac{n\_1-n\_2}{n\_1+n\_2}\right|^2$$
For air, $n\approx1$, and for water, $n\approx1.33$. Therefore, for a ray of light reflecting off of water, we have a reflectivity of
$$R=\left|\frac{1-1.33}{1+1.33}\right|^2=0.02$$
The refractive index is often wavelength-dependent; for blood, [it changes quite a lot over various wavelengths](http://www.npsg.uwaterloo.ca/data/blood.php). If we consider the visible spectrum - about 400 nm to 700 nm - we see coefficients ranging from 1.44 to 1.40. This yields $R$ ranging from $0.028$ to $0.033$.
Either way, we find that blood is more reflective than water.
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I spent some time considering how you might even start forming an ocean of blood.
Mammal blood is out of question because it would coagulate. It would probably end up with rocks made of blood crust separating from watery plasma and pus. If you were sailing on an ocean of pus, any stars you'd see on the surface of the ocean would be the result of intoxication.
In the case of non mammalian blood you would have no coagula, so it may take a while longer for pus to happen. But even then it would require all the blood to just materialize out of thin air below your boat.
The problem with blood is that it is plasma filled with living cells. If you just let blood pour into a container and wait for a few days the cells will die and rot. **Do not try this at home**. The whole thing smells pungently of feces after some time.
I have personally felt it when I had a freezer full of chicken failing due to a circuit breaker being open, then leaking blood throughout a whole weekend because there was a hole in it. The Monday after that weekend was one of the worst days of my life. That blood filled a large puddle for a couple days. Now imagine how long it would take to form a sea.
You may as well be describing hell in a way that not even Dante Alighieri would imagine.
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Fresh blood is reflective but dark and fairly opaque, in daylight you should be able to see your reflection but you won't see anything swimming beneath you. The viscosity of blood means the surface of a fresh blood ocean would be quite flat (all the better to see yourself in) and the increased drag on anything moving through the blood will create a more noticeable wave than it would in water.
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# Thoughts On Shiny Blood
## from a writer
I think what people are missing here -apart from *sarcasm*, obviously- is a bit more of the old imagination, separate from the confines of the strict rules and regulations of Reality.
Thus, as a writer, I would say the following:
Blood is **VERY** reflective, while it is wet. It can also be *quite* reflective while *congealing*, AND in some rare instances on certain surfaces it can dry shiny. Though -more often than not it just turns a dark maroon color, looking nearly black in some lighting, rots, and gets hard and crusty.
If we were to place ourselves in a *fantasy* or *horror* setting - in a world *outside* of the *normal* living world - a world of death, we'll say, where the physics of our known reality need not apply and the life blood of humanity flowed as oceans and rivers with souls swimming here and there, --infested with demons and angels vying for control of them, navigable by sea-faring vessels-- I'd dare say one could look over the edge of such a vessel and see one's reflection quite clearly. If there were enough light. Most certainly the light of stars and planets or whatever made up your sky, be it hellish fire, screaming, tormented, lost souls, -cast out of the lake of life blood- (or great distant holes in a far-off cavern roof in the underworld which mimic stars, each showing the light of different realities)... ((Or maybe all of the above in different zones, levels or depths or this world, each with its own associated dangers)) So many choices, and life is so short.
However, blood is thick. Would you be able to see *through* it and see creatures *beneath* it? Would you see the demons and angels, and creatures making up the hopes and dreams and fears and greed and hate and love of humanity- if that was what you chose to put there?
If you wanted to realistically describe such a thing, no matter what YOU wished to have beneath these blood waters in your dream or nightmare or fantasy realm of hell or death or what have you, I'd make it so that the things moving beneath that crimson surface emitted a radiant luminescence of their own. The souls themselves, made of bright living energy. Maybe the monsters born of human minds, or the demons or both were a danger to those traveling on these seas or rivers or lakes or streams. Those could be dark and harder to make out in the depths below. One would have to remain ever-vigilant, *on-the-lookout* for incoming dangers. Shadows coalescing in the murky depths could be harmlessly passing or moving in for the attack.
I am drawing a great deal of this from a book of mine and I didn't come here to advertise it so I won't mention the title. But these things I've said could perhaps serve to inspire. At least I *hope* to have given a unique & useful answer. I didn't read **all** of the ones given.
Feel free to use any or all of what I've typed as inspiration. *(except for copy and pasting the entire thing or most of it as your own post or article somewhere and claiming you wrote it, because that's just lame.)* Even the parts that directly reflect bits from my book won't really matter in the long run, even if directly copied from here.
you ***could*** give me credit, though, if you *wanted*. As well as the poser of this question for having inspired you, but no one is twisting your arm. **:)**
This post was edited so that purposely incorrect usage of formatting does not offend those who are bothered by such things... *rolls eyes*
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You wouldnt be able to see through it, if you want ominous predators to be sighted circling the blood-raft you need them to break the surface. Blood is fairly reflective until it starts coagulating.
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[Question]
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TLDR: Portals to other places; wizards use them to make nukes-as-fireballs/anti-personal level attacks, how do they survive?
**In a system of magic that functions around opening portals, what considerations do these portals need in order to be “safe” when a wizard casts something like a "fireball"?**
The natives have portal magic. They don’t *know* the magic is based on portals. To them, it looks like a wizard chants a spell and a fireball flies out to smite something. Or they wave their hands and gravity is pulling them a different direction, or some other wizardly spell. Mostly they leave the old guys with the robes and staffs alone because no one wants to be turned into a pile of goop.
The mechanics of the magic system: Some people are psychokinetic in a manner. They can open portals with their brains. Not particularly large portals, and not ones that generally go anywhere useful for travel. These portals are controllable but only the most powerful can make the portal loop back to somewhere useful to go to physically and big enough to pass through. Most of the rest of the ‘spells’ lead to other places that are hostile to 3.5d life, possibly higher or lower dimensions or higher or lower energy state places.
This ability manifests itself in the first person as a talent for thinking in a certain way with a certain pattern, flexing the right ‘mental muscles’ to rip the fabric of space-time apart. Often mnemonic chants and hand gestures are found to help with this when trying to achieve a specific effect. It all ‘looks’ very traditional.
However, when ‘casting fireball’, you create the fireball by ripping two very small holes in a very small space in the fabric of space-time, and colliding different things through them. Your fireball is really a continuous nuclear explosion! This is considered an advanced spell because the portals must intersect in such a way that, when matter exits them both, it intersects and reacts. (The “ball of fire” is thrown by tossing the portal pair at whatever after the reaction is started and sustaining.)
The issue; **Our wizard is holding an actively nuking nuke between their hands. How does our wizard survive?** Can a small nuclear reaction be small enough to produce the effect of a beach-ball-sized fireball? Is the radiation this throws off survivable? Can it be made survivable with different reactive components?
Edit 1: What is meant by ‘nuclear reaction’? Traditionally, to my understanding, nuclear reactions energetic enough to ignite the air around them are generally achieved by smashing some neutrons into something like plutonium. I know other materials can be used, and some may produce less harmful radiation? The “fireball” part of any spell is literally just a fireball. Atmosphere burning because of the “hot thing” in the middle, in this case a small nuclear reaction. The reaction is continuous because it's being constantly fed new material, but small because its reaction surface is “small.” This might become an issue for the “plane of plutonium” if the explosion propagates through the portal to the rest of the plutonium, but we don’t really care about other dimensions when there are orcs to set on fire.
The basis of the question revolves around the idea that you can react just about anything that WILL react when you mash them together on an atomic level. You don’t have to put the energy into making the basic materials because you're bringing them from somewhere else at a low cost. So technically I suppose, you can “loose” energy as long as the observable effect is a burning ball of don’t-touch-it.
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**Smite from above.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yem6B.jpg)
[source](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/795448352903875583/?lp=true)
Having a fireball on your lap is hazardous, as is pointed out. Your wizards avoid this. Those who can make fireballs can open portals at some distance. They open them above (or sometimes right below) the target. Some wizards can set it up so the fire comes down unidirectionally, apparently from the sky. It is considered elegant to have the point of origin high enough up that it is not seen by persons on the ground; aiming becomes problematic but therein lies the elegance. A little less art has the fire going up and down equally, looking more of a column of fire than a ball. Those portals can be opened directly above the target.
Wizards who remember certain useful planes with charge difference can open a portal through which electrical charges can equilibrate - a bolt of lightning. Other things can equilibrate through such portals as well; thus the "pillar of salt" technique (the target is actually smashed flat beneath the pillar which emerges from the portal). Some planes contain things more sentient than salt or electrical charge; if you pull something like that into your vicinity (or it comes through) be ready to send it back, or at least somewhere else.
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**Why it can't work with nuclear reactions:**
* Heat ([even when 17 meters from the reaction the temperature is 300 000K](https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/SimonFung.shtml))
* Brightness [(you can be blinded when within 13 miles (20.92 km))](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/305spj/why_do_they_say_to_not_look_directly_at_a_nuclear/)
* Loudness ([It's so loud you'll die](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/65o0gi/how_loud_is_a_nuclear_explosion_all_noise_is/))
**What to do instead:**
Open a portal to the sun and fling a bit of the material at your enemies preferably from the surface though otherwise it will be too hot for your magician to survive. Also if you take from the core or somewhere near to it you would have the same problems as with nuclear reactions.
**Why?**
* It doesn't burn the magician when exposed for a short time
* Its sound is survivable
* The only radiation occurring is heat radiation
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"Our wizard holding an actively nuking nuke between their hands. **How does our wizard survive?"**
He doesn't. Not as described. Nuclear is a rather slow way to die in most circumstances. If you have enough radiation to create a fireball, even a small one, everyone in line of sight is going to die of radiation poisoning within a few days.
Lead bunkers will help some, directional casting will help some. But thats 1) not going to look like Gandalf 2) only going to let you cast 1 maybe 2 high gamma spells in your entire lifetime.
Your far better off opening a micro portal to the elemental plane of pure oxygen. At several hundred PSI and similar temperature, you will end up with a nice fireball that will burn just about anything and no radiation side effects. @boomchuck 's water and an alkali metal would also give you a nice portal based fireball.
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Low-tech portal wizards would have only one tool capable of containing and directing that much energy: **more portals**. Either the wizard erects a portal wall to shield themselves and absorb the energy, or perhaps a portal with a spherical surface that surrounds the reaction. In order to see some fiery-ness, that portal would need to be semi-permeable.
**Other Notes:**
Apart from a spherical enclosure, I don't think a nuclear reaction would produce a ball of fire with a definite shape; it would be more like a point of light, varying in brightness from a dull glowing spot (causes a mild sunburn followed by agonizing radiation poisoning) to a brilliant point of light (face-melting destruction that turns everything in line-of-sight to ash and cinders). If the nuclear reaction is actually occurring across your entire beachball-sized area, everything is vaporized and the earth turns to exploding lava.
I agree with the other answers that a collimated beam would be safest, though the danger would still be incredible.
If your wizards will use this regularly and they don't want to cause cataclysmic destruction, a chemical reaction is probably more suited. They could use portals blasting water and an alkali metal (e.g. lithium, potassium), hydrogen and oxygen, etc.
I'd say, save the nukerball spell for the one-time ultimate climax showdown.
P.S. But for the enterprising wizard who *really* needs to get things done, a **matter-antimatter reaction** is the way to go. You get >100 times the bang for your mass transfer buck, and antimatter universes are probably easier to find than Plutonium Playland. That wizard might want to seek shelter in another dimension, though.
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This question seems to be stemming from the notion that the ideal way to create a "fireball" is through a semi-controlled nuclear explosion. For reasons given by other answers, though, this path is full of concerns and dangers that would leave the caster just as crispy as the target, or at least doomed to die a few days later. However, given the way you have established magic to work by way of portals, there are likely plenty of other ways to create a fireball-like effect using much more mundane means.
*(A lot of stuff in this list would require precautionary measures in their own right, but they wouldn't be nearly as dangerous a threat as what a nuclear explosion would pose.)*
# Any Liquid/Gas Hydrocarbon Fuel
There are an incredible number of -anes and -anols that are splendidly flammable. Use a liquid form if you want the flame to spread and linger or a gas form if you want the flame to be explosive and dramatic.
# Magnesium
While not overly destructive on its own, burning magnesium can result in extremely high localized temperatures and also has the effect of burning so brightly that it can result in blindness.
# Thermite
On a similar thread as Magnesium, thermite burns so hot that it can easily melt through most modern substances and just about any primitive ones. It also has the benefit of being unable to be extinguished by water.
# Napalm
Simply the mixture of a gelling agent and a flammable liquid (like gasoline/petrol), this stuff will burn hot and long while also being rather sticky. (This stuff actually is banned from use in warfare as part of the Geneva Convention - that's how effective it is.)
# Chlorine Trifluoride
No list of flammable things would be complete without good old ClF3. This stuff is so nasty that it doesn't even need an ignition source to spontaneously combust. It's a good thing that it's being summoned via portal - this stuff is so volatile, it has a decent chance of blowing up in your face even when it's being handled properly.
# Any of the above + Pure Oxygen
Nearly everything that burns has one thing in common - it requires oxygen to work. Hydrocarbons pull oxygen from the surrounding air, while thermite strips the oxygen from the iron oxide. Usually, however, the supply of oxygen is rather limited... and a good thing that is, too. In a pure oxygen atmosphere, things that were once simple chemical reactions swiftly turn into explosively active chain reactions (not unline what happens in nuclear reactors). Simply douse whatever method you choose in a pool of gaseous oxygen (or liquid oxygen if you're feeling particularly crazy) and what was once an appreciable fireball is now a violent and blinding explosion.
# Other Things
This is just a list that I came up with off the top of my head and is in no way exhaustive. I'm sure any number of chemists could jump in and add their own incendiary concoction to the list.
And hey, we're working with a portal that can bring things in from other dimensions entirely, so what's to say that in one of them there's a special element that burns at the temperature of the surface of the sun but holds its shape long enough to physically throw? Or perhaps you can source your fireball from a dimension that is nothing but super-heated plasma?
Maybe there's a dimension that has *sentient* fire, even... though I'm not sure I want to consider those implications.
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Perhaps the wizard can survive if the material coming out of the portal is moving at very high speed away from them. If it's at a sufficiently high fraction of the speed of light, any radiation coming back towards them will be Doppler shifted down to safety. Such material could be obtained from astronomical sources (maybe hot hydrogen gas orbiting near a black hole)?
I am reminded of [The Witling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witling), a novel that has a very similar magic system, in which people summon strong winds from the other side of the planet, where even the atmosphere is moving very fast relative to the wizard.
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# Two options that I can think of:
**Lead-lined robes** : Unpractical, probably too heavy and hot for comfort, but that should do it for some apprentice practicing in their master's lab. Don't forget to wear the fully protective lead-lined conic hat that comes with it.
**Cast unidirectionnaly before you** : One of the most basic way to prevent radiation to propagate in nuclear facilities is to have angled corridors. It goes in a straight line with a "U" shape in the middle, the center of the "U" being a BigFatBlockOfConcrete™. Radiation travel in a straight line. So as long as you create the opening in front of you, the radiations escaping from the portal goes straight in front of you too. (The resulting radioactivity in your environnment and of whatever comes out is still dangerous though.)
Remind your casters to gulp down their iodine solution every once in a while and to get as far away from magical battleground as they can once they're done.
Also, the Magical Workers Union is pushing for a maximum mSv annual threshold beyond which your ruler is forbidden to ask you to cast any more nuclear spell.
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**Warp space directly around the output portal so it all points at the target.** Radiation transiting the portal radiates in all directions, but as part of the localized severe distortion of the space continuum which the magic caused in order to create the portal, all directions in space around the portal actually temporarily lead in the direction of the target. This puts the magician "behind" all of the omnidirectional radiation.
Magicians may refer to this as "focusing" and the precision and shape of the "cone" of where the warped portal space points can vary depending on some factors.
Note there may be secondary emission issues which could still impact the caster. Hopefully these will be far smaller in magnitude and can be dealt with in more mundane ways.
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Simple! Just put a few extra portals around the rest of the explosion, leaving only one side open. All of the heat and light on **that side** will be fired like a cannon, while the other sides would be shielded. However, there'd better be a nice empty place for the explosion to go, or somewhere else will receive the full blast.
This might look more like a laser pulse than a fireball, but if all sides were surrounded and then one side of the portal were quickly removed and then replaced, a small burst of energy could act as a "fireball"
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**How about nuclear Fusion**? It's still a "nuclear reaction", but it avoids the messy consequences that plague the Fission reactions that most other answers seem to favor.
No radioactive waste of any serious consequence.
Definitely hot enough to qualify as "a burning ball of don’t-touch-it." (I love that description, by the way).
Assuming fine control of portal size, and assuming cooperation of the materials on the "other places that are hostile to 3.5d life" sides of the portals, it could be regulated down to single atom collisions at a time (might look something like glitter) up to giving birth to a full blown star (limit the effect as needed by placing a maximum size on the portal to those particular "hostile places", or limit by the lack-of-death wish of the portal creator)
As long as the caster is careful, heat is the only serious concern.
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I love this idea for a weapon.
However instead of this: "Most of the rest of the ‘spells’ lead to other places that are hostile to 3.5d life, **possibly higher or lower dimensions or higher or lower energy state places**."
What if the small portals lead to places above a center of gravity that has a lot of matter being compressed towards the center of gravity. Places like the bottom of the ocean (water) or just above the center of the earth (lava) or just above the center of Jupiter (metallic hydrogen) or just above the center of the sun (plasma). The further the distance the more powerful you must be. Maybe you are very powerful and you can make a portal inside a neutron star or black hole.
The matter and energy coming out of your nearby portal will be very directional. In the case of a star portal maybe fusion isn't happening after the plasma leaves the portal because its not compressed. It will expand rapidly though so maybe small portals.
If I were going to shoot black hole matter I would make sure I was redirecting the expanding matter and radiation away from me using a second portal and/or jumping into another portal to get out of there fast.
] |
[Question]
[
I am in the process of beginning to write a fictional book.
The book will be set on present day Earth however I want there to be a fictional city.
In my head, I have decided the name, that there will be a river and possibly a coast.
I just wondered what is the process of designing a map for the city?
I have tried starting to draw one, but it is hard to get a realistic scale or size or even where to start!
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1. **Age**: Is this a brand-new city (say Dubai or Brasil) or centuries old. This will dramatically affect the city's shape and growth pattern. For instance, the grid design (perpendicular streets, like in NYC and Chicago) was invented several times in history, starting with the Indus Valley civilizations, but was often overruled by defensive needs (walls, etc) forcing the city into a compact, circular format. Medieval cities (most European cities) have city centers that are shaped by their origin as forts built to control a strategic junction of trade-routes. Such cities were generally very small (a large capital city like London would only be about 40,000 in 1400 C.E.), and this is often reflected in the claustrophobic city centers of European capitals. Almost without exception, pre-modern cities would be placed along a river, since water was the cheapest form of transportation by far, and also a source of water for drinking and industry, and was also used for sanitation, and food. Lots of canals would have historically been built and used for transportation purposes. Many were later filled up and paved over.
2. **Topography and Climate**: This will have shaped how it grew and where your city was located. If there is a river-bank, a city would not start off in the flood plains if that would mean catastrophic yearly or decadal flooding, but rather on a hillock nearby.
* Different **climate** modes would imply different construction technologies (so houses crowded together or spread apart with gardens)
* **Topography: Altitude**: Settlements in plains tend to spread out like a circular blob, while those in hilly and mountainous areas would be spread like a snake or octopus along roads and valleys.
* **Topography: Sea Access & Port Origin**: It might seem obvious that cities cannot grow on water, but that's not actually true. Ports are usually at river mouths, [due to rias forming natural harbors](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ria), so what was the shoreline once is usually silted up over centuries, either naturally or by the city itself dumping its waste in the harbor. You're probably thinking Netherlands, but look at historical maps and you'll see that surprising amounts of cities like Boston and New York are literally built on the silted-over trash-heaps of previous generations.
3. **How the city fared during industrialization**: Did it become a massive industrial center? Expect lots of rail lines, large areas dedicated to factories, and high density (if not necessarily high rise) dwellings for the factory workers. These cities will tend to be a lot larger than those that skipped on the industrial growth spurt.
4. **City planning**: Paris, for instance, was a hotspot of popular uprisings, which were very hard to put down because of the narrow streets could be easily turned into fortified positions with numerous choke-points and overlapping fields of fire. Napoleon III hired Haussmann to redesign the city, and the wide boulevards like Champs-Élysées are his legacy. So, was your city systematized and redesigned, or not? Some cities (D.C. for instance) start off with a grid planning and grow on it. Others (Boston) are a semi-systematized nightmare of needlessly serpentine roads, with tunnels to avoid stop-and-go lights every 100 yards. That will affect things like the proximity and density of high-way networks, large wide streets, etc. As they grow, megacities often swallow what used to be independent cities and villages, so keep that in mind as well. Most modern cities in the West have rather strict Zoning laws, to preserve historical heritage (in Europe) or keep out poor people (in US suburbia).
**So in summary:** Start with a core, and based on your answers to the questions above, plus whether it's a port, grow it out. In practice, I would look at a dozen or so cities that are similar to what you have in mind, pour over old maps, and go from there.
**EDIT:** In terms of placement, you can be rather vague. In Eric Flint's 1634, Grantville is a "typical" West Virginian town. Gotham is a blend of New York and Chicago, never clearly placed on a map. If you wish you might as well make up the river name too, but state that it starts from such and such mountains, etc. My favorite fictional city, Ankh Morpork, is at the mouth of a vast river going into a major sea.
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I have been drawing fictional maps for the last 20 years. I am currently busy on a project city that has an estimated population of 2,000,000. I agree with all the above posts. I used to do them by hand, but now I do them by CAD. My last few hand-drawn maps were done on some square paper; I pulled out a double A4 sheet (I'm in South Africa, and we use the metric system) and used the grid. Usually I draw on a scale of 1:20000. The map below I drew as a part of my project. Feel free to use it and/or comment on it. The scale of that map is 1:50,000. One small square has a side of 50m.
Anyway, here are my general steps:
* Draw the coastline and/or your major river and/or lakes (the 'geographics')
* Draw some contour lines (elevation) for your hills.
* Lightly pencil in your major roads .A highway is on a gradient of 1:20, and so are my roads. Rail I design on a 1:100 gradient.
* That will be your 'old' road; later feel free to design in a modern bypass.
* If you choose to have an river flowing into a sea, then build a port in there. The size depends on your cities size. It could be a small marina, or a container depo.
* Draw your waterfront. It should be about 50m wide, with small shops.
* You should have a nice boulevard running next to your waterfront.
* Draw your central business district (CBD) (offices), on the coast I use a 50m x 50m square per block. You'd need an office block per about 5000 residents.
* Near your CBD, place a railway station.
* Near that, I usually have a police station, municipal offices, the courthouse.
* For cities larger than 50,000 to 100,000 the streets are usually one-way
* Also in a larger city, have a feeder highway coming into the CBD
* Place some dense residential buildings near your town center. a 30m x 60m plot can hold about 24 apartaments.
* Residential areas need schools with sport fields. My model is that 17% of your population are school going children. My schools have a capacity of about 1000 students.
* Don't neglect your religious facilities, your clinics and your cemeteries.
* My suburbs are based on single family houses with the plot sizes varying between 400m2 to 2500m2 depending on the level of income.
* Consider a small airport. Runway should be longer than 1000m by 30m wide, with about 100m on either side, and about 400m of overrun at each end, topography allowing. It should be on a flat terrain, but I have seen real-world runways on slopes. Usually the approach angle is 3.0 degrees to a runway (I held a pilots licence at one stage).
* Spoil your residents with a stadium. Lots of parking around it.
* Add a few factories. These have large footprint of about 200m x 300m. My estimate is that about 1/3 of your population works in the factories, and I assume 1 person per 100m2 of factory footprint.
* Draw in the town bypass, maybe insert a small interchange. (Interchanges are one of my geeky passions)
* Don't forget your parks (in Britain the ratio is roughly 1 plot of a park for 50 houses)
* Railway lines have a minimum radius of 200m
* Clover leaf loops are diameter 100m
* Restaurants, bars, shopping centers. My town below doesn't have malls.
Here below is one I prepared earlier...
0ED = Kindergarden, OAH = Old Age Home, I have 5 different religions, the 'club' symbol on a green background is the cemetary, Green anchors are marinas, Red anchors are water based emergency services, blue anchors are ferries. Psi-Omicron-I (simulate a fork, plate and a knife) HS = Hotel Small. 1000 MMF = 1000 employees in a medium manufacturer.
[Answer]
Designing a city map is a layered process so here are your layers (or steps).
**Step 1: Define the site**
Define the physical location. The basis of which is a topographical map. This should include elevation, rivers/streams/lakes (I could have just said bodies of water I suppose...), and what the ground is like in the various areas (meaning rocky, or sandy or arable soil etc etc etc, and don't forget forests. There is more to this (any physical characteristic you can think of really)
**Step 2: Integrating it into the world.** Its a simple matter (relatively speaking) to define a single location, making that location fit into the grander world is more complex. You don't want to define a single location without thinking about how it fits into the greater world, thinking about this up front can be helpful. This will help you define what type of city you are creating. Is it a crossroads that becomes a trading center, is it near a border and did it spawn from a central border fort? More specific to designing the city it will help you make sense of where roads should go. In many cases you have roads (or at least paths) long before you have a city.
*Example:* using your brief idea mentioned in the OP think about this
* You build a city with a river that flows south to north and then empties into a sea that defines the norther border of the city.
* You add a central road/thoroughfare that follows the river N to S
* You later decide that the cities of this region are all coastal (meaning they would all be aligned to the east or west of the city, in which case having the main road run N to S makes no sense.
This is a really simple situation but thinking about how a city fits into the world around you helps define what you are looking to create and provides logical consistency later without forcing you down certain paths you may not like.
**Step 3: City Details**
How big is your city (geography and population) how densely populated is the town? To get an idea on how big you want it look at this list: [Cities by population density.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population_density) That should help you define size vs population. Once you have that you can define what type of city it is. Was it originally a fort? Is it a walled city on the plains? Is it a mountain mining town? Hidden forest retreat...you get the idea, this list could go on forever. Other things to think about:
* Available building materials (this can dictate how your city looks) a desert city is unlikely to have a lot of wooden buildings for example.
* Natural resources, what does the city produce and what does it need. Generally in fantasy settings cities have quarters (or at least some breakdown of sections) a major manufactured good could help dictate these.
* Keep in mind your topography, for example a city that spawned from a fort would generally be on a hill or some other strategic location
At this point you have geography, roads, city flavor and style, relevant sections of town and you can simply fill in the details at your leisure. Keep in mind older cities tend to follow geography while newer ones tend to grid things out.
[Answer]
Use real maps.
Grab some maps, same scale, of cities of similar age and climate (and ethnic origin) of the one you intend, and copy-paste them in an image editor until you are happy with your city.
Print the result, and then, start again by hand (either in paper or on screen) copying the features you want from your collage map to your brand new map.
[Answer]
>
> *I would really not recommend to use Sim city (whatever the version) to make a real fictional city. The transportation system is the main
> problem, it's almost impossible to create something plausible because
> the Sims are too dumb/lazy.*
>
>
>
---
I think the main aspect with mapping a modern city is about the transport system. I make the assumption that the city is quite large with over 1 million people.
I started designing a city not long ago, here's the process I used :
1. Decide how big the city is and how detailed you want it to be.
2. Find the most appropriate tool to work on it. I used Adobe
Illustrator because it was a big city and vector allow me to zoom
and rescale the elements easily. A free alternative to Illustrator
is Inkscape.
3. Find the general terrain of the city. Is it flat, does it have
rivers running in it, is it in a bay, is there a lot of islands...?
You can use real word image for inspiration. The geography will play
a huge role in transportation and for a mapping perspective, is a
very important aspect.
4. Now that you have the geography of the city, start to plan where the
major elements are. As James mentioned, you city is not alone but
liked with other cities by road, rail, high speed trains, highways,
ferries. There are long distances link and also likens to cities
that are closer like the commuter train is often of its own system
of rails.
5. You need to do some history about the past of the city. Is it an old
city, was it planned like Brasilia, or planned but got somewhat out
of control (New York, Istanbul)... Newer cities in America developed
differently than the old cities of Europe. One thing is that
European cities look more decentralized. The polarization between
the suburbs and the Downtown is smaller than in America.
In planned cities, even when they are planned, it's not possible to
plan everything in advance. Most cities rely on a small margin to
develop their infrastructures and are constrained by a lot of
factors: money , available space, regulations, and the existence of
a previous infrastructure. Changing the infrastructure is costly, so
they tend to patch the problem instead of starting form scratch.
This means that cities tend to expand organically. Modern cities have
cars and highways, making the distance less of an important factors.
Cities spread with a low density when there is an access to an
highway. This is not true everywhere, in America, most areas have
plenty of space. It's the opposite in Europe.
6. **City layout, zoning and major buildings**: That is the part where Simcity gets useful. The main zones are Residential, commercial
(shopping, services and offices) and industrial. Other zone
include: parks and forested areas, farmlands, and another one for
infrastructures for the seaports/airports. I think it's better to
have public buildings put individually on the map rather than using
zones unless all the schools are in the same district (SC3000).
>
>
> ```
> Industrial : When I look at New York, it appear clear that
> industrial zones are located with a direct access to the
> transportation system. I mean, most of the industries are simply
> near the rivers/seaports. If there is no access to water, they are
> close to railways. They need supplies and to be able to ship their
> goods, it's as simple as that.
>
> Commercial: Shops are not all big commercial centres. Most are small
> or medium businesses. They tend to be located near busy roads to
> attract more customers. They need a good access not to the goods but
> to the people. Offices are more complicated. Large offices are like
> vacuum fillers. When the prices are too high, you need high density.
> Even with access to adequate transportation, the industries might
> not be able to cope with the terrain value. Some resident are
> fortunate enough to have a condo Downtown but there is not enough
> rich people and not all of them want to live in a busy area.
> Therefore this area become filled with tall buildings. (in an
> American city model)
>
> Residential: Most areas begin as residential or farmlands. Ad the
> city expands, the zoning changes. Manhattan was once filled with
> Dutch, Irish and German immigrants but they moved and were replaced
> by industries and offices later on. People had their houses need
> where they worked. Some large factories even build houses for their
> workers. But as said earlier, with cars and other transportation
> means, access to the workplace has become easier and the distance is
> less important.
>
> Forest/parks: Forested areas only occurs in a low populated area
> mainly because of the distance form Downtown or because of a
> deficient transportation system in the area. The growth of the city
> is often uneven and it's possible to find some pockets of trees.
> Parks are always the fruits of a city decision. Originally, these
> places where at the outskirt of the city, unpopulated or almost.
>
> Airports: are located far from downtown in low populated areas,
> usually. It covers a large area so it's not possible to relocate
> large offices/industries. The height of the buildings could also be
> a problem as planes could hit them or create disturbance.
>
> Public buildings: They are located where the people are with
> relatively good access with transport. School and hospital are
> usually larger with higher population densities but large buildings
> can also be found in the suburbs. The concentration of public
> building is usually higher in densely populated area because even if
> the density is much higher, it's not really ideal to make 10 storey
> high schools. So a high population city will need a lot of them.
>
> University and research centres: Need a lot of people. Most are
> located in large cities over 100 000 people. It is not ideal to have
> them in the suburbs but it's possible.
>
> ```
>
>
[Answer]
My first recommendation would be to find 2-3 cities that exist that are close to the features you want in the city. Then you need to know the history of the city you are creating (at least a few rough ideas. Was it a fishing community? shipping? military port? Then steal ideas from other cities that have these features. Never hurts to model on the real world when you can to help with making your city feel more realistic.
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There are plenty of map-gen out there.
However, as I said in comments, game-city map-gen is not necessarily real-city map-gen.
So it depends on how whether you want something uber-realistic (in which case, why not use a real city and call it a different name, ala Gotham or Metropolis?) or something which may be optimized for story-telling?
Part of this is going to be where your city is set: weather and history play an important part. For example you're not going to get a thousand year old city in N or S. America. Any city that wasn't built on reclaimed land, or otherwise reliant on newer technology/trade has likely been around for centuries in other parts of the world.
I'd probably just mash-up some maps of already existing cities in appropriate climes.
[Answer]
As an Old Dungeons & Dragons Gamer, use graph paper. If it's necessary to see large scale there are places you can buy 3'x 4' sheets. Scale as needed. Decide "what" you need in the city. Then assume a certain size for your streets, alleys and roadways or possibly elevated rails, railroads and subways. Colored pencils (there's a reason for pencils over pens - you can erase) are good to designate ground level, below ground and elevated areas. Using your street widths set your buildings in place, on average all your buildings CAN take up the same footprint. If you decide this is not good then set a square to be a certain size say 10' x 10' and size your buildings appropriately. Decide on rivers, lakes, ponds or other features such as storm drains (not the storm sewers - but the big tunnel type), caves or whatever. Rough draft your placements before you commit them to your larger sheet.
You can use standard ruled 8 1/2 x 11 graph paper to layout the interiors of any buildings you need to "see" the layout of. I use 1 sheet for each building if one level or multiple sheets if more than one level. You can always make assumptions as to sizes. A standard street lane is about 10 feet wide. Two lanes 20 feet, inner city with street parking add 6 to 8 feet per side. Sidewalks add another 8 to 10 feet again. City buildings maybe 30 feet by 40. Some bigger some smaller.
Unless it's important, you don't need to layout things as sewers, water, electric or gas.
Really the most critical issue is to sit down and decide WHAT you want to have in it, place the important things then fill in the rest later. It really doesn't matter if all the buildings have a use or a name. How many of the little places do you pass everyday and don't really notice? You mostly remember the important ones. Those are the ones you want to flesh out in your descriptions. That gives you an option to "use" them for something later if you need a place to do something in your story you didn't anticipate or think about earlier. Knowing your story figure out what the settings are and what you need to have in it, then you can populate the "city" with what you need to have.
Hope this helps in some small way. Either way have fun with it. You're the one making the city. Set your imagination free.
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A point to consider is that most cities do not spring to life all at once, but grow organically. There is a small settlement, or several in the area of a large city. These grow into small towns. As the city grows, the small towns are absorbed but the lines and roads of the original town are still there. This can be repeated several times as the site grows, with settlements around the area at river crossings growing to towns, then some towns growing to small cities and then the area between is filled in as the major city grows. But you still see echoes of these old centers on the map.
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[Question]
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In a futuristic setting, I have two characters, an electrical/electronic engineer and an anthropologist, and I would like them to meet as coworkers. In what sort of environment would those two professions be likely to work together?
My first thought goes to either exploration (à la Star Trek) or humanitarian endeavours.
Another possibility would be a collaborative project, for example a xeno-archaeological investigation of some ancient electronic technology made by aliens whose culture is difficult to decipher.
I'm looking for a context that makes sense. Am I missing something obvious? I may be suffering from tunnel vision a bit here.
UPDATE: I love all of these answers, but in the end I had to pick one that fit most. Thank you all.
[Answer]
**Imaging technology.**
Anthropology and archaeology have been augmented in recent years by nondestructive noninvasive imaging techniques. One of the coolest is backscatter [muography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muography).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lwpLS.jpg)
>
> Scientists used an unprecedented imaging technique called muography to
> create an internal scan of the Great Pyramid of Giza. See how it
> works. Muography is the process of recording the trajectories of
> sub-atomic particles known as muons to form images. The process is
> similar to taking an x-ray but on a much larger scale.
>
>
>
<https://www.pbs.org/video/muography-helps-scientists-see-inside-great-pyramid-cpay5t/>
Muography usually takes advantage of natural muons formed in the atmosphere - so a sort of passive sensing technique. It would be possible to generate artifical muons and use them to do active sensing; this would be good for a near future fiction.
Another less edgy but also cool technique is [ground penetrating radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar). This is active sensing, using electromagnetic radiation to look through and into structures and the ground to determine what is under there.
Coolest of the cool: [aerial lidar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nTOvV.jpg)
<https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lidar-reveals-oldest-biggest-ancient-maya-structure-found-mexico>
>
> What’s more, the study is yet another example of how an airborne
> remote-sensing technique called light detection and ranging, or lidar,
> is dramatically changing how archaeological research is done in
> heavily forested regions. The technique, which uses laser pulses to
> gather data on the contours of jungle- and vegetation-covered land,
> has uncovered other lost ruins at the Maya city of Tikal in Guatemala
> (SN: 9/27/18) and a vast network connecting ancient cities of
> Southeast Asia’s Khmer Empire (SN: 6/17/16), among other finds.
>
>
>
I like this one best because you can look thru things to see what is underneath, then go down and walk in. That is what is going on with these Mayan ruins. People did not appreciate the extent of what that ancient civilization had built!
Your anthropologist knows where to look and what to look for. The engineer knows how to look. They are a good team.
---
I had a vision of the engineer whose nickname is Din. Originally it was "Odin" because he was All Seeing. People started calling him DinDin because he does not like to miss meals and it shows. Ultimately it became Din. Din is good with all of that; "It's all true."
[Answer]
### Modern day foreign aid
>
> Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and **present** societies
>
>
>
From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropologist#:%7E:text=An%20anthropologist%20is%20a%20person,norms%20and%20values%20of%20societies.). Note the "present", it can be used to add understanding of an unusual culture, but still in the present day.
I can see a modern government offering assistance with electrification to some isolated community, and the anthropologist is sent along to avoid cultural faux pas caused by the engineer in the society they know nothing about.
### Or electrical work in a native peoples area
It doesn't even need to be foreign - it could be a native peoples but for all intents and purposes to your city-dwelling electrical engineer might as well be another country. For example, last years bushfires destroyed enough of Australia's electrical network to leave 80,000 homes without power for weeks, by destroying [long lines snaking out deep into the Australian Bush](https://www.energynetworks.com.au/news/energy-insider/2020-energy-insider/bushfire-recovery-more-than-just-new-poles/) (Its so intense it turned out to be cheaper to just build new small powerplants in many cases rather than rebuild grid connections).
There are significant aboriginal peoples lands in central Australia larger than many countries - for example the APY peoples lands are larger than Portugal and the US state of Georgia - and there's about 500 "nations" of people, each with their own language, customs, beliefs, government systems, etc.
If you're sending an electrical engineer into these land divisions, including an anthropologist who understands the local culture and belief seems like a safe choice to help avoid conflict.
[Answer]
>
> Am I missing something obvious?
>
>
>
I guess you have a somehow wrong impression of the work environment. Although Worldbuilding is ruled by XKCD, let me introduce you to [Dilbert](https://dilbert.com/strip/1999-05-09).
Contrary to common believe, not all mathematicians or physicists end up working in blue lighted fancy laboratories and not all humanities graduate end up teaching to snotty kids in some remote school.
Former FCA CEO [Sergio Marchionne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Marchionne) had a master in philosophy, just to give you an example from the real world.
I am sure he had a lot of engineers, including electronic engineers, as colleagues, if with colleague we mean someone on the same payroll.
Also in your case it can happen something similar.
It can also happen that they work together because it's required by that particular job: I, for example, am an engineer, and I have happened to work shoulder to shoulder with archaeologists because they needed to check that where I was supervising the digging of trenches to lay a conducting cable there were no tombs or other historically relevant manufacts (spoiler: there were a lot of them).
[Answer]
As L. Dutch pointed out, many people don't *quite* work in the field they studied. But assuming you want them both soon after graduation, doing what they graduated in ...
* The electronics engineer **builds prototypes** for some new gizmo, the anthropologist tries to **understand how it will be used**.
Think of something like the first [smartwatches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartwatch). Some guy says *with today's technology, we can build radio watches as in Dick Tracy.* A serious proposal would not just say what can be done, but also how the designers think that it will be used, and how much people would probably pay for it.
It doesn't have to be as disruptive as the next *iPhone*. With enough money at stake, companies will do serious design efforts for the next generation coffee machine!
* The anthropologist has a **research project** to understand how humans react in certain conditions, with few pesky ethics rules. (Working for an Evil Overlord?) This requires custom **surveillance systems** built by the electronics engineer.
[Answer]
# Digital Archaeology / Digital Forensics
Essentially, the type of work done at the [Computer History Museum](https://computerhistory.org/) when they are working on restoring vintage computers to working condition or trying to reconstruct old technology. The actual process consists of a complex combination of classic investigation to find original documentation as well as some of the type of ‘reconstructive’ extrapolation popularized as ‘what anthropologists do’ by certain dramas on television, together with a *lot* of applied electrical engineering.
The same type of multi-disciplinary work almost certainly also happens to some extent in state-level investigations from time to time as well.
For that matter, in the distant future I could easily see this being a major aspect of ‘conventional’ archaeology, as a large percentage of what our modern society is leaving behind is of a more digital nature than traditional archaeologists today deal with.
[Answer]
## Brave New World (of tech):
There are some great answers already, so this is really more a supplement. All my answers envision a future with either "primitive" aliens or culturally backwards humans (depending on the background of your universe) being introduced to new tech. which works best depends on the flavor you are going for in your setting.
* **First contact**: Your folks could work together trying to understand the capabilities of alien/primitive cultures being looked at for first contact. Even if ordinary electronics are grossly outdated, they are important to societies at a level where they are being contacted to join a greater galactic culture.
* **Economic development**: Your people may be working to advance a culture to a level where they are worth investing in. The relevance of technology to the primitive culture (envision introducing smart phones to our civilization and what that has done) impacts greatly what is worth doing.
* **Exploitation/colonialism**: So you find a world you want to enslave/exploit/make gobs of money off of. What is the best way to do that? Imagine that the first cell phones were as good as the best of today - and you hold a complete patent on all the tech. But what if the natives are never going to use cell phones, and you spend a bunch of money trying to become a local super-billionaire and no one buys your advanced products? You can have an anthropologist analyze the commercial possibilities for the existing culture.
* **Cultural preservation**: History is littered with instances where new cultures and technologies have destroyed the local economy and culture. Before dumping a bunch of science and technology on an unsuspecting society, there can be an analysis of what the likely outcomes will be. Maybe cell phones will disrupt the local library system, so they can only be given "dumb" phones. Or perhaps the locals need free access to information, but they fight a lot, and open communication will result in polarization and conflict. A handheld database without communication abilities will work best.
* **Don't get killed**: One of the details about entering a new culture is that the natives may not be all that enthusiastic about foreigners, new tech, aliens, or arrogant electrical engineers that believe they know everything (okay, that's a generalization, but fits all electrical engineers I know/are related to [but we still love you]). So going into a new area and culture, you may need a cultural liaison to smooth over problems when the engineer wants to run power lines through a sacred grove, or insists workers must keep working after dark despite local superstitions that all work done in the dark is contaminated by evil spirits. Perhaps the last engineer was killed by an angry mob, and the company doing the work requires an anthropologist for insurance reasons. The specifics are up to you.
[Answer]
# Interplanetary Hospital/Emergency Room
They work together at a hospital where multiple species come for treatment.
An anthropologist is need to understand various cultures and religions, and quickly, so that treatments don't violate the patients' unique beliefs. Which could lead to lawsuits or war, depending on the culture. And for the other side, for an anthropologist this is a great way to gain access to the variety of species and civilizations.
An electronics engineer could serve in one or more of multiple roles. They could be a doctor for cyber-sentient or cybernetic entities. They could adapt various machinery for patients with different requirements (both biological and societal). They could be there to scan and reverse engineer the tech of any new species that shows up. And they could just repair the existing equipment, some of which is advanced and rare enough to require a doctorate to work on.
For a specific example, you could have an alien arrive who needs to be scanned. But they insist on not being exposed to any technology that uses gold. The engineer races to replace gold based circuitry with copper based equivalents. And the anthropologist talks to the aliens, and learns that while this is a religious requirement, it is based in a biological one. The species is highly allergic to gold dust and while the chances a given machine will expose them to it are small, the risk and its avoidance had evolved into part of their religion. So the two end up working together on this case.
[Answer]
Assuming that you want both characters to actually practice their professions (which is rather unusual in the modern world, where most university graduates work like general-purpose knowledge workers), the most common environment to require both an electronist and an anthropologist would be user interface design / user testing of some new appliance. (That is, if the anthropologist chose to study human interfaces.)
[Answer]
Investigating an ancient and now (presumed!) dead civilization that uploaded their minds to an unimaginably large and complicated computing device of some kind, and thus "transcended".
(Kicker: Civilization isn't dead at all! Device is still operating, at a very slow rate consuming little power, but just active enough to notice the interference of the meddling anthropologist and the unfortunately doomed EE. And, boy, are they ticked off! EE should have been more careful where he stuck his probes ...)
[Answer]
# Exploring an Robot World
Humanity has discovered a planet that was once completely overtaken by sapient robots, but is now long extinct. All organic life was replaced with machines. Robots here had a culture and history all of their own. An electrical engineer and anthropologist would need to work together pretty closely to learn things about the robot culture, the species that created the first robots, and all that kind of stuff.
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[Question]
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Assume a standard, inexpensive modern laptop, left in a standard laptop bag for 300 years, under cover, in a dryish, but imperfect environment, such as a cupboard in a house.
How much of it would remain? Would the battery have burst, corroded or caught fire? How much damage might we expect? Might it still work?
How long could it reasonably last for and still be a functional laptop?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NScSG.jpg)
[Answer]
Interesting Question. From personal experience and over 35 years in " IT",
including a Factory Warranty Repair Certification for HP Laptops, I can confidently say the following to your query:
1. In 300 years, it is likely that what remains would be identifiable ( to a historian) as a laptop. It is virtually impossible that the device would be functional, and unlikely that items such as plastic cases, LCD/LED screens and internal flex cables would survive, as most of these plastics become quite brittle with time. The battery would likely leak and corrode all nearby parts. It is unlikely to catch fire, as the charge and current needed for a fire would have dissipated during the first few years. Magnetic media such as a hard drive will eventually lose magnetic 'charge', and become unreadable. Most HDDs I have are unreadable after 10 - 12 years.
2. Under undisturbed but less than perfect storage conditions, I would expect an otherwise fully operational laptop to be irreparably unusable, with no available replacement parts in 30 years or less. Some components may last longer, but as a whole, a generation or two of lifespan is about it.
Note: it may be possible to properly store components in airtight vacuum sealed conductive bags and extend component life span. I do not believe *any* form of storage would allow a 300 year old laptop to function.
[Answer]
It's *possible* many of the electronics could survive and still be functional. Many of the capacitors may not make it. The batteries, however, would most likely not be functional, even if they managed not to leak. Batteries are full of very reactive chemicals and would essentially consume themselves over the course of 300 years.
If you disconnected/removed the batteries and attached an external power supply, it might be possible to power up the machine. But this is not the same as *booting* the machine. Like Joe says, the data on the magnetic platter hard drives would likely be gone. Even solid-state drives (SSDs) and the boot PROMs lose data over time and would likely be so full of data errors the machine would not boot fully.
Heck, with the billions of bits flying around in every machine that must be in perfect order, its a daily miracle that modern computers work at all.
[Answer]
>
> How long could it reasonably last for and still be a functional laptop?
>
>
>
As other answers state, the laptop will be far from functioning.
## But you mentioned 300 years period...
...and after that time, perhaps no one could be really interested in any tests whether the device *could be* functioning. It won't be necessary.
Imagine technical progress last 100 years. I think after another 300 years it could be quite a standard thing to create functioning clone of the device: scan critical microelectronics on molecular basis, recompute parameters of damaged electrical components via knowledge base addressing our era (and using additional simulations of circuits) and then print functioning clone of the machine. Perhaps some attempts can be made to scan its storage media and reconstruct readable remnants of stored content. Regarding operating system, it could be obtained from Digital Archive of some Mankind History Museum. So having a bootable clone of the computer should not be a problem 300 years later.
And maybe there even won't be any need to clone the device physically: Maybe nearly any citizen could use their All-Capable Assistant device, request Historical Software Emulator module, run today's operating system taken from Mankind Digital Archive and scan storage hardware of found laptop on molecular level. (Using micro-bots, i.e. best without any physical manipulation with laptop which would obviously cause its further damage.) Retrieve remnants of information and use some of digital archaelogists' tools to recover as much as possible to get at least some files in file system. If you had luck, you can end up running Word 2010 with **ImportantMemo.docx** file. :)
[Answer]
Various answers refer to plastic parts degrading, cables getting brittle etc. While this certainly does happen, nobody goes into *why* it happens.
The vast majority of plastics are chemically *stable* by themselves. but they are not chemically *inert*. They decay by reacting with oxygen, sulfur compounds, assorted nitrates, and ultraviolet light just to mention a few.
Vacuum sealing is a very poor option - the case will have considerable pressure applied to it by the bag, and many solids will outgas in a vacuum. or a chip will pop open due to an internal air pocket.
If stored properly in an inert-gas atmosphere, at room temperature, in total darkness it is possible the thing will be usable some centuries down the line. Creating 120VAC 60Hz power to start it will be no problem at all - the PowerMate 6000 attached to a Mr. Fusion will have that waveform available in the Historical section. Or straight DC if the power supply doesn't work anymore. Your 3D printer/replimat can make a compatible adapter.
Laptops will likely fare better than desktops as they don't use large electrolytic capacitors. Those things are well known to go bad just sitting there.
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As well as the above, chip making is itself a statistical process due to doping and electron migration etc. The chips themselves will lose their precision due to wandering impurities from quantum effects and the like, even though they are sealed in the usual semiconductor packages.
Capacitors and batteries fail/leak (as described in other answers) so your power handling and power regulation goes splat, and that's fairly crucial for a laptop.
Many plastics and polymers (including insulators) aren't stable over very long time periods; think of how they yellow and become more brittle, and they may have undergone very long term repeated heating/cooling cycles over the years, so they will be very fragile. Good luck opening them without damage too, for the same reason.
Their cooling fans wont work either. Can it cope without forced cooling? Hope so.
Data storage won't hold data that long - forget Windows; booting, BIOS and firmware failure is more fundamental.
Over time metals can also fail. Will the metals themselves have kept their form and function?
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The proper answer here is: Who cares?
There are really only two feasible cases:
1) We haven't had a technological crash. The laptop is only of interest to archeologists and museums.
2) We have had a technological crash. The laptop's battery is dead, you have no source of power. Whether it works is immaterial.
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As indicated in other answers, the laptop would be a mess. Fortunately, the Company of the Transistor, a non-profit founded in 2200, dedicated to "the preservation, study, and reproduction of 20th and 21st century electronics", will be happy to provide spare parts and even complete replica systems.
In your world building context, does it matter whether the laptop is an actual 300 year old artifact, rather than a relatively recent reproduction that better represents how the laptop would have been when in use?
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Have you tried to run browse the internet using Netscape Navigator to browse the internet after 2010? It's doable, but it's far from efficient -- in fact, most websites are completely deformed from Netscape's browser point of view because of the numerous improvements that programming has seen (HTML5 in 2014, for instance)
The funny thing is that, Netscape's latest update wasn't that long ago -- it was in 2008. In a mere 8 years, Netscape has been rendered nearly impossible to use.
The same applies to hardware technology. If the laptop was perfectly maintained and the damage of time were to be ignored, the odds are 'WiFi' and 'Bluetooth' would be stuffs of the past. Likewise, battery chargers, even power outlets might look different in 300 years from now on - perhaps they'll be wireless, something that is not compatible on a 300 years old laptop.
USB slot might not have the same shape, perhaps we'll be at USB Type Z version 44 by then, so most of the new technology would be incompatible with the 300 years old technology. It might not even be possible to find a compatible charger for the laptop!
But assuming that there was already an OS installed, it might work with what is already installed on it, but there probably won't be any internet, or any slot compatible with the newest technology.
Of course, that is if we ignore the fact that in 300 years old, most of the hardware would've been completely impossible to use due to the fearsome power of destruction also known as time.
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[Question]
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**Setting:**
I'm working on a scifantasy setting that has many of the "classic" monster tropes turned on their heads a bit/adds unique biology/ that sort of thing. The metacommentary is about assimilation. The general idea is that in the past, humans were part of the general food chain, but as humans became more technologically advanced, they destroyed most of their predators by accident or by actually going after them (taking a bit from Peter Watts' Blindsight novels, about how vampires were actually destroyed by the use of right angles which triggered seizures and 'outed' them so they could be identified.). All humans have now are "legends" and "myths" of the things that used to prey on them.
The few actual 'monsters' that are left, have let humans keep that disbelief going, but are having troubles now because there are so few of them and they have to be so careful about how they hunt or maintain themselves because humans are prey animals and they get explosively aggressive and over-reactionary if someone eats half-of a kindergarten (the homeless population are much safer targets... but you have to use the whole kill to avoid getting the wrong attention or starting up a witch-hunt/wild goose chase).
There's a couple of "supernatural" factions across various continents that have adopted isolationist policies, or have integrated themselves in human society to hide in plain sight, or have actually accepted that they're going to die out. The metacommentary is about cultural assimilation and such.
There's a couple of members in an isolation-based group that because of reasons, have become retaliatory and expansionist. This was initially done by buying up properties and taking over space in a "human business" fashion. They've now butted up against another faction that wants to remain isolationist. The problem now is, both sides have their own dragon. Dragons, in this setting, are quasi-eldritch creatures with bizarre reproduction, really long life-spans if they survive to adulthood, really esoteric motives, and if two fight it tends to make very noticeable craters.
One side is really pissing off the other. They are going to fight, and human authorities *are* going to notice.
**The Question:**
One of the dragons was fully formed around the Tunguska event in 1908, this would make her 110 years old today. This is much older than the current youngest country, South Sudan (formed in 2011).
My question is a geopolitical one. Would a dragon be able to claim "herself" as an independent sovereign nation? Like how Indian Reservations are independent countries, of a sort, within the United States. And what sort of obstacles would collectives like the UN or EU throw at her?
By Wikipedia the definition for a soverign nation is:
>
> A sovereign state is, in international law, a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralized government that has sovereignty over a geographic area. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, one government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood that a sovereign state is neither dependent on nor subjected to any other power or state.
>
>
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I know she'll get challenged for being a physical entity. But, she has a defined home range that she purchased (through intermediaries like a corporation), she's older than some current countries, she has a population (albeit of semi-thralls) that provide infrastructure. She has a government, namely, herself and her thralls act rather independently for their community, she can also qualify as her own military to protect her borders.
I already know how humans would react to these supernaturals on an individual and group basis, so this isn't a question about "how would humans to react to a dragon queen." I'm really looking for something on the country-scale here.
[Answer]
There's a difference between "claiming" sovereignty (lots do), realistically being able to act as a sovereign state (few do), and finally being recognized by your peers as a sovereign state (even fewer).
Since the Earth has but a [single dollop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil) of unclaimed land territory outside Antarctica anymore, the dragon must get the existing recognized country to cede some of its territory to her new country. That usually means a real fighting war that she must win, ending with a treaty ratified by all sides. Purchased property means little in this case, since it's purchased under the laws of the prior state...though it may mean fewer refugees during the war.
The next step is international recognition of her new country and its state (her regime), and this is often as difficult as the original war. Without recognition, her territory may still be considered an autonomous or rebel province of the prior country. There are many examples of this: Taiwan and South Sudan received recognition, Puntland and the Islamic State did not. She has no way to compel recognition beyond war or bribery - the international politics of the time will determine if other states are interested in recognizing her country's independence and her regime's legitimacy.
A common confusion is mixing up *individual property rights* with a *country's territorial control*. **The two are not related**. Here's an example: When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, it redrew an international boundary (Look! [A ratified treaty](https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alaska.html)). Alaska already had lots of private property owners. The laws governing their property changed from Russian law to American law. The property owners didn't get to choose.
The point of this question seems to be about finding a reasonably peaceful method of seceding from another country. With rare exceptions, there isn't one. Countries have historically fought hard and violently to retain their full territory, regardless of whomever the local private property owners happened to be.
[Answer]
As I remember, for centuries popes ruled an independent state known as the Papal States until Italy conquered it in 1860 and 1870. In 1929 a tiny independent country in the city of Rome was created, the Vatican City.
The popes were the secular rulers of an independent country for centuries up to 1870, had no country to rule from 1870 to 1929, and have ruled a new independent country since 1929.
But the Holy See, the papal curia that runs the Roman Catholic Church, is considered to be a separate subject of public international law from the independent country of the Vatican City. The Holy See is considered to be equal in many respects to an independent state.
Thus the pope is the sovereign of both an independent country, the Vatican City, and of an organization that has somewhat similar status to an independent country, the Holy See.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_the_Holy_See>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_the_Holy_See)
And then there is the SMOM, The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, which like the Holy See, is considered by many to be a sovereign subject of international law, with diplomatic relations with 107 countries.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta>[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta)
So possibly the "dragon" might seek to be recognzed as a sovereign subject of international law, maybe by promising Monaco and other tiny countries not to devaste them if they give it diplomatic recognition.
[Answer]
Good news, it's not too hard for our friend Tunguska. The magic word is **realpolitik**
Let's get started with her strategic profile.
She's not an army - strategically, she's a walking, talking metaphor for the nuclear bomb. If her pet country were reduced to waste in a war, she could still obliterate at least one or two major cities of the offending (super)power before being brought down herself. That nearly automatically\* makes her a small nuclear power in her own right, so long as she can protect herself from a first strike.
From a *realpolitik* perspective, that she's in fact a literal fire-breathing dragon means less than her geopolitical value. If she's politically valuable, even the staunchest dracophobe will sing her praises to high heaven and overlook even the deepest flaws. If she's a political foe, she could have spent her time in hiding as Mother Teresa herself and she'd still be a baby-eating monster for whom a swift death is the only appropriate course of action.
This provides her with a pathway to sovereign status: by making a deal with, say, Russia (since she was born there) to recognise her sovereignty in exchange for her alliance she can quickly secure her place in the world, while the superpower in question transforms a rogue nuclear weapon into a known (and allied!) quantity. She'd still make enemies, but with superpower backing and personal power a direct move against her would be foolhardy in the extreme.
The tricky bit is the fact that Tunguska is also gearing up to get into a war. That may turn her into a liability if she's not careful. Since she's at the same strategic scale as a nuclear weapon, countries will understandably get very very nervous if she starts fighting anyone; it will be very important to make sure the right people know what she's up to, lest she spark a nuclear conflict - or a pre-emptive strike to prevent one.
The plus side is that assuming her rival has the same idea (only convincing someone to ally to make dragons quietly go away), there's a good chance the whole dragon war can be kept localised - like other proxy wars geopolitics will keep the big players' hands tied for fear of sparking a more final war, and both Tunguska and her rival will probably be told in no uncertain terms to keep it that way.
If her rival doesn't, well, that only means Tunguska has a chance to convince the world that this is something they want to get involved in as a global matter and propaganda herself into a champion of humanity. She'd at least get her own ally onboard - it can't hurt for *their* dragon to to win that fight.
\*There's a reasonable case to be made that some countries might declare her a sovereign power unilaterally, simply because diplomats and the army are the most appropriate tools to interact with her.
[Answer]
As user535733 pointed out, a sovereign nation generally requires territory to be sovereign in, and some degree of acceptance by the international community. Could your dragon get the latter without the former?
There are a couple of organizations which can *act* much like a state without *being* a state in all respects -- issue passports, participate in international conferences as a "near peer" participant, and so on. The [Knights of Malta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta#International_status) come to my mind.
So what if the dragon had the power to claim he, as an individual, was not the subject of any state and enjoys some sort of "diplomatic immunity" plus the right to move between homes (lairs?) which have been granted "extraterritoriality" by some host nations?
[Answer]
She has a big leg up on the various micro nations in that she is personally powerful and she is scientifically interesting. This still isn't enough for it to be an easy or certain process.
If she can survive the US military long enough to fly to the UN building and ask for a seat it may be something could be arranged. If she is strong enough (superman is mentioned in comments) to not be ignored or conquered the humans pretty much have to negotiate.
Being the first non-human capable of negotiating there would be a lot of interest in her, and if the whole enslaving and eating people thing got glossed over enough for public opinion to be on her side in major nations it could amount to pressure on whatever nation she was inside of to recognize her, it could help if she could hold a referendum.
[Answer]
While not really geopolitical in nature, I was reminded of the character Raven in [Neal Stephensons Snow Crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash), who managed to become recognized as a sovereign.
>
> Hiro is mortified by this idea. "Is that why everyone was telling me not to fuck with Raven? They were afraid I was going to attack him?"
>
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> Squeaky eyes the swords. "You got the means."
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> "Why should anyone protect Raven?"
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> Squeaky smiles, as though we have just crossed the border into the realm of kidding around. **"He's a Sovereign."**
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> "So declare war on him."
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> "It's not a good idea to declare war on a nuclear power."
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> "Huh?"
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> "Christ," Squeaky says, shaking his head, "if I had any idea how little you knew about this shit, I never would have let you into my car. I thought you were some kind of a serious CIC wet-operations guy. Are you telling me you really didn't know about Raven?"
>
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> "Yes, that's what I'm telling you."
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> "Okay. I'm gonna tell you this so you don't go out and cause any more trouble. Raven's packing a torpedo warhead that he boosted from an old Soviet nuke sub. It was a torpedo that was designed to take out a carrier battle group with one shot. A nuclear torpedo. You know that funny-looking sidecar that Raven has on his Harley? Well, it's a hydrogen bomb, man. Armed and ready. The trigger's hooked up to EEC trodes embedded in his skull. If Raven dies, the bomb goes off. So when Raven comes into town, we do everything in our power to make the man feel welcome."
>
>
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In this universe the threat of [mutually assured destruction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) was apparently enough for Raven to convince the other powers of his sovereignty. So while rules and resctrictions may apply, they could be bent.
[Answer]
Your question requires a whole lot of rewriting/ignoring established law, some of which you are already aware of but do not address. From your own quote from Wikipedia,
**A sovereign state is, in international law, a nonphysical juridical entity**
Lady Tunguska is a very physical entity, so that pretty well answers your question.
But let's get legalistic here, and dig into some implications. Let's assume our dragon has been declared a sovreign nation.
Well, to start with, she is not a citizen of that nation - she *is* the nation. As a result, if a citizen of another nation wants to go for a unique trophy and tries to kill her, he or she cannot be charged with murder. An act of war, perhaps, but not murder. And issues of jurisdiction get complicated, too. If she retaliates against her attacker, it's not self-defense by an individual. It is, by definition, an action by a nation against a citizen of another nation, and at the least will cause a major diplomatic incident. For that matter, if a US national takes a potshot at the dragon and injures her, what law has he broken? Unsafe discharge of a firearm? I don't know of any laws against simply attacking another nation. You can't belong to the armed forces of another country, but that's clearly not an issue here. Since the dragon is a nation, she cannot be a citizen of that nation, and any offense against the laws of a foreign nation required extradition to that nation for prosecution.
Nationhood as an incorporeal, abstract identity, has a very large advantage - it allows a distinction between the actions of members of the nation and the nation itself. For instance, there have been cases of US soldiers committing crimes against citizens of other countries in which they are stationed (several rape/murders of girls in Taiwan, for instance). In these cases, the individuals can be punished but the US as a nation is not (immediately) held to blame. There can be longer-term blame assigned, and the diplomatic/PR fallout can be severe, but the nation is not absolutely responsible for the action of its citizens.
All this goes out the window when it comes comes to the present case. The dragon IS the nation, which means than any action by or against the dragon is an action by or against the nation. If the dragon steals gold for her hoard (and we know how much dragons like gold, right?) then that is simply not an act by an individual, it is an act of aggression by a nation.
If She is a sovreign nation, what does that make the lands which she has bought? Just saying that she bought them through intermediaries does not mean that the intermediaries had the authority to transfer ownership from one nation to another. For instance, if I buy a parcel of land in Canada which adjoins the US, I cannot sell (or transfer ownership in any sense) that land to the US. Similarly, her "home range" cannot be hers simply because she is granted sovreignity. It remains the territory of the original nation until a treaty is signed which formalizes the transfer. She can claim it and try to protect it, but that constitutes an act of war.
Any conflict with our dragon then becomes a military operation - there is no such thing as a police operation. Dragons are tough, it is well-known, and their scales shrug off arrows, but how will she stand up to a .50 caliber armor-piercing round? Or how about a black-market Stinger heat-seeking missile making a literal "down-the-throat" shot? With the ability to breathe fire, you'd think the mouth would make a pretty good target for a heat-seeker.
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[Question]
[
In my world one company has had a monopoly on FTL comms, making large beacons in each inhabited system. This company has worked to prevent knowledge that smaller FTL comms were possible, in order to ensure their monopoly.
The system ansibles work by having a hard coded location and identifier for each comm, which were used to secure them. They only accept messages from known ansibles and generally are securable because the company is regulating every node.
Smaller shipboard ansibles were built as proof-of-concepts within the company at one point, only to be buried when it was decided the tech was a threat to their monopoly. As a incomplete proofs of concept, these shipboard comms were built without any thought to security. For example these comms, unlike the larger system comms, were built to use an ad-hoc registry system where each ansible could register itself with other local ansibles on the fly, but registered ansibles are not properly authenticated! These shipboard ansibles were also only able to broadcast messages within a system; they lack enough power to reach ansibles in other systems.
A certain group -- think of it as something like a large organized pirate fleet with some political extremist views -- has recently had schematics for the shipboard comms leaked to them. The pirates treat the ansibles as black boxes, not understanding the physics or code behind them, but are still able to build and deploy ansibles to their ships, giving them a major tactical advantage in fights where light speed delay usually makes tactics difficult to organize. Our protagonists have captured a small number of these ansibles and are trying to set up their own mini-fleet to resist the pirates'/fanatic group's aggression using them. This includes reverse-engineering the blackbox code of the ansibles to help create exploits to give their side tactical advantages in fights.
All of these battles are happening rapidly with both sides trying to reverse engineer, hack, and patch their ansibles quickly enough to take advantage of, or protect against, exploits as they're discovered, but there isn't enough time to fully learn the code or rewrite more secure code from scratch.
The underlying physics behind the FTL systems is not fully known by either side, and I intend to keep somewhat undefined intentionally to allow me more wiggle room for 'hacks'. So while I have some room to make the physics fit any exploit I like, in general I'm drawing parallels with early wi-fi routers as to how the ansibles function.
I'm looking for more potential exploits that both the hackers and pirates may utilize to gain a tactical advantage. A tactical advantage may mean hearing their enemies comms, 'blocking' their enemies FTL comms, knocking out both sides' comms when desired, replay attacks, whatever.
I'm looking mostly for exploits that both could be quick to write with partially understood code and, ideally, are also relatively quick to patch, so that both sides have to keep coming up with new tricks every few months rather than relying on the same exploit. To make it believable that so many exploits can be figured out so fast, I'm trying to keep a system analogous to the original ARPANET and wireless communication, with exploits being mostly reusing exploits that worked on the old Internet before more secure protocols were made standard.
The first exploit will be eavesdropping on enemy comms most likely, no encryption is built in after all. However, the enemy will figure this out quickly and will start encrypting their messages prior to sending them through the ansible, so that will be patched quickly. I'm more interested in exploits that will occur after that.
I already have a handful of exploits I like, including constant broadcast of gibberish to block both sides' FTL comms, and later one side stopping blocking at brief set periods to allow broadcast of comms during those brief open spots, etc. I'd like help coming up with more exploits to give me more options for what tricks I can have either side perform.
[Answer]
I'm going to take a look from the software perspective rather than abusing physics.
# Denial of Service/The Killer Poke
A malformed packet can be sent which confuses the hardware in such a way that it crashes or, at worst, causes damage. This actually happened with early CPUs, where certain instructions would allow one to release the [magic smoke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_smoke) that allows them to operate. (What actually happened was that if you sent a bad instruction to the CPU it would open a line directly from source to ground, resulting in a short circuit that would burn out the CPU.) This was called the "[Killer Poke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_poke)".
# Changing Configuration
If certain malformed instructions allow external packets to access the ansible's configuration, you can change them to be anything you want. This could be a [buffer overflow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflow) allowing [arbitrary code execution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_code_execution), or in really badly secured systems, a request to upload a temporary file to a specific location that just happens to be the configuration file's location. Again, actually happens.
# Eavesdropping
If you use the above attack to change the configuration of the ansible, you could have it redirect all communication to a particular ansible, which will then forward the communications to the intended recipient, while recording the message for later use. This would be a [Man in the Middle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack) attack and would likely be difficult for them to notice.
# Abuse the developer tools and updating functionality
Since this was a prototype, the developers would have had several hooks for debugging and software deployment. At the very least, there would be a way to update the firmware/operating system. If it's not secured, you can easily wipe/update the firmware. Possibly remotely, or perhaps a mole would be necessary for physical access (would be a very suspenseful part of the story). If there's debugging commands, they will allow the attacker to view or even change memory and live communications.
[Answer]
The obvious one to try, without needing to know anything about the software: back-time signalling.
Just play around and see what happens when you try to communicate between a bunch of different ships moving at different relative velocities. Do both sides of a conversation experience the other as being slowed down when the ships are moving? Then you can set up a cyclical transmission that moves information backwards in time, bouncing data back and forth between two ships. Is the signal pinned to the proper time of whoever initiated the call, or whoever received it? Then the time with which you are communicating with the other ship can slowly drift away from the present, so again, one side or the other can send information backwards in time.
If communication is truly instantaneous going both ways between any pair of ansibles, then there *is* some way of arranging for backwards-in-time signalling. Software may have been written to adjust for that, in which case I would expect the hackers to be trying to find a way to turn the adjustments *off*, because getting back-time signalling would be a huge tactical advantage. If the fundamental physics disallows backwards signalling, then it can't be instantaneous for all communication channels, which means that ships moving in particular ways will have disadvantages in tactical communication, and the hackers will be able to perform experiments to determine whether any restrictions on back-time signalling are in fact merely software protections, or fundamental to the physics of the device.
[Answer]
Without *any* thought to security? Oh boy.
The most prominent security features that will be absent are:
* Encryption
* Authentication
* Data sanitisation
That lets you do next to anything.
# Missing Encryption
Depending on how your FTL signals are sent, this might allow you to intercept transmissions. There are three basic categories in which I'd separate FTL signals:
* Broadcasting in every direction.
This would require the most energy (conventionally scaling with `m * r^2` where `r` is the radius of the sphere in which you want to broadcast and `m` the message length), but also the least amount of configuration. You just send everything everywhere. Since it's unencrypted, anyone can listen in.
* Directional antenna.
You calculate the relative position of your receiver and broadcast in that direction. To cope with ships moving at high speed, this system would have to be very sophisticated, but it would require much less energy (only `m` instead of `m * r^2`) and it would only be interceptable by someone directly in the path between the transmitter and the receiver.
* Quantum entanglement.
This would allow for no interception whatsoever (at least on the signal level), but would take an insane amount of work to set up. Quite frankly, I have no idea how much energy it would take to run them.
You also name jamming (your "constant broadcast of gibberish") as an element you like. In that form, it would only work with the first two, but you could still fall back to a Denial-of-Service attack for all of them. By itself, a DoS would only impair the victim side, but you could easily explain both sides being disabled by either:
* having the other side "shoot back" as soon as they detect a DoS
* the DoS'ing being so intensive that they require all ansibles at full power, so you'd be too busy DoS'ing to have any capacity left to "talk".
Missing encryption is quite hard to fix once and for all for a team who doesn't really understand what they're messing with, but short-lived mitigations would be simple enough. Basically any change to the encoding (think Cesar Cipher) would render the other side unable to understand the intercepted information. It probably won't take them long to break the encoding, but maybe long enough for the message to become worthless (e.g. because the attack already happened). And it would IMO fit nicely into your game of cat and mouse. :P
# Missing Authentication
If you don't know who you're talking to, can you trust them?
Attacks on a human level:
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> *Incoming transmission:*
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> This is Captain Borg Zerk, we have located a primary rebel hideout on planet 753-KV44. Planning to attack in 3 hours, requesting assistance. Coordinates of proposed rendevouz point attached.
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>
Except that message was sent by protagonist Herp Derp, and the coordinates are inside a neutron star.
For text transmissions this is dead simple, and for video/audio, you can just intercept some transmissions, take out your epic photoshop skills and fabricate such a message. Live conversations might be possible, but only with [a real lot of engineering](https://youtu.be/ohmajJTcpNk).
Attacks on a technical level:
A fun thing you could do would be a [deauthentication attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_deauthentication_attack). Basically you send a signal that marks the end of someone else's transmission. If that someone is currently talking, they'll be interrupted and have to re-dial. If you do that every 5 seconds, they can't establish a transmission.
Another fun thing would be a [slow loris attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowloris_(computer_security)). Let's say your device can have 100 open transmissions at the same time. You open 100 channels to someone else, and bam, they can't have any more transmissions. And since there is no authentication, they can't just "block" you without blocking everyone else too.
Missing authentication would require some effort to fix, but I'd argue that would be feasible.
If you want implementation details: Assign a different secret to each node, which all other nodes know about. Then when you have an incoming transmission, you send back some random data to the transmitter, which they then append to their secret, hash it (sha512 or so) and send it back. You do the same computations locally, and can verify who you're talking to. Such a hash cannot be fabricated without knowing the secret, and the random data prevents hashes from being captured and re-used.
# Missing Sanity Checks
This is the real deal, but it gets *very* technical here.
If you don't wanna read the next paragraph or don't understand it, just skip to the "TL;DR", I won't blame you. ;)
Okay, here goes:
In your transmission protocol, you're gonna want to split up your data into frames (so that you don't have to slap metadata onto every byte, and to make it possible to process the data in parts). In software designed without security in mind, a function would most likely have a fixed-size buffer into which it reads the data, and after that buffer would be the address of the code where to resume after the function is done. Now, if the function does not check whether there is more data in a frame that it can store, it will start overwriting the return address. This lets an attacker alter the program flow and, through that, run arbitrary code.
This is just one type of vulnerability to arise and probably the simplest to exploit; there will be ones that are more complex, but altogether there's gonna be loads and boat loads of them.
TL;DR: Missing sanity checks let you run arbitrary code on receiving devices.
Since neither side really understands the ansible, it sounds unlikely that they would be able to interface it with the board computer, so the rest of the ship should be safe.
But for the ansibles themselves, this is fatal since it gives an attacker complete control over the device. You could install spyware, lock up their system (rendering them unable to send an SOS), or try to overclock and fry some hardware parts, possibly even starting a fire or electrocuting the people in immediate vicinity.
Such attacks would require quite some time and knowledge the develop and execute (which would mean they're only feasible later in the story, once a team had to work on the devices quite a number of times, and has gained intimate knowledge at least about parts of it), but that is good since they also give you immense power.
Spyware could go undetected for a very long time, and even if the victim knew there was one, it might take them quite some time to find, and even more to remove it.
The only way to fix such vulnerabilities without re-designing the entire system from scratch is to patch each and every one of them separately, once you learn of them. This will provide you with enough bugs to be exploited for decades, possibly even centuries.
[Answer]
First thing that occurs to me is the equivalent of [ARP spoofing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARP_spoofing). You said it'd "use an ad-hock registry system where each ansible could register itself with other local ansibles on the fly" -- so have one ansible register itself under the ID of some opponent's ansible; when it gets a signal, it forwards that to the actual target (after recording and maybe modifying the content). If possible, it'd also register itself with the target under the source's ID, and do this to both directions of the conversation for a full [man-in-the-middle attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack).
Note that this is useful even if the opponents are using secure encryption over the channel, because you can do [traffic analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis) (who's talking to whom is often informative). Actually, depending on how you make them work, this might be possible even without a MITM. If that's the case, there are possible countermeasures like sending dummy traffic and sending traffic by indirect routes.
[Answer]
## Using the FTL communication to steal information from other computers
First, some articles:
<https://www.wired.com/2016/06/clever-attack-uses-sound-computers-fan-steal-data/>
<https://www.wired.com/2014/11/airhopper-hack/>
<https://www.wired.com/2015/07/researchers-hack-air-gapped-computer-simple-cell-phone/>
<https://www.wired.com/2015/03/stealing-data-computers-using-heat/>
<https://www.wired.com/2017/02/malware-sends-stolen-data-drone-just-pcs-blinking-led/>
It should be obvious from the above articles that it's definitely possible to use a system that is not connected at all to read classified information on another system. As a security hobbyist, I would not at all be surprised if you could listen to tiny fluctuations in the FTL comms to figure out what happens in other systems.
## Using comms manipulation to interfere in other systems
There will likely be some kind of automated interaction between the FTL comms and the rest of the ship, even if it was just sending certain signals on a hidden channel. Things like transmitting ship locations to radars, coordinated jump routines, weapon synchronization,... Besides sending fake messages to these systems, you can also send messages that can break systems. You can tell weapons to overheat, crash radar systems, shut down the engines,... This depends on the amount of automation that happens over these systems.
[Answer]
Pulling unencrypted data from the ansible makes sense as the very first attack and the very first patch. However, even encrypted data can be revealing.
## Injection
An attacker may be able to inject data into your stream that might mess with it in several ways:
* Exploit known parsing bugs to make the receiving system crash or exploit some other part of the receiving system (one protection against this kind of attack is to authenticate the sender and use a time sensitive identifier or sequence number so that authentication can't be easily intercepted and spoofed)
* Determine information about the message by it's length or frequency
+ The very presence or absence of messages can tell a lot: that there is or isn't something to communicate. To protect against this attack, always be sending information
+ The length of a message can expose information. A long message might convey that there is a lot to say. A long portion of information in the bits designated as the "to" field could indicate that the message is for the fleet instead of for an individual receiver. In particularly poorly implemented encryption, you might be able to identify the sender or receiver by the length of their encrypted call sign. To protect against this attack, all packets should be of the same length, but this doesn't protect against:
+ The frequency of messages can expose information. Sending many different packets at once can expose similar information as length of packets. In some cases such as voice data, a conversation can sometimes be reconstructed based off of the frequency of messages being sent. Because audio is typically sent in real-time (particularly in the case of a technology centered on the timeliness of information), audio is particularly susceptible to these attacks. To protect against this attack you may need to add a latency to communication and always send messages of a fixed length, even when nothing is being said. Another interesting defense might be to embed a real conversation inside of a fake one: a prerecorded and harmless (or misinformative) conversation's rhythms are used to transmit the actual encrypted voice data. This would be an excellent defense not only because it misinforms but also because it hides the fact that you are aware of the exploit from your enemy. For example, if the protagonists have been reconstructing conversations this way for a long time, then protecting themselves from such an attack by sending signals of fixed length might give their enemies a reference point as to *when* the protagonists uncovered this exploit and therefor which information has been compromised. However, if a spoofed conversation's rhythm is used, then this hides the fact that the protagonists have this knowledge. This could also be used by the protagonists as a "canary in a coal mine": the protagonists broadcast relevant and timely misinformation and once the protagonists witness the enemy *responding* to this misinformation, they know at which point in time the enemy has become aware of the exploit, and therefor the protagonists know at which point to become suspicious of the conversations they themselves are reconstructing.
* Blocking signals. If an attacker has access to the network you're using (or it's done "over the air") there's little you can do to defend your network from being jammed altogether. Some interesting aspects of this problem are that the attacker would need to be able to broadcast the jamming signal either from close enough to the target, or from some place in between the target and the receiver/sender. Also if there are multiple ansible frequencies then jamming might require more than one ansible depending on the technology. It would also require more power to jam more frequencies, either limiting the time it took to jam a signal from the start of the target's broadcast, or limiting the amount of space you could cover with your jamming signal, or limiting the number of frequencies you could jam at once.
## Triangulation
The position of a sender may be discovered by detecting the strength of the signal sent and thereby triangulating their position. There are many ways an attacker might carry out this exploit. Here are a few:
* A single ship could triangulate a sender's source by simply moving around space as signals are being sent. This would require the target to remain relatively still and would also require them to be sending multiple signals. The number and frequency of signals needed would really depend upon the accuracy of signal-strength info (for instance, if a certain strength very reliably corresponds to a specific distance, then it's easier to triangulate. If there's variables that might introduce interference, then it becomes more difficult), and it would also depend upon where the attacker's ship was in relation to the target.
* Many ships coordinating together could determine a target's location by intercepting a single transmission. One downside of this method is that all of the attacking ships would be similarly exposed because they would also need to communicate over the ansible in order to convey this information to each other.
* A single ship could deploy probes which did all the work for them. As an added benefit, the probes can then broadcast the information they receive, meaning that an attacker's ship can be receiving this information instantaneously without broadcasting their own location (since they do not need to send any signals in order to instantaneously triangulate a position in this case). Of course this solution might be very expensive and dangerous if ansibles are rare: it would be a significant risk to float your ansible out there on a defenseless probe, especially if your enemies also have the ability to triangulate positions.
* One possible defense to this attack would be for the defender to transmit ansible signals from a secure location which they don't mind their enemies knowing, like a protected fortress. From this location, the ansible can be used in one direction only without giving away the location of the receivers. If the directionality of the ansible signal can be manipulated so that it's broadcasting in a single line or cone instead of to all surrounding space, then defending ships could also relay signals back to this secure location with a certain level of protection against triangulation: you would need to be much closer to triangulate a directional signal, or happen to be positioned between the receiver and sender (in which case you probably only need to receive a single such message in order to determine the location of the target, with very high accuracy).
* A defender could also deploy decoy signal senders if they could afford it.
## Real security arms races
One important thing to remember in all of this is that *technology arms races do not occur if enemies are unaware of each other's capabilities*. One great example of this is the Ultra machine which cracked Enigma in WWII: the cryptographic arms race did not continue on the German side after Enigma because the Germans were unaware that their signals had been cracked.
When it comes to modern computer security, the arms races which we know about continue because of the very public nature of these defenses and exploits. Defenses (like hashing algorithms) are often published because it is thought that the defenses *lost* through publishing source code (mainly the advantages of "obscurity", which are questionable), do not outweigh the benefits gained. Other people who are interested in your technology can then read the source code to double-check it for you. When you get a lot of people trying to scrutinize the security of a defense, it's thought to be much stronger than if only a few people were relying on their own limited expertise and the obscurity of their code.
Likewise, attackers tend to sell or share their tools. Often attackers don't even bother hiding their tools at all because they know that the average target either aren't computer literate enough to know to look for and protect form such exploits, or because even when the average target *knows* about the exploit, they're not likely to do anything about it. A great example of this is that people often reuse their password. Users *know* that this is bad practice and that it means their password is only as secure as the *least secure service they use this password for*, but they do it anyway.
In the case of an incredibly rare and valuable technology like the ansible, however, many of these exploits would go totally undetected, particularly "quiet" exploits like triangulation.
*Hiding* the fact that you have certain information can be it's own security challenge. For example, even though your enemy cannot detect via the ansible that you are triangulating their position, if you always go right toward their position every time they send messages, they'll pick up on it pretty quick. So to mask that you have that information you will need to act like you don't have it more often than not.
My advice is not to make the enemies/heroes *too* smart to the advances of the other, particularly in the cases of exploits which aren't easily detectable like triangulation or reconstructing speech based off of the rhythms of voice data.
[Answer]
Since you might be looking for less sophisticated techniques that a bunch of pirate hackers could come up with, I suggest adding a **Distributed Denial of Service** attack to their arsenal.
In ambush situations, in order to keep the enemy ships from immediately phoning home, all of the pirate ships could simultaneously flood the enemy ship's communication systems with messages. In a naive communication protocol, the ship might try to send ACKs (Acknowledgements) to each sender, resulting in congested bandwidth (if your FTL system has such a notion) or overloading of the onboard computer systems and memory buffers.
Doesn't take much code to rig it and the pirate ships could even coordinate the flood manually.
If more than one ansible rig can be placed on a ship, they could even retrofit one of theirs into a specialized [Electronic Warfare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_warfare) ship.
[Answer]
This combines several concepts present in the answers already given, but I think it is an idea worth its own answer because it relies heavily on the FTL part.
With sufficient hand-waving, a FTL communication system could be used to make a **self-amplifying attack**.
In the context of DoS attacks, an *amplifier* is a third-party machine which can be used as a relay to increase the number of packets that reach the target: if there is a setup in which you can send one packet to a third-party machine and have it send three packets to the target, then you can send three times as many packets to the target as you would be able to do alone. This is called an *amplification attack*.
With backward-in-time communication, a system could be set up to act as its own amplifier, with a snowballing effect: you send a signal back in time to your machine, and this has the effect of eliciting three packets from the machines. Then each of these sends a signal back in time again, and collectively they produce 9 packets. These 9 signals become 27 in the next loop, then 81, and so on.
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I think there are some factors here that people are missing.
If by FTL you mean faster than light, then you are proposing a system that doesn't send or receive transmissions in a way anything like what we have now.
You cannot send a message by making a wave or particle travel faster than light, you break the laws of physics that way.
Now that isn't to say that communication at the effective Equivalent of FTL isn't possible.
So....in really, really handwavy terms.... In theory, using Quantum entanglement or something like "direct counterfactual quantum communication" solution then, in theory you could get instantaneous communications between two linked quantum particles.
With a Quantum entanglement The side effect of this is that there is literally nothing to intercept, in fact unless you intercepted the message at a device before the message is sent or after the message is received you wouldn't be able to intercept at all. You can't introduce noise, or interference... you might be able to break the entanglement bond. Thats assuming the end points are entirely secure...
You might be able to build a man in the middle attack, if you had access to Both ends of the path without the owner knowing, you could setup some kind of relay... but not possible without having access to both ends, without the real owner knowing.
If you used a system that allow for quantum entanglement at a distance, you could possibly disrupt or intercept and do some kinda of man in the middle attack during the formation of a "connection".
I guess another SciFi type solution would be to somehow send a signal outside our particular universe, and have in travel in another universe that has a different set of physical laws and therefore be able to go the effective equivalent of faster than light ( without actually going FTL). In theory there might be something to intercept there perhaps?
OR write your own laws of physics... it is your world. Perhaps a certain type of energy fluctuation allows for the detection of a communications channel as it moves into and out of a inter-spacial pocket.
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OK, so we're treating the ansible network like an 1980's or early 90's IP network.
Each ansible passes on packets similar to an IP network with similar weaknesses to the historical internet.
History has some fun examples.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS_7007_incident>
Sometimes you just want to break the other guys system. So connect to the network and use something like BGP to advertise that you have the best route to absolutely everything and everyone. Suddenly your node is a black hole in the network and communications break down for most other nodes.
Good if you want to screw up their network mid battle.
As a version 2:
You can do something similar to cut off just their command ship mid-battle. Advertise that you have the best route to a particular node. similar to this event:
<http://web.mit.edu/6.02/www/s2012/handouts/youtube-pt.pdf>
Version 3: Similar but combined with spoofing to send fake commands such as "fire missile at these coordinates" which are actually the location of the command ship.
Version 4: spoof the address of a ship that's **not** the command ship then send fake weapons data implying that it's been hacked and started firing stealth missiles at the command ship so that the command ship attacks them.
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The classic example of a cylindrical space habitat, [Clarke's Rama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama#Design_and_geography_of_Rama), has a 10 km-wide ring of water at the middle. Most depictions of this [O'Neill-style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Neill_cylinder) of habitat do something similar, placing a large body of water somewhere inside.
The drawbacks to this design choice are fairly obvious:
1. If the habitat is meant to move, the momentum imparted to the water needs to be accounted for when it comes time to apply the brakes. *Rendezvous With Rama* "solves" this with a sheer cliff on one side of the sea, against which the water sloshes. This cliff towers over the rest of the habitat and serves no other apparent purpose.
2. The sea takes up space – nearly 20% in Rama's case – that could be dedicated to habitation, agriculture, and so on.
3. The sea, especially if it occupies the circumference of the inner surface, is a barrier to all surface-based transportation.
4. If the primary purpose is water storage or recreation, then arguably numerous smaller and less obstructive lakes could do the same job with fewer or reduced downsides. In fact, smaller lakes could be even more effective (e.g.: if the goal is recreational coastline, ten lakes 1/10th the size of the sea would have more than three times the sea's coastline; water stored within the hull does not pose a flood risk).
5. Water is less dense than the surface and sub-surface material it replaces, which could throw off the balance of the habitat and [cause it to spin end-over-end](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/90432/stabilizing-a-mckendree-cylinder-habitat).
**So, are there any undeniable *benefits* to having a large and obstructive body of water, either at the 'equator' or elsewhere, in such a habitat?** Benefits must offset the above drawbacks. Assume a habitat for humans; an amphibious or aquatic species would likely ask "why all this dry land?".
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# Radiation shield
There is lots of radiation in space. There are few better shields than water. Due to its hydrogen bonds and large dipole (that is, the oxygen is negatively charged, the hydrogen positively), water interacts readily with the most dangerous radiation in space, cosmic ray protons. Furthermore, since water is full of free H$^{+}$ anyways, the reaction of the protons doesn't cause any weird effects, it just makes the water (very, very slightly) more acidic over time. It also is a good blocker of gamma radiation.
Simply build your large body of water around the habitat, to protect everyone inside. As an added benefit, water is relatively transparent to visible light. The absorption coefficient of water in the gamma range is something like 20 cm$^{-1}$, while for blue light it is 10$^{-4}$ cm$^{-1}$. 2 meters of water will block 99.9% of incident gamma radiation, while letting the same amount of blue light through (admittedly, only about 82% of red visible light will go through).
# Conclusion
You can armor your space habitat with a water radiation shield while allowing most of the light through to brighten your inhabitants days. Once you have installed a large mass of water, you can keep it for other uses, as well; potable water, humidifier, fish tank, recreation, etc.
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Depends on your definition of benefit. In the case of Rama the lake wasn't just a lake, it was also a machine reclamation (and presumably construction) yard where machines from anywhere in the habitat could take advantage of 3d space, and if I remember correctly also had something to do with energy storage. Anyway..
By body of water I'm going to assume you mean un-tanked and visible. This immediately opens up some possibilities:
**1: Passive temperature/humidity control.**
Our ocean is a brilliant storer of heat. It's warm in winter and cold in summer as the thermal mass of the ocean slowly absorbs/releases temperatures. In your ship the designers would (presumably) work out the ideal heat and water vapour transfer/storage ratios (IE the surface area of the ocean to it's volume) and build accordingly. If it turns out the easiest way to achieve such a ratio is one big lake, then so be it. Arguably they could make a series of smaller lakes or actively controlled heating, but they might not want to have to duplicate the systems that allow control of the body of water, or may need a very large ratio of volume to surface that's easier to create by having one or two huge obstructive lakes rather than a series of small ones. It might even be that to conserve power they're pouring all their effort into making one large, stable body of water that then maintains the environmental conditions of the rest of the ship almost entirely passively in the same way that you can build buildings that passively control their own climate as long as a large enough body of air is available.
**2: As an ecosystem.**
You can't keep a whale in a duck pond for any length of time. Deep biodiversity of the kind you'd want to maintain an ecosystem requires space, but also requires interaction. If you want to bring along a heap of ocean species then you need something approximating an ocean to put them in including depths, large surface and shoreline.
**3: People like oceans.**
I'm not talking a recreational lake here and there: I mean a big, open expanse of water that people can go 'deep sea' fishing on. Perhaps a mandate from a senator or a populist cry from those destined to board your ship requires that there be an ocean. In that case you may as well put all the water in one place.
**4: Counterweights.**
I'll concede this requires two oceans, one at either end, but with creative plumbing and some undersea turbines (to transfer momentum from cylinder to ocean) you can use oceans such as this to counteract unwanted tumbling. Such a system *would* be more controllable in isolation, but if you need to have an oceans worth of water and all you're doing is occasionally moving momentum into/from it it may as well serve a second purpose
**5: Acceleration cushioning.**
If you suspend living quarters or sensitive machines in a body of water then when the spacecraft begins braking the water will provide a g-force cushion, aiding in survivability. I assume that (like Rama) the acceleration is down the axis of the cylinder. If the body of water is large enough, the acceleration small enough and you're in the centre of the ocean you may not even notice the deceleration (even though the surface might 'slosh' quite alarmingly). In a closed tank the 'sloshability' of such a large body of water is greatly reduced, which translates to more of the acceleration making it's way to whatever you have suspended. If you have a large tank of water being accelerated with an open 'sloshable' top then you may as well use it as an ocean and gain some of the other benefits noted.
All told I think that having such an ocean wouldn't be down to any one benefit: It would be a combination of smaller benefits and design considerations that, when taken together, would lead the engineers to the solution of 'sod it, lets put it in one place'. However: as I've noted in [an answer to another question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/31260/could-edible-fish-live-in-a-large-water-tank-used-as-a-radiation-shield-on-a-spa) such an endeavour does add complexity. It would very much be a balancing act between the various engineering complexities, political expediencies and mission requirements.
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In the case of Rama and other long, single-cylinder habitats, it provides mechanical balance.
A long, thin, uniform cylinder "wants" to spin end-over-end, as this is the lowest-energy configuration. If you start one spinning along its long axis, random perturbations will cause it to gradually shift to an end-over-end tumble, dissipating excess energy as heat.
You can change this preferred balance by adding a ring of high-density material around the "equator" of the cylinder, eg. in the form of an ocean. This moves the mass distribution of the cylinder closer to the center of balance, and makes spinning around the long axis the lowest-energy option.
(An O'Neill colony doesn't have this issue, since it's a pair of counter-rotating cylinders. Each cylinder counterbalances the other, leaving the system with no preferred orientation or spin direction.)
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Michael Richardson mentioned in the comment:
## Security
If you have a large space habitat, then odds are there will be a combination of military and civilian populations on it. As such the giant body of water and corresponding cliff are intended to act as a non obvious wall to segregate the civilian zone from the military zone. That way the military zone can happily tend to the military work, government business, or secret mecha research without worry that a random kid will wonder in on them.
On the civilian side of the ocean civilians have free access to go wherever they want, but only at designated check points can individuals cross over between the two sections.
*Warning TV Trope link*
## [Rule of Cool](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool)
The ocean does not have a practical or functional reason for existing besides from the fact that having one raises the prestige of the space station by making it look cool. This can happen over a simple competition between two space powers and each is trying to out perform the other one:
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> The Union made a space habitat and now we the Federate need to top their space habitat when we build ours, as such we are going to put a giant ocean in it. Then the Union proceeds to make a space station with an even bigger ocean in it than the Federate.
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**A large habitat is going to have a water cycle**
Humans, animals and plants all cause considerable evaporation of water. This will condense on the coolest parts of the habitat and run down till they reach the "lowest point" (or in the case of habitat rotating to simulate gravity, the widest point.)
All this water should run down and collect in a single large lake, where it can be stored and reprocessed. The lake can be used for recreation, too, just like earth reservoir. Untreated water is drawn from the lake and reprocessed prior to pumping into the purified water supply, just like on earth. Care would have to be taken to keep this separate from the sewage system (just like on earth...)
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The larger the body of water, the more stable the ecosystem.
For example, when you are designing a fish tank, the smaller ones are much harder to maintain, because their chemistry can get unbalanced very quickly.
The larger the tank, the slower the changes, giving you more time to correct and balance your nitrate & ammonia cycles.
If you think of a star ship as a giant fish tank for people, you might want to build a live support system an order of magnitude bigger than you think you really need, so that it could house the plants for your nitrate & ammonia cycles, all your fish for food and still be drinkable.
It would also give you some wiggle room if your heating-cooling system has to go offline for some reason. It could store/absorb a lot of extra heat in a pinch.
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## The drawbacks
Your drawbacks are somewhat flawed or incomplete. Let me elaborate:
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> 1. If the habitat is meant to move, the momentum imparted to the water needs to be accounted for when it comes time to apply the brakes. Rendezvous With Rama "solves" this with a sheer cliff on one side of the sea, against which the water sloshes. This cliff towers over the rest of the habitat and serves no other apparent purpose.
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The mass of the water is a valid argument. Water is rather heavy, and takes a lot of energy to acc/decelerate. However, note my feedback in 4.
I'm not sure how this cliff is intended to be used. Sloshing against a cliff will not help with the braking problem as far as I'm aware. Water sloshing back and forth is a zero sum game, energy-wise. And during a braking action, any force that the cliff exerts on the water (to slow it down) means that the water's kinetic energy is being transferred to the cliff (action equals reaction, thus making it a zero sum game).
The cliff does function as a containment vessel for the water, but that's not related to the kinetic energy argument for space travel. Assuming that the space habitat is able to brake *slowly* for a *long* time, the inertia of the water may even be negligible enough to not need high cliffs (but you would need to brake **really** slowly to achieve that)
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> 2. The sea takes up space – nearly 20% in Rama's case – that could be dedicated to habitation, agriculture, and so on.
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The benefit of having the sea should be weighed against the benefit of what else to do with the space. You wouldn't buy a house with a massive garage and a tiny kitchen, if you cook elaborate meals every night but do not have a car.
If you so choose, it's also not impossible to make the bodies of water subterranean (i.e. build your agriculture on top of it), unless you need open access (or line of sight) to the water.
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> 3. The sea, especially if it occupies the circumference of the inner surface, is a barrier to all surface-based transportation.
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Am I to believe that we're capable of building a generation colony ship slash space habitat, but shudder at the thought of having to build a bridge?
Any reasonable surface-based transportation is going to condense traffic on roads (instead of driving wherever you want). It's not excessive to build a few bridges.
Keep in mind that many of the logistical constraint of transportation on Earth is related to the transportation network having evolved and expanded. Many cities (especially in Europe) were built with a horse and carriage in mind, not a truck with a container on it. It's impossible to move the buildings around to widen every road; and this is the main issue with the increased traffic load on roads.
However, the space habitat will be built at a time where everyone is already aware of transportation. Roads can be built *before* residential areas; and there will be no logistical issues unless the space habitat is expected to undergo major redevelopment while being habited at the same time.
*A great example of this in real life can be found by comparing the US city layout to a European city layout. When most US cities were built, humans already knew the concept of traffic much better than when European cities were founded. The road system reflects that knowledge, as gridsgenerally handle heavy traffic better than Europe's snaky roads.*
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> 4. If the primary purpose is water storage or recreation, then arguably numerous smaller and less obstructive lakes could do the same job with fewer or reduced downsides. In fact, smaller lakes could be even more effective (e.g.: if the goal is recreational coastline, ten lakes 1/10th the size of the sea would have more than three times the sea's coastline; water stored within the hull does not pose a flood risk).
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If the primary purpose is water storage, then that means the water is **needed**. That means that even if there was no body of water; that the water would still have to be on board somehow (e.g. in small containers, all over the place).
If the water is on board anyway, and we're only considering whether we store it in a large body or keep it distributed, then the kinetic energy argument (see 1.) is moot.
The same amount of water will have the same mass, regardless of *where* on the ship it's located.
Looking at recreation; most of the reason why humans enjoy water-based activities is because it simulates a lower-gravity environment (due to our bodies' buoyancy). But in the space habitat, **we're already in space**. It would be possible to create a (near-)zero-G zone near the axis of rotation of the ship; thus creating a surrogate for water-based recreation (and arguably even more impressive by human standards, at least initially before it is considered normal).
Taking this into consideration, recreation doesn't seem like a good enough reason (by itself) to warrant bringing an additional body of water.
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> 5. Water is less dense than the surface and sub-surface material it replaces, which could throw off the balance of the habitat and cause it to spin end-over-end.
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Water is less dense than steel (or any similar metal alloy), but keep in mind that you don't need *that* much steel. Steel has a very high structural integrity, and the mass of that construction can be dramatically reduced by using bracing and crossbeams, as opposed to simply using solid steel.
This is something that humans have mastered for milennia. The Ancient Egyptians already understood the benefit of a wheel with spokes (compared to a solid disk), and they weren't even the first ones to realize that.
Extending the idea of the wheel with spokes; humans have also discovered that a wheel under tension (i.e. there is a *pulling* force on the spokes as opposed to a pushing force) are considerably stronger. Modern day bicycle wheels are a good example of this, they are all under tension.
Remember that we're creating artificial gravity by spinning around. **This is already functioning like a wheel under tension**. Lucky us!
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> which could throw off the balance of the habitat
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You're putting the cart before the horse. If the space habitat is going to contain bodies of water, that will be known at the time of *building* the space habitat. Therefore, the blueprints can account for the water.
It also doesn't make sense that you'd complain about the uneven distribution of water, while ignoring the presumably equally uneven distribution of housing (unless you want to house people based on body weight and constantly reshuffle them?), agriculture or people moving around. A couple of people moving around are insignificant, but what about a massive festival with people jumping up and down?
Secondly, the only balance that is needed (long-term) is an even distribution around the axis of rotation. Going by the O'Neill cylinder, all you need to do is ensure that every "arm" of the habitat contains *roughly* the same amount of mass.
In other words, if you give every "arm" a body of water of the same size (= mass), the balance is maintained, regardless of how big/small the lakes are.
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## Summary
* Any drawback related to the space habitat not being able to house the bodies of water, are negated by the fact that the space habitat will likely be built *with the bodies of water in mind*. You don't build a ship, only to then decide what to put on it.
* This includes any issues with **navigating** around a body of water. The roads can be built before the water is added to the ship (here on Earth, the water was there before the roads were built). This gives us the benefit of designing the roads and lakes in a way that does not compromise logistical efficiency.
* The **kinetic energy** argument is valid. However, this relates to the total amount of water that is on board, *regardless* of whether it's condensed into large bodies of water or comparatively small water tanks. **Mass is always expensive in space travel**. If a space habitat is being built, everything we would want to take with us would have to have its benefits weighed against its mass (pun intended). E.g. we're not going to take statues of lead or gold, just because they're pretty. The drawback of the added mass far outweighs the value of bringing it with us. In other words: regardless of having large bodies of water or not, we are already inherently constrained in the amount of water that we can bring.
* **Functional** uses of water inherently mean that the water is needed. Therefore, the sip must inherently be built in a way that it is able to transport the amount of water we're going to need.
* **Non-functional** uses of water (recreation) are generally negated. We're already capable of having a zero-G (or low-G) environment in space, which is very similar to floating in water. Also, if the people are only willing to travel around space if they're able to go jetskiing every weekend; they're bringing the wrong mindset to an interstellar journey. It is more than reasonable to ignore any request for facilitating water-based recreation.
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## Some reasons to have bodies of water
These are just quick-fire suggestions.
* If you put 1000 liters of water in a single 1000L tank, you'll need less material than when you want to build 10 100L tanks. The bigger your container, the less material you need (relative to the volume stored).
* If the water is being cleaned by e.g. algae, it might be considerably easier to have a few massive colonies of algae, instead of a large number of small algae colonies.
* Even if there is no discernible **functional** benefit, people might still prefer it simply because people generally like looking at large bodies of water.
* Having a lake in the center of your area means that everyone is spaced out a bit more, thus creating less noise/light pollution.
* An open body of water *naturally* humidifies the environment. The dryer the atmosphere gets, the more water will evaporate (thus humidifying the environment). Similarly, if it's already particularly humid, less water will evaporate. It's a self-regulating system that requires no power or active control.
* Are there animals on your space habitat? (If not for food, for ecological reasons, or even just as a zoo?) People like fish!
* Land animals, if allowed to roam freely, will instinctively still prefer a body of water. You can't expect animals to adjust to spaceship habits; they'll have a hard time adapting.
* You could e.g. build agricultural fields *over* the body of water. Instead of having to ferry water around (irrigation), you can simply regulate the moisture of the soil via the water below it.
[Answer]
*1. ...Rama "solves" this with a sheer cliff on one side of the sea, against which the water sloshes...*
Answered by yourself
*2.The sea takes up space – nearly 20% in Rama's case – that could be dedicated to habitation, agriculture, and so on.*
Sure, but if you need the water, and humans do, then you gotta put it somewhere.
*3.The sea, especially if it occupies the circumference of the inner surface, is a barrier to all surface-based transportation.*
Unless there are bridges and vehicular transportation.
*4.If the primary purpose is water storage or recreation, then arguably numerous smaller and less obstructive lakes could do the same job with fewer or reduced downsides. In fact, smaller lakes could be even more effective (e.g.: if the goal is recreational coastline, ten lakes 1/10th the size of the sea would have more than three times the sea's coastline; water stored within the hull does not pose a flood risk).*
You might be right about smaller lakes in terms of storage, but then you have to find ways of containing those so they wont create the same problems you say the bigger body would have. IMO your trading one problem for a lot of little problems, with not much benefit.
*5.Water is less dense than the surface and sub-surface material it replaces, which could throw off the balance of the habitat and cause it to spin end-over-end.*
But surely a technology advanced enough to create all this in the first place has already accounted for that in numerous ways.
My two favorite benefits for you are:
A) Drinking water. They have to treat it before drinking it of course, but as I said, the water has to go somewhere.
And B) Radiation shielding. To be sure, Rama didn't use its water for that purpose, but it could be used that way.
Good luck!
EDIT:
Piggybacking on Flaters answer about the water-
What if you did this to help prevent issues of momentum: Make the water slosh back onto itself as opposed to just slamming hard against the wall. Just an idea...
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XyFFG.jpg)
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If you have an aquatic species on board as a partner race, it would make sense. Otherwise water should remain in hydroponics, small pools, plumbing, and maybe small easily drained streams and fountains for aesthetics. There is simply no reason to have a lake.
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[
Edit: Everyone's ignoring the condition that the wizard needs to survive! This transmutation is to an object they're holding, it is not at a distance and any shielding is on the object and gets transmuted also.
This is a modern wizard who understands chemistry and atomic physics. The old idea of lead into gold is out of the question. Instead, they are able to transmute a target up or down one atomic number. The entire target will be changed even if it contains multiple elements. Atomic weight is unchanged. They must be able to handle the target he is going to change. To illustrate:
Target: Water, transmute up. Fail--it falls out of their hands.
Target: A beaker of water, transmute up. Hydrogen (protium) unaffected as there's no neutron to change into a proton. Any deuterium becomes He-2 and promptly splits into two hydrogens, or rarely returns to being deuterium. Oxygen-16 becomes F-16 and promptly emits a proton and becomes oxygen-15 and soon N-15. O-17 becomes F-17 which soon returns to O-17. O-18 becomes F-18 which in a little bit returns to O-18. The beaker is basically silicon oxide, Si-28 becomes P-28 which quickly returns to Si-28 or rarely Al or Mg. Si-29 and Si-30 soon return to their original form. The wizard ends up with a very energetic mess in their hands and probably dies. Better pick something else.
Make gold? Transmute mercury down--nope it takes a bit but every isotope produced decays back to being mercury.
Make platinum? Transmute gold down--nope, it decays back to gold. Transmute Iridium up? It's even rarer, no value there.
The only useful transmutation I can find is to transmute Uranium up and the demand there is low. The three isotopes of Neptunium you get all decay fairly soon, two go back to being uranium but Np-238 goes to Pu-238, useful in nuclear batteries. They are all alpha or beta decays, easily shielded against with a thin lead shell that becomes bismuth with decently long half lives. (There may be other elements that can shield it, I stopped looking when I found one that would be safe enough.)
Is there any other useful application of this? The results must be valuable, reasonable to handle and not fry the wizard.
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This is one of those questions that been bugging me since I first read it, each time I go back, I find more details. It's also given me an excuse to work out how to use the [ENSDF](https://www.nndc.bnl.gov/ensarchivals/) data sets with [nudel](https://github.com/op3/nudel) and the [NUBASE](https://www.anl.gov/phy/reference/nubase-2020-nubase3mas20) data set. (And I have a million tabs open and have probably got myself onto some government watch list, but hey-ho.)
It's a long time since I did nuclear physics formally, so I'll need other people to correct any errors.
A few notes:
* I'll be doing a lot of rounding to order of magnitudes because the numbers don't need to be that accurate.
* Calculating absorbed doses is hard so I'll be even vaguer there. If someone can do real dose calculations, that'd be nice.
* I'll be using the uranium to plutonium shielded by lead example from the question for several examples. That's not because this is an unusually bad choice (it's not), I just want to limit the examples I swap between.
Anyway, here are the things I've found.
## Nuclear physics is out to kill you
I know it's considered bad form to anthropomorphise fundamental forces, but when it comes to radiation, assume it's in the corner, cackling at you, trying to decide between the quick thrill of instant vaporisation or the slow drawn out agony of radiation poisoning.
It may not seem professional, but you'll live longer. I hope by the end of this discussion you'll agree that I'm not over-reacting.
## You're going into unknown territory
Perhaps its no surprise that most of the good quality data comes from isotopes with moderate or long half-lives. It's difficult to get good quality data when your experimental material disappears as you're trying to measure it.
That's not so say there's no data, just that it's lower quality.
The physics of nuclei is very complicated. Even though right at the basics, the underlying quantum mechanics is similar to atomic physics, most approximations fail. For example, nuclei may adopt a non-spherical shape to reduce their energy (see the [Nilsson model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilsson_model#Plots_of_energy_levels)). Theory often is not a good guide.
You're going to be pushing materials into short-lived isotopes. There may be surprises there.
At least you said a "modern" wizard. When preparing this answer I could look up lots of values (want to know the heat capacity of neptunium? [no problem](https://www.periodic-table.org/neptunium-specific-heat/)).
## How are you balancing charge?
You correctly talk about elemental transformation, rather than nuclear transformation. Transforming just the nucleus would leave you with an imbalance of charge, each mole (at best, a couple of hundred grams) of material transformed would acquire 100 kC of charge, about a thousand times the charge in a lightning bolt, which is going to disintegrate the material.
So, the question is *how* are you balancing the charge. The natural answer to this is just to do it how beta decay does it which is to create or destroy the appropriate number of electrons.
This suggests a physical mechanism for the magic. If the magic alters the nuclear forces in a region, so that different isotopes were stable then beta decay would do the work of transforming the nuclei. This is the mechanism used in Isaac Asimov's [The Gods Themselves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Themselves), in that case by moving the material to a different universe with different physical laws. However, looking in more detail shows this to be a bad idea.
## Balancing with positrons is a bad idea
Nuclei where it would be energetically favourable to decay to lower Z have two choices: electron capture or positron emission. If the difference in binding energy is low, only electron capture is possible. You really want electron capture. If using magic to transform to lower Z emitted positrons, then these would immediately annihilate with electrons in the material causing a burst of gamma rays. Each annihilation will produce two photons for a a total of about 10²⁴ gamma rays per mole of material. Each photon carries about half an MeV, for a total of about 100 kJ per mole of material which I think will be fatal for anyone standing close by.
## Balancing with high energy electrons is a bad idea
Electrons emitted by beta decay normally have far too much energy to remain bound to the atom from which they came. This is going to leave ionised material. If every atom in a material ionised simultaneously then what you have now is a plasma. Containment is going to be a problem.
It's not an accident that the electrons aren't bound. Differences in mass excesses between nuclei is usually of the order of MeV and electron binding energies are of the order of eV.
You might think that if you were achieving the the transmutation by altering nuclear forces, you could arrange them so the left over energy was just enough to leave the electron bound. This is unlikely to be practical. If I recall correctly, the beta decay rate goes as the fifth power of the energy difference. So, reducing a energy difference from 1 MeV to eV, will reduce the decay rate by thirty orders of magnitude. That's going to be a long wait.
## Molecules will be broken
So, let's assume the magic can take one neutral atom and convert it into another neutral atom with the electron in its lowest energy state. You'll have altered the number of valence electrons available for chemical bonds. If the atom were part of a molecule then the chemical bonds will be broken and the material is likely to disintegrate.
As the chemical bonds reform, you may end up with a sudden chemical reaction happening at every part of the material simultaneously. This is rate not normally seen in nature and could lead to much excitement.
## Bulk materials aren't always safe
Even if there are no bonds between different elements, bonds between identical atoms can be problematic. You don't want to end up with a pile of atoms that [Suddenly Want To Turn Back Into Elemental Nitrogen](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/11/15/things_i_wont_work_with_nitrotetrazole_oxides).
Maybe transforming one bulk metal into another bulk metal might be the least dangerous.
Or, extend the magic to place the electrons in a suitable position for the new material.
## The physical change in the material is a problem
Even a bulk material may have a different preferred configuration from its starting material.
A dramatic case is transforming from an atom that wants to be a solid at room temperature to one that wants to be a gas (say, potassium to argon). This is going to cause an explosion for any non-trivial quantity.
However, even solid to solid transformations can be a problem. In the original question there's a suggestion of putting a shield of lead around the material on the assumption that when it transforms to bismuth it will still be a good shield. Even if that's true, bismuth is about 10% less dense than lead so the material will suddenly be under a lot of stress as the atoms would prefer to be further apart. That's assuming it doesn't want to change its crystal structure. There would be a serious question as to whether the material would retain enough structural integrity to act as a good quality shield.
## Chemical impurities are going to kill you
As written, the magic transforms all atoms in the affected region. Getting high quality chemical purity is going to be a problem.
Let's suppose you left one microgram of carbon-12 somewhere in the material being transformed: perhaps a fingerprint on the outside, or some cleaning solvent trapped in the surface irregularities. Transforming carbon-12 up or down to boron-12 or nitrogen-12 gives a substance with a half-life of tens of milliseconds.
This is going to release about 10¹⁷ beta particles all at once (by the standard of human reaction times). This is equivalent to standing next to a 100 TBq source for about ten minutes.
In the case of transforming up to nitrogen-12, the beta particles are positrons so you get a similar number of annihilation gamma rays as well.
Transforming hydrogen in the material down will give a pulse of (presumably thermal) neutrons at a similar sort of level.
## Isotopic impurities are going to kill you
Even if you can chemically purify your material, you still have to worry about isotopic impurities.
Taking the lead to bismuth shielding transformation from the question. The intention is to use lead-208 to give bismuth-208 with a half-life of 3×10⁵ years. However, without isotopically purifying the lead, only half of it will be lead-208. A quarter will be lead-206 (I'll ignore the remaining quarter of the lead). That transforms to bismuth-206 which has a half-life of six days.
Suppose the shielding used only 1 g lead, so the result is 0.5 g of bismuth-208 and 0.25 g of a gram of bismuth-206. The bismuth-208 has a radioactivity of about 100 MBq which isn't too bad. However, the bismuth-206 is about 1 PBq which is a problem.
If you are transforming chemically pure hydrogen then transforming it up is going to turn the deuterium into helium-2 which is unstable and will immediately decay into two protons.
Although it's possible to enrich material, it's an expensive process. Getting it isotopically pure is difficult. If we could cheaply purify bulk materials then we'd use it to reduce [soft-errors in computer chips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error#Alpha_particles_from_package_decay) and we wouldn't need to [recover lead from shipwrecks](https://newatlas.com/relics-physics-archaeology-roman-lead/30032/).
Even a thousand-fold reduction of the bismuth, in example above, merely reduces the radioactivity to 1 TBq.
There are a small number of elements where there's only one naturally occurring isotope. For these, you could use chemical techniques to get good isotopic purity. These are: ⁹Be, ¹⁹F, ²³Na, ²⁷Al, ³¹P, ⁴⁵Sc, ⁵⁵Mn, ⁵⁹Co, ⁷⁵As, ⁸⁹Y, ⁹³Nb, ¹⁰³Rh, ¹²⁷I, ¹³³Cs, ¹⁴¹Pr, ¹⁵⁹Tb, ¹⁶⁵Ho, ¹⁶⁹Tm, ¹⁹⁷Au, and ²⁰⁹Bi.
Strictly, Protactinium has only one naturally occurring isotope (²³¹Pa) but seeing that has a short half-life (30,000 years) it's present only because of decay of other particles and any sample is likely to become contaminated with its decay products so we can drop that.
Similarly, one source I used would put ²³²Th on this list as being the only naturally occurring isotope, but another source reports a 0.02% mixture of ²³⁰Th, so I've omitted it.
It turns out none of these are interesting. Most don't have long-lived isotopes within two protons of them. The full list is (with half-lives, "a" is years):
| A | Z−2 | Z−1 | Natural | Z+1 | Z+2 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 9 | ⁹He (very short) | ⁹Li (178.3 ms) | ⁹Be (stable) | ⁹B (0.54 keV) | ⁹C (126.5 ms) |
| 19 | ¹⁹N (271 ms) | ¹⁹O (26.88 s) | ¹⁹F (stable) | ¹⁹Ne (17.22 s) | ¹⁹Na (< 40 keV) |
| 23 | ²³F (2.23 s) | ²³Ne (37.25 s) | ²³Na (stable) | ²³Mg (11.3046 s) | ²³Al (446 ms) |
| 27 | ²⁷Na (301 ms) | ²⁷Mg (9.458 min) | ²⁷Al (stable) | ²⁷Si (4.15 s) | ²⁷P (260 ms) |
| 31 | ³¹Al (644 ms) | ³¹Si (157.36 min) | ³¹P (stable) | ³¹S (2.5534 s) | ³¹Cl (190 ms) |
| 45 | ⁴⁵K (17.81 min) | ⁴⁵Ca (162.61 d) | ⁴⁵Sc (stable) | ⁴⁵Ti (184.8 min) | ⁴⁵V (547 ms) |
| 55 | ⁵⁵V (6.54 s) | ⁵⁵Cr (3.497 min) | ⁵⁵Mn (stable) | ⁵⁵Fe (2.744 a) | ⁵⁵Co (17.53 h) |
| 59 | ⁵⁹Mn (4.59 s) | ⁵⁹Fe (44.490 d) | ⁵⁹Co (stable) | ⁵⁹Ni (7.6×10⁴ a) | ⁵⁹Cu (81.5 s) |
| 75 | ⁷⁵Ga (126 s) | ⁷⁵Ge (82.78 min) | ⁷⁵As (stable) | ⁷⁵Se (119.78 d) | ⁷⁵Br (96.7 min) |
| 89 | ⁸⁹Rb (15.32 min) | ⁸⁹Sr (50.563 d) | ⁸⁹Y (stable) | ⁸⁹Zr (78.41 h) | ⁸⁹Nb (2.03 h) |
| 93 | ⁹³Y (10.18 h) | ⁹³Zr (1.61×10⁶ a) | ⁹³Nb (stable) | ⁹³Mo (4.0×10³ a) | ⁹³Tc (2.75 h) |
| 103 | ¹⁰³Tc (54.2 s) | ¹⁰³Ru (39.247 d) | ¹⁰³Rh (stable) | ¹⁰³Pd (16.991 d) | ¹⁰³Ag (65.7 min) |
| 127 | ¹²⁷Sb (3.85 d) | ¹²⁷Te (9.35 h) | ¹²⁷I (stable) | ¹²⁷Xe (36.346 d) | ¹²⁷Cs (6.25 h) |
| 133 | ¹³³I (20.83 h) | ¹³³Xe (5.2475 d) | ¹³³Cs (stable) | ¹³³Ba (10.551 a) | ¹³³La (3.912 h) |
| 141 | ¹⁴¹La (3.92 h) | ¹⁴¹Ce (32.511 d) | ¹⁴¹Pr (stable) | ¹⁴¹Nd (2.49 h) | ¹⁴¹Pm (20.90 min) |
| 159 | ¹⁵⁹Eu (18.1 min) | ¹⁵⁹Gd (18.479 h) | ¹⁵⁹Tb (stable) | ¹⁵⁹Dy (144.4 d) | ¹⁵⁹Ho (33.05 min) |
| 165 | ¹⁶⁵Tb (2.11 min) | ¹⁶⁵Dy (2.332 h) | ¹⁶⁵Ho (stable) | ¹⁶⁵Er (10.36 h) | ¹⁶⁵Tm (30.06 h) |
| 169 | ¹⁶⁹Ho (4.72 min) | ¹⁶⁹Er (9.392 d) | ¹⁶⁹Tm (stable) | ¹⁶⁹Yb (32.018 d) | ¹⁶⁹Lu (34.06 h) |
| 197 | ¹⁹⁷Ir (5.8 min) | ¹⁹⁷Pt (19.8915 h) | ¹⁹⁷Au (stable) | ¹⁹⁷Hg (64.14 h) | ¹⁹⁷Tl (2.84 h) |
| 209 | ²⁰⁹Tl (2.162 min) | ²⁰⁹Pb (3.234 h) | ²⁰⁹Bi (2.01×10¹⁹ a) | ²⁰⁹Po (124 a) | ²⁰⁹At (5.42 h) |
For half-lives of over a million years (see below), there's Niobium-93 to Zirconium-93. For half-lives over a thousand years there's also Cobalt-59 to Nickel-59 and Niobium-93 to Molybdenum-93 and
## Unshielded nuclei are either stable or going to kill you
People have been a bit blasé about letting materials beta decay after the transformation assuming that radiation isn't a problem. However, people are normally used to dealing with tiny quantities of radioactive materials with short half-lives where, in this context, "short" can mean years. As a rule of thumb, it's best to avoid interaction with gram (or kilogram or tonne) quantities of materials with half-lives below a million years. For milli- or microgram quantities you might be safe with shorter half-lives (thousands of years and years respectively).
You can see from the example above, that bismuth-208, with a half-life just below the million year mark I gave, is just about handleable in at the gram level. Radioactivity rates are inversely proportional to half-life. So, a material with a half-life of one year has a million times the radiation flux of a material with a half-life of a million years.
## I'm not kidding, even the heating will kill you
In the same example, the goal is to transform uranium-238 to plutonium-238 via neptunium-238 to make a nuclear battery. Let's assume everything is isotopically pure
A [radioactive heater unit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_heater_unit#Spacecraft_use) might contain 34 g of plutonium-238. I think that's going to produce about 20 W of heat which is containable in 34 g of bulk material (it's about 5 °C/s of heating). The neptunium-238 has a half-life about ten thousand times shorter. After correcting for the different decay energies, the 34 g of neptunium produces about 100 kW and heats up at 20,000 °C/s (assuming the radiation is absorbed within the bulk of the material) meaning it vaporises about 200 ms after it's formed. A boiling cloud of neptunium (emitting about 400 PBq of radiation) is going to shatter a thin shield, melt its way through a thick shield and ruin your day.
## Two nucleons are better than one
With a half-life threshold set at a million years, there are so few single nucleon transformations that give a suitably long-lived product, that it's possible to list them all:
* ¹⁰B → ¹⁰Be (1.51×10⁶ a)
* ⁴⁰Ar → ⁴⁰K (1.248×10⁹ a)
* ⁴⁰K → ⁴⁰Ar (stable)
* ⁴⁰K → ⁴⁰Ca (stable)
* ⁵⁰Ti → ⁵⁰V (2.65×10¹⁷ a)
* ⁵⁰V → ⁵⁰Ti (stable)
* ⁵⁰V → ⁵⁰Cr (> 1.3×10¹⁸ a)
* ⁵⁰Cr → ⁵⁰V (2.65×10¹⁷ a)
* ⁵³Cr → ⁵³Mn (3.7×10⁶ a)
* ⁸⁷Rb → ⁸⁷Sr (stable)
* ⁸⁷Sr → ⁸⁷Rb (4.97×10¹⁰ a)
* ⁹²Zr → ⁹²Nb (3.47×10⁷ a)
* ⁹²Mo → ⁹²Nb (3.47×10⁷ a)
* ⁹³Nb → ⁹³Zr (1.61×10⁶ a)
* ⁹⁷Mo → ⁹⁷Tc (4.21×10⁶ a)
* ⁹⁸Mo → ⁹⁸Tc (4.2×10⁶ a)
* ⁹⁸Ru → ⁹⁸Tc (4.2×10⁶ a)
* ¹⁰⁷Ag → ¹⁰⁷Pd (6.5×10⁶ a)
* ¹¹³Cd → ¹¹³In (stable)
* ¹¹³In → ¹¹³Cd (8.04×10¹⁵ a)
* ¹¹⁵In → ¹¹⁵Sn (stable)
* ¹¹⁵Sn → ¹¹⁵In (4.41×10¹⁴ a)
* ¹²³Sb → ¹²³Te (> 9.2×10¹⁶ a)
* ¹²³Te → ¹²³Sb (stable)
* ¹²⁹Xe → ¹²⁹I (1.57×10⁷ a)
* ¹³⁵Ba → ¹³⁵Cs (2.3×10⁶ a)
* ¹³⁸Ba → ¹³⁸La (1.03×10¹¹ a)
* ¹³⁸La → ¹³⁸Ba (stable)
* ¹³⁸La → ¹³⁸Ce (> 4.4×10¹⁶ a)
* ¹³⁸Ce → ¹³⁸La (1.03×10¹¹ a)
* ¹⁷⁶Yb → ¹⁷⁶Lu (3.76×10¹⁰ a)
* ¹⁷⁶Lu → ¹⁷⁶Yb (stable)
* ¹⁷⁶Lu → ¹⁷⁶Hf (stable)
* ¹⁷⁶Hf → ¹⁷⁶Lu (3.76×10¹⁰ a)
* ¹⁸⁰Ta → ¹⁸⁰Hf (stable)
* ¹⁸⁰Ta → ¹⁸⁰W (1.8×10¹⁸ a)
* ¹⁸⁷Re → ¹⁸⁷Os (stable)
* ¹⁸⁷Os → ¹⁸⁷Re (4.33×10¹⁰ a)
* ²⁰⁵Tl → ²⁰⁵Pb (1.70×10⁷ a)
That's a total of 39 possibilities. If you're prepared to drop the half-life safety threshold to one thousand years, you can add another 15.
It's not an accident that there are no good single nucleon transformations.
You'll notice that, in all the cases I listed, one of the two nuclei is radioactive, albeit with usefully long half-lives. This is consequence of the [Mattauch isobar rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattauch_isobar_rule).
Beta decay will exploit quite small differences in mass excesses (by the scale of the total binding energy of the nucleus). You can imagine that nominally, a plot of mass excess versus protons for constant mass, has a U shape and isotopes beta decay down the sides to the middle. If this were the case there'd be only one stable isotope per mass.
There are a number of effects that prevent the sides of that plot being smooth. The most important is that nucleons like to pair up. If you're familiar with filling electron shells in atoms you'll be aware that electrons preferentially fill each shell with one electron before going back and filling in its pair. For nuclei it's different. It's energetically favourable to pair the nucleons first. So, nuclei with even number of protons and neutrons are more tightly bound than those with odd numbers.
This superimposes an even-odd zig-zag on the U shape. So, at the bottom of some Us there can be two local minima separated by two protons. The Z between these two is typically unstable, preferring to beta decay to either, or both, of the two adjacent nuclei.
So, if you can move by two nucleons, you don't create unpaired nucleons and there are many more possibilities: 136 with a million year half-life cutoff, and only an additional two with a thousand year cutoff (see also [Isobar stability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobar_(nuclide)#Stability)).
A couple of interesting ones are:
* ¹⁹⁶Hg → ¹⁹⁶Pt (stable)
* ¹⁹⁸Hg → ¹⁹⁸Pt (stable)
Mercury-196 is only about 0.15% of natural mercury but mercury-198 is about 10%. Needless to say, these will need to be isotopically pure. The other isotopes of mercury, 199, 200, 201, 202 and 204 do not have stable platinum isobars. The most stable has a half-life of 12.5 hours, the least stable is unbound.
## Two nucleons once is better than one nucleon twice
It's already been suggested that the wizard can perform the magic twice to move by more than one proton. The problem is that the element between two stable isobars often has a very short half-life. Taking the mercury to platinum transformations I just listed, in both cases, the intermediate gold nuclide has half life of a few days and by now you know where this is going. These will produce petabecquerels of radiation per gram, and about a kilowatt of power per gram.
## You need to change the rules
If you don't change the rules of your wizard's magic there's no good ending. The wizard has only useless transformations and the transformation of trace contaminants will be fatal.
As already noted, changing the wizards magic to move two nucleons is a big help. The next is to change the selectivity. If the wizard can target specific nuclides then the contamination problem disappears.
Maybe you can work the selectivity into the story as the wizard's special ability. It's easy to assume that the problem with magic is power, but maybe it's control. Perhaps, by analogy, when casting fireball the problem is not getting the fire: just open a portal to the elemental plane of fire. Perhaps 99% of the fireball spell is getting the fire to its target instead of boiling the wizard's brain.
So, if your wizard can control their magic, tune it to the right nuclides, let the transformation go slowly to give the material time to relax and cool from atomic shifts, then maybe they can survive to do something useful.
[Answer]
## Look at the full chemical reactions, not just the atomic decay
*OPPS! F-16 HAS A 10^-20 SECOND HALF LIFE; SO, MY ORIGINAL ANSWER DOES NOT WORK AS WRITTEN ... THANKS COMMENTS.*
>
> Lets go back to your water example. Good old H2O has O-16 with its two covalent bonds but turns into F-16 with 1 covalent bond. During this short period of having F-16 your H20 will momentarily become hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen gas.
>
>
>
> 2(H2O) -> 2(HF) + 1(H2)
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>
>
> If you perform this transmutation at a temperature under 67°F (~20°C) then the hydrogen fluoride will pool as a liquid and the hydrogen will fly away as a gas. The hydrogen gas can now be collected if you so choose, but is not really the valuable half of this equation. It's only worth about \$0.40-0.70 per gallon of water.
>
>
> However, when the Florine decomposes back into Oxygen, you will now have a 1:1 ratio of Oxygen and Hydrogen leaving you with a very pure (and possibly dangerous) hydrogen peroxide.
>
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>
... That said, chemical reactions are still the way you profit from this discovery. One such case could be a possibly cheaper alternative to the Hall–Héroult process in the refining of aluminum.
By phasing down Aluminum Oxide, you get Mg-27 (2 bonds) for about 10 minutes per half life and N-16(3 bonds) for 7 seconds per half life. So the first reaction that would happen is that a lot of that Nitrogen will be forced out of the compound. Leaving you with Magnesium Nitride and Nitrogen gas. You use this opportunity to physically separate the compounds (perhaps with a vacuum chamber?)
6(Al2O3) -> 4(Mg3N2) + 5(N2)
A over the next few seconds most of the nitrogen will decompose into Oxygen leaving you with mixture of Magnesium Oxide and pure Magnesium in the vacuum chamber.
1(Mg3N2) -> 2(MgO) + 1(Mg)
Then several minutes later your Magnesium will go back to Aluminum yielding a partially refined aluminum mixture.
6(MgO) + 3(Mg) -> 2(Al2O3) + 5(Al)
Repeat the process a few times, and soon you will have a mostly pure aluminum dust ready to be smelted. A similar process could work on just about any oxide based ore (hematite, titanium oxide, etc.), but Aluminum is notoriously one of the harder ones to refine so it would probably yield the most profit.
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**Atomic waste disposal?**
There's a problem with certain fairly long-lived isotopes which have to be stored for many years or centuries before natural decay renders them harmless. Using this trick on them might well render them much less stable. If the subsequent decay is an alpha-decay, you have jogged them off one decay chain and onto another, and the resulting waste may be less of a long-term problem (though of course it becomes much hotter in the short-term).
**Nuclear power generation?**
This last factor might also mean that you have opened up a new form of magically catalyzed nuclear power. Start with a "useless" heavy element such as U238 or Thorium 232, magically move it out of its long-term almost-stable state in a reactor core, and generate lots of electricity.
**Bombs?**
Take care. Transmuting into something with a **very** short half-life could result in a catastrophic release of energy in the next seconds or microseconds. If you could accomplish this trick at a distance, you have a new weapon system. If not, you have a self-preservation issue.
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If they can transmute the Sun's helium back into useful hydrogen fuel, they can add several billion years to the Earth's window of supporting life. Not a one-day task, obviously, since we like the sun the way it is. That seems useful, though perhaps not particularly profitable without a good Kickstarter video.
They can also convert CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen (via N-12 and F-16). Some of the carbon would combine with other carbon, precipitating carbon dust out of the reaction chamber. Quite a few companies (and governments) would pay them to offset their emissions, and others would pay them for the precipitated carbon dust.
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Looks to me as if transmuting iron into cobalt would produce isotopes with long enough half life and useful enough properties to be worth considering.
One isotope of iron, atomic weight 57, would give a cobalt isotope with a half life of 271+ days, decaying back to iron by electron capture. However, you'd also get small amounts of cobalt 60, very useful for radiation treatments of certain cancers and irradiation preservation of food (gamma emitter). The other most common isotopes of iron, 56 and 58, produce beta emitters with a half life of 70 and 77 days, respectively, which decay to manganese isotopes which then decay (over a period of days) to chromium.
The key here is that you'd have *months* in which to process the cobalt to enrich the cobalt-60, potentially cutting the cost of production of this isotope (normally created by neutron bombardment in a nuclear reactor) and therefore reducing the cost of food irradiation units and other gamma ray sources.
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This wizard might be able to desalinate water, which would help millions of people facing water shortages. This would work best if the wizard can teach others to do the same.
My thought process is that the wizard gets barrels of water, or whatever they can handle in one shot, and transmutes the NaCl to Neon and Sulphur. The neon, being a Nobel gas, would break the connection to sulphur and bubble out of the water. The sulphur should start to settle to the bottom and some can be removed that way before it turns back into chlorine by simply sucking out the bottom portion of the water or closing it off from the majority of the container. Collecting the neon for use as sodium for when it turns back might be useful.
When the sulphur turns back into chlorine, it essentially disinfects the remaining water. Much of it would bubble out of the water, too. Capturing it might be useful.
I was thinking the next step is to transmute the chlorine into argon. My idea was this should bubble out of enough so that when it turns back into chlorine, but that's still seems to be about 15 times too much chlorine to be safe drinking water, so the next steps are to keep turning the chlorine into sulphur so it continues to settle out, since it's insoluble with water.
The water concentrated with sulphur that was removed is used as chlorine bleach.
The thing that would make this most useful is teaching this skill to others. One wizard being able to do this is nice, but probably has a significant cap as to how much desalinated water can be produced in a given time. Teach this to thousands or millions, and you have a much more useful process.
Granted, there are likely other things that need to be removed from seawater, so transmute them in ways to get them out as well. This might require transmuting something else to cause a chemical reaction to get the contaminates to either settle or bubble out.
I'm not familiar enough with the whole process of turning seawater into drinkable water to know what else is needed, but this seems like a good start. Even if the process is too dangerous to be done by "the average Joe" at home or the beach, it can still be done in controlled processing plants by trained "engineers". Having thousands of these plants around the world would likely be easier and [cheaper to build](https://www.twdb.texas.gov/innovativewater/desal/faq.asp), maintain, staff, and be less [environmentally damaging](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/desalination-plants-produce-twice-as-much-waste-brine-as-thought) than current desalination plants.
With the waste products from this process being (mostly) chlorine and sodium, we can use them as is or recombine them to produce the salt we already get from seawater.
The wizard might not get rich off the clean water, bleach, etc., but the process itself could be worth millions in tuition fees. Then again, clean water, bleach, and salt are billion dollar industries themselves.
## Research:
Safe drinking water has up to 0.0151416 g/gal (4 ppm) of chlorine in it.
<https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/water_disinfection.html>
However, swimming pools have a minimum of 1 ppm and spas should have 3 ppm chlorine in them, so 4 ppm is probably not going to be very palatable.
<https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/swimming/residential/disinfection-testing.html>
## Solubility in water
Neon: 10.5 cu cm/kg (with a density of 0.899994 kg/cu m) = **3.24461703e-4 g/gal**
<https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Neon#section=Melting-Point>
Argon: 62 mg/L = **0.234696 g/gal**
<https://www.lenntech.com/periodic/water/argon/argon-and-water.htm>
Salt: 360 g/1000 g = **1363 g/gal**
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_chloride>
Chlorine: 6.93 lbs/100 gal = **31.4 g/gal**
<https://www.chlorineinstitute.org/stewardship/chlorine/chemical-properties/>
Sulphur: Sulfur is insoluble in water
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur>
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This one depends on whether or not the result has to actually have protons and electrons, but maybe you could use it to create neutrons for nuclear experiments in large quantities.
Take a canister of hydrogen and transmute it down. The proton and electron in the hydrogen combine to create a neutron. Deuterium would create two neutrons, and tritium, three.
Of course, the results would be highly radioactive, given free neutrons have a half-life of about ten minutes and undergo beta decay to protons and electrons, but maybe your wizard can come up with a way to shield themselves.
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As a side note, it's important to consider the electrons as well. Going up, transforming a spoonful of water will change roughly 10^23 neutrons into protons. That's around 10^4 coulombs, which is a lot. Electrons from the moon will feel an acceleration of ~10^8 m/s^2. This will cause massive electrical storms, and probably sterilize the planet of all life. A similar analysis applies to going down.
Thus, the only reasonable alternatives are n -> p+e (beta radiation) or p+e -> n (electron capture).
The other answers provide good, practical uses, but there's also a serious security threat that needs to be addressed: suicide bombers. Since F16 has a very short half life, changing O16->F16 will result in a massive release in energy. If ISIS can sneak an alchemist into the USA, they can easily wipe the entire country out by transmuting a large pond, or if the effects are more limited, they can still wipe out a major city by transmuting a barrel of water.
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So, in this story, my main character and his friends go to the ruins of an old city from the pre-apocalypse years. He needs to go there to retrieve a valuable artifact, but the local tribe that controls the territory won’t let it happen. They are convinced that all pre-war cities were built by gods, not mere mortal men. They say that the cities are the realms of the gods, perfect utopias that humans should never enter. Now, my main character is relatively educated and knows how cities were actually built. He needs to explain the truth to the tribe in words they can understand (they have never seen automobiles, cranes etc.) So, how could you convince the tribe that cities were not built by gods, but humans?
If he does not convince them and tries to go in, they will try to hunt him down and kill him.
They live about 10 miles away from the city. The city is crumbling, with most of the tallest buildings reduced to rubble or metal frames. The suburb houses are there, but the tribe don’t see them as holy. The construction sites are all deep in the city, the parts that they don’t go in. They think it’s utopia because the stories they hear about come from the golden age, before the apocalypse .
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I'd advise against this approach. Your character has very low chance of success. When a dogma is central to a person's religious identity, it will be believed until there is some direct personal reason to stop believing it.
As a real world example of the effect of religious identity, many religious movements believing in creationism reject evolution decades after the evidence for it has become overwhelming. This is not due to stupidity or ignorance, it is because creationism is part of their religious identity, which is much more important to them than this specific biological process.
Evolution as a process is really only directly relevant to palaeontologists, micro-biologists, some computer scientists and so on. Accepting it has no real value to ordinary person that would justify questioning their religious identity. There is no cost (despite conspiracy theories otherwise) to rejecting evolution for most people, while members of such religious movements would pay high personal costs in embracing evolution. Even if other people were totally cool about it, the person himself would still have a serious religious crisis.
So, if I get back to the actual question, the cities being homes of Gods seems really central to religious identity of these "primitives". Questioning the sanctity of the cities would instantly question the entire existence of their tribal gods. Which would destabilize their religious beliefs and presumably entire social structure. Only a complete fool would do that just because some person tells them so and has some proof. The amount and quality of proof or the persuasiveness of the argument is not really relevant.
It is also totally unnecessary. Since you have a practical need to go to the city, not a burning desire to change beliefs of the natives, you can just work within their mental framework. Do not dispute their beliefs, embrace and reinforce them.
Just tell them that the spirits have spoken to you and revealed to you that great disaster will come unless you go to the holy city of the gods and directly beg the gods for their mercy and support in the form of a sacred divine artefact which when you return with it to your home will save your people from demons/disaster/divine punishment.
I assume your character has an **actual reason** to want this artefact, so you should express that reason in proper language and mental framework instead of lying to good people if you can help it. Similarly your character seems to have special knowledge of the city what is in it and things related to the artefact. Just express those in correct language of visions and divine revelation instead of wasting everyone's time trying to convert people to your preferred way of thinking for no reason.
Since this is arguably a holy quest, your character should have fun playing it up. And problems with his own lack of holiness. The best way to handle that is probably humility. If he openly admits his own shortcomings while repeating his belief in the mercy of the gods and the salvation in the form of the sacred artefact, people should accept him and his quest. Fake humility certainly works for real religious figures who fall short of standards.
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## Tell them the gods actually wanted humans to visit them.
This one works with a city circled by a freeway that acts as a no man's land. Entrances to the freeway are marked with "no pedestrians" signs. But the MC discovers a skywalk still standing that connects to the city, with a "pedestrians go here" sign. It looks so run down that no one in its right mind would use it, but MC convinces the natives that if the gods don't want him to enter, the skywalk will collapse, and if it holds, it means he's allowed inside. (You'll have to explain why the "pedestrian allowed" sign wasn't found before)
## Tell them a god from another city asked the group to retrieve the artifact.
This task shouldn't be done by the MC, who got blacklisted trying to convince the locals with his technology nonsense. Leave it to the group weirdo. You know, the one no one knows if (s)he's crazy or a genius. Hint that the locals are impressed by him(her) and his(her) eccentric behavior. They may believe him(her) more easily than the MC.
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In order for your character to be able to convince *anyone* of this, I think the following statements have to both be true.
* **Their gods are transcendent.** If they believe that a building built by the gods is indistinguishable from one built by humans, then no amount of demonstrating will be able to convince them otherwise. So in the absence of any pre-apocalypse photos or videos of that city, the tribe could simply say that it was built before humans were around.
* **They're familiar with the city.** If all they know is what it looks like from a distance, the tribal leaders could declare that anything built by humans is fundamentally *different* from the buildings in the city-- perhaps they're interwoven with spells, or rose instantly from the ground. The more skeptical-minded tribespeople might get on board with you if you built your own replica of a city building, but most of them likely wouldn't.
If both those statements are true, I think a demonstration by your character would be sufficient to at least get *most* of the tribe (you'll never reach everyone-- that could even be a plot point later!) that the city was perhaps not built by gods after all.
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One of the issues with dealing with "primitive" people is the lack of reference points. Buildings are a very old human technology, so understanding the idea of large buildings being an extension of building technology really isn't too difficult a leap.
On the other hand, "cargo cults" arose during WWII as American engineers build airstrips and military cargo planes began to arrive delivering the logistical supplies needed to fight a global conflict. For primitive people living in places like New Guinea, the very concepts of powered machinery and aircraft didn't exist prior to the arrival of the allies. Cargo cultists built replica airfields and airplanes in an attempt to continue to receive the bundles of supplies that flowed from allied cargo planes long ago.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vDKaR.jpg)
*Cargo cultists attempting to replicate aircraft*
So it may be possible to persuade some of the tribespeople that the buildings in the ruined city are simply very large version of what they live in (and this will be reinforced if the ruins are visibly collapsing: creations of the gods should not be decaying or collapsing). This still needs to be handled with some care, as Ville Niemi suggested in his answer, there may be a large component of people's self identity tied into their beliefs in the city, and no amounts of normal persuasion will likely work (and indeed be counter productive).
If that is the case, you may be better off either subverting the religious prohibitions (hinting at untold wealth that is hidden away), or making a spectacular demonstration that "your" god is much more powerful and opposing you is a very bad idea. If you are lucky, you might even find a complimentary belief system and exploit that; the Aztecs believed that the Conquistadors *were* gods, prophesied to return from the East, and the Conquistadors simply exploited that belief for as long as possible. (Of course, their access to modern fighting technology meant that they also could apply the "God is more powerful" card as well, delivering a double whammy to the Aztecs).
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Is this tribe in question listening? Is there an opportunity to discuss with? If so, the tribe should be able to give time to your main character.
Once this time is granted, your character must give all the information he knows about the structures. Indeed, if the structures are built by the gods, a simple human being is not supposed to know the subtlety of the buildings. Thus, it would be necessary to give details that the tribe can verify, like how to create the foundations. In addition, it is quite simple to create cement. It would be necessary to create a small quantity to show that it is possible to make solid walls with. Nothing better than to create what the tribe's beliefs are based on to disturb them and show that a simple human can do it.
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You say that your character is educated and knows that the cities were constructed by men. Does he have 'old' books or photographs wjere he learned this information from. Bringing photoes along where human workers build a part of a sky scraper or work in a crane would definitely help more to convince them than mere words. If the technology is still available to him to play videos that would be even better.
In any case, he would have to explain simply how to build a simple house (in case the tribe has lost even the knowledge of this), before moving to explaining more advanced structures. School videos for kids in primary school which explain the building of large houses and concepts behind constructing cities are probably a good source for obtaining ideas of how to explain complex notions to people who lack a lot of background information.
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You can't combat religious dogma with logic and reason. Your character would be better of lying through his teeth to convince them he's been appointed by the gods to enter the city. Use their religion against them.
Does he has any technology that he could use to fake the voice of god?
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Arthur C Clarke
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"He needs to go there to retrieve a valuable artifact, but the local tribe that controls the territory won’t let it happen."
If he knows enough lore he could try to convince the locals that he is on a mission from one of their deities. Does he really need to try to change their minds in order to manipulate them?
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This entirely depends on your various Character's motivations
**If the tribe is not that devout or maybe only a small number of them are** then some simply explanations and demonstrations of the principles of the pre-apocalpyse tech that gave rise to the stories that in turn gave rise to them being Gods, might be enough.
**or**
he'd have to convince the tribe that entering the city will not anger them and therefore they have nothing to fear and demonstrate that
**If he refuses to lie to the tribe, but happy to bend the truth**
then he will simply have to tell the tribe he will not enter the city of the gods leave the other way and then go round them. i'm presuming the tribe have not built a huge circular city of their own around the ruins??? being that the city is not actually a city of the gods, then his statement is true, while also deceiving, hence bending the truth
**If the MC is happy lying**
Then as above saying he has divine permission is the simplest way to progress
**If the MC refuses to lie, *and* refuses to bend the truth and go round them, and the tribe devoutly believe it is the city of the gods...**
then he'll need to setup and schooling system, educate the young of the tribe so they can grow up to educate their offspring, develop suitable water treatment and farming to improve upon the tribes lives, then force the tribe into an industrial revolution, where they can begin to build basic versions of the pre-apocalypse technologies, throw in a couple of world wars, to further enforce the development and even more advanced tech, learn to split the atom...
Then have a neighbouring tribe start a complicated game of oneupmanship, until is finally ends with the tribe landing on the moon...
then after another Generation or two, they may have a few tribesmen, usually teenage boys trying to show how fearless they are to impress a girl. might venture into the city. once this has been done and the MC (which would need to be very very long lived) might be able to convince those same boys that would have since grown up that its was safe and the old very devout members of the tribe have all died of old age, then maybe they could be convinced with reasoning... but scientists have been trying that for centuries.
For the majority of mankind, their beliefs will always take priority over fact. to use an above example:
Evolution is provable **fact**, and yet creationists still exist...
The earth being round is provable **fact**, and yet flat earth believer's still exist...
DCEU movies have pretty much *all* been utterly terrible is an obviously provable **fact**, and yet supporters still exist...
These are not criticisms of the believers, just simple **facts...**
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Perhaps the MC could say that city was created by gods, but the gods decided to play a game in which they transformed into humans and forget who they were. So they left the cities.
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If your goal is to explain the cities were build by men like you and him, not gods, you could mention the graveyards and funeral houses in a city. You need to explain the limits of those who build the cities so you can show the builders were not gods.
If your goal is to show off the technology, build something that the tribe cannot deny the usefulness of and explain something they have no explanation for.
If your character does this and the tribe is concerned about this, what then? Using more technology would be like opening a Pandora's box for them. They could say, "Embracing this would lead to same destruction of the gods." You will need to build trust with them to convince your path is the right one.
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The year is 203X, and a [small-ish](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1.887%C3%9710%5E6%20cubic%20meters%20*%20density%20rock%20*%20%280.5%20*%20%2820km%2Fs%29%5E2%29) asteroid is detected just 24 hours before it hits the atmosphere above [central Florida](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=100000&lat=28.3016557&lng=-81.6278293&hob_psi=5&hob_ft=47553&ff=52&psi=20,5,1&zm=9). The kinetic energy is estimated to be "a few" exajoules (1 exajoule being 5 times the energy of the Tsar Bomba if it explodes in the air, 1.4 EJ being a magnitude 9 earthquake if it all ends up in the ground, and nobody's quite sure which will happen). Someone tried to nuke the asteroid, but that just means the asteroid is now *radioactive*, not that it's been stopped.
On the plus side, Florida has a lot of experience with [mass evacuations from all the hurricanes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_evacuations#21st_century) — if anywhere can get its people to safety, Florida can.
How many people can be evacuated from Florida in 24 hours?
Assume near-future tech: self-driving cars are *really* self-driving (and all electric), but they're still only 1/4 of all cars in the USA, and they're still limited to the sorts of range (and battery charging times) you'd see in a 2022 Tesla. No significant changes to aircraft or shipping capacity. Cunning plans encouraged, provided they can be implemented such a tight schedule.
Assume the Caribbean islands, including Cuba, are happy to assist with ships for the immediate evacuation.
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In college, I simulated the evacuation of coastal South Carolina as a project for my "Mathmatical Modeling" class. Some ballpark estimates based on the outcomes from that simulation:
* Assuming orderly evacuation efforts, Jacksonville will be fine. It's not far from the Georgia border, and between them, I-95, US-17, and US-23 provide six lanes of northbound flow -- twelve, if you temporarily reverse the southbound lanes. That's two million or so safe.
* Tallahassee has a better lane-to-population ratio and a similarly short distance. Expect complete evacuation within twelve hours, giving you another quarter-million or so.
* Pensacola is probably outside the blast radius, and is right on the border, with plenty of options for travel. Another half-million saved.
* Gainesville is a bit tricky: you're trying to funnel a half-million people through the four/eight lanes of I-75 and US-301, and the US-301 traffic is trying to get out of Florida on the same roads as the Jacksonville crowd. Still might be doable, particularly if you time the leading edge of the US-301 evacuation to meet the trailing edge of the Jacksonville evacuation.
Three and a half million or so safe. And that's the end of the good news.
* Orlando has two and a half million people and no dedicated evacuation routes. I-95 (three lanes, six if reversed) and US-17 (one/two lanes) run into the Jacksonville evacuation, while I-75 (two/four lanes) runs into the Gainesville evacuation. Expect some survivors, but not many.
* Tampa-St. Petersburg (three million people) is *also* trying to funnel onto the same two/four lanes of I-75 as Orlando and Gainesville; US-19 relieves things slightly by providing a dedicated two/four lanes. Maybe a half-million survivors, mostly from the US-19 route.
* Miami-Palm Beach is toast. The Everglades provide a severe bottleneck to any evacuation, and even once you get past that, you run into the traffic from every other evacuation. Expect maybe a couple hundred thousand survivors, mostly people who could find or commandeer a boat and make it to Cuba or the Bahamas.
Evacuation by any means other than road can't save very many. The infrastructure for loading millions of people onto boats, trains, or airplanes just isn't there -- you might be able to pack 20,000 people onto the Queen Elizabeth II, but it'll take most of a day just to get them on.
Florida handles hurricanes by moving people away from the coastline. Storm surges extend, at worst, a couple miles inland, and there are plenty of short-distance east-west routes to evacuate people on. Evacuating the entire state using the limited number of north-south routes is a very different prospect.
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## For fun, let's calculate a [Fermi estimate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem)
The easy way to approach the problem is to concentrate on how many people can be moved across the state boundary.
How many roads are there out of Florida? As an ignorant provincial European, I know of [I-75](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_75_in_Florida). It's a six lane freeway; of course, all six lanes will be dedicated to the exodus. Let's say that all the drivers are excellent drivers, and each lane can carry one car per second. Let's also assume that each car carries 5 people.
6 lanes × 1 car/second × 5 people/car = 30 people/second
30 people per second means 108,000 people / hour. Round it to 100,000 people per hour. In 24 hours, the I-75, under the best possible conditions, can transfer 2,400,000 people out of Florida.
Maybe there is another high-capacity road out of Florida. Maybe [I-10](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_10_in_Florida)? As far as I know, I-10 has only four lanes at the boundary between Florida and À la Bamma, so under the same ideal conditions it can move 1,600,000 people out of Florida per day.
@GrandmasterB indicates that there is also [I-95](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_95_in_Florida); that's also a six-lane freeway, so we can add another 2,400,000 people.
That's a total of 6,400,000 people exiting Florida in a day. And this is in ideal conditions, with no traffic jams and all cars having some sort of automatic distance-keeping software enabling them to follow one another at one second interval.
Sorry for the other 15,000,000.
(Note that airplanes and ships don't count. They cannot move any significant number of people in a day. The only other reasonable means of moving people out would be by rail, but, as far as I know, the railway network in Florida is rather poorly developed.)
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**Not many**
If 24 hours is all we have from the first confirmation of asteroid strike, even in the best case scenario authorities won't be able to create effective evacuation mechanisms in time. 2-3 millions, mostly from Northern Florida would be able to make it across the state line. The rest would be bogged down in traffic jams all over the place. Planes and boats can take some people away, but this number will only be in tens of thousands (in excess of what they normally carry off every day).
This is a pity, because potential for quick evacuation is much higher. Cars, buses and trains can take virtually everyone out to safety - if they work in concert. This type of work must be carefully organized - for example, one bus convoy can take a thousand people away at a time moving on an opposite side of a highway - but this is not something that happens every day or even every year.
If authorities are somehow prepared and everyone knows what to do, then *most* of Florida can be evacuated within 24 hours.
P.S. Just to substantiate my point - Florida has about 60,000 school buses, and apparently at least that many school bus drivers. If we jam pack those buses, millions of people can be moved, but doing this all within 24 hours would be an enormous task.
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24 hours? Panic, confusion, traffic jams ...
First, somebody has to convince the state and federal governments that this is real, and not a rounding error, and not going to hit Tunguska instead. They won't go public unless NASA or the Space Force or preferrably both confirm it.
Next, there needs to be an alert. Fortunately there are [Wireless Emergency Alerts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Emergency_Alerts). Let's assume that most people receive and believe it. (Some won't get it, some won't believe it.)
Forget ships and cunning plans. You won't get ships to ports and people to ports in time.
[Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida) has about 22 million people. There are about [8 million](https://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number-of-registered-automobiles-in-the-us-by-state/) cars. So in theory, there should be enough seats in the cars for everybody. In practice, not all cars will travel at full capacity.
Miami to Jacksonville are 350 miles. Even if cars constantly drive 55 mph, that's six and a half hours. But you can expect a traffic jam, instead. A large number of cars will have to fill up, but gas stations cannot cope. Humans being humans, they will get into their cars and try to get as far as they can. Damaged cars or those with dry tanks will clog the highways.
The endurance of a Tesla is marginally enough for the trip, but that's assuming good driving conditions, not this chaos. So discount *all* electric cars as being unsuitable. *Unless* there is a special lane on the highway for electric car convoys under computer control, and the social norm of not using that lane with an old gas-guzzler holds up under stress. (Imagine a group of smart cars, all talking to each other and the smart road, cruising along at their calculated cruise speed -- and then a stereotypical redneck with a non-networked pickup full of semi-auto rifles cuts into their lane.)
To make the evacuation with ordinary cars work as well as possible, you need a smart system to match cars, gasoline, roads, and people. Each car is filled to capacity, and only then it gets gas and road space. Impossible to set that up in the remaining time, but perhaps there have been environmental regulations to require (and monitor) car-pooling by commuters? If "just about everybody" has an account, their system might be able to scale up enough.
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# Frame Challenge
You don't supply every bit of information needed to complete the analysis, but it's close enough to say that you overestimate the effect of such an impact.
You supply a volume of 1.887e6 m^3, this means a diameter of 153.317 m. And a density of 2450 kg/m^3
You don't specify the angle of impact, so I'll assume worst case of 90 degrees.
Plugging these into the Purdue / University College of London Impact Simulator yields the following [result at a distance of 50 km](https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=50&distanceUnits=1&diam=153.3&diameterUnits=1&pdens=2450&pdens_select=3000&vel=20&velocityUnits=1&theta=90&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500) from the impact site.
Crater Dimensions:
What does this mean?
Crater shape is normal in spite of atmospheric crushing; fragments are not significantly dispersed.
Transient Crater Diameter: 2.57 km ( = 1.59 miles )
Transient Crater Depth: 907 meters ( = 2980 feet )
Final Crater Diameter: 2.92 km ( = 1.81 miles )
Final Crater Depth: 408 meters ( = 1340 feet )
The crater formed is a simple crater
The floor of the crater is underlain by a lens of broken rock debris (breccia) with a maximum thickness of 0 microns ( = 0 thousandths of an inch ).
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 0.0059 km3 = 0.00141 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater
Thermal Radiation:
What does this mean?
Time for maximum radiation: 103 milliseconds after impact
Visible fireball radius: 1.55 km ( = 0.961 miles )
The fireball appears 7.03 times larger than the sun
Thermal Exposure: 1.08 x 105 Joules/m2
Duration of Irradiation: 22.7 seconds
Radiant flux (relative to the sun): 4.79
Seismic Effects:
What does this mean?
The major seismic shaking will arrive approximately 10 seconds after impact.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 6.1
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 50 km:
VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly designed structures; some chimneys broken.
VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures; considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures. Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls. Heavy furniture overturned.
Ejecta:
What does this mean?
The ejecta will arrive approximately 1.69 minutes after the impact.
At your position there is a fine dusting of ejecta with occasional larger fragments
Average Ejecta Thickness: 3.1 mm ( = 1.22 tenths of an inch )
Mean Fragment Diameter: 11.1 cm ( = 4.39 inches )
Air Blast:
What does this mean?
The air blast will arrive approximately 2.53 minutes after impact.
Peak Overpressure: 9790 Pa = 0.0979 bars = 1.39 psi
Max wind velocity: 22.2 m/s = 49.6 mph
Sound Intensity: 80 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
Damage Description:
Glass windows will shatter.
Assuming that the impact location can be accurately estimated (and it should be quite accurate if they have had the time and accuracy needed to nuke it), at a distance of 50 km from ground zero the only prep needed would be to board up windows. If the point of impact is in a major city, evacuation will still be quite challenging, and people will die from the evacuation as well as not being evacuated. But, this would be in no way as problematic as evacuating Florida.
Outside of 25 km, shelter in place measures would often be sufficient to avoid significant personal harm. A true regional disaster that will be the lead story for quite a while, but no need to evacuate the whole state.
At the time of the Fukishima disaster, 51 people died as a result of the evacuation - given the much more challenging, it is safe to assume a much larger number of people would die by attempting to evacuate Florida.
Changing the meteor characteristics to make it match the destructiveness you want to achieve can run into another problem, the bigger the rock, the sooner it will be detected. If you decide that is what you want, I suggest you user a higher speed impact (one going counter to the Earth path around the sun is a good option since that is around 30 km/s), - but the same rock hitting at 50 km/s is still has a long way to get to require evacuating the entire state.
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Reality bites - **on paper** you can move millions of people via cars and airplanes and probably one or two million by ship.
But in a panic situation, all your planning will break down rather quickly. There will be accidents on the roads blocking or slowing everything down. People will lose their tempers, cars will be filled not at optimum capacity, some idiot will go on the road with almost empty gas tank. Similar situation at the airport - people screaming, kids lost, panic, people trying to board already full planes, etc. etc.
So under real-life conditions at most at third of the maximum capacity will actually manage it.
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## Large majority escapes using autonomous platooning vehicles
Florida has 22 million people.. with proper coordination between state authorities and transport services some 80-90% could escape.. in the 2030's.. *when* energy transition plans are implemented..
**Motor cycles**
In 2020 there were an estimated 620,077 [registered motorcyclists](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=florida%20motorcycle%20count) in Florida, when used effectively they allow about a million people to escape.
**Passenger planes**
As soon as the asteroid is discovered, the airlines organize a coordinated attempt to evacuate Floridians out. In a day, [Miami airport](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=capacity%20airport%20miami) can handle 1000 flights. Say 500 are outgoing, 250.000 people can be evacuated using airplanes, per international airport.
**Shared autonomy driving**
On the day of the disaster, the Florida government decides to open up the left side of the high ways exclusively for platooning (coordinated) shared autonomy driving *north*.
<https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/autonomous-vehicles-mobility-electric/>
Platooning..
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wT1lg.png)
**New personal transport services**
In the 2030's, new vehicles will appear. As fossil fuel has become expensive, the number of public transportation-like decentralized vehicle services (driverless taxis) now far exceeds the number of private cars. These vehicles bring you to your work daily and traffic jams have disappeared. On the highways, these taxis communicate to keep distance. So a traffic jam can be prevented. Private electric vehicles will have a device that allows them to join the taxis.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7AVI4.png)
Supposed 2030's some 75% or the fossil fuel cars got replaced, and the transportation services coordinate their efforts and each available vehicle has 2-3 people, around 14-18 million Floridians could escape.
**Gasoline and diesel cars**
When Floridians are lucky and listened to Greta Thunberg, on the right side of the road, the traffic jam will be prevented. Most cars are electric now. And you'd have less private cars. Estimated some 800.000 (10%) of the privately owned gasoline cars could still be operational, theoretically you'd get 1-3 million people on the road. But that part will be on the right side, subject to local accidents.. unorganized.. only some percentage will reach a safe area.
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How do force field work in many sci fi fictional universes? I remembered the last time I checked the strength of the electromagnetic field a.k.a force field is proportional to the power output from the engine, so how does applying additional kinetic energy to the shield affect the power output? It is analogous to saying an overcrowded maglev train can only be run at half its normal energy consumption, makes no senses at all. Seriously Scotty, did you break my ship... again?
I should clarify the force field in this case is being treated like a rigid structure, meaning it can break like any solid object, so don't go harassing my science officer!
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I can see a few ways that this could work without breaking thermodynamics too badly. But you'll **never** get "Shields at N percent" with **any** kind of magnetic or other field that we know of today. This is strictly handwaving.
* The shield acts like a blob of heat-conducting, viscous liquid that slows down bullets and absorbs heat from lasers and other energy weapons. The rate at which absorbed energy can be dissipated depends on the size of the shield. (A "damaged", i.e. hot, shield will glow red-hot.) If it gets too hot, various bad stuff might happen: Generator melts, shield goes critical and dumps all the energy both inwards and outwards, your choice. (This is the approach used by Larry Niven in the Mote in God's Eye).
* The shield consists of an array of targetable force-field projectors -- something like a CIWS with the Half-Life 2 gravity gun or something. If it has to deflect too many threats in too short of a time, they will run out of ammo / stored power / fuel / whatever and the threats will start getting through (gradually at first, hopefully the targeting system will prioritize.) (this is *possibly* the Mass Effect approach)
* The shield substance behaves in some ways like a normal mechanical solid armor, only it's not made of of ordinary solid matter. It gets damaged much like real armor, dissipating the energy of incoming projectiles (by shattering) or directed-energy weapons (by vaporizing or heat-sinking). If a hole opens in it, you're vulnerable.
* (possibly most realistic one) The shield consists of an *actual* liquid held in some kind of forcefield (ferrofluid, maybe?) and serves as self-healing / flexible inertia and ablative armor outer-layer. (This will be much heavier and thicker than real armor and probably work best on very large ships in zero-G). Getting hit vaporizes or splashes the liquid, and if too much of it gets used up, there isn't any more.
I think that the idea of shields having a percentage that goes down when they deflect damage is mostly a concession to video and tabletop gameplay where having hitpoints is useful. In movies and the like, they tend to be much more all-or-nothing, but tend to let at least some threats through... which can damage the shield generator... leading to the shield failing. Still not very realistic.
[Answer]
The shields that made most sense to me was a gravitational field, not electromagnetic. but that does not change anything, really.
Shield was not a constant field. It was actually a directional effect generated on demand to conserve power. When something relatively light "hit" the shield, it only used up energy from capacitors in the node that took the hit - and everything went back to normal in a matter of seconds. When capacitors were all empty and there was another hit, there was a need to supply power from central accumulator, not engines (because dynamo in engine room was still slower than central accumulator battery). This was replenished slowly - and this would be your percentage. When something heavy hit the shield, there was a risk of burning out "nodes", lessening the ability to stop multiple projectiles later to save ship now. When there were many projectiles, ship would use all nodes for short peak of omnidirectional field, at the expense of power.
Based on beer talks, Weber's books and few other resources.
[Answer]
Technobabble warning: I just made all this up. None of it has any scientific validity. It's all magic space wizards.
The shield is an active crystalline energy held into a specific form surrounding the ship. When the shield is hit this damages the crystals as the impact is absorbed and spread out through the shield matrix.
The shield generators have a reservoir of energy (essentially capacitors and batteries). The generators are constantly charging the capacitors but the energy required to stabilize and repair the crystalline energy matrix is far beyond what the generator can sustain. This means that when taking heavy hits the capacitors get drained and are then gradually recharged by the shield generators.
Shields at 10% means that the shield capacitors are at 10% charge. If they reach zero then the shields will start to destabilize and collapse. If the shield takes no hits for a while then the capacitors will refill as the generator's output is used to charge them.
In other words:
* Shield Generator -> Shield Capacitor -> Shield Projector
Larger or tougher ships may have more powerful generators or larger capacitors, which means the damage they can take is larger. If incoming damage is less than the generator output then the shields will never drop below 100%.
[Answer]
Shield is some sort of field. Engines power it. When a hit comes in, engines spin faster momentarily to repel it. But there's also a battery supplying additional oomph (technical term). The battery gets depleted. Once you get away from battle, the battery starts recharging. The percent is how much battery is left.
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The shield actually pushes back on the projectiles being launched at it. The energy to do this (which could be very huge, dependent upon the projectiles) comes from some central ship supply, which could be whatever you want (antimatter, hydrogen, plutonium, giant battery, plot device x, etc) as long as its capacity is limited. When shields are at 10%, that means that the central reserve of energy that powers your shields only has 10% of its energy supply left to use for stopping projectiles.
For other ideas, this might draw energy from the same source as (some or all) other ship components, resulting in raising the shields to block a hit being a choice to sacrifice the other components that need the same energy, which could be a minor inconvenience if you choose to connect communications or interior lighting to the same systems, or a big thing to worry about if critical functions like propulsion or life support are connected to the same supply.
[Answer]
I saw documentary about creating a real life force field they theorize that having a layer of hot plasma sandwich between two layers of cold plasma could create an impenetrable shield that would soak up any energy or projectile weapons. I've always imagined that Shields in science fiction would work something like this but would require an outrageous amount of power to maintain and that would eventually run out in a fight.
[Answer]
Perhaps the shields are formed as a combination of:
* Electromagnetic fields to deflect particle beams and railgun/coilgun slugs.
* An energy barrier which imparts kinetic energy on matter impacting it, which is used to counter said projectiles' current kinetic energy.
The electromagnetic field has a constant energy drain while active, and draws more power the further it's pushed up. The energy barrier has a lower constant drain, but drains a significant amount of energy on-hit, proportional to the stopped projectile's kinetic energy.
The shield's percentage rating indicates how much power it has directly available in its capacitors and/or batteries, without having to go through the ship's main power system; the ship can easily recharge capacitors while out of combat, but attempting to do so while in combat puts it at risk of an overload (due to already drawing significantly more power than usual, for weapons and evasive maneuvers); there's also the possibility that any feedback in the shielding system could damage the main power system, if you attempt to recharge while the shield is active. Therefore, shields will likely either not recharge at all during combat, or recharge more slowly (due to the main system actually recharging a secondary capacitor, which is then used to recharge the shield capacitors; this prevents any feedback from potentially crippling your entire ship).
---
Alternatively, if the shields are designed to absorb incoming energy instead of stopping it, the percentage can mean one of two things: how much power is left for stopping matter projectiles, or how much leeway there is for absorbing energy. If the system absorbs too much energy, it could overload, potentially damaging itself in the process. Conversely, if the power level drops too low, the field can't be maintained at all, leaving the ship vulnerable to any kind of attack.
In this situation, "Shields are at X%" could have one of two meanings:
* If blocking physical projectiles, "We only have X% shield energy left."
* If blocking energy weapons, "We only have X% more leeway before things start exploding."
...This could get confusing when dealing with mixed weaponry, but it's likely that shields would either remain more-or-less constant or just give out more slowly (due to the energy weapons replenishing the energy used up by the physical weapons).
[Answer]
First, a quick recap of what we're trying to accomplish:
* Shield must be able to break
* Shield "value" must be measurable
* You can see the shield when something hits it (blue sparks or ripples or whatever you see in movies)
* Unobtainium exists
First, we begin with the assumption that the majority of the ideas about how a force field **really** works (that it is a uniform shield projected around the entire ship) is wrong.
Ever watched a video of someone playing table tennis with a pair of nun-chucks?
**Let's take that and expand it into a force field.**
Consider that the ship can spin unobtainium threads at extremely high speeds, such that you can't see the movement of the threads, and that any projectile will be intercepted by the movement of the thread, either knocking it (the object) out of the way, or destroying it - perhaps even absorbing energy type weapons, if lasers exist in your world. (Think grass mower plastic thread theory).
The ship can have sensors which detect how much the unobtainium threads have degraded, and spit out new thread to replace old thread - as the ships shield takes more hits, the threads are lost faster, and eventually the ship runs out of thread (0% shields left). The ship may also be able to detect or predict what kind of projectile the shield is intercepting, thus allowing the prediction of "1 more hit and we'll lose our shields".
The unobtainium threads may also contain a property which allows it to emit blue (or other color) for a short time as it gets hit by projectiles. You'll also be able to explain away sparks created by the interception of projectiles from the thread(s).
With this system, we will also be able to explain why shields have to be "turned on" - the threads need a bit of time to spin up to speed. We also get to say that glancing hits from projectiles cause less damage than direct hits (if you want to in your story - I believe this works out from a physics standpoint, but if I'm wrong please point it out)
*"But you can't cover the entire ship like this! You'll end up with circular spinning plate-type shields!*" you say? No problem - what about an array of smaller plates, which cover up holes between plates with more plates? Think of a chain mail type arrangement, or a fish-scale type layout.
Now we can also explain away "redirect power to the forward shield generators" - all they're **really** doing is using more thread for the area that they want to redirect "power" to.
[Answer]
Hmm...The shields run on Handwavium (term borrowed from another post). They rely on a network of projectors surrounding the ship and their individual shields overlap, somewhat like scale mail. Each can deflect only so much energy before failing until recharged, which takes time and energy.
If one individual shield is hit until it fails, the load is taken up by nearby sheild projectors, but they are less efficient now. Enough failures in an are means a hole in the shield, but not the complete failure of the whole system.
If the network have 100 projectors and 90 fail, shields would be down to 10 percent.
This kind of network gives the additional advantage of being able to "re-route power to the aft shields" by reducing the amount of power going to fore shields.
Repair comes from replacing, repairing, or recharging damaged or depleted projectors and would give "Shields back up to 37%" a bit more meaning.
Sounds like fun!
[Answer]
If I were to make a shield for a space ship, I would try to use iron filings in orbit around the ship by a magnetic field. As objects or energy beams hit the iron filings, they would be scattered and no longer in orbit around the ship. With sheilds at 10%, only 10% of the iron filings are left.
[Answer]
Based on the technology in my answer in [Hard Sci-fi energy shields](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12520/hard-sci-fi-energy-shields/12527#12527):
The technology is based on a swarm of physical shield elements held in place and moved around using superconductive flux pinning.
# depletion
There are two resources that can be depleted: the physical plates and the control system.
## plates
Plates that hit may *break*, or undergo stress that cause fractues to build up with use so it eventually breaks. They are designed to absorb more energy by ablating a passive coating so this wears off. It also absorbs energy by breaking along engineered seams so the smaller pieces can still be contolled by the system.
Plates may suffer a hit and absorb more energy than the flux pinning system can “catch” so it’s thrown out of the swarm.
In any case, fresh plates need to be deployed to continue to provide protection. It takes time to move them around and you may have a control capacity of only moving so many at one time. Bad ones still consume control capacity so must be removed before fresh ones can be put out.
## control burden
When a plate is pinned in position, any force acting on it induces electric currents that set up magnetic fields that exactly counter the motion. When *hit* the plate is accelerated severely and thus causes huge currents. The superconductor has physical limits.
To reposition a plate requires active control over the currents, essentially making an electric hologram that changes over time. How many plates can be controlled at once, how quickly? There will be reql limits to the machine.
Imperfections will consume more power and cause heating.
# executive summary
The boss wants a single number that indicates how much impact can be accepted, from a specified direction. You can see that after being used, plates need to be sent back to the correct positions or rotated out of service. Heat must be removed from the superconductor, and power added to carefully dampen/cancel disturbances and reposition the plates. Until that is accomplished, the system will have a reduced maximum ability for the next hit.
This is a **summary**, but is really an assessment of many factors. So it may indeed be inconsistent in how it really behaves. It’s not a simple hit-point scorekeeping, but a complex dynamic state and messy fracturing of physical plates. How it *really* handles the next hit can be quite variable.
# failure modes
So when the capacity is exceeded, what happens?
If there is no plate that can take the hit, or deflect it completely, then the impact will hit the ship. This may be leftover bits and pieces that could not be slowed in time, so the effect can ramp up as the capacity is exceeded.
More spectacularly, what happens if the superconductor is overloaded? Look what happened [at the LHC](https://cds.cern.ch/record/1178509?ln=en) when it “quenched”. The heat build up caused it to exit the superconductive state, and then the entire energy stored as electric currents suddenly felt the material resistence.
The superconductor shell doing the control needs to surround the entire ship. It might be seggregated into individual units that have some isolation from each other. When one of them blows up, it’s like a grenade exploding right at the skin of the ship! So, this matches the TV trope quite easily.
[Answer]
Usual trope works as following :
1 - The ship has a finite capacity to generate energy. Meaning each second the system "generates" a finite ammount of energy.
2 - This energy generation capacity is divided between various subsystems - Engine, Weapons, Force Field and Life support.
3 - Each subsystem has a finite capacity to store energy.
4 - Everytime a subsystem "works" it drains a certain ammount of energy from its storage.
5 - Captain can decide the proportion of energy allocated to each subsystem. In other words how much of the total energy generated each unit of time a subsystem will receive.
6 - The ammount of energy in each subsystem is, therefore, the result of how much was stored in the previous unit of time, minus how much was used during this unit of time, plus how much was allocated from the generator.
So lets suppose the generator generates 10 Gigajoules per second (the unit of time in this example) and the captain allocates 5 gigajoules for life support, 3 for weapons, 2 for shields and 1 for engine, if you fire a very powerfull weapon that uses 10 gigajoules per shot, 5 will have to come from the subsystem storage, meaning that this subsystem will have 5 gigajoules less in the next second. If the weapons subsystem storage capacity is drained, the weapons subsystem will stop working, leaving the ship unable to fire until enough energy is stored. The same works for shields. Usually, the ammount of energy drained from the shields subsystem is proportional to how powerfully was the ship hit. So if your enemyy fires at you with a weapon that makes your shields use more energy than the generating capacity, the storage will be used. If hit again, it will drain it a more, and so on. So, if hit hard enough or fast enough, your storage will be exceeded and you will lose your shields, exposing your hull armour. The energy storage is usually expressed as per cent of total capacity.
In that situation, the captain will, usually, increase the amount of energy allocated for shields, leaving you with less energy for weapons and/or engines. Usually, in the tropes, you cannot decrease the ammount of energy to life support due to the risk of casualties, or this sacrifice is explored as a show of military honour etc...
So regarding the question, "Shields at 10% one more hit and ..." What ?
The next hit will hit the ships hull directly, totally or partially, dealing real damage to the ship, that might or not be fixed by the damage control parties.
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Totally non-sense answer, you have been warned.
It always seems to me that shield needed a lit of energy to run, thus they had capacitors/battery banks. As the shields absorbed incoming energy they would deplete the capacitors. At some point, these capacitors would no longer have enough "charge" to function. This would give you a scale you could represent as percentage. The shields either worked or didn't, but the capacitors may have 10% charge left.
Of course at the same time, your totally amazing engine power would be refilling the capacitors. So if you could just dodge a few shots your shield capacitors would go up to 15%.
At the same time you wouldn't want to wire the emitters directly to your engine, cause if there was a power spike you would end up with a really big and loud space ka-boom.
As for how the shield actually work, well, we do have some shields today, but they don't work anything like sci-fi shields. They basically emit a wave or pulse that disperses another type of wave or pulse. Like "blocking" a flash light by turning on a overhead lamp.
I have noticed however, that sci-fi shields are usually good against energy thingies, and terrible at physical thingies. Perhaps a good example would be reading about Dune's personal shields, and their draw backs.
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Your shields absorb energy from enemy attacks as heat, and store it in heat sinks until it can safely dissipate. Eventually, your heat sink will melt down into slag, and then you can't channel any more heat into it. The next attack won't be absorbed, and will mess your ship right up.
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[Question]
[
Currently, I'm creating an alien species with two eyes, but two pupils in each eye. Though I'm not sure how it would affect its vision, whether negatively, positively, or both, so I've been looking for an answer.
I previously asked this in the Biology community, though I was suggested to turn here instead.
[Answer]
From the perspective of a human, the results are bad.
* The muscles around the pupil are designed to dilate and contract the pupil, regulating the amount of light impacting on the retina. Two holes instead of one means the area between the two holes isn't being controlled as expected, and the result is poor light control on the retina.
But, if the eye is *designed* for something non-human (like a goat, frog, cat, or...) like two holes, then there could be some benefits.
* If you have a two-chambered retina, it would allow you to receive something different in one compared to the other. This would only make evolutionary sense if what was coming through the pupil couldn't be dealt with by the construction of the retina. In other words, if you add cones to detect infrared light, that would NOT justify two chambers.
* On the other hand, a second chamber would be useful for full-spectrum sight (or, perhaps, "normal" spectrum sight) if you're in a binary star system and one of those honkers is *really, really, really bright.* The second chamber would be more acute than simply shading a single chamber.
* Or, if you really color outside the lines, the second chamber might heighten contrast, or heighten saturation, or some other Photoshoppy effect that would give them an advantage over just seeing plain old color.
So, if the eye is a two-chambered retina and the muscles of the eye are designed to manipulate two pupils, we have an ultra-cool solution with an amazingly high geek factor.
If, on the other hand, you're just thinking about human eyes with two holes. Nope, there's no advantage at all. In fact, it's all downhill.
[Answer]
**It's possible and the effects *should* be positive.**
It's possible to have two pupils in the same eye with each adding their own benefit. As linked by [Renan](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/107409/how-would-a-creature-see-with-two-pupils-in-each-eye#comment326015_107409), the [four eyed fish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-eyed_fish) has four pupils in two eyes (so it's a bit of a misnomer). The upper pupil of the eye is adapted for vision in air while the lower pupil for vision in water. That is, the refractive index of the lens in front of each respective pupil is adapted for the different refractive index of the medium they're seeing in. It also has two separate retinas inside a single eyeball, one for each pupil.
For your own creatures it would likely work in a similar fashion, for vision in different mediums or even different colors or spectra (assuming it als has two retinas).
If you introduced a creature with multiple pupils that had no evolutionary advantage, a reader may question if you really thought it through at all.
[Answer]
**[Polycoria](https://www.healthline.com/health/polycoria)**
Not sure about how this would affect an alien, but in humans this is a medical condition with the following side effects:
1. blurred vision in the affected eye
2. poor, dim, or double vision in the affected eye
3. oblong shape of one or all additional pupils
4. issues with glare
5. a bridge of iris tissue between the pupils
Although, Pliny the elder wrote that it may give you magic powers, but that has yet to be determined
>
> There are people of the same kind among the Triballi and the
> Illyrians, who also bewitch with a glance and **who kill those they
> stare at for a longer time**, especially with a look of anger, and that
> their evil eye is most felt by adults; and what is more remarkable is
> that **they have two pupils in each eye**.
>
>
>
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0MvlH.png)
[Answer]
Your creature occupies a middle trophic level. It is a predator but is preyed on by larger predators.
When in the role of predator it uses the vertical pupil to maximize depth perception and perform accurate ambush attacks. When under threat by predators it constricts the vertical pupil and uses the horizontal pupil to maximize field of view while looking for danger.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupil>
>
> A 2015 study[16] confirmed the hypothesis that elongated pupils have
> increased dynamic range, and furthered the correlations with diel
> activity. They showed that vertical pupils enable
> ambush predators to optimise their depth perception, and horizontal
> pupils to optimise the field of view and image quality of horizontal
> contours.
>
>
>
Depicted: vertical predator pupil (cat), horizontal prey animal pupil (goat).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XVGSH.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0QU4v.jpg)
[Answer]
# Your alien is related to the mantis shrimp.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SThcc.jpg)
They have the [best eyes in the animal kingdom](https://phys.org/news/2013-09-mantis-shrimp-world-eyesbut.html), with not two, but three pupils in each eye. Humans have binocular vision - we perceived depth by focussing two pupils on the same point. Mantis Shrimp have *trinocular vision* giving them better depth perceptions than humans **using only a single eye.** Not to mention that they [see in the infrared and ultraviolet range and discern polarized light in ways that we can't](http://thatslifesci.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2017-03-22-Mantis-Shrimp-Vision-Seeing-in-Secret-Code-MBruce/). These phenomena aren't a result of multiple pupils, but rather because of a larger number of photoreceptors - twelve instead of the three that humans have. In short, their vision is something we can't quite even imagine.
They have other amazing qualities, like [being able to create shockwaves](http://blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatfishblog/2014/05/02/mantis-shrimp-deadly-punch-provides-inspiration-science/#.WrF7nskpB7g) underwater that stun prey even if their bullet-fast striking appendages miss. Oh, and the Department of Defense is studying the structure of its shell for the sake of designing better body armor. But I digress.
EDIT:
Correction by Samuel confirmed - their eyes are indeed compound, like those of insects, so their "pupils" that we see in the photo are an optical illusion - which I think is still pretty cool. [Details in this article](http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/03/21/mantis-shrimps-have-a-unique-way-of-seeing/), which also tells how they can distinguish between right- and left-circular polarization of light, and may even use this as a communication method. Their vision is still trinocular, however, as each eye has three distinct sections.
I wasn't going to, but LSerni in the comments already did. [Obligatory link to The Oatmeal](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp), though the notion of them being able to see so many colors was disproved - many of the extra photoreceptors are used for some of the above purposes.
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I'm no biologist, but a pupil typically isn't just the aperture, it's also the area the Lense fits to.
If you have two pupils, would you not have two lenses?
In which case having radically different lenses would enable very different behaviours of the eye without sacrificing the benefits of one over the other.
Eg: Extremely good distance vision AND extremely good close vision in the same eyeball without having to refocus dramatically. Sort of a built in bifocal lense.
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[
I have a timeline when North America is devastated by a natural disaster in 1980: USA, Canada & Mexico are with only 5% of their people and even less of their infrastructure, thus barely functioning as countries.
Would the eastern bloc still collapse in 1989 in this timeline or would it linger longer?
[Answer]
USSR relied heavily on on exporting raw commodities to pay for food imports, since their agriculture couldn't provide for the growing urban population due to idiocy of central planning, lack of farmer [motivation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6KnqLEsXmE) and experiments with [Lysenkoism](https://infogalactic.com/info/Lysenkoism).
Without USA there would be less demand for their exports and less supply for their imports. They would be in big trouble much earlier, so I doubt they would survive till 1989.
Below is the explanation from their Ex Prime Minister [Yegor Gaidar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar) in his [Story of Grain & Oil](https://www.aei.org/feature/the-soviet-collapse/)
>
> There were three options–or a combination of three options–available
> to the Soviet leadership.
>
>
> First, dissolve the Eastern European empire
> and effectively stop barter trade in oil and gas with the Socialist
> bloc countries, and start charging hard currency for the hydrocarbons.
> This choice, however, involved convincing the Soviet leadership in
> 1985 to negate completely the results of World War II. In reality, the
> leader who proposed this idea at the CPSU Central Committee meeting at
> that time risked losing his position as general secretary.
>
>
> Second,
> drastically reduce Soviet food imports by $20 billion, the amount the
> Soviet Union lost when oil prices collapsed. But in practical terms,
> this option meant the introduction of food rationing at rates similar
> to those used during World War II. The Soviet leadership understood
> the consequences: **the Soviet system would not survive for even one**
> **month**. This idea was never seriously discussed.
>
>
> Third, implement
> radical cuts in the military-industrial complex. With this option,
> however, the Soviet leadership risked serious conflict with regional
> and industrial elites, since a large number of Soviet cities depended
> solely on the military-industrial complex. This choice was also never
> seriously considered.
>
>
>
Soviet agriculture is a moral lesson that shows what kind of damage happens when science becomes politicized. Check the sad stories of [The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov: The Story of Stalin's Persecution of One of the Greatest Scientists of the Twentieth Century](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/1451656491) and about [The men who starved to death to save the world's seeds](https://in.rbth.com/blogs/2014/05/12/the_men_who_starved_to_death_to_save_the_worlds_seeds_35135)
[Answer]
This study has a list of [estimated GDPs](http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/other_books/new_HS-7.pdf) in 1980.
For Western Europe, GDP is 4849 billion (adjusted 1990 dollars); for 'European offshoots' which is mostly US and Canada, but also Australia, 4878 billion. For Eastern Europe + Soviet Union that number is 675 + 1709 = 2384 billion. The rest of the world combines to 7935 billion.
The result is that the various states of Western Europe still have about twice the economic production of the Warsaw Pact. The difference is now that the Western nations no longer have more economic production than the rest of the world combined.
Given that Western Europe is now the sole holder of mantle of Western democracy, and is still in a powerful, though no longer dominant position vis-a-vis the Warsaw pact, this would seem to cause a renewed surge of competition between East and West.
Consider also who was in charge in Western Europe at the time. Helmut Kohl became chancellor of West Germany in 1982 and Francois Mitterand in France in 1981. Both were viewed as the architects of the European Union, and both served for over a decade; Mitterand until 1995, Kohl until 1998. England on the other hand had Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1990. It is remarkable that this period coincided with over a decade of stable leadership from the three biggest Western European countries.
With Kohl and Mitterand dedicated to European unification, Thatcher going the opposite way and being much more assertive in general world affairs (Libya, Argentina/Falklands, tripling Britain's nuclear arsenal), Europe in general was well poised to become an assertive world leader in 1980 if the US was erased.
In conclusion, I think that the presence of a valid rival who was more economically on par with the Soviet Union would have given the Warsaw pact and Soviet Bloc around the world more reason to be. Therefore, it would have lasted longer as part of a continued Cold war stalemate.
[Answer]
Define "collapse".
What you describe would be disaster on the global scale and would devastate the economies of the rest of the world. The eastern bloc would probably be less affected that the "free world", but this would be balanced by their economy being more fragile, which in turn would be balanced by their economy being more in the control of the government...
My prediction of what would happen is that everyone would go to damage control mode and economies would globally move towards centrally planned solutions until situation stabilizes. This would be a net win for the eastern bloc elites, they would have a temporary justification for their system and for a temporary rationing of any necessary strictness. This would probably delay the collapse by some unknowable time.
The reason the collapse was so fast was because the people had something better to move to. Under a global economic meltdown caused by the removal of the US, there would be no real immediate benefit from breaking the eastern bloc and even with the nothing else changing, the process would be slower. Which would probably be a good thing, the fast process that actually happened had some issues that might be avoided with less pressure to move fast.
Since the destruction of the US and a global economic meltdown would also end the cold war for the duration without anyone having to lose face, this would also open the window for the Soviet leadership to go for reform lot more aggressively than was possible in actual history. Almost any reform could be justified as emergency response to the situation and implemented by force if necessary. People would also be more motivated to work together. Even cooperation across the iron curtain would now be possible. It is debatable whether the soviet leadership would have the ability to pursue this possibility though, but you can even build a scenario where the eastern bloc survives in reformed form.
Alternate outcome is the eastern bloc using the military window instead. Loss of the US would devastate the west militarily and turn the power of balance in the favor of the Soviets. The soviet leadership might decide to use the opening and invade the western europe. This would give them the resources and strategic position to prop up their power even without successful reform.
And of course, integrating the western Europe would open its own window for reforming the system. Just treat the Europeans softly, and instead of forcing all the ineffciencies of the soviet system of them, use them as model for reforms in the east.
So maybe the answer would be, possibly not, if the soviet leadership responds decisively and effciently. Otherwise, the process would be slower. Unless the soviets mess up their response, in which case it would be faster... (Not very useful answer, is it?)
[Answer]
If North America had 95% of its population wiped out, that would likely destroy anything resembling a modern nation in the area: try to imagine the U.S holding together with about 15 million people in the middle of the Cold War (hint: it probably won't). That sort of disaster is going to destroy the world's economy, since the U.S was fueling a lot of economic growth (and on its own represented something like a quarter of the total global economy).
You've just left the Soviet Union as the only major power on the map, which essentially by default means it's going to last longer due to the lack of competition, the reduced need for military spending, etc. Without the U.S presenting a counter-example, the Soviet Union's economic failings are much more likely to remain hidden or at least non-catastrophic, its political influence will be significantly greater with the loss of its great counterbalance, and the sudden spike in dependence on its products is going to fuel its growth. It's free to turn a lot of military spending towards the economy instead, since it's no longer trying to match the U.S military juggernaut.
I'd suggest rethinking your scenario, however: what kind of disaster could wipe out 95% of North America's population and leave it with less than 5% of its infrastructure without having catastrophic physical (not merely economic and political) effects on the rest of the world? Biological weapons wouldn't shatter the infrastructure unless they eat steel and flesh alike, and would most certainly be spread around the rest of the world. An asteroid impact on the necessary scale would cause a years-long winter as dust blocked out much of the sunlight, with ruinous consequences on food supplies globally. Nuclear catastrophe continent-wide (whether by reactor meltdowns or nuclear weaponry detonations) would have a similar effect, with the added problem that a lot of that dust would be radioactive: look up the Chernobyl disaster and how far radioactive materials were dispersed by it, then multiply that by hundreds or thousands.
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The main issue in regards to any country's stability isn't economic, but political. It frankly doesn't matter how many people starve or rot in poverty or are piled into mass graves. The idea that the economy is the be all and end all is a result of liberal thinking; where individuals surrounded by capitalism can only view history through the lens of economic matters. The USSR endured serious hardship and famine under Stalin; far worse than anything that came later, but it didn't fall apart because everyone feared stepping out of line.
By 1980 the USSR was already suffering from [economic and political stagnation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation). If you want the USSR to endure longer in any given alternative history you need to undo [De-Stalinisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Stalinization) and have Stalin succeeded by leaders who were just as brutal.
The USSR fell apart because it allowed dissent, culminating in the coup de grace of [Glasnost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasnost). When Gorbachev was asked what was the difference between Glasnost and [Socialism with a Human Face](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_a_human_face), he said "Nineteen years". Back then orthodox communists feared a free press would destroy the USSR, so they put down Czechoslovakia's progressive reforms with tanks. The fate of the USSR is better understood with a grasp of [Stalinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism) and the [Prague Spring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring), as well as a cross examination of the fates of different communist regimes. This is how history is written: blood and terror.
Also worth noting that even if the USA disappears, even if the rest of Europe minus West Germany disappears... the issue is not that West Germany exists and does better for its people, but that the people of the USSR can freely talk about it without fear of being snatched from their beds in the night.
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**Longer, because...**
There is no military pressure from the US and Reagan would not lead the SU in to ruining arms race...
US would not excerpt extra pressure in Afghanistan...
Gorbachev would (presumably) not be selected to politburo without impression within politburo, that serious reforms were needed...
**Nevertheless,**
Whole Eastern Block economy was in stagnation from early '70s...
British and French nuclear forces would be enough to keep Soviets in check... And presumably a few US subs survived the devastation and joined the UK...
If the US ceased to exist, then demand for oil would go down, which actually would not be a good news for oil exports dependent SU...
The whole event would not influence start of Solidarity in Poland. Sure, there may be a higher pressure and capability to squash all dissidents afterwards, but any scenario it would be a source of serious instability from within..
Conclusion: I'd give them a few extra years, maybe even ten. The economy was anyway on collapse course. And only way to save communism was going the Chinese way, but the chance of adopting such reforms was low. Nerveless, the collapse could go a different way.
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I have 4/7 of these bastards nailed down but the last 3 I'm having difficulty attaching a body part to a sin.
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This is how I understand the 7 sins:
* Pride is Delusion
* Envy is to Covet
* Sloth is to Despair
* Greed is to Hoard
* Gluttony is to Waste
* Lust is to Obsess
* Wrath is to Obstinate
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These are the body parts I managed to assign:
* Pride: Brain & Spinal Cord
* Envy: Eyes
* Greed: [Fingers / Hands](https://i.gyazo.com/c35f7e1a5940ef3b0bd7060a9ad9e9d5.png)
* Gluttony: Mouth / Digestive Tract
* Sloth: ???
* Lust: ???
* Wrath: ???
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* Most associate lust as something sexual, but I wanted to see if there
was something more abstract out there to represent obsession.
* Wrath is notable for anger but it's caused by an inability to adapt
to negative situations, is there a way to potray this in a single
body part?
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Ultimately the goal is to have their physical representation not require a leap of logic or tiring explanation to make a connection. For example, Greed is represented by hands because they're are our main way of taking things, Pride has the brain because delusions are all in our head etc.
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I would move a few things around.
* Pride: **Neck** - Bible uses the phrase stiff necked to mean stubborn which is closely related to pride. Also Scott Downey made a good point with his comment about being humbled and bow down.
* Envy: Eyes
* Greed: Fingers / Hands
* Gluttony: **Stomach** / Digestive Tract
* Sloth: Body Fat & Butt - Reusing Overthinks' answer and Faerindel's comment since they are good answers.
* Lust: Brain & Groin - Place where lust begins & place commonly associated with lust
* Wrath: Mouth / Tongue - How many times have we said things in anger?
Edit: Added Butt, Tongue, and Groin as per multiple comments
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I would place them as following:
* Pride: Hair or head in general (thus, could be brain, as you mentioned). *Why?* One holds ones head high if one is proud. A big, voluminous, flowing hair is often associated with something to be shown and to be proud of.
* Envy: Eyes, I agree with you there. *Why?* One envy what one can see that others have.
* Greed: Fingers or Hands, I agree with you there too. *Why?* [Five finger discount](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoplifting)
* Gluttony: Mouth or only stomach. Imho, the whole digestive tract is too long. *Why?* Obviously one eat a lot if one falls for gluttony.
* Sloth: Buttocks or back. *Why?* A lazy person sits or lies down often.
* Lust: Genitals. *Why?* Well.... you know... *[blushes]*
* Wrath: Heart. *Why?* Much (but not all) anger starts from the heart (at least if one is passionate about what one gets angry over). A common body reaction to anger is also increased heart rate and one can feel the heart beating harder if one gets angry. According to Wikipedia on [anger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger), one can also read that [Al-Ghazali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali) (also known as "Algazel" in Europe) disagreed with Aristotle's view on the [four humours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism), stating that animals do possess anger as one of the three "powers" in their Qalb ("heart").
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Sloth is fat cells or fat tissue in the body. If a body has almost no fat then they are either starving or no sloth.
Lust would be genitals and/or other sensory organs; possibly nose for pheromones or even skin.
Wrath could be adrenaline glands, blood, or our sharper teeth.
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Why not resort to the Hippocratic humors theory?
Wrath is a choleric (from chole = bile) behavior. The ancient Greeks used to say that someone was digesting bile when they were holding a grudge. They used to associate bile with the spleen, but you could use the liver instead. Why?
Because "spleen" is also the name for a special kind of melancholy, like the blues. You could associate it with sloth. Or... you could use the thyroid, the pacemaker of the body. Hypothyroidism may lead to a slowing down of the body rhythm, akin to sloth.
Back to the humor theory, you could use melancholy (derived from black bile) or phlegmatic behavior (derived from phlegm) to describe sloth, which were associated with the gall bladder and the lungs, respectively.
As for lust, it would be sanguine behavior (hot blooded people) which was associated with the heart. Alternatively 1. the genitalia (which you want to avoid), 2. the kidneys (which on Hebrew symbolism, is also the location of human conscience and passions, just like the heart - confer the expression "gird your loins" or "the fruit of my loins"), 3. the lips (used for kissing and oral stimulation, and it also has second meanings - the lips wink wink nudge nudge), 4. the thighs or 5. the breasts.
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Pride is Pride (there's not much like it) The prideful aren't necessarily delusional. Like Tony Stark--he's definitely got pride down, but, that doesn't mean he isn't what he believes he is, which is a genius philanthropist billionaire playboy. He can be wrong and in age of ultron was wrong, but then he did the same thing again by creating Vision and fixed things. Still a prideful bastard.
Envy is to Covet. Yep.
Sloth is to lazy. The slothful can be perfectly happy and not in despair at all--but it's a sin because others can suffer because of it. I can see why you went that way, because there's an isolation factor in sloth that is also present in depression. But if you make it a matter of depression/despair, well--that is seen as an illness, NOT a sin. It's much more disturbing if they are perfectly happy. You really want to be careful with associating this with depression--and make it clear that this is not mental illness, but a choice.
Greed is to Hoard (this is all about wanting and acquiring more than you will ever need)
Gluttony is to addiction. This is all about consuming everything you can get your hands on. You had put waste, but an addict would never want to waste anything--they want to put it in them. Gluttony can be about more than food--wanting an experience, all the time, which isn't covered by lust, or wanting to consume all the time--it can be food or drugs or whatever.
Lust is to Obsess The lustful don't have to obsess over any one person, but they can obsess over the idea of sex.
Wrath is to Obstinate. Somebody cuts in front of you in line and you get angry. That doesn't make you obstinate. Anger is a response to an event. That can often mean a change but it can also be response to years of oppression. That's not stubbornness.
BODY PARTS LEFT YOU HAVEN'T ASSIGNED
**Sloth:** back or butt as Mrkvicka says. I disagree with fat, because the slothful might not eat much. Too much effort...
**Lust:** I'd just go with the obvious here. If you don't want to, then, sure, glands might do it.
**Wrath:** Again, Mrkvicka's suggestion of heart was my first instinct for the reasons they outlined.
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Using the brain for any of the "seven deadly sins" is, perhaps, too easy. Any sin could come from the brain. Instead, I suggest the following:
* Pride: Heart
* Envy: Ears
* Greed: Eyes
* Gluttony: Mouth
* Sloth: Gut (belly)
* Lust: Hands
* Wrath: Kidneys (adrenal glands)
Pride comes from the heart; it's an emotion, though often confused for "fact". Just because you feel you should be proud, doesn't mean there is actually a reason. It's even an involuntary reaction to stick out your chest as you inflate with pride.
Envy - desiring what others have - could come from eyes, but more often is a result of someone else bragging; thus, ears. Listening too long to braggarts will cause envy, more so than simply seeing someone's possessions.
Greed is the urge to collect, and keep, things for yourself. There is no use in the collecting; be it money, power, or otherwise, greed is about having, not using. Thus, the eyes, because the eyes can be pleased and not use a thing up, and eyes can experience vast wealth, and still want more.
Gluttony is about using something, and using it far past what would ever be needed. Be it overeating, binge-watching television, or exercising past the point of health, gluttony is about extremes. The mouth can eat all day; the jaw will chew and the tongue will taste, even if the stomach is full, even to the point of throwing up just to enjoy more food.
Sloth is the gut, the fat of the belly. The more energy goes unused, the more the gut grows; fat cells will expand indefinitely, overwhelming the rest of the body. Worse, that stored energy makes people less likely to get rid of it, as slothfulness promotes slothfulness.
Lust, beyond sex, is an unclean desire, a want for something unwholesome. More than a desire to simply see or hear, it is a need to experience, to feel, to be immersed. The more one experiences, the more one lusts for more. Just as we wash our hands to get rid of germs, ancient cultures would ritually wash their hands to show that they had cleansed themselves, purging the filth from their hands; what sin is more filthy than lust?
Wrath causes an immediate spike of adrenaline, turning peace into violence, turning anger into rage. Even silent and hidden, wrath burns in your mind and ignites your muscles, screaming, no matter how silently, to bring pain to others. The kidneys host the adrenal glands, which in turn regulate adrenaline; without them, wrath would quickly turn to apathy. Instead, they add fuel to the fires...
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I'm looting from all of the answers and comments thus far, but offering a unique Lust. All of these are exterior body parts.
Lust isn't about sex. It is WANTING sex. It is salivating about it and the seduction leading up to sex. The tongue is common to both sexes. And it is what changes a chaste kiss into something else.
* Envy: eyes
* Lust: tongue
* Gluttony: belly
* Wrath: right hand
* Greed: left hand
* Sloth: feet
* Pride: chest
[Answer]
The anime Full Metal Alchemist features enemies (called homunculi) representing the 7 sins and can be used as a example case. Each of these homunculi has a mark of homunculus on the body part and it is widely thought that the body part is associated with their sin. Without going much into details and spoilers here are where marks are for each sin and my take on it:
* Pride: Forehead
Somehow overlaps with your thought but kinda unsatisfying. Can't find a better place to put it though, except for maybe the nape.
* Envy: Leg
Makes no sense. I would go with eye.
* Greed: Inside the palm.
Makes more sense than being on the outside of hand.
* Gluttony: On the tongue.
I completely agree
* Sloth: On their back.
Makes sense because this character was forced ironically to do hard work like carrying stuff. I would also consider putting it on leg.
* Lust: On **her** chest.
Because of obvious reasons. I would put it near genitals or somehow painted onto the hair. Genitals wouldn't work if you wanted to show it to people.
* Wrath:
>
> Mark is their pupil.
>
>
>
Does not make sense for me. I would put it on their heart.
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I have a similar setup, where each body part is part of the physical manifestation of darkness, given to humans who then embody a Sin.
While Greed is the "Hand that Takes" - in this case the left arm, Wrath is the "Fist that Breaks" - the right arm.
For sloth I gave the bones (ever heard the term "lazy bones"?) .
Lust got the heart (The 'source' of love, thus the perversion of it would reside there too).
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The other answers give an excellent place to start. The association to the humors mentioned by Pedro was going to be my go to. Here's a few more ideas:
For Sloth: the feet
Often they are referred to colloquially when a person is being lazy they are "dragging their feet" or a person that kicks up their feet is showing they are not working.
For Lust: the skin
Lust is quite often associated with sensual pleasure, which would originate with tactile sense. The hands would also work quite well for the very negative connotations with Lust (those that Lust want to touch the thing of their obsession).
For Wrath: the teeth
When animals are angry they bare their teeth. People can do this too, but it's a symbol so universal that it transcends species. We also grit our teeth when we're mad, or refer to anger in terms of 'biting'.
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I mentioned the question for my partner, who got a bit interested in the subject. My partner gave some fairly new associations which I thought was interesting enough to warrant a second answer.
* **Pride: Nose.** *Why?* If one is too proud, then one can be uppity, arrogant or snobbish; such a person walk around with their nose stuck up high in the air.
* **Envy: Teeth**. *Why?* Not sure how common it is to say it in English, but there is a Slavic idiom that "one grinds ones teeth with envy" (skřípe zuby zavistí).
* **Greed: Cheeks.** *Why?* If you want a lot of stuff, then you need to carry it somehow; you might ending up looking like [this guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheek_pouch#/media/File:Chipetting_%28say_aah%29.jpg).
* **Gluttony: Belly.** *Why?* If one eats too much, then one get a big belly.
* **Sloth: Feet** *Why?* Because a lazy person drags their feet behind.
* **Lust: Heart** *Why?* That's where the longing for someone resides.
* **Wrath: Eyes** *Why?* [Now the boar's anger flashed like lightning; flames blazed from his eyes](http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/ArtemisWrath2.html).
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To me, nothing represents **Wrath** so much as a *clenched fist*.
Even if someone is managing to maintain a calm expression and appearance, if he is angry and wrathful, one or both hands are likely curled into fists.
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[
I was wondering if planets die after a certain amount of time, perhaps because of decay?
If this is the case, how do they die and how long does it take?
Do they implode? Explode or perhaps just fall apart?
Incase of any of the causes mentioned above, would this make a sound, a sound is basically a wave travelling through the air, however there is no air in space.
And what if you put TNT inside the middle of the earth?
Are you able to explode it then?
And what would happen to all the lava inside planet earth?
[Answer]
A planet will "die" generally from one of the following "natural" fates:
# Death by Cooling
The planet core slowly cools. The planet then loses its magnetosphere, and solar winds begin stripping the planet of its atmosphere. This is likely what happened to Mars, and what is currently happening to Venus.
This is a very slow process, happening over millions of years. When the planet is completely cool, it will not likely be able to sustain life (due to lack of atmosphere), but will otherwise be the same: a cold hunk of rock in space.
# Death by Star
As a star ages, it gets bigger and brighter and hotter. For Earth, this means that we will be outside of the habitable zone of the Sun in 2-3 billion years. The brighter star will slowly cook the planet, killing everything on it.
As the star continues to grow, it may extend past the orbit of a planet, and draw that planet directly into the star. The Sun will likely expand beyond the orbit of Venus, but it may not quite reach Earth (making Earth the new Mercury).
If the star is massive enough (about 8-12x the Sun), it can go supernova. The supernova would completely disintegrate all objects in its solar system, and would be visible tens of thousands of light years away. However, before a star can go supernova, the slow death by absorption or overheating would already have happened.
# Death by Impact
A large object, such as a planetoid or asteroid, may impact a planet. Depending on the size, this may lead to an extinction event, wiping out all life on the planet, or it may literally rip the planet apart.
A leading theory for the formation of the Moon is that a Mars-sized planetoid smashed into Earth, creating the debris that become the Moon. However, even in this scenario, the Earth is still here. It would not destroy the planet so completely as to prevent it from reforming.
# Death by Gravitational Perturbation
An mass, such as a rogue planet, large Oort Cloud object on a weird orbit, or very nearby star, may provide enough gravitational force to perturb the orbit of the planet in question.
For example, a galactic collision may rearrange the star systems, putting two or more stars in close proximity, or sending large objects (like planets) into other star systems.
In the simple case, the planet is moved to a different orbit. This may move the planet close enough to a large planet to be torn apart via tidal forces. This won't happen super quickly, but it could completely destroy the planet, making another asteroid belt.
In the extreme case, the planet may either be sent deep into space, where everything on it dies due to lack of sunlight, or it is sent into the sun, where it burns up (see above).
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## A couple notes:
unless the properties of a planet are significantly changed by manual intervention, a planet will *never*:
* Explode
* Implode
* Fall apart
Planets do not liberate energy from matter (otherwise, they would be stars), which is required for the first two. The matter in planets is bound by gravity, which is always present, and that's what prevents the third one.
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Note, I am not an expert in this, but I am giving my best guess. If you think that something here is wrong, post a comment.
There are indeed many ways to kill a planet:
* **Descontruct it** - Just send rockets and robots there to grab it piece by piece until nothing else left. This would not sound very interesting, just the sound of robots and ships working. Nothing special happens to the lava in the interior of the planet, which would probably be cooled down by whoever is descontructing it. How long it would take depend on your workers.
* **Shatter it with a big impact** - If you get a large projectile (large a moon or another planet) and throw it with a large relative velocity to a direct impact against the planet, both will be completely obliterated and the pieces (including the lava) will be thrown out in high velocity escaping trajectories to many directions. The velocity must be sufficiently high, otherwise the two might just merge or the pieces might join together again due to the gravity. Also, the heat might vaporize some of things, converting them into plasma. The sound of that would be a explosion so huge that just the sound waves alone might be enough to blow up your body. This would take just a few minutes I guess.
* **Swallow it** - If the planet orbits sufficiently close to a star that enters the Giant Red phase, the star will swallow it. Inside the star, the planet would be teared apart in pieces and mixed with the rest of the star, becoming much hotter. Don't know how this would sound. This would take some years counting from the point that the star atmosphere makes contact to the planet, supposing that it survives being teared apart by tidal forces, of course (see next item).
* **Crunch it** - If a planet comes too close of a larger planet or a star, passing its [Roche limit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit), the tidal forces would destroy it. I guess that this would probably sound like a lot of continuous thunders, but way louder. The lava will be teared apart and depending of the environment (distance to the star and temperature) it might either cool down or get hotter. This might take from a few days to some thousand of years, depending on the orbital trajectory, both bodies gravity and your planet rigidity. Depending on the orbital trajectory the pieces might end being swallowed by the larger body, being sent away in large elliptic or parabollic or hyperbolic orbits or just keep orbiting the star as an asteroid ring.
* **Crash and merge it with something bigger** - If a planet crashes into a larger planet, into a star or into a black hole, it will be destroyed. The effects would be similar to the last two methods above. This would probably take something between a few minutes to a few days, depending on the orbital properties. If the object is a star, a brown dwarf or a gas giant, this is essentially the same as being swallowed. If it is a white dwarf, a neutron star or black hole, all the matter will be converted to what the larger body is.
* **Crash and merge it with a rocky planet** - If your planet is small and rocky and you crash it in a larger also rocky planet, the planets core will merge, the mantles will also merge, a rock-vapour atmosphere will form. It is something similar to the shatter impact, except by the fact that the planets merge instead of being exploded apart.
* **Slowly boil it** - If a planet orbits very close to a star and it is made mostly of gas content, the stellar wind will blow out the atmosphere of the planet given enough time, making it progressively lighter with progressively less and less gravity. The process is silent because it is very slow and would take millions or billions of years to finish. Not much to say to the lava here, because this is unlike to be able to boil away the lava, which would just cool down until reaching thermal equilibrium.
* **Rapidly boil it** - If you put the planet in a star-grazing hyperbolic orbit around a blue giant star, when reaching the perihelion or somewhere near, it might be blown away and vaporized just like comet Ison was, including the lava. Don't know how this would sound though. This might take just a few days.
* **Instantly boil it** - If the star which the planet orbits explodes in a supernova or is [gamma-ray bursted](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst), the planet will probably be vaporized in some seconds. Don't know how this would sound.
* **Destroy it using particle physics** - You might create or find a large quantity of antimatter or strange matter and drop into the planet to blow it up, which would sound like a big explosion. Or build a mini black hole to swallow it up. Or build huge pressures in the planet core to there to create something like a mini [pair instability supernova](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair-instability_supernova) (if you can build a mini black hole, this might be doable also, but don't ask me how). All of those would only take a few seconds. *Thanks to @jamesqf for the suggestion.*
Now to what I think that you are really interested:
* **Wait it decay** - If you consider dieing via [proton decay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay) (if this in fact is possible) this would take a veeeeery loooong time, [something like $10^{40}$ years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe#All_nucleons_decay), but eventually all the planet would decay into elemental particles wandering around the universe like photons and neutrinos. Even if protons do not decay, [quantum tunnelling will take care of it in no more that $10^{10^{76}}$ years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_an_expanding_universe#Future_without_proton_decay). In the meantime, the lava would freeze out to near absolute zero temperature and this would be a very silently and boring process.
* **Destroy the universe** - If you destroy the universe, all the existing planets would be killed as well. So all that you would need to do is to sit and wait until the [Big Crunch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch), the [Big Rip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip), the [Big Freeze or Heath death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe) or [quantum tunneling to a true vaccum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum). Again, in the meantime, the lava would freeze out to near absolute zero temperature and this would be a very silently process.
[Answer]
What generally kills planets (at least those orbiting a sun) is the supernova of the star. Some might fall into the sun from orbital decay or a rogue body coming through the system sending the planet into the star. But there isn't a 'half' life of a planet so unless something else causes it to be destroyed it will just exist.
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Another way for a planet to die is to cool. When its core is cold, the planet's tectonics and volcanic activity ceases and planet "dies".
Mars is in this stage. It's core is cold; the molten part of its mantle is very deep. Its only hotspot is under [Olympus Mons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons), the tallest mountain (volcano) in the solar system, 22 km tall, with a footprint about the size of France.
[Answer]
Gravity holds planets together and is a passive thing. They can't "fall apart" as their own weight holds them together. The only way to break up a planet is to supply massive amounts of energy. For example a collision with a rogue planet or moon, passing close to a gas giant, etc. Something with enough energy to rip apart a planet is going to be something very massive.
[Answer]
Planets can die, but it either takes a lot of energy and effort, or is very boring.
1. **Boring**
Planets can just stop working. As stated by some other answers here, if a planet has no life on it and its processes such as the rock cycle and atmospheric phenomena such as weather have stopped, it can be fairly safely considered dead.
2. **Interesting**
As you can see in [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/4679/the-opposite-to-worldbuilding-world-destruction), you need $2.4 \times 10^{32}$ joules to counter the Earth's gravitational binding energy - if you want to explode it you need a lot more. This kind of energy does not come lightly (it's roughly equivalent to a small asteroid travelling at very close to the speed of light). You'd need to put in a lot of time and effort to 'kill' a planet this way - it would be far easier just to [kill all the life on it](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/6515/what-could-humans-do-to-render-the-earth-uninhabitable).
However, the nearby star can deliver this kind of energy more trivially - if it reaches the end of its life and goes supernova, pretty much the entire local solar system will be destroyed.
[Answer]
Since you seem to want a planet to explode, here's an option: The [smallest known star](http://www.universetoday.com/25348/what-is-the-smallest-star/) is approximately the same size as Jupiter, and there [seem to be extrasolar gas giants up to 80x the size of Jupiter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Jupiter).
So, possibly a large gas giant could absorb enough matter to start undergoing fusion and become a star (a [red dwarf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_dwarf)). This doesn't match [the standard method of star formation](http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec13.html) though, and it seems more likely that the planet would become a [brown dwarf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf).
The good news is that brown dwarfs can undergo deuterium fusion if they're massive enough, so they're technically exploding. The bad news is that they don't give off enough energy to rip apart in the kind of explosion you're wanting.
One other problem with this is that planets aren't completely stable, so a planet is probably more likely to lose mass over time than gain more (especially if the planet is in orbit around a star, since the star's solar wind will push new mass away).
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Regarding your question about sound: even if a release of energy were involved in some way (a collision, etc) a dying planet wouldn't make a sound for the same reason dying stars don't--there is nothing to conduct the vibrations.
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Planets sometimes commit suicide. Ours is midway through the process already.
The first step is to spawn some life.
Then you wait while that life becomes sentient.
A little more waiting while that life starts to play with technology: nukes, nanites and artificial intelligence.
Then a singularity occurs. The AI launches the nukes to get rid of the life. Meanwhile, it explores enhancing the nanites.
The waiting is almost over. The planet begins to dissolve, becoming a massive swarm of nanites with an artificial intelligence at the center.
The nanite swarm swims away in search of neighboring planets.
The planet is dead. Long live the planet.
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There are many ways in which a planet can die. Most of them however require an external factor, as a supernova or a meteor impact. However planet can also die of old age. Imagine a planet without atmosphere and without life. Still that planet is "alive" due the rock cycle
The rock cycle is a basic concept in geology that describes the dynamic transitions through geologic time among the three main rock types: sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous. Even Moon has a rock cycle.
However, if the cycle stops, the planet is dead.
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Proton decay in at minimum 6^66 Years
Another way would be a A massive change in acceleration of the expansion of the universe to an extent that not even nuclear forces will hold atoms toguether will effectively disolve a planet or anything else outside or inside of it.
Further to this I would like to explain that the expansion of the universe is determined by the energy density of the universe. This has changed in the past as per which was the dominant force in the universe. In its infancy photon energy dominated the energy density (this is in the first 300K years - the radiation era); as the universe expands, the wavelength of photons decreases, carrying less energy and so diluting itself. After that the universe was dominated by matter (gravity) until aproximatedly 3 to 4 billion years ago as this expansion continued the average density per cubic meter decreased also as with light (now it's around the energy density of four protons per cubic meter). Since then the universe has been dominated by negative energy and the expansion of the unverse has accelerated. Because the energy density of the university is close to the critical $10^{-26} \text{ kg/m}^3$ (or in energy terms $9 \times 10^{-10} \text{ Joules/m}^3$, we know that space is close to flat right now. Right now only 4% of the energy density is provided by matter while dark matter (basically neutrinos and ultraheavy particles WIMPS) provide 23%. The rest is provided by dark energy,y which is an energy field not made by matter or particles and provides $6.6 \times 10^{-10} \text{ Joules/m}^3$. Now in regard, to the shape of the universe, the current accelerated expansion is equal to the initial slowdown (the universe only dominated by matter or phottons) so we live in a flat universe.
Absent of dark energy, a flat universe expands forever but at a continually decelerating rate, with expansion asymptotically approaching zero. With dark energy, the expansion rate of the Universe initially slows down, due to the effect of radiation and gravity, but eventually increases. The ultimate fate of the Universe is the same as an open universe or an ever increaseasing acceleration. This rate of change in the acceleration of the universe is expanding at a rate of $74.3 \pm 2.1$ kilometers per second per megaparsec.
According to inflation theory the rate of expansion the preinflationary period does not follow the traditional big bang time line. Space may not have expanded at all from its inception until an unknown time where inflation started until its end at 10^-32 seconds. (Gravity would have already been separated from the unified force first and then the two forces eltromagnetism and weak interaction). Allan Gut the father of inflation mentions that as the early universe cooled, it was trapped in a false vacuum with a high energy density. (A false vacum could have seen a drastic change in the energy density content of space due to a decay out of through the process of bubble nucleation via quantum tunneling.) However there was a problem Bubbles of true vacuum spontaneously form in the sea of false vacuum and rapidly begin expanding at the speed of light. but the model did not reheat properly: when the bubbles nucleated, they did not generate any radiation. Radiation could only be generated in collisions between bubble walls. But if inflation lasted long enough to solve the initial conditions problems, collisions between bubbles became exceedingly rare. In any one causal patch it is likely that only one bubble will nucleate. In a solution Andrei Dmitriyevich Linde, instead of tunneling out of a false vacuum state, he through that not only inflation could occur in the false vacuum, but also during a slow transition away from the false vacuum by a scalar field rolling down a potential energy hill. When the field rolls very slowly compared to the expansion of the Universe, inflation occurs. However, when the hill becomes steeper, inflation ends and reheating can occur.
The way a planet will be torn appart is if expansion would occurr instanly due to the same cause that caused the inflation period.
It seems that at very high energy levels, the Higgs boson (provides some of the mass to particles) is megastable at energies above 100bn giga-electron-volts and could cause space and time suddenly collapse. This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay as explained above . This is unlikely for a while as the dimesion of this particle accelerator would be larger than the size of earth. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2746727/Maybe-shouldn-t-looking-quite-hard-God-particle-destroy-universe-warns-Stephen-Hawking.html#ixzz3PGTjkHqF>. However if very advanced civilizations exist it is possible that they develop such machine, however they may be cautious or not yet exist such a machine in the universe.
Another way would be if an ever growing accelerated expansion as explained in big rip theory. (negative energy is called phantom energy takes over). Some sources <http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~hz4/cos/cosLec3to8.pdf>
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**Death by Cooling and Erosion** - This is not usually considered, but consider what happens when the Earth's core gets cool enough to stop tectonic processes. No more orogeny. Uplift and plate collisions cease, and erosion becomes dominant. Whenever rock is washed into the sea, it stays there. Eventually the entire surface becomes deeper or shallower ocean. That's fine for aquatic life, but not for any other forms.
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I'm trying to come up with a land animal that can drink saltwater but for some reason cannot drink freshwater. The advantage of drinking saltwater would be that they can get drinking water straight from the ocean and salty seas. The disadvantage of not drinking freshwater is that they cannot get potable water from sources like rivers, lakes, groundwater, or rain. Such a land animal would flourish well on islands and peninsulas. On the other hand, this creature couldn't really live inland due to saltwater being hard to find away from the ocean. I'm imagining this creature to be an amphibious one similar to a saltwater crocodile.
Is it biologically plausible (no magic or divine intervention) for a land animal to be able to drink saltwater and brackish water but not freshwater? There are saltwater fish that can survive in saltwater but not freshwater, but those are aquatic fish. The marine mammals don't even drink saltwater, they get freshwater from food instead.
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In animals found on Earth, the ability to drink sea water is dependent on the ability of the kidneys to export salt without damage. Sea mammals can do it -- seals, sea lions, manatees and dugongs, and all cetaceans. Surprisingly, house cats can, as well (within limits) -- which means I wouldn't be surprised to find that at least the smaller wild cat species can do so.
Now, being *unable* to safely drink fresh water is an interesting restriction. It would imply that their blood salinity might need to be much higher than any existing animal (even most fish have blood less saline than average sea water -- 2.5% salts by weight for modern sea water vs. about 0.9% by weight for body fluids -- because cellular salinity became fixed before the oceans had become as salty as they are now). If that were the case, drinking too much fresh water could lead to hyposalinity -- "water poisoning" as sometimes happens in college hazings -- which is potentially fatal.
How animals could evolve with much higher body salinity is open for discussion -- on Earth, it would imply that their cell chemistry became fixed much later than is the case for other animals (even invertebrates). Perhaps they evolved from halophiles at the shores of a hypersaline sea, as opposed to free-swimming animals in Earth's half billion years less salty oceans.
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# Selective Pressure:
Can they drink salt water? **Yes, it's certainly possible.**
Must they NOT drink fresh water? **Now that's complicated. *Or is it?***
# Nasty Water:
The fresh water on your world is hopelessly contaminated. With What? Pick your poison. Animal (parasite), vegetal (biotoxin/disease) or mineral (localized poison). The best (in my mind, story-wise) would be some sort of biologically-derived material like a neurotoxin produced by a common bacterium. The spread of the organism was relatively quick and resulted in a mass extinction-level event on land.
So your world has effectively become a wet desert. Some animals survive by sucking dew off of plants, or getting all of their water from eating plants that don't absorb the toxin. A few might find clean sources and survive there. EVENTUALLY, some or most animals will evolve resistance to the toxin or other strategies to overcome the effects.
Curiously, the toxin is rapidly broken down by microorganisms living in salt water.
Your species had the ability to drink salt water as a result of their ancestor that was once a desert species. So when the calamity came, the individuals living near the ocean were the only ones that survived. Selective pressure to only drink salt water would have been intense. The species is *physically* capable of drinking water, but doing so is like asking people to eat dirt. The species has either learned behavior to avoid fresh water, or has developed a deep genetic aversion to drinking fresh water.
All who fail to follow this imperative die.
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There are already plenty of answers regarding the ability to drink salt water, but I have a good idea of why a species would evolve a *need* for salt water.
This species evolved a biological process that consumes minerals from the body to produce an exoskeleton. This process is passive and can't be stopped. If the animal drinks an excess of fresh water, it will rapidly run out of salt in it's body. Salt is essential for animal bodily functions so this would lead to its death. Because this animal has a thick mineral exoskeleton, it also doesn't have much room to sweat out the excess water.
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**Thousands if not tens of thousands of species of saltwater-only fish prove that what you want is plausible**
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> As well as getting water through osmosis, saltwater fish need to purposefully drink water in order to get enough into their systems. Where their freshwater counterparts direct all of the water that comes into their mouths out through their gills, saltwater fish direct some into their digestive tract.
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> But fishes’ bodies, just like ours, need a certain concentration of salt to function best. They can’t just allow the water to diffuse freely through their gills; the saltwater fish would shrivel up and the freshwater fish would explode!
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> To stop the exploding fish phenomenon, their gills have special cells that selectively pump salt in, or out of their blood. In freshwater fish, the cells constantly pump salt in, and in saltwater fish, they constantly pump salt out. Saltwater fishes’ kidneys also help to filter out some of their salt. ([Source](https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/you-asked/do-fish-drink))
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There are also some mammalian creatures that can drink seawater:
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> Sea otters, seals, sea lions, and manatees have been observed occasionally drinking seawater. But they’re capable of concentrating and excreting highly salty urine, so they can handle it. ([Source](https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/feb/17/straight-can-animals-drink-seawater/))
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However, I couldn't find an example of any land-based animal that did. Why not?
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> So according to my very very rough calculations only around 0.1% of the land area is located within 5 minutes of sea water while 100% is located within 7 minutes of fresh water! I don't think that extra two minute walk is going to be that much of an evolutionary drive for any species. ([Source](https://biology.stackexchange.com/q/81183))
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I quoted only a small portion of a larger answer, and that answer points out the weaknesses in the calculations, and obviously the nature of averages is that 100% of all land (before humanity invented drainage and irrigation) is unlikely to be within just 7 minutes of fresh water. But his point is very well taken. There aren't any examples of land-based saltwater-drinking animals because there was no evolutionary reason for one to come to pass.
**But do we care?**
Nope. The fish, sea otters, seals, sea lions, and manatees prove that the creature you're contemplating is plausible, even if that creature is land-based. At worst, you would need to rationalize geography or behavior that give reason to the ability to process saltwater — like being land-locked on a small island or land-locked by cliffs in an area where no fresh water can be found.
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This land animal evolved directly from saltwater fish. It still needs salt water, as its biochemistry and internal organs are not that different from those of the fish. It may have evolved lungs and adapted to walking on land, but needs the same food and drink as fish do.
Saltwater fish do not expect to ever run out of salt, not even for short periods. They may lack any mechanism to retain salt. Same with this animal. It looses salt through urinating/sweating, and needs to replenish the lost salt as much as it needs to replenish the water. Drinking fresh water quickly leads to salt deficiency illness.
Contrast with the usual land animals, believed to have evolved from freshwater fish. Of course they prefer fresh water, and are good at retaining the salt they need.
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Is it possible - yes. Lots of mamals that drink exclusively saltwater.
**Why is freshwater bad?**
To answer this question, we need to make the "salt" part of salt water extremely valuable. For this we can:
1. set the setting - The reason your creates must drink saltwater, but not freshwater, is that saltwater is their only source of sodium.
2. Make symptoms of hypernatremia - more essential
3. Make symptoms of hyponatremia - deadlier
4. Kindeys!
**Kidneys:**
Kidneys have two functions that work well for creating an overwhelming need for salt - regulating blood pressure, and filtering toxins. Your creature might require a high blood pressure for... something. Or maybe, it has a diet in which salt is the only thing that raises blood pressure, and everything else brings it down (mint?).
Kidneys filter toxins, eventually secreting them through urine, but maybe the creature needs kidney and urine stones, so that the toxins don't damage their kidneys or urine tract.
**Result:**
Freshwater is deadly, because it dilutes the concentration of sodium in the organism, and salt is already sparse, so drinking freshwater will cause the onset of hyponatremia (lack of salt), which can lead to death. Kidney stones won't be forming fast enough, so the toxins will start to damage kidneys and urine tract, leading to other complications, infections, and ultimately - death. Also, lack of salt will lead to hypotension, eventually leading to ... death.
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I've got a late middle-age like world, with a situation similar to Europe/America: one continent has a technological advance, and enough sailing skills to discover the other continent.
The incentive to sail however is different: Columbus discovered America while searching India. In my world, it's diferent: trade is quite developed on the continent (wich is much smaller than Eurasia), and planet radius/distance is well calculated. I am not looking for a trade route with the east of my continent, but for lands. I just have some ships that can't trade with the lands in the east for some geopolitical (or other) reason, and decide to take the risk to make them sail west. Other countries could maybe find the other continent, but it seems that they just use ships to trade in known routes/lands. There have already been some expeditions west in the past, but they either returned without a discovery, or never come back.
My kingdom is in west coast, usual trading route follow the coast by the south, until reaching the east of the continent. Instead of heading south following the coast, the ship just go straight west. As my kingdom is on the west side, the ship was never close to a neighboor kingdom coast.
And here is what happened: one of the ships I sent several month ago just came back. It seems that my kingdom just discovered a new continent. That's great! I could try to learn more about this new land and the people there, even trade, establish trading posts, or even a new colony.
However, I'm afraid that neighboring kings will do the same. I don't have a good army, not even a really good fleet (sure, my boats are great, but I don't have a lot of them). What I would like is to make profit out of this new continent - alone.
**Which methods can my kingdom use to delay the discovery of this new continent for as long as possible?**
Answers should provide an estimate about how long it will take others to discover the continent if I go along with their proposed methods.
Answers can include details about how the first expedition should have been done.
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Don't mention it to anyone. *Terra Australis* was only imagined by Ptolemy because Aristotle argued there must be something there. If no one would talk or chart this magic land no one would go there to prove it's existence.
To make things even funnier Cook (who proved New Zealand is not that bigger continent) is one of three people who rediscovered Australia. Because there are places that people forgot they've already found. And why they didn't go to Australia? Well, mostly because there was no guys coming back telling stories about gold cities.
So first step, don't mention to anyone.
Step two - If you mention just say it's dry sand, spiders so big they kill snakes, snakes so big they kill human size marsupials, and marsupials so strong they can with one kick make a hole in human chest.
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# Arrest and kill all the crew as soon as the ship makes port
*It's already too late.*
As soon as that ship made port the sailors made for the nearest bar, brothel or other place of negotiable affection and consumption of alcohol. The whole town already knows. Many of them probably knew before you did. Ships have already left port on the turning tide with that knowledge before you knew.
The problem isn't about preventing the neighbouring kingdoms from finding out, it's about how long you've got to act before they decide to take a look for themselves.
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This is an X/Y question: the stated goal is
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> What I would like is to make profit out of this new continent - alone.
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so the question you should have asked is
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> How can I ensure that?
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The answer is not to prevent other people finding out about its existence, but to give them a strong disincentive to compete with you. If you look at the history of European exploitation of the Americas after Columbus, there are a series of Papal bulls about who can claim land where. The details are a bit complicated (see [Wikipedia:Treaty of Tordesillas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas#Signing_and_enforcement)), but the concept can work for you if you adopt the scenario of a powerful supranational authority, probably religious, which gets involved in politics but not in the hassle of running colonies and trading posts. Maybe make some concessions on existing intracontinental trade to sweeten things for your neighbours.
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**Naval Technology Isn't Very Advanced**
Ships that can handle open waters and rough seas just aren't something that has been made before. Up until now ships navigated primarily utilizing the coasts and were never really out of sight of land for more than a few days at a time. Frankly, it was a miracle the foolhardy captain who took his vessel across open water even managed to make the trip! It is unlikely that without a revolution in shipbuilding technology that trade could be conducted. Why would anyone go through all the expense? All the profitable trade routes are close by and easy to get to, why bother building bigger tougher more stable ships when you can already make a ton of money just following the coasts and sticking to the shallower calmer waters?
**It Was a Rough Voyage**
Unfortunately very few of the sailors even survived the journey. In History it was not uncommon for expeditions to set sail with many ships and hundreds of sailors only to return with one ragged and battered boat with only a dozen scurvy ridden and starving survivors. Or just to never return at all... Unfortunately none from the ill fated voyage survived except a few diseased and sickly men who sadly died ranting about nonsense and fever dreams (*You just kind of hide the fact that they all died from acute knife to the throat syndrome*.) Very big tragedy, their widows and orphans will be compensated!
**Quietly Build a Fleet Of Capable Ships**
Navy? What navy? These are fishing vessels! We hear that in the great oceans to the west there might be untapped fisheries and we need lots of ships to catch them! Why would anyone need a navy? Certainly not our kingdom of humble fishermen!
**Lay Claim to all New Land's**
Once you have established a beach head and adequately oppressed all the natives with your diseases and built up a really good network of forts and outposts you simply declare that it is all yours and anyone who messes with it can expect to engage in warfare with you. Thanks to all of the profits you have leveraged from the continent while everyone else are a decade behind in figuring out how deep water navies work you have built up a very sizable army and navy. Will your uncontested claim to the continent remain so? Probably not, but you can very much ensure that doing so remains extremely costly, and prolong your monopoly. Even once competition starts up you have such a leg up that its still massively profitable.
**Total Secrecy is Unlikely**
To expect nobody to ever find out is not possible. Sailors talk. Sailors talk **a lot**. when they start telling tales of piles of gold, mountains of new exotic spices, and lands populated by exotic bare chested women somebody is going to be *ahem* intrigued enough to go check it out. Huge campaigns of colonization and exploitation arose from superstitious and wide eyed tall tales about cities of tall bare chested female warriors, fountains that cured aging, cities of gold, and assorted other fantastical tripe. Plus, somebody is going to notice the exotic and heretofore unseen goods that are suddenly making you rich. If one of a curious nature visits the port-side tavern and buys ol' Jenkins there a few pints he'll tell ya all about where they came from, and how his lousy no good greedy captain had him flogged and didn't even pay him enough for a good slug of rum while getting his own pockets fat himself, the greedy bastard!. (If there's one thing sailors do more than tell tall tales its drunkenly bitch about their officers to strangers.)
Point being, there's no way to expect full secrecy, one can simply utilize the head start they've been given.
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# Map secrecy
Hiding real location of new areas was common. For example, Columbus [wrote a public report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus%27s_letter_on_the_first_voyage) which "say much and reveal nothing", no coordinates, bearings etc. Only several people on a ship knew navigation. Others have no time for observations nor education to track the way and understand where they were.
During the Age of Discovery there were [navigation issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_longitude#Problem_of_longitude) so maps were inaccurate. This is a reason why Columbus mixed India and America: it's hard to calculate how far to the west you travel. That's why detailed ship's log was so important: just coordinates was insufficient. Few people had access to the ship's log.
So to prevent leaks about **precise** location all you need is to make sure captains and some officers are faithful.
# Needless in same route
Columbus was going west **looking path to India** because old routes was long and somewhat monopolised. After his discovery, others went west for the same reason. It took some years to realize that New World was discovered.
So if nobody is interested in an alternative way to the East, other states don't want to spy on what are you found and repeat this expedition. This provide little delay since after your kingdom received (exotic and expensive) goods, rivals would want to know where and how you get them.
# Getting rich from colony
Colonies are found to get resources from them. Discovering new continent would lead to abruptly increasing treasure of your kingdom. This is goal for colony and most decisive indicator that you found something important.
Another indicator is exotic goods. Only exotic plants and animals could say you that a new continent found. And they said about New World for all smart people who see them.
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If you don't use new continent then you probably could hide the discovering for some years. But what the point if you don't use it?
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**Not for long once you try to make advantage of the new continent**.
The thing is: Simply knowing that there is a new continent does not give you any advantage. **You need to use the new continent.** And this means you either import goods from the continent *which are either much cheaper or completely unknown*, warning everyone that you have access to new resources. Or even if you do not import goods, just using new ports to dominate or discover new sea routes gives hints to competitors. Suspiciously long absent ships or rumors from seamen will warn the other countries that you have discovered something.
### Failed strategies from the outset:
**Total secrecy.**
You need ships and seamen to have access to the new continent. Those voyages must be planned and equipped. There are so many people involved that the secret will be exposed. The example of the Vikings is not convincing because the Vikings were essentially pirates and they did not exploit the new continent.
**The other people are warmongering child-eaters.**
You could try to paint the other countries as dangerous adversaries. If they in fact are and dumb enough to raid a city the first time they encounter the new continent, then your argument has merit. The problem is: *The natives are not dumb. They can deduce that it is in your interest to be the single trading partner.* First they will be curious who those other people are and if they encounter them the first time, you can expect that they treat them cautiously, but friendly and **ask them what they know about your country**. The "Shogun" from Clavell is in effect the true story of [William Adams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_(sailor)) who informed the Japanese authorities that their "friends", the Portuguese, have signed the [Treaty of Tordesillas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas)/[Treaty of Zaragoza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Zaragoza)
which said that Japan was Portuguese "property" coincidentally without informing Japan.
**Best strategy:**
*Keep the others out by being the most powerful sea nation.* Wait until you have established a power base on the new continent, exploit the new discovery and use the winnings to strengthen your hold. Attack any intruder mercilessly and/or force *convince* the other nations to a treaty which singles you out as trading partner.
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To summarize your situation: You stumbled upon a pot of gold in a place where other have found nothing, even when they searched. Good for you!
But here is the problem, as you already know: How to hide the metaphorical pot of gold? With alot of trade going on it would be strange for others if your kingdom suddenly has more ressources than you should naturally have.
As soon as this thought crops up in the mind of your trade partners/ rivals/ neighbours, they want to know how and where you got that stuff. They will send spies and agents to learn what is behind that secret.
The question now is not *if*, but *when* the others get to know from your discovery. You should plan accordingly:
First, execute the crew of that ship. Keep the captain and the officers alive, but under arrest. Sailors talk to much when drunk. You could excuse all that with some kind of strange sickness, e.g. Black Death or your worlds equivalent.
Second, force your prisoners to exactly describe what they found, and let them draw maps.
Third, build secret shipyards and harbours, and build a small and secret fleet. Build all that on the coast, far away from cities and villages. Make the workers there understand, that every bit of information they leak would be very detriemental to their health...
Last, but not least: Build a few well defendet outpost on that new continent, and scout it. Draw maps, get to know the natives (if there are any), and make them fear the 'others', or simply put, your rivals.
You won't keep this secret forever. But this should give you a headstart.
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PS: I know, executing the sailers is *not* a nice move, but hey! We are talking about a feudal society, so what measure is a commoner?
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**Get the Church involved**
The One True Faith, as followed by all pious kingdoms, is fond of meddling in the affairs of kings whenever it brings them power and profit, and prone to making divine decrees about who can do what, where, and on what holy days.
It is also most becoming of a godly king to share news of this discovery with the Highest of Priests because *clearly* God(s) intended you to discover this continent, extract its wealth and share it with his/her/their church. Now that you think about it, the idea to explore west came to you in a vision, didn't it? It *must* be God's plan that this new land be yours, and yours alone - and with promises of enough gold, the priesthood will decree such to your neighbouring kings, giving you leeway to explore and exploit.
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As other answers have noted, it's extraordinarily and impractically difficult to keep the New World a secret, especially if there's anything particularly valuable there. You'll be sending well-equipped ships out to the middle of nowhere and you're also suddenly selling a lot of exotic goods. Someone's going to put two and two together really fast. But equal knowledge does not mean equal outcome.
When your ship came back you were extremely confused. Surely the messengers made a mistake. The ship had been gone for half a year and set out with a month's worth of food. All hope for the return of the ship was gone and they were declared lost at sea months ago. But surely enough you meet with the captain who should be long dead and he tells you of an amazing new continent that he only discovered because as he was running low on supplies when he miraculously found a large island where he was able to stock up on provisions. You immediately start on a plan to colonise that island.
**The trip is too long to make without a stop and you now have control of the only known place to resupply.**
Even if your rivals know where the new continent is and how to get there, it does them no good if they starve before they get there. You now have a pretty strong monopoly on travel to the New World until new places to resupply are found, travel times decrease due to better technology/knowledge of trade winds, or the amount of time at sea can be increased.
As to why there's a cap on your travel time, I would suggest [scurvy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy) whose exact mechanism was not well understood until the early 1900s. (because experimentation or processing often broke down the critical vitamin C leading to bizarrely conflicting results) If high vitamin C foods are not widely available in that part of the world, it could be a long time before anyone figures it out.
So long as you aren't extracting huge amounts of wealth from the New World and allow other countries to resupply a few of their ships at your midway point every once in a while (provided they pay you a generous fee, of course), you're likely to enjoy the vast majority of the profits and not piss off your neighbours. Though those colonists might start getting uppity when they realise how important they are...
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1. **Barrier islands**. The main currents and prevailing winds direct ships through a dangerous archipelago with many reefs.
2. **Secret concession**. The captain strikes a deal with the natives. He will teach them advanced shipbuilding techniques and better armaments so they can defend themselves against invasion by nations from his civilization in exchange for a trade concession for him and his crew. Then he refuses to divulge the source of his newfound wealth upon his return. If compelled, he gives a route that passes the wrong way through the archipelago.
3. **Swarmbunkles**. Like barnicles, but they can swim by expelling squirts of water. They swarm ships and attach to the hulls, suddenly and dramatically increasing drag and weight.
4. **Sea monsters**. Especially monsters that feed mostly on swarmbunkles.
5. **Poison gas**. Active volcanoes that spew gasses that are filtered through strange micro-organisms (thermophiles) that grow inside the volcano and secrete a hallucinogenic mist.
[Answer]
I'll go from actual history here and say, if there's no printing press yet, potentially indefinitely. If there's widespread use of printing presses, everyone will probably find out within a year. The two kinds of information dissemination are *that* different.
The North American continent was actually [discovered by Leif Erikson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson#Discovering_Vinland) in the year 999. There was a settlement in nearby Greenland that knew about it for the next 400 years. This settlement was officially attached to Iceland, which was in turn ruled by either Norway or Denmark, for most of that period. The Vatican also knew about the Greenland settlements, as they periodically had to send priests to it (or at least tried to).
So the information about its existence was there, nobody was particularly trying to hide it even. However [maps made in mainland Europe as late at 1474](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_dal_Pozzo_Toscanelli) didn't show it (while showing several other rumored Atlantic islands that didn't exist). The "secret" was effectively unknown in Europe.
So the colony dies sometime after 1408, the Printing Press is invented in 1437(ish), in use [all over Europe by 1480](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#The_Printing_Revolution).
Now a European finds the islands near this continental landmass again in 1492. Upon his return, his [letter about it leaks to the presses within a month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus%27s_letter_on_the_first_voyage), and the news is all over Europe.
So its pretty clear what the difference is. If you've got only medieval communications tech (no printing presses), you can easily keep it a secret for centuries. If your society has mass printing, you'll be doing better than the Spaniards if you get 2 months.
[Answer]
**Your crew is a small number of patriots who believe in the cause**
It might be worth setting it up so the *crew* of the ship have basically agreed to keep their discovery mission (prior to departure) secret, and having loyalty to their homeland, agree to do so. Killing the entire crew would just raise questions, and if they've already made landfall after discovery they likely already told somebody.
However, if the crew are patriotic and know it's important for the good of their nation and people to keep quiet (and maybe some riches from the new world to help buy their silence), you can keep it under wraps.
But this assumes no other country has spied the activities, or haven't also thought about a voyage in the same direction, and that no patriot in the group is feeling rather treasonous (might make for good suspense and 'what if' red herrings).
So it might make additional sense if it's a particularly dangerous journey and only the most capable sailors with the best ships are able to achieve such feats of seafaring to reach the destination (think Bermuda triangle style).
The real question you'll need to ask is how can you effectively exploit the land without tipping off anybody that it's there (IE people might notice if you have a fleet of trade ships going off and then returning back with piles of gold).
[Answer]
Send some colonists there with a pretense of being curious explorers. Make a big deal about the ships that never came back. For the ones that do come back, send them out with no fanfare and go the wrong direction until out of sight of land.
[Answer]
In the real world, John Cabot explored the east coast of North America within five years of Columbus' return from the Bahamas.
Similarly, John Sutter was utterly unable to keep the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill secret. California was inundated with "Forty-Niners" within two years.
Your best hope is in the best policies of the Spanish, the English, and the Dutch:
* The Spanish established a 20 percent income tax on the profits of the *conquistadores*' ventures.
* The Spanish also sent missionaries with the *conquistadores*. Even if the *conquistadores* were not especially loyal, the missionaries set up local churches, schools, and other "hearts and minds" efforts that did bind the Spanish colonies to Spain.
* The English and Dutch invested in seamanship technologies. Some of these technologies (such as spyglasses) could be kept secret. Others, such as training methods for sailors and officers, were hard to replicate. Other technologies included [watches](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B005LYERBI), accurate star charts, and limes.
* The English established a network of botanical gardens, so that plants discovered in one location could be used to seed plantations in other parts of the world.
* The English also established marketplaces subject to English common law. [Entire regions would re-orient their economies](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/) to focus on the trading opportunities that these marketplaces made possible.
[Answer]
**Send the crew back there**
Instead of arresting/killing the crew, as others have suggested, send them back to the continent. Send only a few ships with the purpose of populating and then fortifying a colony. That way, most of the people who know about the continent are there and can't tell anyone. If you find anyone who starts to see what's going on, have them disappear to the continent, too.
**Use a fake disease**
When your neighboring countries find out your ships have been traveling to the west, tell them that only one of the ships that left to a small jungle island came back, with only a tenth of the crew. Say that a mysterious illness killed everyone else. Tell them that you sent the ship back to quarantine the disease. You can say that all later outgoing ships were people who had been found to have the disease so you could stop the spread. Even when they plainly observe your ships leaving to the west, they will think it's to get rid of an infection and they will think it is a small island, not an entire continent.
**Let no one return**
When people find out you've been lying about the disease, they still might not know it is a continent, not an island. Refuse to give the coordinates, or give fake ones. Tell your colonies via another voyage to kill anyone from another country. That way, your claims will be supported by the absence of anyone coming back from any nation.
**Let the colony grow**
Eventually, the nations will find out what has been happening and they will send their naval fleets out to take the continent by force. Hopefully, when they get there, they will find the entire continent fortified and populated by people from your country. Now, the continent is officially yours and you can do whatever you want with it.
] |
[Question]
[
In the relatively realistic (hopefully), near future, scifi book I am writing I am at a point where I am describing the observation deck of a large ship belonging to a wealthy "business man" (see space-age mob boss). The idea is that his private yacht/destroyer is unique because the observation deck is a ring that wraps around the ship externally, with roughly half of its exterior surface being essentially transparent. This would give the effect that while inside the observation deck the floor is completely clear and an external view of space would be visible downward as well as through several front and rear facing windows (think Space Needle or Sears Tower).
This is also unique, because in my book most of ship design is very submarine-esque. There is no artificial gravity, so crew still uses simulated gravity through rotating rings (meaning no "gravity generator" or "gravity plates" BS). The design of the ship hasn't really changed too much from a 2001 Space Odyssey type design, except that the entire ship has a sort of armor shell around it, giving it that submarine look.
My main concern is:
**Would radiation and/or heat build up be a concern for having so much of the ship not behind some sort of protective shielding?**
My current understanding is that existing designs for glass (or transparent composites) on spacecraft isn't great at reducing these risks, therefore the windows are small (and possibly have removable covers) to block as much heat and radiation as necessary. I could be wrong about that of course though.
Some secondary questions might be:
**Is current glass/window technology at a point where it is able to effectively resist these forces?**
**If not, what sort of limits would I have on spaceship window placement and/or design?**
Also, no energy fields or radiation deflector hocus-pocus. I am actually planning to use handwavium to get this appearance anyway, but I would prefer it be a unique aspect of the ship, rather than something that is totally normal and relatively achievable with known engineering standards.
Edit: I guess I hadn't thought to take speed of the craft into account so I would say it takes about 3 to 4 months to reach the heliopause from the inner planets (Venus, Earth, Mars). I probably did my math wrong, but thats roughly 1 million km/h max speed (I think we will go metric in space). I know thats 22000 times faster than the space shuttle has ever gone, so I suppose I'm gonna have to handwavium that one. Thanks for pointing out a huge flaw in my physics though.
Edit: I think I may already know my answer, but I am adding a little more just to further the discussion some before I make a choice. I am avoiding the projected screens and specifically looking for actual windows. The reasoning being that this is the unique feature of the ship. For all the reasons not to do so, that's why I want to. It's like the mob boss is showing off that he doesn't fear the risks of attack, and to give it a kind of "see with my own eyes" kind of feel. Like arguing that vinyl records sound better than MP3s despite the many reasons they are more convenient.
[Answer]
**Transparent Aluminium**
This is actually a thing these days, its called ALON (Aluminium Oxynitride), this would at least have the strength required for the job, its actually what the reinforced perspex in the observation pod for the ISS is being replaced with, and those current windows are scratched quite badly these days, ALON doesn't scratch easily. Adding a polarizing layer around the outside would reduce heat build up a little bit as would a slight reflective coating, so some of the suns energy would be reduced to slightly more manageable levels.
**Material Density**
ALON is denser then glass per cm of thickness so that means it would be a little bit better at Gamma radiation absorption/shielding. as the best thing that stops Gamma Radiation is having lots of atoms of "something" between you and the radiation source.
When mixed with WillK's magnetic field generator and cover shielding which can be retracted when conditions are optimal would allow you most if not all the of the shielding you need.
**Speed**
As for speed issue you've figured out, here's a little bit about the Casini space probe:
>
> The maximum speed clocked by Cassini was 44.0 kilometers per second
> (98,346 miles per hour) relative to the Sun on June 25, 1999. Relative
> to Saturn, the spacecraft reached 30.7 kilometers per second (68,771
> mph) during the Saturn Orbit Insertion maneuver on July 1, 2004
>
>
>
Most of this was done with gravity assists, so you could achieve some of the speed you need using this same method, again if you maximise the Oberth Effect:
>
> Oberth maneuver, is a maneuver in which a spacecraft falls into a
> gravitational well, and then accelerates when its fall reaches maximum
> speed.[1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/63I3d.jpg)[2] The resulting maneuver is a more efficient way to gain
> kinetic energy than applying the same impulse outside of a
> gravitational well. The gain in efficiency is explained by the Oberth
> effect, wherein the use of an engine at higher speeds generates
> greater mechanical energy than use at lower speeds. In practical
> terms, this means that the most energy-efficient method for a
> spacecraft to burn its engine is at the lowest possible orbital
> periapsis
>
>
>
So your ship doesn't have to be super overpowered with handwavium if you take advantage of the correct orbital manouevers.
---
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/63I3d.jpg)
<http://www.ohgizmo.com/2012/05/09/did-you-know-that-transparent-aluminum-exists/>
Sorry to wade in but I wanted to see this stuff. Now you can too! I could not find the ISS windows but found a lot about bulletproof windows. There are some awesome videos testing it against 50 caliber rounds.
Cheers for the Pic Willk! the ISS windows was in a press realease i read a couple of months ago, if i find it i'll post it.
[Answer]
Since you haven't given any data on travel velocities this is a bit awkward.
Assuming typical LEO orbital speeds small windows could be made using modern materials, the [ISS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station) has several.
For any larger window, or any windows at all at higher relative velocities, I would suggest ditching the transparency altogether while keeping the illusion of transparency. Build the walls of the observation deck using a single tiled high definition screen. From the outside it looks no different to a normal ship's hull, because that's exactly what it is. On the *inside* though it runs a live stream from external cameras giving a seamless 360° view of space around the ship. With good software the system can even track one or two people in the space and alter the perspective as they get close to the wall if necessary.
[Answer]
**Open the observation deck when viewing conditions are good.**
Imagine you have a deck on the front of your ship. Passengers can stand there and enjoy the sunset, or watch the stars. But not right now, because you are trying to outrun a storm and there are high winds and occasional big waves out there.
So too your observation deck. When conditions are right, field generators produce a [magnetic levitation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation) effect that keeps in passengers and atmosphere and repels incoming charged particles and meteoroids.
The magnetic field does not stop electromagnetic radiation. If it were just the field, the sun would be fierce if you were within a solar system. You would get tan fast. Just the crewman going out on deck in the storm wears a coat and hat, persons using your observation deck near a star would need protective gear.
Another option for radiation protection would be a space within the magnetic field (2 fields?) containing a radiation absorbing vapor - mercury vapor or the like. This space could be flooded with vapor to a greater or lesser degree, allowing a sunshade type effect and absorbing / reflecting a proportion of incoming radiation.
[Answer]
From an engineering perspective, the issue with your design isn't so much the windows themselves; it's the seams.
We learned (via the [de Havilland Comet](https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/flights/the-tragedies-that-changed-the-shape-of-plane-windows-forever/news-story/bc723a15ce58a97d839483bfd0e7ce4a)) that windows have to be planned very carefully in a pressure vessel. Your spaceship is a pressure vessel. Therefore, ANY windows, hatches, or holes of any kind you put in it have to be designed to compensate for the pressure issues the hole creates. Aeroplane windows are now rounded for that very reason.
Sure, there are 'strong' materials that can also help, and UV shielding will also protect your people, but the safest answer for your mob boss is actually virtual windows.
Imagine a large deck with high def video screens all around. These screens are attached to cameras mounted on the outside. The effect is the same as a window, but much safer. It also carries a number of other benefits...
Firstly, because it's a screen, stock market values, monthly takings by the pushers or enforcers, other other relevant business info can be superimposed over the view so your boss can review business AND enjoy the show.
Also, because there are no windows, police ships can't send recon drones over and note that the boss is in the observation room so now is a good time to strike. Realistically, the boss (if he's on board at all) could be *anywhere* in the ship, as could the observation deck. This is similar in concept to a Combat Information Centre (CIC) on an aircraft carrier or large military ship; there's no obvious 'bridge' to aim at for a critical strike.
Finally, the bulk of your ship can be built as a solid shell - not one piece per se as that generates *other* problems in a combat situation, but certainly from the outside it can appear seamless and therefore it can be more resistant to attack and more submarine like in shape without problems.
Of course, you could always go the other way and build the entire shell out of transparent aluminium or similar, but personally I think that's giving too much away.
[Answer]
You wouldn't bother with windows. Windows add a structural weak point and in fact the new planes being designed no longer have windows. They've replaced them with cameras and screens.
see [Planes of the future](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvbygj/windowless-airplanes-future)
Now for spacecraft, it's more important. You want the bridge in the safest spot in the craft which means right near the center of the ship which is also impossible to have windows.
Crew quarters would also be in the centre and the least important areas such as storage would be on the outside.
The outer hull of the ship is structural plus contains the radiation shielding and plating against micro meteors. You wouldn't want to cut holes in it for people to look out of.
[Answer]
In short, there are plenty of glass options available today. The glass we come into contact with daily is fragile because it is very thin. Thick glass can be as hard as concrete.
Some structural considerations:
* Sufficiently thick glass will be safe enough. IIRC (from a tourist trip), a glass sheet that's 12cm thick is as strong as concrete. It is also quite heavy, but metal would be similarly heavy in either case.
* Debris impacting the glass is an issue, but not more so than debris impacting the hull. The only additional consideration is that dirt/scratches is more annoying on glass than on metal, but *fuctionally* it doesn't matter. However you solve the debris problem for the hull (shield? reparative hull?), the solution can be the same for the glass.
* In order to cope with pressure differences, deep sea vessels tend to bulge their glass windows outwards. Keep in mind that for your spaceship, you'd need to bulge the glass **inwards** (because the inside has a higher pressure than the outside, which is the opposite of a submarine).
---
However, there may be other defeating factors here, not just structural integrity.
>
> There is no artificial gravity, so crew still uses simulated gravity through rotating rings (meaning no "gravity generator" or "gravity plates" BS).
>
>
>
This means that your ring/passengers will be spinning around at a fairly fast rate. If you put windows everywhere, they are going to see the stars and sun rotate *really* quickly as well.
**This will inevitably lead to nausea and feeling imbalanced**. I don't think you can swing having both open vieweing spaces and a fast rotating artificial gravity ring.
Humans would be better at coping with zero G than with the visual disturbance from spinning.
] |
[Question]
[
*Intro*: I have gone some way to make airships more preferable over land-based transport in my [beautiful conworld](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19788/how-would-flora-behave-on-a-two-continent-planet). E.g. [making tunneling harder](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/41841) & [making flying easier](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19630/is-this-concept-for-an-lta-gas-associated-element-lifecycle-feasible). Though there's plenty left to do...
For now I would like to address one of the bigger issues/themes of my creation: The usage of steam power in machinery and vehicles.
---
*Setting*: The world at its current state is a mix of [Victorian Era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era) society and [Interwar Era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interwar_period) technology.
Electricity is only slowly coming up so far and is mostly used as a novelty for e.g. telegraphing, heliographing, illuminating airships, treating materials, ...).
Normal households use fueled stoves and city lights are often gas-powered nowadays.
---
*Goal*: I am aiming to drive most of the machines that do actual work (e.g. drive/propel vehicles, produce electricity, move crankshafts, etc.) as well as things such as heating to be steam-based/powered.
As an explanation for the technological advance and widespread use in/of steam-technology in one of my nations/regions I am going to use the *fact* that there's *hindrances* preventing them from actually making good use out of combustion-technology.
---
**Q**: What are these *hindrances* that make the development and use of steam engines preferable over that of combustion engines?
My own ideas into that direction were mainly to make crude oil a very limited resource for the areas where this nation resides at, thus making it expensive and unappealing for using it as a common fuel. Instead I would've made wood, coal, peat and, of course, whale oil more readily available resources.
Thus, my thoughts go, the non-fluid fuels would still provide lots of energy when burned, but cannot be as easily used in an ICE.
---
*Clarifications*:
This question **is** looking for **answers that leverage concepts and materials** that actually *exist*.
This question **is** looking for **answers that explain the *why*s and *how*s** behind their proposed solutions.
This question is **not** looking for [more phlebotinum](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum).
This question is **not** looking for lists of ideas without explanations.
[Answer]
## Thermodynamic Cycles
The thermodynamic cycles in major use today are [Rankine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle) (steam), [Otto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_cycle) (gasoline engines), [Diesel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_cycle) (obvious), and [Brayton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brayton_cycle) (gas turbines). There exist other cycles; I'm not as familiar with them and I won't cover them.
The major difference between the Rankine cycle and the others is that in Rankine, heat energy is produced outside of the working fluid, while in Otto, Diesel, and Brayton it is produced inside the working fluid. That is, in Otto and Diesel, liquid fuel is sprayed into a cylinder and combusted to move a piston, and in Brayton a liquid fuel is sprayed into a combustion chamber and combusted. Therefore, the Otto, Diesel and Brayton cycles all require a liquid fuel.
Rankine cycles are still used in power plants and other large scale applications, but fell out of use for mobile applications. Otto and Diesel cycles have the advantage of tiny working volume; all stages of the cycle take place in a piston that is only a liter or so at most. The Brayton cycle's advantage is that is not pressure sealed. A piston has to have thick walls to contain the explosion of inside it and direct that energy to the crankshaft. A Brayton cycle combustion chamber literally has a hole on both ends. No thick walls means much lighter. The Rankine cycle, on the other hand, has both thick walls and large fluid volume so there are limits to how small you can make it, and thermal efficiency drops sharply at small sizes.
## Remove Liquid Fuels
To make the Rankine cycle a better option for mobile applications, the solution is to make liquid fuel less accessible or unaccessible. If there are no petroleum deposits, then fossil fuel is going to come from coal and coal alone. Coal can be turned into a [liquid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction) but that would not likely occur to people as a good idea unless there was a pre-existing use for liquid petroleum.
The OP already touched on this so I'm concentrate on an alternative.
## Remove all Fossil Fuels
If you want to be more exotic, remove fossil fuels altogether. The geological conditions were never correct for fossil fuel development and no extensive oil or coal deposits ever formed. Remember, the Rankine cycle can use ANY external heat source. There are lots of whacky solutions like [sunlight concentrated in a magnifying glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power), [magic crystals](http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Nethicite), electricity from a battery or [rotary capacitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_capacitor).
But I want to hard sell the technological development chain from [radioisotopes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionuclide) to nuclear fission. Certainly this would be large scale departure from regular history, but let me make the case that it is practical.
## Without fossil fuels what else would you use?
The discovery chain that lead to radiation went from studies of fluorescence of chlorophyll in 1819, to fluorescence of uranium glass in 1852, to phosphorescence of certain metals, finally to radiation in 1896 and radioactive decay in 1910. This was all pure physics, no requirement for an industrial revolution to have happened. In that case, the potential for heat energy from radioisotopes, a heat energy that was no available any other way, may have outweighed the danger of losing a Curie or two along the way.
Specifically, there are two long lasting radioactive materials, Thorium-232 and Uranium-238. Both are relatively common and easily mined and each have a distinct decay chain. The key to utilizing them is to take a block of uranium or thorium, and separate out the elements that are in the middle of the decay chain, but still have a half-life of several years. This material can then be concentrated and stored as a power unit. A radioisotope sealed in a lead sleeve will simply generate heat energy at a predetermined rate over time; a hot rock, basically. Perfect for use in a steam engine.
Conceptually, each radioisotope will have a thermal generation rate per mass, and a half-life. It will keep generating heat at an exponentially decreasing rate dropping its output by half every half-life. There is a sweet spot for isotopes: U-238 has a half-life of 4 billion years but a heat output of 8 $\mu$W per kilogram. The next step down the decay chain is Th-234 with a half-life of 24 days and an output of 6 MW per kilogram. One generates marginally more heat than iron, the other will probably melt itself (and radiation poison you) before you are done manufacturing it. Neither are very useful. The sweet spot is half-lives of 1 to 10000 years.
From the Uranium decay chain, useful isotopes could be:
* Th-230 (called Ionium by early researchers), halflife 75000 years, power 0.6 $\frac{\text{W}}{\text{kg}}$
* Ra-226 (Radium) halflife 1600 years, power 168 $\frac{\text{W}}{\text{kg}}$.
From the Thorium chain:
* Ra-228 (Mesothorium), halflife 6 years, power 3.5 $\frac{\text{kW}}{\text{kg}}$
* Th-228 (Radiothorium), halflife 2 years, power 177 $\frac{\text{kW}}{\text{kg}}$
A good range of isotopes for different applications; a locomotive might use the more energy dense mesothorium that has to be relaced every few years, an electric generating station with lots of space the long lasting less dangerous Radium. The significant downside is that you cannot turn any of these off. Cars would be completely impractical since your car would melt in your driveway. But trains and ships that are moving most of the time, and power plants and factories that are working all the time would be just fine.
To finish up, let me give you a little context on the dangers of radiation from these materials. Most of the energy from these reactions (with the exception of Mesothorium) is caused by Alpha particles, which are not very dangerous. They don't penetrate into your body, so while they can cause skin cancer, its hard for them to cause radiation sickness. All told, the direct radiation effects of these materials are then surprisingly low. Using the [rad-pro](http://www.radprocalculator.com/Gamma.aspx) calculator, I got unshielded rem/hr for sitting on a 1 kg block of each material as Ionium: .7 mrem/hr; Radium: 0.2 rem/hr, Mesothorium: ~200 rem/hour Radiothorium: 149 rem/hour.
So Ionium is safe for your kids, Radium is safe by 19th century factory standards, and Mesothorium and Radiothorium, the most energy dense, will make you vomit within an hour and kill you if you spend 5 hours standing right next to it. On the other hand, shielded containers, lead gloves and aprons on workers, and limited exposure could cut that dose a lot and keep people reasonably well. If you can get down to 100 rem/year, there probably won't be too much radiation sickness. Keep in mind, in a coal-powered steampunk world, the smog would be doing just as much damage to the common citizen.
So there you have it. You can eliminate fossil fuels altogether, run your society on radio-isotopes or have them develop into nuclear fission.
[Answer]
**To start answering this question we need to look at why and when steam engines were replaced by internal combustion.**
When most people think of a steam engine they think of this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/S49D6.jpg)
In this case the Flying Scotsman.
But for the sake of this question we need to be thinking of this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BqTlm.jpg)
[The Keen Steamliner #2](http://www.kimmelsteam.com/keenengine.html)
Wait a minute! That looks like an ordinary car! Well yes, it might as well be, it's just steam powered. It's a very late example and it's an oil burner. The simple fact that the external combustion aspect of steam engines can burn any fuel of your choice makes any arguments about energy density of fuel invalid. **You can heat the boiler with just about anything.** *This is the first of your steam advantages, hang on to it.*
Heat the boiler? Yes, this is a problem. It's one of the two killers of the steam engine for domestic use, depending on the size of the boiler it can take considerable time to get the water hot enough for the vehicle to run. It's a killer for the morning commute. The other was the fact that while steam cars were competitive you still needed to stop regularly to top up the water as they were open cycle. Closing the cycle is possible but significantly increases the weight you need to carry.
The other great advantage to steam power is that you get **full torque from a standing start**. None of that revving the engine rubbish, it's full torque all the way. This kept steam power competitive until after WWII for industrial use.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/l9TKO.jpg)
[Late steam wagon](http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/12/steam-buses-trucks.html)
Steam was finally killed off by war surplus vehicles and the introduction of the first emissions regulations in around 1950.
**However, this in practice is actually the answer to your question. You asked for interwar technology, and in the interwar period, steam wagons were still very much in use** (at least in the UK), **as were steam trains until 1968.**
Let's go past the war and consider a modern steam powered vehicle. It burns oil or petrol, it has a closed steam cycle so you don't need to top up the water. It's user friendly, maybe a little less inefficient than IC but practice there's no difference on the outside. As soon as you take the "punk" out of steampunk and take it to the real consumer you end up with much the same sleek product that we get today.
In practice if you want to maintain external combustion as opposed to internal combustion you're better off with the [Stirling engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine). This is again a closed cycle engine but capable of hitting the 50% maximum theoretical efficiency, it has a much faster startup cycle as it's heating air not water, and it's capable of running on anything that can generate a thermal gradient. Small demonstration engines have been built that will run on 0.5K difference.
*Let's group Steam and Stirling under one heading of external combustion, and petrol and diesel under internal combustion and consider what could force you to stay on external combustion.*
**The key to this is going to be fuel availability.**
*The external combustion engine can burn just about anything to run.* Whether wood, coal, oil, or gas, or even a Fresnel lens, add a bit of that "punk" back in and all you need to do is generate enough heat and the engine runs, you need to make a few modifications to change between liquid solid or gas fuels, but ultimately it doesn't matter to the engine.
*The internal combustion engines can only run on the designated fuel.* If the fuel is limited or contaminated you're looking at a couple of tons of dead metal.
[Answer]
## Hindrances
In steam engines, the water is boiled in a container, producing steam. The steam then expands and travels through a set of tubes, eventually arriving at the piston, which is situated elsewhere.
Steam engines were used to power vehicles in the past, steam trains being an obvious example. However, with the advent of Diesel engines, steam engines fell out of use. This was because the energy losses in steam engines are comparatively much greater. A significant amount of heat is lost on the way from the boiler to the piston. Steam engines are also quite bulky, giving them low power-to-weight ratios.
Now that I've talked about the hindrances to Steam Engines, let me propose a solution that could match your ideas
## Solution
A Stirling engine is a heat engine that operates by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas (the working fluid) at different temperatures, such that there is a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work. More specifically, the Stirling engine is a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a permanently gaseous working fluid.
Closed-cycle, in this context, means a thermodynamic system in which the working fluid is permanently contained within the system, and regenerative describes the use of a specific type of internal heat exchanger and thermal store, known as the re-generator. The inclusion of a re-generator differentiates the Stirling engine from other closed cycle hot air engines.
Stirling engines have a high efficiency compared to steam engines, being able to reach 50% efficiency. They are also capable of quiet operation and can use almost any heat source. The heat energy source is generated external to the Stirling engine rather than by internal combustion as with the Otto cycle or Diesel cycle engines. However, it has a low power-to-weight ratio.
Since such an engine has a low PtW ratio, you'll want to adjust this. With modern materials such as Aluminium, we could easily adjust the weight of a Sterling Engine to have a much higher PtW ratio.
## Alternate Solutions
Other solutions could include the following:
${\displaystyle \eta ={\frac {work\ done}{heat\ absorbed}}={\frac {Q1-Q2}{Q1}}}$
where, Q1 is the heat absorbed and Q1−Q2 is the work done.
Please note that the term work done relates to the power delivered at the clutch or at the driveshaft.
This means the friction and other losses are subtracted from the work done by thermodynamic expansion. Thus an engine not delivering any work to the outside environment has zero efficiency.
Change this or make engines that use Internal Combustion fuels (Brent Crude / Petroleum / etc.) less efficient and you'll find that people will make Steam and other External Combustion engines more prevalent
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(Nitpicking) Steam engines were much faster developed in reality and are still popular way to go in power plants (especially nuclear ones).
To answer the question i would look into where the differences lie.
1. combustion engines are more efficient because basically they not only harvest the thermal energy but also kinetic energy from the explosion. But this requires more understanding about how combustion works. Over the thumb steam engines reach around 30% energy efficiency while combustion gets close to 50% (still poor to the >95% for electrical ones... - but there you have an example of a less efficient technology overtaking a poorer one).
2. combustion engines are smaller - not only since they are more efficient, but steam engines also require a regeneration system to turn steam back into water for the next cycle.
So for your world you could
1. set it at a time before combustion was understood well enough
2. efficiency is not an issue (it was in our world not really till the world wars)
3. cheap(er) sources of energy that can not be combusted. Think nuclear or more simple coal. A real world example are steam engines powered not only nuclear but also solar radiation is commonly used.
You could in addition reduce the advantage of combustion by
1. having more powerful materials so all engines can be smaller
2. having higher energy densities in fuel
3. have a simple source for clean water so it wouldn't need to be regenerated
4. all things that lower performance requirements on the machines - like lower gravity, smaller people, lighter materials, etc.
OTOH if you aim for a modern world you might need to reason away synthetic fuel. Even plain alcohol would work for a combustion.
Having written all this there is still a large part of the society. Causes may be
* all powerful companies could block the development of combustion
* a religion might forbid combustion
* a society that is averse to innovation
# addendum
As you have noticed english is not my first language. So I may have used a few words wrongly. But I would like to adress the critiques.
tl;dr — just longer explanations, same conclusions. If you find spelling or grammar mistakes feel free to correct.
First a short excursion in physics. When it comes to convert energy from one form into another. For most conversions it is theoretically possible to achieve 100% conversion rate. Say electricity to motion, motion to heat, potential energy to kinetic energy. Only thermal energy is an outsider - due to thermodynamics you can at most get the efficiency of the carnot cycle, and this efficiency basically on the temperatures and pressures you are working at. So what does this practically mean - if you could build a heat engine where at the low temperature end would be 0K it would reach also 100% efficiency (theoretically). Obviously practically this is not really feasible not only due to the cooling requirement but also would would have to deal with solid water in your engine. But cooling this side a little can provide some extra efficiency. A more promising increase is to increase temperature and pressure on the high side. There one is limited by the materials available. During my education 10 years ago that in typical commerical possible scenarios one could expect 30-40% conversion rate, if one could build an engine larger and use experimental materials higher rates may be possible - but was considered not a good alternative. I had a look at the link provided in the comments - but personally I am always a bit wary about the numbers claimed in a prospect, I did a search myself and was unable to find other companies claiming similar performances. The numbers were certainly theoretically possible but without knowing how large, heavy and costly such an engine would be I find it impossible to judge if it would suit for a vehicle.
Now to technique.
I misused the words for combustion. Wikipedia differentiates between internal and external combustion engines. For this discussion the important differentiation is in external combustion engines (which I called steam engines) the burning of fuel takes place outside the work cylinder. This means all chemical energy is first turned into heat and then transfered to the work cylinder. Therefore the efficiency is totaly defined by the conversion from heat into mechanical work. In difference in internal combustion engines it is possible to directly harvest some explosive (=mechanical) energy from the combustion. This always gives the internal combustion engine a little edge as this conversion is at a much better rate than the conversion from heat.
During my education I learnt that car engines had about 40% conversion rate - and nowadays car companies broadly show numbers around 50% for their engines. Again more is possible if the machines are built larger and from better materials at some cost.
I also would like to slightly correct about the "work medium". As stated before in the internal combustion engine the gas that also propels the cylinder is the same that is used in combustion. In external combustion engines you have different media - one from the combustion, and a second (e.g. steam) that goes to the cylinder. This means on one side external combustion engines need to be more complex since they need to transport around two media and therefore usually larger and heavier. But in some context this is beneficial - consider if you would have very corrosive or dirty combustion, than the additional circuit would prevent the work cylinder from getting dirty and corroded. I mentioned that you usually would have some extra machinery to regenerate the steam into water. But I forgot to mention there is another way - one could just bring along enough water so the loss of steam can be replaced. But again this means dragging along a lot of extra mass.
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The reason why 99% (my personal estimate) of our real world vehicles are powered by internal combustion engines has to do with energy density and the cost of that energy. 1 gallon of gas contains [114,000 BTUs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent) of energy. Using wood pellets (probably the most efficient wood fuel source but I do not have facts to guarantee this presumption), you get about [8,000 BTUs per pound](http://www.woodpellets.com/BTUvalues.aspx). So 14 pounds of wood pellets gets you roughly the same amount of energy as 6 pounds of gasoline. If you tweak your forests a bit so they produce slightly more energy when burned (not too much or you'll have odd incongruities like kitchen stoves that melt or torches that have to be quite long so people faces don't burn.) [This page](http://forestry.usu.edu/htm/forest-products/wood-heating) was interesting to me because different species of trees produce very different thermal outputs.
Also, you mentioned that tunneling is harder so it could be assumed that drilling is harder too. Cost is a factor in our real world decision to use gasoline over wood. Deforestation is a reality. How many forests would we have left if we burned wood for cars too? The scarcity of wood would drive the price of a house through the roof (badump ching!). If the oil in your world is located in shale or tar sands, the cost for extracting it would be even higher (presuming they haven't invented fracking yet). Genetically engineer a tree that gives ~10,000 BTU per pound when pelletized and grows like bamboo, and you'd have a viable competitor to gasoline even in the real world.
You could also go the [Tyranny of Small Decisions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_small_decisions) route and throw in some other minor things that make gasoline less attractive. Maybe the king was burned by naphtha as a child and hinders research into refining by refusing to grant land rights. Or maybe your world's JP Morgan owns an interest in an [ammonia plant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#As_a_fuel) and refuses to invest in oil technologies so no one else invests because they follow the "smart money". Or maybe a [religious sect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite) in your world refuses to use gasoline because it comes from the ground and is therefore a product of Hell.
Ultimately, the "Why" behind everything is money. If you **only** changed the amount of time between the invention of the steam engine and the invention of the internal combustion engine, you could easily pass off a reliance on steam power as [path dependence](http://eh.net/encyclopedia/path-dependence/).
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Religious beliefs can explain just about anything. Perhaps the idea of using oil (the product of decomposed plants and animals) is abhorrent.
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If it's alternate earth, make oil & gas very expensive or unavailable in your world. If barrel costs hundred times more I'm pretty sure the cars would be quite different, or if they can't be economical we would be stuck with riding public transport.
**P.S**
Oh and whales would probably be [extinct](https://fee.org/articles/how-capitalism-saved-the-whales/).
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All it takes is one horrific accident in the early days of a technology (e.g., Hindenberg) to put people off from the technology. If there's enough luck to *not* have that accident before people realize it's likely to happen sooner or later and take steps to prevent it (like switching to helium), the technology can take off. If not, not.
So there was bad luck, and a horrible gasoline accident made people realize that every gas tank holds the explosive power of a neighborhood-leveling bomb (true), and steam takes over the marketplace. The reason why we don't have *huge* gasoline explosions routinely today is only because we figured out how to prevent them.
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# [Heat the road, ~~Jack~~](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEsVp5tiDQ) Steam.
Let's say the [Stirling engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine) was invented in a region where parts of the ground are quite hot by natural means, e.g. near a Volcano, or [the Granite that hinders your tunnelling](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/41844/6463) is [radioactive above average](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite#Natural_radiation). In that case it seems likely our Mr. Stirling and his mentor [Cugnot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas-Joseph_Cugnot#The_first_self-propelled_vehicle) could make a convincing case for everyone in that region to use Stirling-Cugnot-Automobiles what with no need to fuel them thanks to their getting heated by the ground heat.
Since it's a regional phenomenon, [air travel was still preferred](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19630/is-this-concept-for-an-lta-gas-associated-element-lifecycle-feasible), but thanks to this different start the Stirling engine became the established standard. Thus, cities started heating their sewerage and thereby the roads in order to let their inhabitants also use the boilerless cars - establishing [teleheating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating) as another standard en passant. This probably also increased urbanization, although the ever-improving Steam technology ultimately allowed the introduction of [Steam coaches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coach_(bus)) for rural areas without road-heating.
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> What are these hindrances that make the development and use of steam engines preferable over that of combustion engines?
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Interesting question. The answer is straightforward. External combustion engines can be fueled by damned near anything that can be burned in a controlled manner. There also is concentrated solar thermal energy.
Now, external combustion includes such cycles as the Stirling - and someone mentioned it. However, getting good performance in a Stirling is very difficult and consequently very expensive. A surprisingly simple piston steam engine system can be literally just as compact and powerful as a modern gasoline engine. The peak efficiency is NOT nearly so high. However, the efficiency of this very simple system can be 20% net.
As to your question, the hindrances to using steam include the ready availability of inexpensive fuels that can be easily adapted for use in internal combustion engines. Interestingly, wood fuel is easily adapted for use in internal combustion systems using gasification. However, a fully developed steam engine system would show superior performance with wood fuel.
There also is solar thermal that I mentioned previously. By far the most inexpensive way to store solar energy for electricity generation has been demonstrated to be storing pressurized saturated water in steel piping with soil used as a thermal mass and with the entire system contained in a highly insulated enclosure. Steam is taken from the system and used to drive a highly efficient compounded piston engine.
With respect to biomass fuel, consider grass as a fuel source. Pelletized grass burned surprisingly well.
In summary, a society that cannot for whatever reason maintain the complex capital structure required to sustain a high level of technological advancement would do well to optimize relatively simple technology like piston steam engines using fuel sources that are readily available including solar thermal, biomass of all kinds, and solid fossil fuels such as coal… or otherwise too costly to process for use in the ICE.
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A variant of the no liquid fuels idea could be that there are liquid fuels but all known deposits of them have dangerous/toxic impurities that are too costly to remove for mass production use. For example, maybe plants in the Red Queen battle had to have strong venoms to prevent them from being overgrazed and those venoms survived and developed higher concentrations as the plants were broken down over time into oil, so that smoke from burning it without purification spreads a potent nerve gas to anyone in the vicinity.
I also take issue with those who say that "steam power" in the colloquial sense as a defining characteristic of Victorian technology, really is about the steam. In my experience one reaches more sensible conclusions if one assumes that the word "steam power" is really code for coal power, as historically, petroleum was not available until decades after the steam age and was used to power mobile steam engines only briefly.
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Imagine you have a big honking space gun mounted on your spaceship that launches slugs at a few percents of the speed of light. We'll call that fairly destructive.
However if you missed and the slug kept going, it could hit a planet directly behind, or any other object somewhere, sometime. If that doesn't concern you in the least, it does concern the Space Warfare Conventions Treaty which says you should feel concerned.
I feel that simply blowing the slug up would create a swarm of shrapnel which I don't feel is a better problem to have.
Is there a way to destroy such stray slugs? I'm looking for a solution that can be integrated to the slug, sort of a self-destruct mechanism.
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Edit: Space may be big, but that's not the question. Authorities do care. The treaties that prevent you from getting glassed from orbit are the same that dictates you can't just fire blindly into space and hope for the best. It's not up for debate.
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**Antimatter as added HE component or counterimpulse**
The tip of your projectile includes an antimatter portion. If the projectile hits the target, this basically doubles the destructive power (because it needs to contain energy equal-ish to the kinetic energy of the projectile). If the projectile misses, the antimatter is rigged to annihilate some of the projectile's matter in a very directed way so the released energy decelerates the (pulverized or atomized at this point) remains of the projectile to non-relativistic speeds.
Directing the energy release of a matter/antimatter annihilation this way would probably be very hard if not impossible with real science, but if we're shooting projectiles at >1% C around we can probably handwave a bit ;)
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The best way to dispose of the slug would be to aim it at something that doesn't care, most likely a star. However, given the momentum of the slug, changing the direction it flies in would take something the size of the firing railgun, so that solution is close to impossible unless your enemies are considerate enough to fly between you and the closest star.
Without changing the momentum of the slug, the best you can do is to break it down into the smallest pieces you can manage. I imagine the slug being made of a material that starts breaking down the moment it's fired (or even the moment it's made if it's pressed/cast/3D-printed just before being needed).
If you hit your intended target, it will be long before any degrading happens. If you miss, the slug turns into powder in seconds. Then a tiny explosive blows the lump of powder into a cloud to spread it out, since a lump will still ruin someone's day at that speed. Hopefully, interstellar matter, solar winds etc will further slow down and disperse the particles.
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The slug has a lot of kinetic energy, and your goal is to reduce this to safe levels if it misses it's target. $KE=\frac12mv^2$, so your two options are to reduce it's mass or to reduce it's velocity. It's velocity can not change unless it hits something, which you don't want, so your only option is to reduce its mass. reducing it's mass in the absolute is impossible, so the only way to reduce it's mass would be to break it into smaller pieces (shrapnel) which you also don't want to do (even gas moving at the speed you mentioned would be pretty destructive). Space is really big and really empty, so if there were a Space Warfare Regulations Committee, it probably wouldn't care about bullets. Consider this: when you look at the sky at night, the % of the sky that is white from starlight is greater than the % chance a stray bullet would ever hit anything in space. If this is not satisfactory, your Space Warfare Regulations Committee could ban bullet-firing guns completely. Powerful enough lasers with even a slight cone would be just as devastating as short range, but harmless at greater distances.
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Sadly, most of the answers ignore the fact that the energy and momentum of the projectile remains even if the thing is disintegrated into clouds of molecules. Instead of having a big slug of metal or metal/ceramic composites striking you all at once, you have a cloud of gas with the same total mass and energy striking the target. While maybe not as dramatic as that single point of contact, it is still going to hurt....a lot.
Perhaps the best analogy is to think of the projectile as a hypervelocity sabot round from a tank, and the destroyed version of the projectile as a stream of gas from a plasma torch you get the idea.
Add in extra devices to the slug to disintegrate it and extra energetics to widely disperse the cloud would be quite expensive and make the slug more massive. The various devices will also have to be military grade so they are fall safe in the ship's magazine and don't explode while under high acceleration in the railgun itself, but still are 99.9% reliable in doing the job after the slug passes the target.
At this point, I would suggest that instead of a slug, use the railgun as the first stage of a missile launcher and fire a missile or torpedo instead. The missile can use its fuel to make last minute corrections to strike the target, and if it misses it can be programmed to fire the rest of the propellant to bring its relative velocity down to mere interplanetary speeds for recovery or destruction.
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**Chemical [dissolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_(chemistry))**
1. Design your slugs with a central hollow portion.
2. Fill this hollow cylinder with a glass tube filled with a liquid or gaseous chemical that is specifically designed to eat the material the slug is made from
3. The firing process ruptures the glass so that the slug starts being eaten away from the inside as soon as its fired.
The chemical can be designed to eat the slug at an appropriate rate so that the slug is mostly intact when it strikes (or passes by if you miss) your intended target but is disintegrated shortly thereafter.
This has the benefit of not dictating your combat maneuvers and tactics as if you miss it doesn't matter, the slug eats itself, you don't need to aim with a secondary backup target in mind. It should be pointed out that **if you miss your primary target you aren't likely to hit a secondary one anyway.**
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I accept and reinforce your question. Earth is already experiencing a big problem with space debris. And I'm not just talking about derelict satellites; the bigger problem is from bits of flaking paint (seriously and literally). A paint chip from a deteriorating satellite or spent booster traveling at orbital speeds packs a very dangerous punch. The big viewing window on the ISS has discoloration due to a debris strike, most likely from a paint flake; experts are debating the risk implications. So I can postulate that any civilization advanced enough to be engaging in space warfare has also survived a space debris crisis. Most likely, lives have been lost and/or their entire orbital infrastructure was threatened. If they put Geneva Convention-style rules of warfare in place, limiting collateral debris would be high on the list.
So, solutions. Outlawing space weaponry is the best, but makes for a boring story. So we address relativistic projectiles. Seeds is closest to the mark: Vaporize your slugs. If you can convert your slug to an expanding ball of diffuse gas or neutral plasma, then eventually it becomes indistinguishable from the solar wind. Blowing it apart into shrapnel won't do it. You need total conversion into a diffuse gas or plasma. Vaporization energy of metals is high; a metal shell with a non-nuclear explosive core is unlikely to vaporize completely. You need something either that will sublimate or evaporate on its own, like water or a frozen volatile, or else a plastic or light metal shell filled with enough explosive that you can get 100% vaporization when it detonates. Perhaps your most expedient solution is to make the whole shell/slug out of a self-decomposing material like nitrocellulose, with a timing mechanism small and light enough that you are guaranteed complete vaporization.
You could see a complex regime of regulations and matching technologies: Restrictions on shell materials and even firing arcs based on the location of the battle. Treaty conventions could limit engagements to deep space, or a given distance from the ecliptic plane. I can imagine the earlier, "civilized" part of an interstellar war when incoming ships have to rush through a gantlet of hostile fire in deep space until they reach the legal safe zone of planetary orbit, where all battle is banned due to debris non-proliferation conventions.
Your canon also serves as propulsion. Again, treaty conventions could insist on self-deflagrating shells, or else limiting "arcs of fire" (in this case exhaust vectors) to specific "safe" orbital elements. A mass-driven ship might have to "tack" its way into or out of orbit, firing mass only along prescribed trajectories. A space DEQ would monitor mass driver exhausts for excessive particulates. If your mass accelerator (canon) goes out of tolerance, your shells (military or propulsive) start eroding and shedding particles as they are launched and your ship gets grounded until its drive can pass an inspection.
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One could make the slugs from ice, or something else that will sublimate with time. Doesn't help with hitting a different space target, but if it gets too close to a star or planet it will melt/burn up. If you need to use it in a railgun, a ferrous discarding sabot of some kind could be used to propel the round and fall away after leaving the barrel. This means debris is created, but not immediately dangerous to folks downrange.
Edit: if the sabot is spring loaded to separate from the main slug, a nearby EM field can capture the debris.
Edit2: Build the sabot capture magnet into the last part of the barrel, so it is pulled directly away/back from the slug.
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Make it out of a semi-stable element whose nucleus will disintegrate over the desired time. So if you haven't hit your target in N milliseconds it will just begin showering betas and gammas isotropically outward.
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Since your setting is in the future, why not go into fantasy a little bit [1]. Make the bullet out of exotic matter which is pulled out from gluon field temporarily and returns back to its non-existent state after a while. Obviously this state transition should require energy to bring it to reality and energy release (say in form of x-rays) after it expires. But this energy will dissipate to all directions. Anything near will get heated, but after a distance, it will not have much effect.
Second idea would be to create matter/antimatter orbiting around each other. It would take sometime before their collapse, which will emit relatively-harmless-at-long-distance x-ray. But if they hit into a hull of a spacecraft it will either cause a blunt (at 0.01C) damage (matter hit) or annihilation (antimatter hit) plus most of the damage of emitted x-ray. If you send enough slugs with this way, alternating hits will probably decimate your target.
[1] If you question the science behind this: there are virtual particles can pop into existence. Even it seems that there is a way to make them stable for longer periods.
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Hitting a planet behind your target is a non-issue, unless your slugs are VERY big or have a LOT of momentum. It will just burn up in the atmosphere. Well, you did say a "few percent of the speed of light", that is a lot of momentum. Easy enough to make up numbers for mass and exact speed and calculate kinetic energy, but I don't know how to get from there to calculating what happens when it hits the atmosphere. Maybe Tunguska was a stray slug from an alien space battle. :-)
If your battle is in deep space, probably a non issue. Space is very big. The probability that someone will run into this slug in all the hundreds of cubic light years between any two stars is minuscule.
Where it could be an issue is if your battle is in a planetary orbit, and both sides are firing lots of slugs. Now you're adding a lot of space debris. But then if you're firing at a few percent of the speed of light, it's not going to stay in orbit, it's going to go flying off into deep space. Let's see, it takes light approximately 5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto. So at 1% of the speed of light, that would take 500 hours or about 3 weeks. So in three weeks, your slug has exited the Solar System and is in deep space. Back to non-issue.
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There are several good answers here, but some that are misinformed as well. I'd like to toss in one additional element that could work in tandem with some of the better answers.
IMHO the best answers have to do with creative ways to disintegrate the projectile into a gas or plasma. However care must be taken to also drastically *redirect* the subsequent cloud of former-projectile or else the same kinetic energy will be imparted to the thing it all eventually hits. For example, see real-world applications that use phase-state changes to actually *enhance* destructive effects, like the [shotgun slug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun_slug?oldformat=true).
In situations like that, projectiles are (more-or-less) converted mid-air into a liquid, to actually do *significantly more* damage than they would if they stayed in their original solid phase.
What you could make use of is simple [rifling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling?oldformat=true). Rifling spins the projectile to increase its accuracy *in air*. Space needs no rifling because there's no air resistance, but rifling combines neatly with some of the aforementioned techniques to vaporize the projectile, because if its spinning already when the phase transition to a gas occurs, it will naturally widen out into a much-less-harmful conical cloud in a very short span of time, basically "flinging" itself in all directions at once.
Keep in mind it would still be lethal soon after vaporizing, so you could even include story elements where a self-destruct wasn't issued in time so the full force of the kinetic cloud of particles was imparted to the victim anyways (and further plot elements about whether that was an *actual* accident or a planned "oops" moment to kill a target "by accident" could make things juicier.)
Any way you take it, I think you're on to something fun. Hope you don't mind if I use some version of it in a story sooner or later.
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Simple Have Slugs that break apart after go a certain distances that way if you miss your target you slug will break apart into smaller pieces that will not hurt the planets behind your battle. This would limit your range of course but it would prevent any collateral damage in a space battle. It also we make it harder for one of your ships to be destroyed by friendly fire.
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You don't.
Do you realize that that's about 10^13 J = 10'000 GWh (when using a 25 g slug), right? So that's the energy a nuclear fission reactor puts out over almost 3 hours. You don't just slow that thing down without bumping into something really massive, even when making a giant cloud out of it like others suggested (just ignoring the chemical reaction guys who apparently never heard of conservation of momentum).
Btw.: What do you mean by "if you missed and the slug kept going"? Like it didn't kept going did it hit. A very small object with the energy a freaking nuclear reactor puts out over several hours doesn't care whether it hit something. It just keeps going.
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tl;dr:
1. Space is big. Unless you're near an inhabited region, you're probably not actually going to hit anything.
2. Planets and spacefaring species already have ways to handle stray space debris. A stray shot would be covered by those protections.
3. Intergalactic authorities won't care about stray bullets; they will care about weapons of mass destruction and lingering wartime hazards.
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## Space is Big
The quote from Mass Effect 2 is actually not true. Not every object flying through space will eventually hit something. While it's true that if it *does* hit something, a stray shot could ruin someone's day, most things floating through space won't hit anything.
Unless you are so close to an inhabited thing that you can see it with your naked eyes, you've got nothing to worry about. Your shots will spread out enough that any given inhabited planet or space installation more than a few light-years away will only ever be on the receiving end of between 0 and 1 shots.
In a combat situation, a total risk of all combined collateral damage under 0.1% is not only acceptable, it's fabulously, unbelievably good.
## There are already protections in place
Your slug is going fast, true, but there are other fast-moving, massive objects flying around in space capable of causing destruction. A mass slug from a railgun is similar enough to natural space debris that anything capable of protecting against stray space rocks will also protect against stray bullets. Any sentient civilization will have ways to deal with stray space debris, either directly via technology, or passively such as their planet's atmosphere.
If your shots break apart into small fragments after missing their target, you further reduce the damage from any collateral hit to that of a micro-meteor. A planet might have to absorb more than 1 fragment, but a ship, even a huge one, would only have to deal with at most 1 fragment.
## Intergalactic authorities won't care
Any intergalactic authorities won't care about stray shots from a railgun. They'll care about something because it is actually a problem. They would care far more about:
* minefields → mines tend to be left behind long after a war is over. They cause a large area to be needlessly dangerous far longer than was ever intended.
* area denial weapons/tools → Same basic idea as minefields. Anything that blocks safe travel in a wide area, and lasts long after the war is over, becomes at least a travel hazard.
* weapons of mass destruction (WMD) → A single stray bullet could kill a person. A single stray nuke could destroy a city and poison the land for centuries. A stray WMD has the same small chance of hitting something important as a stray mass slug. Unlike a stray mass slug, however, a WMD will ruin more than just a handful of peoples' days if it does hit.
## Conclusion
You're worrying needlessly. But if you want to reduce the extremely tiny risk further, just blow missed shots up into a cloud of tiny fragments.
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## § Heisenberg Ammo
Ammunition under *Heisenberg law* is defined as **shape-shifting ammunition**, which must be liquid and of low viscosity and density in stationary state, but when loaded gets set under pressure in the catapulting device and is allowed to shift to solid state. Loaded with energy during the pressurization, the material must harden. As soon as the projectile gets fired and the initial pressure is lost, it must keep it's energy for a maximum of thirty seconds earth time. When the end of the time span – defined by Space Warfare Conventions Treaty about mass weapons – is reached, the material must shift back into liquid state to avoid hitting non-participating parties.
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If you have the technology to fire a projectile at a significant fraction of the speed of light it is probably also safe to assume that you are not going to 'miss' as such. Your target might evade the projectile but you should be able to tell where it is going to end up.
With this in mind you could certainly have a targeting system which prohibits firing on any trajectory which is considered dangerous or illegal. This may mean that space battle involve a certain amount of maneuvering to stay in the shadow of a 'no target' planet but then again this sort of military/diplomatic cat and mouse happens even now, especially in low intensity warfare where large (and notionally law-abiding) nations are involved.
The other consideration is that even if you do hit your target your projectile will either pass straight through it and/or transfer some or all of its energy to it so you still end up with a load of hot space debris which may well eventually fall into any nearby gravity wells.
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A species that hasn’t developed any form of written or spoken language learns to speak English, or any modern language for that matter, and it becomes prevalent in their future society. To summarize, a species that has the ability to make vocal noises and has not formed any kind of means of language begins to speak and eventually write the English language by ‘reading’ and ‘studying’ books filled with English text. If I need to clarify anything or made any mistakes in asking my question do tell me.
When I say language I mean a system of communication that allows for the passing on of ideas and abstract concepts. I understand animals makes noises to communicate basic things like ‘danger’ or ‘help’.
By primitive I don’t mean stupid or dull. Picture early Stone Age humans or variants there of.
By learn English I mean to go from a primitive system of making noises to speaking and eventually writing thanks to the text they found. When learning a new language you have a teacher and already speak a language of your own. This species doesn’t have that.
[Answer]
Quite obviously, if they *don't* have language they *will not* acquire language from books. The gap between not having and having language is simply too great. Therefore I will assume that they *already have* language, and I will concentrate on the possibility of learning a *foreign* language from books.
Second, simply learning a foreign language from books is well-known to be possible. After all, there are many millions of people on Earth who can read Latin, or Ancient Greek, or Biblical Hebrew; and there are quite a few people who can read Sumerian, or Akkadian, or Hittite, or Ancient Egyptian. Those languages do not have any native speakers, and everybody who can read them has learned to read them *from books*.
Moreover, languages such as Hittite or [Tocharian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocharian_languages) were deciphered from written materials without the benefit of any Rosetta stone or other dual-language inscriptions; so we know that it is possible, in special circumstances, to acquire an unknown language based only on written materials in that language.
This answer will concentrate on the possibility of learning the *spoken* form of a language based only on *written* materials.
## In fiction
Famously, E. R. Burroughs's [*Tarzan of the Apes*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan_of_the_Apes) learned *written* English from the books he found in the ruins of the cabin built by his deceased father. Of course, he had no way of learning to *speak* English, since his knowledge was limited to the written form.
(The novel is [freely available](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78) in multiple formats at [Project Gutenberg](http://www.gutenberg.org/).)
Actually there is a nice sequence in the book delving upon the difference between the spoken and written language. One of the first "civilized" persons Tarzan met was a Frenchman, lieutenant Paul D'Arnot:
>
> D'Arnot spoke to him in French, but the man only shook his head—sadly, it seemed to the Frenchman.
>
>
> Then D'Arnot tried English, but still the man shook his head. Italian, Spanish and German brought similar discouragement.
>
>
> D'Arnot knew a few words of Norwegian, Russian, Greek, and also had a smattering of the language of one of the West Coast negro tribes—the man denied them all.
>
>
> After examining D'Arnot's wounds the man left the shelter and disappeared. In half an hour he was back with fruit and a hollow gourd-like vegetable filled with water.
>
>
> D'Arnot drank and ate a little. He was surprised that he had no fever. Again he tried to converse with his strange nurse, but the attempt was useless.
>
>
> Suddenly the man hastened from the shelter only to return a few minutes later with several pieces of bark and—wonder of wonders—a lead pencil.
>
>
> Squatting beside D'Arnot he wrote for a minute on the smooth inner surface of the bark; then he handed it to the Frenchman.
>
>
> D'Arnot was astonished to see, in plain print-like characters, a message in English:
>
>
> *I am Tarzan of the Apes. Who are you? Can you read this language?*
>
>
> D'Arnot seized the pencil—then he stopped. This strange man wrote English—evidently he was an Englishman.
>
>
> "Yes," said D'Arnot, "I read English. I speak it also. Now we may talk. First let me thank you for all that you have done for me."
>
>
> The man only shook his head and pointed to the pencil and the bark.
>
>
> "Mon Dieu!" cried D'Arnot. "If you are English why is it then that you cannot speak English?"
>
>
> And then in a flash it came to him—the man was a mute, possibly a deaf mute.
>
>
> So D'Arnot wrote a message on the bark, in English.
>
>
> *I am Paul d'Arnot, Lieutenant in the navy of France. I thank you for what you have done for me. You have saved my life, and all that I have is yours. May I ask how it is that one who writes English does not speak it?*
>
>
> Tarzan's reply filled D'Arnot with still greater wonder:
>
>
> *I speak only the language of my tribe—the great apes who were Kerchak's; and a little of the languages of Tantor, the elephant, and Numa, the lion, and of the other folks of the jungle I understand. With a human being I have never spoken, except once with Jane Porter, by signs. This is the first time I have spoken with another of my kind through written words.*
>
>
>
Tarzan then learns the "language of men" from the Frenchman, innocently associating the French spoken words with the English written words:
>
> And so D'Arnot commenced at once, pointing out familiar objects and repeating their names in French, for he thought that it would be easier to teach this man his own language, since he understood it himself best of all.
>
>
> It meant nothing to Tarzan, of course, for he could not tell one language from another, so when he pointed to the word MAN which he had printed upon a piece of bark he learned from D'Arnot that it was pronounced "homme", and in the same way he was taught to pronounce APE, "singe" and TREE, "arbre".
>
>
>
Fortunately, lt. D'Arnot realized his mistake and eventually Tarzan learned both spoken English and spoken French.
## In reality
The following real-history examples show the difficulty of reconstructing a spoken language from written materials only.
1. The first example is the [reconstruction of older forms of Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese). The Chinese language(s) have always been written with their [infernal characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters), so we (for suitably chosen meanings of the word "we") can *understand* texts written in Old and Middle Chinese; the problem is that Chinese characters do not have any direct relationship with the sounds made by a human *speaking* the language, to the effect that reconstructing the *spoken* form of the language is a very difficult problem.
Old Chinese was spoken until well into the first millennium BCE, and evolved into Middle Chinese. For comparison, consider that we have much less trouble reconstructing the spoken form of Homeric Greek, which is roughly of the same time depth; the difference being that Greek was written alphabetically, with a script which represented the sounds of the words and *which was never forgotten*.
([Middle Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Chinese), spoken up to the middle of the 1st millennium CE, is *a little* easier to reconstruct because we have some materials describing some aspects of the pronunciation of words, mostly for the purpose of enabling writing formally correct poetry; the problem [remains very difficult](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlgren%E2%80%93Li_reconstruction_of_Middle_Chinese), but at least it's not hopeless.)
The end result is that we have multiple concurrent attempts to reconstruct the sounds of Old Chinese, reconstructions which are only slowly coalescing into a fuzzy consensus. Remember that this is about a language which has living descendents spoken by a billion people!
2. The second example is about the [Hittite language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_language), spoken in Asia Minor (modern Anatolia, in Turkey) around the middle of the 2nd millennium before the common era. The decipherment of Hittite by [Bedřich Hrozný](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed%C5%99ich_Hrozn%C3%BD) is a fine story in itself, but it remains for another time. What's interesting in the context of this question is how many holes are in our ability to reconstruct spoken Hittite.
Hittite was written with the [Akkadian cuneiform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hittite_cuneiform) script, so that for the most part we know how it sounded. The problem is that in their script the Hittites used quite a few [Sumerograms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerogram), which represented common words without any link to the spoken form. (Think how in English we use symbols such as `7`, `&`, `%`, `$`, and then imagine that we *never* wrote `seven`, `and`, `percent` or `dollar`.)
For example, we have not found any Hittite text containing the word for "horse" written phonetically; in all the texts in which it appears it is written with a Sumerogram. The end result is that while we can read Hittite texts, there are quite a few common words which we have no idea how they sounded.
## A ray of hope
As we see, it is very hard to reconstruct the spoken form of a language when all one has are texts written in a script which does not represent the phonetics of the language. If the script *does* represent the phonetics of the language, even as imperfectly as English script, *and* if the script was not forgotten, then the problem becomes tractable.
For example, there are no native speakers of Ancient Greek, or Latin, or Biblical Hebrew; but those languages were written with scripts which represented the phonetic reality, and the scripts themselves were never forgotten. We can be pretty confident that our reconstructions of the spoken forms of Ancient Greek, or Latin, or Biblical Hebrew are good enough.
Even when the script was forgotten, there is a ray of hope if the script reflected the pronounciation and the language left known descendants; for an example, consider [Ancient Egyptian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language). While the reconstructions of the spoken forms of Ancient Egyptian are extremely imperfect and quite approximative, they are nevertheless light-years ahead of the reconstructions of Old Chinese. (The main problem is that Ancient Egyptian script, like all Semitic scrips, does not represent the vowels; so that while the consonants are pretty well reconstructed, the actual pronunciation is still quite fuzzy.)
And Ancient Egyptian also provides an example of a way out. Since the *actual* pronunciation of the words is uncertain, almost nobody attempts to use it. People who study Ancient Egypt have developed a [conventional pronunciation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language#Egyptological_pronunciation), which, while known to be wildly different from the sounds made by the ancient Egyptians themselves, is good enough to enable communication between Egyptologists.
>
> For example, the name `twt-ꜥnḫ-ı͗mn` is conventionally pronounced `/tuːtənˈkɑːmən/` in English, but, in his lifetime, it was likely to be pronounced something like `*[taˈwaːt ˈʕaːnxu ʔaˈmaːn]`. (Wikipedia, *s.v.* [Egyptian language](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Egyptian_language&oldid=885830203); the name in question is of course "Tutankhamun".)
>
>
>
## In conclusion
In the absence of some form of direct transmission of the phonetic information, the species in question won't be able to reconstruct the *pronunciation* of English. They will be able to learn *written* English, and they will be able to develop a conventional pronunciation for use in speech. As a wild speculation, they may pronounce *"famously, E. R. Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes learned written English from the books he found"* as "`'senaifru 'o 'ol 'tillaibʱfof 'kelvem as kʰo 'eudof 'ro:lmog 'hlukkom 'ombruʒ slan kʰo ta:pf ho saimg`"...
[Answer]
As others have also said - No
## Interpreting language requires knowledge of language in general, and of related or similar specific languages
[Linear B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B) was a script found primarily on Crete. It took generations of study, and recognition of similar patterns in known languages, to begin to break down how it even worked. Only after that work had been done was it recognized that certain differences between the script's uses in different places might indicate place names, and only then was it possible to infer that the language rendered in Linear B was a primitive form of Greek (a known language).
[Etruscan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_language#Phonology) is a language we more or less know how to phonetically read. There is one incidentally preserved Etruscan book, many tomb inscriptions, and known influences on Latin from Etruscan. In spite generations of work, and deep analysis into the language's structure, we still cannot decipher what it means. This is in spite of the tomb inscriptions often being paired with pictures which MIGHT be illustrations of what the text is describing. The difficulty is that Etruscan appears to be from a family of languages which is completely unknown in modern times.
## English is among the worst of "phonetic" languages to figure out
We pronounce "kernel" and "colonel" the same way. Why? [Colonel](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colonel) is from Middle French. [Kernel](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kernel) is from Middle and Old English. I don't know if that particular word is an example, but England was conquered by French-speaking conquerors in the 11th century, and Old English (a Germanic language) eventually mixed with the language of the Norman conquerors, leading to a mixture of mismatched words (deer and venison, cattle and beef), and irregular spelling conventions. English has additionally been one of the most promiscuous of languages in generally, borrowing liberally from Latin and Greek, directly and indirectly, also with differing spelling conventions depending on when and by what route the word was adopted. (The "ph" for an "f" sound, for example, usually indicates a Greek origin.)
I could be persuaded that beings of godlike intelligence, given a large enough sample of written English (and maybe an understanding of the anatomy of human mouth, lungs, and vocal chords), might be able to simultaneously infer pronunciation and word-meaning, in sort of the same way that you could fill in the missing numbers in a Sudoku puzzle. For primitive beings who have not yet developed a language? Impossible.
[Answer]
If they don't have /any/ concept of language? No. Until they make the jump to having /some/ way of communicating ideas and concepts to each other, they won't be able to realize the significance of what the books are or store that realization in enough other people to start down the path of what the words may mean.
If they had their own language, they might possibly be able to read it. If there are enough common frames of reference, they may wind up using English as a blueprint pattern to construct their own written language, and if they have enough texts, they might very well be able to reconstruct the meanings of enough of the English words to decipher the rest of the books. This will take quite some time, as they'll need to develop linguistics to do it, and by that time, their own language will be pretty firmly entrenched in their society.
Speak it? Almost certainly not. The written English word has so many bizarre spellings and odd constructions that without someone or something that actually /does/ speak it, figuring out /how/ all these symbols are pronounced would be nigh-impossible. Perhaps if you had english linguistic textbooks and english biological texts and the ability to construct model human mouths, lungs, teeth, vocal chords, and tongues, you might be able to pull off a simulacrum of how the worlds might sound. But if you can do that, your own language is definitely serving you just fine at that point.
[Answer]
This is extraordinarily unlikely, regardless of what some very bad books and movies might suggest.
At the least, it would require a vast number of books with pictures of things, and animations of actions. Quick now, what is an "uxriggabber"?
Worse, many objects are incomprehensible outside of a particular culture and technological level. I had a friend 40 years ago whose sons were being labelled as "slow". Part of the label was based on a picture-based intelligence test. One example they failed was a 1950's era record player console, with the ability to play multiple 33s and 45s (if you don't remember, it was a sort of structure above the platter which would hold records, and you could add a thick cylinder to fit the center hole of 45s) and built-in speakers. The kids were baffled. The parents got fairly irate when they had to explain to the teacher that nobody they knew played 45s, everybody had separate speakers and amplifiers apart from the standalone, single-play turntable. There were more outdated objects as well, but you get the idea. Have you ever seen a button-hook? Do you recognize tack for a plow-horse? A carpet-beater? A thunder-mug? Other than in older movies, where will you learn about old-style (pre-rotary) telephones?
Even then, biology raises major problems. Unless the species is very closely humanoid, there is any amount of room for incomprehension. Does the species exhibit sexual dimorphism, and if so, how? What would the natives make of a corset? High-heeled shoes?
Let's say the natives' sexual cycle involves estrus as with dogs. Most of the time, dogs simply aren't that much interested in sex, and when they are (around a bitch in heat) they don't think about much else. How to interpret love poetry and erotica? Jane Austen? 50 Shades of Grey?
Culture gets in the way. How to make sense of a top hat or spats?
Politics. If they are pack-oriented, what does democracy mean? Or communism.
Finally, English is absolutely horrible in terms of pronunciation of text. G.B. Shaw lobbied for regularization of English orthography without any noticeable success. One of his examples:
Q - How do you pronounce ghoti?
A - "fish". gh as in enough, o as in women, and ti as in emotion.
[Answer]
**No**
They have no reference to link sounds to letters. Reading could be done sort of using basic children's picture books but without a means of linking actual sounds to letter, speaking is impossible.
[Answer]
I was going to be mention the Rosetta stone which is already mentioned in better details in other answers, but one other example that is similar is the Cherokee written language. Per <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language> (which in turn cites Cushman, Ellen (2011). ""We're Taking the Genius of Sequoyah into This Century": The Cherokee Syllabary, Peoplehood, and Perseverance". Wicazo Sa Review. University of Minnesota Press. 26: 72–75),
>
> Before the development of the Cherokee syllabary in the 1820s,
> Cherokee was a spoken language only. The Cherokee syllabary is a
> syllabary invented by Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language in the
> late 1810s and early 1820s. His creation of the syllabary is
> particularly noteworthy in that he could not previously read any
> script. Sequoyah had some contact with English literacy and the Roman
> alphabet through his proximity to Fort Loundon, where he engaged in
> trade with Europeans. He was exposed to English literacy through his
> white father. His limited understanding of the Roman alphabet,
> including the ability to recognize the letters of his name, may have
> aided him in the creation of the Cherokee syllabary.
>
>
>
Per same Wiki link, "Some symbols do resemble the Latin, Greek and even the Cyrillic scripts' letters, but the sounds are completely different (for example, the sound /a/ is written with a letter that resembles Latin D)."
In other words, based on experience with Cherokee (and I believe Rosetta stone), even if the race was able to reverse engineer written english, it is unlike they'd then reverse engineer spoken english unless the books either included a very detailed speech pathology book or ventrioloquist book (or some other book that indicated how sounds should be made with the mouth with pictures etc. and even then, I'm not convinced you'd get 100% accuracy), or some sort of multimedia books.
[Answer]
I agree with Thorne: Given enough source material, your smart primitive society can learn the gramatics, the vocabulary, the informal use of words, but with no sounds it is impossible to figure out pronunciation.
You don't have to look for a primitive smart society to find examples of people learning english from books and having horrible pronuciation: think of japanese or latin american people speaking english today. We may have wonderful use of grammar but our pronunciation will suck most of the time, to the point that a native english speaker will not understand us.
I had no idea that "kernel" and "colonel" sounded the same in english! While reading the answers here I noticed that, for the words I don't know their respective pronunciations, I replaced them inside my head with the spanish sounds for each letter. Result: horrendous and completely wrong pronunciation. Your smart primitive society will replace english sounds with the ones they are used to. Or more likely, they will invent their own spoken alphabet from the books they are deciphering.
Greetings from Perú :D
] |
[Question]
[
The Spanish [*tercio*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercio) was the premier infantry unit of the late 15th and 16th century, as exemplified at their one-sided demolition of the French army at [Pavia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pavia) in 1525. The *tercio* was a mixed unit of pike and shot, where the shot took the form of the arquebus. The pikemen provided an impenetrable barrier behind which the gunners would have time to reload (30-60 seconds, or more) and fire in deadly volleys. With excellent defensive capability and excellent firepower in the short to medium range, *tercios* were regarded as nearly invincible for a century.
The pike was used in a similar fashion as long ago as Alexander and his [sarissa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarissa)-wielding phalanxes. Crossbows were used in Europe from the 11th century at least, and in China earlier.
**In an alternate Earth with no technological changes from our own, is it possible for a crossbow and pike formation to achieve battlefield dominance in the 15th century (before the age of the arquebus)?**
### Considerations
Possible reasons for the crossbow not being more highly esteemed in the 15th century include:
* Social and political dominance of heavy horsemen
* The best crossbows are made of steel, and steel weapons are expensive by the thousands
Some relevant information about crossbows:
* The Genoese [heavy crossbow](http://web.mit.edu/21h.416/www/militarytechnology/crossbow.html) of the 15th century weighted 18 lbs, had a pull of 1200 lbs, a range of 450 yards, and a [reload time](http://www.benjaminrose.com/post/fast-archery-techniques-part-3-the-crossbow/) of 1 minute with a windlass.
* The is no good hard data on accuracy, but a crossbow was probably less accurate than a bow and more accurate than the later arquebus.
* The crossbow [is claimed](http://www.thebeckoning.com/medieval/crossbow/cross_l_v_c.html) to be able to penetrate armor at 200 yards. A test of a modern bow against chain mail showed [penetration](http://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=11131&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) from a 108 J arrow (this is the 70 lb pull, modern bow in the tests) at 20 yards. A [replica](https://myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=26398&start=160) 850 lb pull crossbow had firing energy of 147 J (3rd post down); so we could assume that a 1200 lb crossbow could reach maybe 200 J. The drop off of energy over distance is an open question.
* Keep in mind also that the English longbow isn't producing any more energy than this, yet was effective against heavy cavalry at [Crecy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy), [Agincourt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt) and other battles. A knight is just as well stopped by killing his horse, even if his plate mail resists all bolts.
[Answer]
To add on to AlexP's excellent answer, there is some historical precedence for pike-and-shot formations using crossbows to provide the shot: The Swiss.
While Swiss in the early Renaissance are known primarily for their pikemen, Swiss pike formations in the 15th century were regularly supported by crossbowmen. During the Italian Wars, at least ten percent of Swiss infantry formations were composed of crossbowmen ([source](http://myarmoury.com/feature_armies_swiss.html)). These were deployed in skirmish lines outside the pike formation, providing harassing fire while being able to retreat behind the pikemen if needed. This is not unlike the tercio, which used shot-armed wings to provide supporting fire to the main body of pikemen.
The tercio, like other early pike-and-shot formations, was not inherently reliant on the use of firearms to be effective. It was the combination of large numbers, strong discipline, and tactical independence that made them effective. Tercios were large formations able to move at surprising speed, and employ both pike and shot optimally in reaction to enemy movement.
While crossbows may not be as effective as arquebuses, and thus a crossbow-armed tercio will likely have more pike and less shot, the basic concept of the tercio still holds valid.
The issue with the alternate-history scenario, as AlexP noted, is that standing armies of well-trained and well-disciplined troops (as opposed to ad hoc levies, or smaller bands of mercenaries) only came to be economically practical at the same time that firearms began to displace crossbows.
[Answer]
Tercios are Renaissance and Early Modern, crossbows are Middle Ages.
The point of the tercio is that it was a combined arms unit; it had similar numbers of pikemen and musketeers, and all pikemen and all musketeers *had to* have uniform equipment. In the times when crossbows were viable weapons it was not feasible economically to equip as many crossbowmen as ordinary footmen. In those times, crossbowmen were quite usually mercenaries, usually Genoese, who came with their own equipment. When it became economically feasible, it was too late -- man-portable guns had become widespread. There was no window when crossbows were cheap enough to allow the formation of powerful combined arms units, and at the same time arquebuses were not available.
Medieval armies had unbelievably severe economic (and logistic) constraints; they were ephemeral constructions, because no king had enough revenue to maintain a standing army other than a token force of bodyguards. As a consequence, there was no professional infantry; the only professional fighters were mounted noblemen, who were never that many. Tercios were *professional* and very well drilled infantry, which did not exist in the time of crossbows. You cannot make a tercio out of newly conscripted peasants; like with the Macedonian phalanx, the pikemen and musketeers had to be drilled and drilled to be able to move in a massive compact formation, to keep unit cohesion, to obey orders, to hold the line no matter what.
Moreover, tercios were an *offensive* force. Their purpose was to defeat the enemy's infantry and take the field, while resisting attacks by enemy's cavalry. There were small combined arms units in the Middle Ages, but they were mostly *defensive*. The main role of crossbowmen was to *protect* cavalry.
## TLDR
Tactically, a pike and crossbow combined arms unit would have been effective during the Middle Ages. Too bad that nobody had enough money to equip and maintain such a large force of infantry as a professional standing army.
[Answer]
No reason, aside from crossbows being out of fashion by the time the Tercios were officially created in the 1530's.
Actually, the first proto-tercios carried crossbows.
There's a quote from one of the Ordenanzas in 1497 (that I can't seem to find a full reproduction, dang):
>
> Repartiéronse los peones en tres partes. El uno, tercio con lanzas,
> como los alemanes las traían, que llamaron picas; y el otro tenía
> nombre de escudados; y el otro, de ballesteros y espingarderos
>
>
>
(from the Spanish wiki <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercio>)
It describes the organization of a unit. Three parts: Pikemen, in the fashion of the Germans (or the Swiss?); sword & shield men (*rodeleros*); and the last third being **crossbowmen** and *espingarderos* (an ealier firearm).
This would soon evolve. The swordsmen third would be dropped and the crossbows and espingardas would be quickly substituted. By the time of Pavia (1525) only arquebuses and *escopetas* are mentioned.
As per AlexP's answer, the hurdle is not the equipment but keeping the organization and drilling in a time when crossbows were relevant.
[Answer]
The medieval Hispanic kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon (K. Aragon,K. Mallorca,K. València & the Catalonia princedom) did use crossbows as the key to support infantry or the navy.
The Royal galley of Peter IV had a defensive armarment, as stated by the late XV century [re-edition](https://books.google.es/books?id=hcJCAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA30&lpg=RA1-PA30&dq=la%20ballesta%20en%20la%20corona%20de%20arag%C3%B3n&source=bl&ots=gh0C8YmTa3&sig=m-zyoMpwvlqEdfDx0OYKgriTjqo&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq8YzHkP_YAhXMvRQKHZGZCBYQ6AEIaTAN#v=onepage&q=la%20ballesta%20en%20la%20corona%20de%20arag%C3%B3n&f=false) of the royal navy ordinances, of 30 medium steel-arm crossbows, 64 dozens of medium bolts, 25 dozens of heavy bolts, 8 heavy crowssbows with loading mechanism, 100 pavise shields with the king's insignia, 34 round shields, 125 8ft pikes, 4 partisan spears, 86 long pikes, and 136 cuirasses.
The same king ordered in 1361 to the Jaca armoursmiths to hand to the royal armoury the amounts of:
* 33,000 crossbow bolt heads
* 500 pavise shields
* 500 spear heads
* 300 pike heads
* 200 cuirasses
* 200 helmets
* 200 neckguards
* 250 heavy crossbow bolt heads
Not only that, he also ordered specifically to enlist experienced crossbowmen.
>
> En abril de 1361, desarrolló una función similar Lope de Gurrea, quien
> envió a dos escuderos por orden del rey a Jaca, Barbastro y Aínsa para
> acordar ballesteros. Mediante pregones, varios corredores publicaron
> que recibirían salario quienes supieran tirar con ballesta y
> decidieran aceptar la convocatoria
>
>
>
**In real life**
A group of reenactors I know has been recovering for the last 3 years the equipment of the XIII and XIV century Aragonese armies, and have made a small compendium of comparisions between their current equipment, based on archaeological finds and in the descriptions, texts, or imagery.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1LmO5.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WLRfF.jpg)
these paintings are placed in the El tinell room, Royal palace, Barcelona.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Kiuug.png)
To finish, here are the mechanism, loading systems and structure of a XIII century aragonese crossbow.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vmbwm.jpg)
I have to find yet the book that depicts and describes formally the strategies, (can't remember the name right now), but the idea basically was that they ordered the infantry to march in columns of two to three rows of shield and spear men, followed by several rows of pikes, with crossbows behind and on the flanks, and light infantry with them on the flanks.
[Answer]
Only with vastly more resources, particularly highly skilled labour, than were generally available, there's no [mass production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_production) in the 15th century, and no [standardisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization)/[quality control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_control) so weapons were really expensive and pretty variable in their effectiveness individually. The more complex the weapon the worse this issue was; crossbows were and are mechanically complex weapon systems making them expensive to manufacture compared to the melee weapons and armour of the day.
The thing is that the *tercio* is just one example of the [combined arms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_arms) formation, which has been around since Roman times at least, they used Javelins and Pila to give their heavy infantry ranged punch and it gave them battlefield superiority for centuries, particular techniques come and go but the idea is the same make your enemies defensive options mutually exclusive.
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The [Janissary corps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissaries) of the Ottoman army began using matchlock muskets as early as the 1440s. The army of Mehmed the Conqueror, [which conquered Constantinople](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror#Conquest_of_Constantinople) in 1453, included both artillery and foot soldiers armed with gunpowder weapons.
So, there were gunpowder weapons prior to the 16th century (primarily muskets, handcannons, and handgonnes).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/hkSKm.jpg)
Nevertheless, and more importantly, it's not always the technology that wins a war, but how effectively it's used. There are many historical instances where training, leadership, and fluid tactics have overcome much larger and better outfitted opposition ([The Battle of Tolvajärvi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tolvaj%C3%A4rvi) is a great example).
**In conclusion:** Yes. A well trained, well funded, organized military, comprised of crossbow and pike units, could certainly achieve dominance.
---
**Side note:**
Psychological warfare can also provide significant advantages -- as long as it's not leveraged on heavily. Having an army with an intimidating appearance is one of the simplest approaches.
As an example, I made the following, extremely rough concept art (specifically for this post) for a helmet that could be made from standard leather.
It would still offer some protection, but would be easier and cheaper to produce. If it were to be coated with metal flakes, it would likely be indistinguishable from metal to enemy forces.
This is just one example of how an army, with limited funds, could still achieve the upper-hand.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RbjhB.jpg)
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One of the big issues is not so much the technology available but the economics of warfare.
Medieval armies were largely based on networks of loyalty and obligation and while there were certainly highly skilled and well equipped individuals in medieval armies there was very little concept of a properly professional army.
Having a pool of well trained individuals to call on at need is one thing but maintaining professional units of foot soldiers who are well enough drilled to act in a coordinated way, especially as a single combined arms unit is quite another.
In the case of the Tercios there is a reasonable argument that it was the discipline and tactical mobility of the pike blocks which was the real source of their effectiveness and the ranged firepower was just the icing on the cake.
It is probably no coincidence that the first truly professional mercenary units were associated with the mercantile city states which defined the renaissance as these were the states which had a proper cash economy.
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**How can I make it so that an otherwise colonizable planet (or moon) can (entirely naturally) seem uninhabitable from a certain point on its surface?**
**Background:** There are a series of immovable gates scattered across the galaxy by an unknown race. Each gate has access to thousands (at minimum) of other gates; enough that there is no danger of running out of new planets anytime soon. A majority of these gates are on planets, moons, and asteroids. These gates are used by other races to colonize and exploit planets. Just about any environment that a human in a space suit could survive in is a good candidate for colonization. Exciting or valuable planets are snapped up by corporations or polities, while less interesting planets are noted and eventually sold to other groups. Planets with extreme conditions or that present obvious hazards are passed over and blacklisted, and unless there is reason to do so, are generally not explored far beyond the gate. A robotic civilization examines planets on this blacklist in greater detail, looking to colonize planets that not as uninhabitable as they seem to be. Planets like this would seem to be bad candidates for colonization or mining within a ~100-kilometer radius from the gate, but would be more habitable beyond that. Ideally no more than a quarter of the planet would be completely infeasible to colonize.
I'm looking for almost any sort of hazard that would make a planet (incorrectly) seem *dangerous or hostile enough* to someone stepping through one of these gates that it's inadvisable or not worth the effort to exploit, with three stipulations:
*1. Nothing interesting:* There can't be anything that would make mining or research seem to be worth the risk. Obvious signs of abundant rare elements, scientific anomalies, *alien civilization (no matter how primitive), or native life* would all be too interesting. I want anyone who discovers that the planet is inhabited to wonder why the inhabitants bothered. Planets with really unusual dangers are cool, but I want explorers to be saying "Wow, this place sucks!" rather than "Wow, I wonder what's up with this place!"
*2. Gate access:* The inhabitants need to be able to occasionally access the gate, both for initial colonization and for import/export purposes. The gate being inaccessible a majority of the time would work, as would having gate conditions be lethal within a matter of hours. Sticking the gate in the middle of an ocean of lava would not.
*3. Novel:* I already have a tidally-locked planet with the gate on the terminator, which discourages colonization with high winds, ash storms, and the occasional rain of semi-molten rock carried over from the hot side. Weather-related answers are fine as long as they're dissimilar enough from this. I also have a planet in a white dwarf system where the gate receives enough ultraviolet radiation to destroy even hardened electronics in a matter of hours.
I have a few ideas of how this could work.
* **Dangerous system:** A planetary system that appears to be on the verge of suddenly planetary catastrophe would not be worth doing anything with unless there was something worth the risk. A star that looks like it's about to go nova, a large asteroid belt likely to send asteroids at the planet, or an [x-ray binary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_binary) likely to sterilize the planet would all make potential colonists turn and run. The difficulty would be how to make it quickly obvious that the planetary system would probably kill you, while allowing further research to conclude that it won't.
* **Volcanic activity:** Frequent volcanism can rearrange landscapes and kill without warning. Given time, it could be studied and predicted, but on an otherwise unremarkable planet, that generally wouldn't be worth the effort. Unfortunately, it would be hard to limit the volcanism such that it's intense enough in certain areas to scare off explorers, but mild enough elsewhere that permanent structures can be built. Additionally, major volcanism would be likely to bury the gate in rock, as well as potentially making surface conditions too similar to those of Venus.
* **Planetary purge:** Some frequent event that, while apparently unpredictable, can be predicted and allow the inhabitants to bunker down to survive it without much issue.
An ideal answer would include an explanation that passes a [reality check](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reality-check), but if necessary I can just make a follow-up question to ask how it could be made to work.
**Edit:** Made it more obvious that I'm looking for an apparently *dangerous* planet, not just an uninteresting one.
**Edit2:** To clear up confusion, 'colonizable' means the following:
* Temperatures between -250° and 200° C.
* Surface pressure ranging from vacuum to 3 atms.
* Gravity at or below 2.5g.
* No conditions that would frequently destroy buildings dug into the crust.
* At least 75% of the time, external conditions wouldn't cripple or kill a human in a hardened space suit.
* Flooding, tides, or underwater land aren't an issue unless the liquid would be hazardous long-term to a deep-sea submersible.
* The presence of enough metals and carbon for at least low-scale industry, and enough power options (solar, geothermal, volatiles, fusion, etc.) to support a colony.
**Edit3:** Again, 'colonizable' is a relative term. Habitability for unaugmented humans without extensive technological support *isn't a concern*. If a Mars rover can trundle around on the surface of the planet without summary destruction, consider it to be well within the bounds of colonizable.
**Edit4:** In response to a question. The gates are two-way and have been demonstrated to be able to reassemble in a matter of weeks from anything short of the detonation of an antimatter bomb. There have even been (inaccessible) gates that appear to be located deep in the atmospheres of gas giants. More information on the gates can be found [here](https://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/The+Pandora+Gates) and [here](https://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/Gatecrashing+Ops).
**Edit5: Please do not have your answer involve aliens in any way. Please do not have your answer involve life in any way. Please do not have your answer make the planet unusual enough that either native life or alien intervention are the most likely explanation for how it came to be that way. The *only* exception is if it would take extended and in-depth exploration and research on the planet to figure out that that the conditions didn't arise naturally**
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The amount of resources expended to determine the habitability of a new planet is inversely proportional to the number of gates/planets they have access to. If there are thousands of options then the criteria for exclusion will be low, but if there are only 4-5 options, then they will be very thorough in evaluating each planet, especially if they have competition for colonization.
In light of this, I'm assuming there are many planets, several hundred at least, so human explorers will not spend more than a few days at most surveying the local area around the gate and do not have the ability (budget) to bring in rockets to launch satellites into space or drones that can do more than patrol a few dozen km around. I'm also assuming that the robotic explorers may visit this list some time afterwards, so conditions could have changed. And they do have the ability to launch satellites and durable drones for a wider recon of the system.
1. The gate opens into an area underneath a hole in the ozone (or ozone equivalent) such that there is an unacceptably high level of radiation. Without journeying outside of that area (which could be hundreds of km in diameter) the explorers wouldn't know that the rest of the planet is more protected and safer. The radiation exposed area would be devoid of life.
In order to jack up the levels of radiation penetrating the atmosphere, the planet wouldn't have a spinning iron core able to generate a protective magnetic field. So the atmosphere is very thick and dense, able to shield the surface in most places, but a naturally occurring ozone hole above the gate leads the humans to assume the entire planet is bombarded.
In addition the planet (moon, in this case) could normally be protected by the magnetic field of a nearby large planet, but it has an elliptical orbit that periodically takes it out of the field. This could explain an abnormally high level of solar exposure through the ozone hole (particularly if there is a Van Allen belt equivalent around the larger planet and the moon is currently travelling through it, but normally the moon isn't exposed to much solar radiation, allowing it to maintain an atmosphere and better conditions elsewhere.
2. The planet is currently passing through a dense asteroid field or comet tail (like our annual Perseid meteor shower but much worse). So the planet is being bombarded with impacts and it looks like there will be more coming. Without sticking around to monitor the solar system there would be no way to know how often such showers occur.
Now normally this would make the planet VERY attractive, as all these impacts deliver all sorts of cool heavy elements to the planet. But obviously nearby impacts would destroy any mining/colonization attempts. So humans don't bother to wait around, but robots could spend the resources to determine the frequency of impacts and determine that there are significant periods of time without impacts such that they could conduct operations and perhaps erect a meteor defense system before the planet passes through the comet tail again.
3. The local star just happens to be undergoing a rare super flare. Again, this is dangerous to the explorers and they have no way of determining the length and frequency of such solar outbursts.
To spice this up, perhaps this is a binary star system, with one star producing all the flares. The planet in question is part of it's own paired orbit with another planet that frequently shields it from the flares from the star, but it happens to be out of the shadow of this planet when the humans visit. So normally the gate planet is livable, with light coming from a less active star (so solar power is available) while it is in the shadow of the other planet to block solar flares from the other star.
4. The planet is exiting an ice age with melting glaciers. The gate site is frequently submerged by meltwater floods that remold the surface, making construction difficult. It is possible that if the robots survey the planet a few decades later, the glaciers and flooding could have withdrawn from the area around the gate, making it a more inhabitable spot. The amount of flooding could have also been transiently increased due to a meteoric impact that precipitated flash flooding (much like some folks think occurred to Earth 12,000 years ago), such that conditions improve just a few years later.
5. The planet is close to a black hole and experiences significant time dilation (like the planet in Interstellar). This makes colonization by humans very difficult as there is effectively no two way communication, humans on the planet can't come back through, there is no way for them to build up facilities in any kind of time line that would allow for mass immigration through the gate or to bring anything back. Robots may not fear such an isolating phenomenon though, since they have a much longer lifespan.
6. The gate connection is very erratic, with significant periods of disrupted connections that either prevent gate travel or destroy whatever is going through. Psychologically this would be devastating for humans, but robots may not mind.
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The gate is at one of the magnetic poles of the planet, the field is very powerful. There is a source of extremely energetic particles in the system, probably a neutron star or black hole. The magnetic field is sufficient to deflect these particles down onto the poles--the gate area is subject to a very high radiation dose (say, 10Sv/min.) An explorer that doesn't immediately about face and leave is dead, most probes will be fried.
What explorers don't know is that this isn't a planet, but rather a moon. Occasionally it goes behind it's parent planet and the radiation stops for a short period. The inhabitants can quickly approach and use the gate during this interval. They have a maglev line that serves the gate--but the track is buried under an inch of rock and it's only energized when it's going to be used. A detailed search would find it but nobody's going to be doing that.
Note that the moon is not in an equatorial orbit, most orbits it passes above or below it's parent and there's no eclipse. (Think of the moon--we don't get eclipses on most orbits of the moon.)
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Expanding on the previous warzone ideas, make the planet ideal for colonisation with fertile valleys and rich ores right in front of the gate (maybe that's why the gate was there).
At some point in the distant past, some race found this and colonised it. At some other point in the distant past, another race found this and wanted it. The subsequent war created an area uninhabitable for the entirety of the first race's colonised territory which is as big or small as you want it to be. The actual reasons for it being uninhabitable are as varied as weapons are but could be anything:
* nano-phages
* radiation
* bio-engineered, hyper-evolving/mutating beasts (Xenomorphs)
* a fleet of AI drone carriers producing aggressive self-repairing sentinel drones
* gravity warping (don't detonate hyperspacial refolding weapons in a gravity well fool, it creates flux fields)
* a continent sized crater with a hostile micro-climate
Whatever the results of the alien weapons, the warzone is no longer habitable and because the colony was centered on the gate, the warzone is also centered on the gate. Go far enough from the gate and it's a normal planet again.
The only caveat is that the warzone shouldn't be scientifically interesting, so whatever it is, it should be some technology that is more or less understood by everyone rather than having traces of exotic technology that could be scavenged. On the other hand; dealing with bottom-feeding scavengers risking death to loot the battlefield for technology is an interesting story too.
EDIT: Expanding on the idea slightly, the point is that the gate is by definition, the most interesting part of the planet. Therefore it's naturally the centre of any activity on the planet, it is the natural place for an outpost and the epicentre of any conflict. Rather than attempting to subvert this conclusion, exploit it by having the strategic value of the gate be the reason that the area appears uninhabitable.
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The planet has constant electrical storms.
At all times there are massive planet-wide electrical storms. The inhabitants have adapted their very way of life to counteract the constant electrical activity. All electronics must be shielded. Anyone outdoors needs modified clothing or suits to survive.Any housing or vehicle on the surface need to be properly grounded to avoid electrocution and fire. Most inhabitants live underground.
Anyone coming through the gate unprepared and ungrounded, would be greeted by thousands of volts within a few minutes. Any scouting technology sent ahead without proper precautions would be fried.
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## Bacteria
Though you asked for an answer involving no life, this method is explainable using nothing but the bacteria brought in by explorers.
As it turns out, the planet is actually *really* inhabitable. It has the perfect operating standards for all manner of... bacteria. Just the right minerals, heat, water, and various chemicals to allow all kinds of microorganisms to thrive. Of course, this means that the gate and everything nearby is coated with bacteria that will eat right through anything from rubber to metal, and the bacteria in the air will kill anyone not in an airtight suit. Worse, these aren't "local" bacteria; they are all the little microbes from the original expedition. Of course, with the right plastics, the bacteria can't get in, and a bleach bath washes them right off.
## Permastorm
With the right landscape, a permanent storm can form; high winds, lots of rain, and other hazards like hail, lightning, and tornadoes or micro-bursts can be deadly. The portal is located on an island, surrounded by water, heated by geothermal vents. The area is blanketed with steam, and lashed by acid rain and high winds day in and day out. The storm covers miles around the gate, blocking technology with constant lightning strikes, blocking vision with steam and rain, and blocking travel with a boiling sea (did I mention it's filled with dangerous chemicals from the acid rain? No? Well, it is!).
Of course, the area around the portal is a dormant volcano, and the storm is trapped inside. Outside the storm, it's beautiful. And inside the storm, if you go around to the back of the portal and go into where the boiling steam is thickest, it leads straight out. Granted, you have to know where it is - the path is hidden under a foot of water - but any acid-proof vehicle could make it through without trouble.
## Time and Tides
The portal opens into an underwater cavern; a bit of space to move about, but attempting to leave will meet a watery doom! The rushing water will pummel anything to a fine silt, be it living creature or well-crafted machine. There is a tremendous undertow, rushing through sharp rocks. Tunneling through the cave walls would only flood the cavern; the only way out is through the rushing mayhem.
Which isn't so bad, once a month or so. While the tunnel is overwhelmed by crashing tidal waves most days, when the planet's moons align, there is a couple good days of nearly placid water - plenty of time to get a shipment. The rest of the planet is just as chaotic, tidally, but nobody cares about tides underground.
## Needle/Haystack
The portal opens onto a... rock. A boring asteroid, in a poorly-populated asteroid belt, in a dead system that seems to have nothing but a single red dwarf. It's where boredom goes to die. It's not dangerous; it's just... boring. It's not even worth mining minerals, because there's nothing there but iron and carbon, and you can get that anywhere. There's hardly enough enough gravity to hold you onto the asteroid. Oh, *man* this place is boring.
...Except for a strange phenomena with the various asteroids. As it turns out, 99% of the material in the asteroid belt is "cloaked" by scanner-jamming crystal formations. While there is no atmosphere, several larger asteroids would make excellent homes, and the force required to reach them is in "big jump" range. With a basic jetpack, it's simple to shuttle over to any of the cloaked asteroids and set up shop, and the crystals and mineral deposits make these hunks of rocks *incredibly* lucrative. The first step is a doozy, but after that, you'll have an amazing system to call home!
## Inside Out
No green people here; rather, the surface of the planet is a living hell. High temperatures, high gravity, constant dust-storms, toxic air, radiation, it's got it all. It's not a cycle, either; it is *always* hell. The whole planet might as well be on the back of the sun. Worse, the various dangers absolutely wreck any scanning equipment.
*Inside*, though, is a network of tunnels, hollowed out by countless eons of volcanic activity. As the toxic air filters through the rock, the worst is filtered out; the iron and other metals near the surface quiet most of the radio noise, and the thick rock insulates from the surface radiation. There are a few natural resources - water, oxygen, etc. - that have filtered down through the rocks, and plenty of minerals to exploit.
## MY EARS
This planet is LOUD. Constant winds over high canyons have created the universe's largest pan-flute orchestra, and constantly blow it 24/7, at 200 db. It's like a heavy-metal bagpipe convention. It doesn't matter how much insulation you put between you and the outside world, that multi-pitched scream cuts through like a clarinet in the mouth of a four-year-old. Beethoven could hear this "music."
Other than that, it's fine, if a bit boring. And robots can just turn off their audio input, right?
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The gate could be deep in a frozen arctic wilderness, like it is near the north pole, where there is just snow and ice and nothing else. No minerals, no land, no plants or animals. Natives could still trek there if they are properly supplied, but anyone popping through from the other side would come through, think they are in an ice age, and leave again. Why bother if there are other places to choose from.
It could also be in an underwater cavern. If the natives have a way to drain out the water when they need it, or hoist it up and into the light, but leave it flooded most of the time as a security precaution then that would be a deterrent. The water could also be chemically active, such as highly acidic or alkaline, so that it would attack anyone coming through even if they are suited up. Especially if the water goes pouring through the gate when it's opened.
An impenetrable marshy bog like [the Sudd](http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/08/the-impenetrable-wetland-of-sudd-in.html) has promise too.
The whole idea seems to be like locks on your doors. Locks are not hard to get around. Pick them, bump them, card them, smash them. You put locks on your doors to make your house look less attractive than the neighbors house. So a world that looks like it is going to take more work to get anything out of will probably be passed over for greener worlds.
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I like the idea of a binary star system. The humans could have visited during a central transit time. When the planet was between the two stars causing an extreme surface temperatures. Then when the robots come back its in an outer track with one star eclipsing the other. All ecology could be adapted to "hibernate" during the extreme periods.
Adding details per request.
Planets can move in a variety of ways in a binary star system. They can orbit a single star, orbit both stars in an oval or perform a figure 8 track between the stars. The planet I'm imagining would be on the figure 8 track. When the planet was between the stars there would be 2 suns in the sky and double the thermal energy arriving at the planet. This would shoot up the surface temperature for "months" at a time while its in the central transit period. When it exits this period the stars would eclipse each other lowering the thermal energy and allowing life to flourish.
You could even make water enter the atmosphere during the hot times and fall back to earth in the cool times. Planetary fog with sweltering heat would make me not consider living somewhere. Animal and plant life would need to be underground during the hot periods and could emerge for the cooler periods. They would likely bury themselves in mud before the water evaporation then hibernate.
The robots could really like the available solar energy and perhaps high mineral contents of the planet.
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An unknown civilization has dumped all of their nuclear waste right outside the gate.
Time has hidden all signs of the intellectual source of the radiation. Instead, human explorers determine that the planet has had a high natural concentration of uranium in its crust, and at some time in the past has developed into a huge [natural nuclear reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor), leaving so much waste as to likely make the whole planet uninhabitable.
But in reality the unknown civilization has been smart enough to bury the waste so that it stays in a single place, leaving rest of the planet habitable.
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Let me add an idea that doesn't quite follow the letter of your question, but might follow the intent.
**The gate is on a totally useless moon.** Let's say the gate opens up onto a completely barren moon of a gas giant. It's surveyed, there's nothing in the crust, it's heavily radioactive, can't be terraformed. Maybe it is actively dangerous, moonquakes, volcanoes etc.
The bureaucrats put it on the "*don't bother*" list, because there's much more interesting (and easier) places to see.
**However, another moon of the gas giant is completely habitable**, but it takes a couple of days to get from the gate to Habitable Moon. In an era of instantaneous travel, that would be highly unacceptable.
No one's going to go colonize Habitable Moon if there's thousands of easier-to-access planets. I'm thinking of the Hyperion Cantos, where planets in the Web (linked with man-made gates) are culturally very linked. Giving up easy access to a gate is a huge cultural thing.
So Shitty Moon is hard to deal with, and only the best pilots used to landing on it can get people in and out, which effectively isolates Habitable Moon in the same way you're thinking.
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The planet has no atmosphere or liquid on its surface; it's all subterranean.
One cause could be this planet has a tight crust (either somewhat naturally, or as a side effect of a superweapon having been used on it some time in the past, or intentionally by those trying to "hide" the planet from gate-travelers) which keeps gases from leaking outward much. (Small quantities of gases leaked to the surface may get stripped away by solar wind. Lack of protective atmosphere, and apparently magnetosphere as well, discourages travelers.) The crust's contents are whatever boring-onium you find making up 65% of every other planet anywhere.
Another cause may be the planet is insufficiently warmed by its nearby star, so the atmosphere (and oceans) are both solid. But nuclear geologic processes warm the planet deeper inside, and due to geology / chemistry / inhabitant history, there are quite large pockets with liveable arrangements of resources in there. (See Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" for a planet whose inhabitants hibernate right before the atmosphere freezes on a cyclic schedule due to an on/off star.)
Anyone passing through the gate who is willing to drill deep enough through the planet's crust could figure this out. Detailed scanning of an obviously deserted, crater-pocked cold dry rock may never occur to any visitors. If they notice gravitational variations, they could chalk it up to varying ores far too deep to be worth mining for. Seismic detection for a few hours after a meteor makes a new crater on the far side of the planet might reveal the extreme density changes deep underground.
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Considering Earth as an example, a gate that opened to [the abyssal plain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_plain) far from anything other than flat ocean bottom would make arriving explorers wonder if the whole planet was that way, and be thousands of miles from land so hard to access even if they did do a thourough job of exploring.
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## Many Micro Moons
I read a story once where a planet had a baseball-sized moon orbiting it really quickly about 6 inches above the planet surface. The moon would punch a hole through anything placed in it's way. If your planet had many micro moons like this orbiting at supersonic speed at various altitudes, if people came out of the gate and suddenly had one or more moons zip through them, the rest of the team might just mark the planet as too dangerous because they can't even reliably send a standard probe through to explore.
However, perhaps the robots have seen that standard human probes are a certain size, say car sized, and so they send:
* clouds of nanobot swarm probes that can assume any cloud shape, and thus have enough of the probes survive long enough to map the moon orbits, and thus be able to avoid them during colonization
* quantum probes that super-position themselves with all points of the planet's surface and then probe each point simultaneously.
This obviously requires the humans to have never thought of these options, and the robots to be secretive enough and clever enough to have discovered this loophole in human logic and exploit it.
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The scenario bears considerable resemblance to the Stargate storyline. Just as the primitive Egyptians did, bury the gate when not needed. Anything that comes through "becomes one" with the surrounding rock. As Ra Sun God figured out, there wasn't a whole lot he or anyone on the other side could do about it. Even sending a bomb through would fail as only part of the devices would emerge and fuse with the rock before the rest of the device got through. Depending how suspicious your robots are, they might conclude that the gate on that planet was somehow buried - landslide, planet-quake, meteor-strike, the gate just fell over on its face, whatever - and simply strike that planet off the list as unreachable.
Now here's how to permit the locals to use the gate while still protecting themselves from probes and other mischief. Put the gate on wheels no wider than depth of the gate and carve a slot in the side of a mountain just wide enough to accommodate the narrow dimensions of the gate (and wheels). When not in use, slide the gate into its tomb. When needed, roll it out of the mountain, use it and shove it back in. This would also have the benefit of protecting the world from unannounced/unscheduled visits from near neighbors. Said neighbors and the source-world would have to work out a signaling systems to assure that the gate was available.
For your story - I assume you want the persistent robots to somehow figure out that they're being duped. In the above scenario, they send a really tiny hovering probe through the gate to determine just how badly buried it is. While the little probe is realizing "Hey, I'm still alive!", the natives pull the gate out of its tomb for a scheduled use, pulling the little probe out of the mountain along with it. Then follows the frantic but obligatory "What is that?!? / Oh sh!t!" moment and the crisis is on!
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## Possible Scenarios
* Gate area and/or the rest of the planet is so rocky it would take too much effort to make it suitable for humans. One extreme example of this would be a planet covered with huge rocks that humans could squeeze between & walk around under, but that would be porous enough for nanoscale robots to colonize through and around all the rocks. [Scoria-like rocks](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QEomL5SCA88/UI_BYmrHC_I/AAAAAAAAIJI/YTnD3Ntw04w/s720/Scoria-from-Etna.jpg) would be good candidates for these enormous, porous rocks.
Possible flaw: humans could create floating cities above the rocks.
* The planet could be covered with [Vantablack-like material](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack), and also not have enough sunlight to light the environment. With no sunlight and a planet surface so dark that all light gets immediately absorbed, humans might consider it too difficult to illuminate for widespread exploration.
* The planet surface could be so extremely convoluted and reflective (and possibly transparent) that human vision and artificial sensors cannot easily determine safe walking paths.
* Perhaps the planet could have several stars lighting it, making it so extremely brightly lit that it is blinding to human vision. In addition, a thick cloud of extremely rapidly orbiting asteroids block out the light and then move to allow the light back to the planet that the lighting is essentially like a permanent blinding irregular strobe light. The strobe effect could be so irregular and so bright that even automatically correcting brightness technology cannot adequately make the planet attractive.
Possible flaw: Computers might be able to adjust faceplate light regulation enough so as to counteract the strobing.
* Perhaps most of the interesting things about the planet are not detectable with human senses or technology, but are to robots calibrated to easy perception of higher dimensions.
Requirement: Human probes would have to not be calibrated to extra dimensional sensing, yet the robot civilization would be.
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You could do a *[reverse Potemkin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village)* Essentially build a giant, barren desert *set* around the gate. Bury everything in the area underground, cover the whole lot with sand of some boring, low value material. Probe comes out, sees nothing but a darned large amount of worthless dust, and leaves.
Anything of value would be further out, or in extremely deep, underground monitoring stations.
Spreading word of how damn *inhospitable* the planet was, and stories of expeditions dying of boredom, heat or going broke would further discourage travellers, as would any expedition going out claiming to be unsucessful expeditions going *home* after trying to find something there.
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How about this: It opens up to what's like the Sahara Desert on Earth. It's huge, but it's finite, if you take the time to get past the hot sand, you'll get to places like Siberia, or America. And, possibly really hot, and with sandstorms. It seems uninhabitable, but you can get past it.
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Plague. Vicious creature attacks - not like large creatures, but small ones that are impossible to defend against, like poisonous mosquitos or fleas.
Maybe it is already inhabited by another intelligent race who does not like outsiders.
Maybe the gate is in space or on a moon of a nice planet.
Arctic/antarctic/desert area. These could easily deter settlers near the gate. Speaking of arctic, it is cold there, really cold, like -40. The desert could be too hot, like really, really hot, like 190F hot or even hotter.
Top of a mountain like Everest or even higher. Air is too thin to live, no animals, no trees, no crops.
Tidal region. Maybe the moon is REALLY large/dense and causes huge tides on a huge scale so an area like Florida would be completely submerged at high tide. That would not be settleable. (Though this doesn't fit your criteria #2.)
Extreme gravity - like Jupiter scale. Settlers couldn't even be there long without being crushed (though this applies to the whole planet, unless the gravity is moon-caused.
Gravitation lensing from a near-ish star going supernova or a black hole creates a path of radiation and destruction in the orbital path of the planet so 2x per year, it is quite deadly.
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Since these gates were build by some kind of ANCIENT RACE™, they're pretty likely to be real old. One specific one was build tens of thousands of years ago on a planet in the habitable zone. Since then, however, the local sun has burned through much of its mass and turned into a red giant, scorching this particular planet. It's not quite inside the sun but it's significantly closer than is healthy for organic life. However, the size increase of this sun moved the habitable zone a ways off and a planet that was an iceball before is now smack in the middle of that sweet spot for life.
When probes arive through the gate, all they'll find is scorched earth and deadly radiation without realising that paradise is just a short trip through space away.
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Turn up the core activity on your planet. This will create a larger magnetic field (we want enough to affect electronic computers) on your planet and increase the volcanic activity. Then place a star that is very active and frequently emits solar waves and radiation.
Your planet's magnetic properties should protect humans, but increasing the magnetic field enough should disable non-hardened computers making advanced species highly susceptible to the environment. Not to mention the solar activity in your system should be high enough that external searches would not know you're there from the "noise".
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## TLDR; **Make it wet** and/or cold
To make a planet uninhabitable, yet still livable, the question of why they would stay needs to be answered. You've placed your colony on the terminator, so presumably there's something on this planet of value to the greater populations of people elsewhere. This is beside the point and presumably you've generated an idea of why they're located on this planet.
The best answer I could think of would be an large moon that causes tides on the hot side of the planet as it rotates around the planet, creating a [water cycle](http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/atmospheric/weather6.htm). As it travels over the terminator in the form of clouds, it solidifies to a liquid (or solid if you want), and pours down in mass amounts on the gate area. Given either enough water or incredibly consistent water, flooding could be a serious problem for any would-be settlers.
Given enough people, requiring large area for crops could also pose an issue. Hydroponics requires indoor controlled spaces. With a sufficiently large colony, there would be a need for [increasingly more space](http://wegrowhydro.com/plant-spacing/) to house the food supply. Having constant rains or floods would not be good for crops.
There's also water damage to housing and terrain. If this sort of thing would be common to the planet, [erosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erosion) will be an engineering nightmare. In some cases, the supports for any potential buildings would need to be meters deep, and possibly replaced every so often depending on the soil type you use. This holds true especially for softer rock like [sandstone](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00254-007-0871-y) or commonly used [limestone](http://wwwbrr.cr.usgs.gov/projects/GWC_Crystal/erosion/indexB.html), especially if these are the prevalent building or foundation materials on your world. If you're looking for an even more common building material, [concrete has its issues with moisture as well.](http://www.lafarge-na.com/wps/portal/na/en/3_A_11_5-Curling_of_Concrete_Slabs)
In general, lots of rain wreaks havoc on buildings and agriculture, both of which your colony needs to survive. Given enough of it, any colony may see the difficulties of surviving in such a wet environment where although it's possible to live, it comes with incredible difficulty.
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One day every human on earth capable of understanding a language gets has the same thought in their respective language repeated 3 times over the next three hours:
**"In order to reduce human impact on nature and let ecosystems recover, starting from 30 days from now (equals the first of April), all of humanity will be sent 75 years into the future. From then on, this jump will occur every 25 years."**
And sure enough, on the specified day, every human, as well as every foreign substance or object that is currently within that human (eg air in the lungs and food in the digestive system) gets transported onto the exact location on earth 75 years in the future, replacing any material that has since moved into that spot in that year without preserving any velocity while leaving a person shaped vacuum in their time of origin.
While this means you aren't going to instantly die on arrival as you are now part of a tree or whatever, it doesn't necessarily save you from death moments later. For example, if a skyscraper you were in at the time of the jump had collapsed in the meantime, and you were in the top floor at the time you'd now plummet to your death, while your buddy Mark who was in the ground floor, is getting crushed or suffocated by rubble at the same time.
I assume that in the time of the first jump, there would be a considerable death toll. While people might be awaiting the day anxiously, and many might make some preparations, I can't imagine most people being able to just "take the day off". Bills need paying after all, or they simply expect it to be an elaborate hoax of sorts.
For simplicity, let's just assume that in the wider area the story takes place, the split is 15% completely convinced that the jump will happen and will do everything they can to prepare, 50% unsure or have to many other things going on to commit all their time into preparing and the remaining 35% assuming it is a hoax and ignoring the warning.
So, who would die? Initially, pretty much everyone in aerial or nautical transportation. It's raining men. People in dangerous environments that require special equipment. Your clothes and tools didn't get transported and even if you are lucky enough that they are still sitting on the ground after 75 years, they are still 75 years old, rotten and probably damaged because parts of them were replaced by you.
People in unfortunate surroundings. See the collapsed building example, or maybe you are now stuck in the chassis of a truck that was driving behind you 75 years in the past.
Next up, starvation. There hasn't been any food produced for quite a while, so famine is going to be an issue very soon, especially in cities. Sure, there will still be preserves around, but no crops have been sown and depending on where you are in the world there won't be much to forage at this time of the year.
With starvation comes competition for resources which also will likely produce it's fair share of casualties.
Anyway, aside from these unfortunate souls, there will still be a large number of people that are still alive and kicking after the jump, regardless whether they prepped, took the day off or just got lucky.
The protagonist is a single guy in his early twenties, living in a city of around 500k inhabitants and who takes the warning seriously enough to want to at least make some preparations. He is willing and able to spend between 1.500€ to 2.500€ or its local equivalent to prepare.
I have already created this list of no-brainers:
* Avoid being in the "who would die category"
* Make likeminded friends (Living becomes much easier if you have someone to watch your back and share labour)
* Create a supply-stash (Drinking water, preserved food, clothes, whatever useful equipment and material I can afford) and store it somewhere that will still be safe and accessible in almost a century, easier said then done)
* Find a safe location and meet up there with my friends the day before the jump. (Might need to do overtime to get the day off)
* Get an easy to use weapon or learn how to trap animals
Some additional thoughts:
One thing I am unsure of is the danger of unsupervised infrastructure like oil rigs and nuclear power plants, simply because i am less than a novice in these areas of expertise. Will things like oil spills and nuclear meltdowns render large swathes of land and sea uninhabitable? No clue.
The story is planned to take place in Northern Germany or Denmark, but if you have some interesting ideas for your own country, feel free to add them.
For every jump following the first, preparation time is 25 years.
Many items will likely to be sold out as soon as they are replaced in the stores and get really expensive (tp, canned food, charcoal, etc) .
It might be a good idea to leave the city some time earlier and set up shop close to sources of food and water that will still be around in 75 years such as a river/an orchard/a forest
Some infrastructure will likely be salvageable even if it is just a bike
Perhaps it would be possible to break into a poultry farm and release the birds shortly before the time jump occurs, giving their descendants a chance to be around to eat later.
It is unknown (and for this question unimportant) who or what causes the jumps and if they will ever stop occuring and there is no way of knowing no matter hard people try to find out.
Not really related to the question, but I assume the less "civilized" a people is, the more likely you'd be to just be able to carry on as normal.
**So, how should I best use the 30 days I have left to make sure I will survive the first, as well as (if possible) ease the following jumps (when im in my forties/seventies)**
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It really sounds like a fun story.
If I knew and believed a 75-year time jump was to happen, I would make sure to **have like-minded acquaintances** in a country with enough rivers and fertile lands and I'd go there for when the time comes.
I'd help them **weld shut doors and windows** from the inside of whatever place we believe is best to **seek shelter from wildlife**. Naturally I'd like to have the necessary tools to remove welding.
I would bring all kinds of **canned foods, seeds, bottled water, or honey** and I'd toss out any short-lived foods like fruits and meats.
I would wear or **bring linen clothes**, as they're supposedly more lasting than other materials.
I'd **disconnect any electrical device, remove batteries and store them safely**. I'd **bring a flashlight**, for the miraculous case that any battery is still usable.
Just in case, I'd bring paper maps, a compass, a mechanical watch, a radio and my paper documents.
If there was time, I'd help build metal coffins with holes for breathing that can only be opened from the inside, and each one of us would use one of these, holding our properties with us.
Lastly, **I wouldn't waste time trying to convince family and friends to come along**; I would know this is a critical situation and, as such, I would pretty much prefer staying alive myself. If they want to come along, that's great, otherwise, I'm leaving.
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An amusing question. Many thoughts. Excuse me if I ramble.
First thing would be to get out of cities. As you note, anyone in the upper floor of a building might find the building has collapsed and he promptly plummets to his death. If he's on the ground floor he materializes inside a pile or rubble and suffocates.
Even someone standing in an open field ... what if the ground level has changed in 75 years? If ground level has fallen, then when he materializes he falls. Maybe not enough to be instantly killed, but possibly enough to break bones. Or if ground level has risen, he materializes with his legs embedded in the ground. Can he dig himself out?
Or if a tree has grown on the spot or a boulder has rolled there, he materializes inside a solid object and either instantly suffocates or finds himself trapped, unable to move, until he starves.
This sounds like a pretty horrifying scenario to me, actually.
Even if he survives the initial appearance ... No one has been farming for 75 years. There is naturally-growing food that one could forage. Those skilled in hunting could kill and eat animals. But there would be nowhere near enough food for the world population. Billions would starve. Maybe, possibly, this could be staved off if people planned ahead and stored non-perishable food in safe places, or were lucky enough to find stocks of canned goods etc that had survived. Is there enough non-perishable food in the world to keep people alive until farming could be restarted? Farmers could presumably plants crops and have a first harvest within a year, but they wouldn't have tractors and fertilizer and all the tools that make modern high yields possible.
I'd guess most buildings and machinery would be almost useless after 75 years of neglect. A building can easily last more than 75 years -- my house is 110 years old and there are plenty of buildings in Europe that have been in use for centuries -- but how long would they last without constant maintenance? Maybe some of the better made buildings would still be usable. Machinery would probably mostly be too rusted, etc, to be usable.
So technology and infrastructure would have to be rebuilt, not exactly from scratch, but from a very low baseline.
When all the people disappear, there will be disasters. Motor vehicles and airplanes will crash. There will be fires and explosions at factories and power plants. (I'd guess that nuclear plants will be the least of your problems as they tend to have elaborate safety systems and will automatically shut down. But maybe a few around the world, those systems will fail and there will be meltdowns and releases of radioactive material.) Though I'd guess that by the time everyone reappears 75 years later, the scars from all this will have long since healed. There will be some changes to the landscape where, for example, a dam broke and flooded the area downstream. Which brings us back to, some people may appear to find themselves underwater and promptly drown.
If I believed the warning, I think I wouldn't worry about missing some time from work to prepare. There the question becomes how credible the warning is. If you dismiss it as a hallucination or a hoax, presumably you'll do nothing. If you absolutely believe it, you can spend every day until D-Day preparing. If you think it's possible but are not absolutely convinced, you might take time off work to prepare but not devote your life to it.
In that way this would be a lot like the year 2000 scare. For those not old enough to remember that, many were predicting that there would be all sorts of disasters on January 1, 2000 because of computer systems failing. A fair number thought civilization would collapse. I recall a co-worker of mine was stockpiling food and medicine, he was absolutely convinced civilization was going to collapse. (One day at work Harper explained everything he was doing to prepare for this imminent collapse. Someone then turned to me and asked me what I was doing to prepare. I said that I had bought a gun, and if anything happened, I was going to go to Harper's house, shoot him, and take all his supplies. :-)
So what to do to maximize your chances?
First and foremost, get out of the city. Go to the country, as far from other people as possible.
Bring a small group of friends who agree to help each other. If, whether because of the sudden transport or just some random accident afterward, one of you breaks a leg or whatever, you will then have others around to help you out until you recover. And in return you can help them out when they get sick or injured.
Make a stash of non-perishable food and medicine. Get guns and ammo and prepare it in ways that it will last 75 years, like oiling it well and wrapping it carefully. Also some knives and swords so when the ammo runs out, you still have weapons. Also other basic tools, like wrenches and screwdrivers and hammers. Obviously power tools will be useless. Store it all in the same place where you're going to be when D-Day comes.
If you are not a farmer, take a crash course in farming, so after your appearance you can immediately begin growing food. Primitive farming, by the way. No use learning how to drive a combine, they'll all be rusted piles of junk. Even if you could fix one up, where would you get fuel for it?
Oh, another thought: In your stash, include books. Especially how-to books. In the short term you'll need to know how to farm and hunt and build shelters. Longer term, as you rebuild technology, you'll want to know how to make electrical generators and install wiring. Etc. Even if you don't live long enough for some technology to come back, think about your grandchildren.
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# Get a government job
Ideally in something critical, like disaster preparation. This might take longer than 30 days.
Realistically, the only entities capable of weathering something like this will be government scale. They're the only ones who could set things up so that they have fuel reserves that won't leak, possibly even have power from something like a thorium reactor or something relatively safe. They'll be better armed and organized than the other groups, and have nearly limitless resources to make those preparations with.
They'll also have studies of the most inactive spots to go stand in when it happens - I'd personally start with potential (but empty) nuclear waste sites - they'll be in very, very stable areas, there's unlikely to be major seismic upheaval.
Apocalypse fiction tends into prepper fantasy - how *I* personally can save myself, and possibly my loved ones - but humans are social, and there's a lot of strength in numbers. Even if government just becomes another gang after this, they'd be a gang with a massive resource advantage on everyone else.
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Rather silly, but fun. Now I can't stop thinking about it.
You don't die on arrival because you are now part of a tree, but what if a tree has grown where you were standing? By my reading of this, when you appear, you fit exactly into a you-shaped hole made in the tree. You are unlikely to be completely swallowed by an even a 75-year old tree, but you may be trapped. Or maybe the top half of the tree falls on you. Outdoors might not be safe.
I would stay in my house. That would probably be standing if I cut down any trees that are too close (75 years of root damage could do a lot). My tools, clothes, and my bicycle would still be there. They might be in good condition if I stored them carefully. Take the wheels off the car, and put it on blocks. Take the battery out. You might get it going again.
Plant carrots, leeks, and potatoes for future Aprils. Plant fruit trees for later.
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# A cave
The Dead Sea scrolls - paper - remained untouched for over a thousand years by simply being stuck in clay jars in a cave.
Find an extremely desolate cave that is ridiculously difficult to access and ridiculously far from civilization. This is a big rock, this earth thing; there are billions of these.
Assuming the government makes zero preparations for this, then stockpile a week’s worth of rations and some weapons. Your choice is to become a hunter/gatherer, or to find another community. You will NOT have a working vehicle, so you are where you are.
Make your cave as far away from infrastructure as possible (power plants, cities, etc.) These will likely be hazardous crumbling hulks.
## Make your cave stable
Be as far away from a tectonic zone as possible. The possibility of vulcanis√¢mes or earthquakes in 75 years needs to be mitigated.
## Become an entrepreneur.
Welcome to the new world. You own whatever market you master as soon as you land. Whatever skills you brought will be valuable in the first community you find. Have lots of these. Even the stupid stuff, like basket weaving will be valuable to reclaim the world. First one with the know-how wins!
## Government assist
Realistically the government knows this is happening and some nations will be looking for you. All you will need is a flare, or whatever non-electronic device they provide. Someone will be coming for you.
Interesting story, but I prefer having a why in my sci-fi. Social thought experiments and other “what-if”s are entertaining but I don’t see much value in them when they pose impossible scenarios.
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## Location, Location, Location
You want a spot not on a flood plain (not even a 100 year flood plain), away from hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquake zones. You'll want to make at least the core fireproof. Ideally you'd want huge fire breaks around a grove of robust fruit trees, but reforestation is likely to overrun it in the 75 year gap.
## Build with Concrete
A concrete structure could plausibly survive intact for 75 years untended. You'll want a large concrete base around it to prevent vegetation from overrunning it and making it crumble (or a tree growing tall and falling down on it).
Sealing the place up so wildlife doesn't get in is another challenge, but not sealing it so well that you can't get out after 75 years of neglect. You don't want to arrive in a bear or wolf den, and even a bat cave wouldn't be pleasant.
## Stockpile of Resources
There are certain things that can reliably last for 75 years. Many canned goods, lots of raw materials, some weapons and ammunition well stored in oil, even machinery.
Volatile organic materials like tires won't survive, but you could probably come up with alternatives. Diesel engines have a wider set of fuels they can burn than traditional ICEs, so you could probably come up with shelf-stable fuels that could last the 75 years with a bit of post-treatment (and even containers that could survive the 75 years).
The collapse of the industrial state will be hard and harsh. While a percentage of people will die on reappearance, far more will die in the decade of hell that follows. With humans gone, the biomass of mammals will probably fall to pre-human levels rapidly; while animals and feral ones will grow by a factor of 5, while our agricultural feed stock will shrink.
So at the moment humans return, human biomass will be upwards of 2/3 of all mammals on the planet, instead of the current under 1/3.
Our massive fields of grain won't exist, and reforestation will have swallowed much of the non-steppe parts of the world. Without working it, farmland doesn't stay farmland.
Surviving that first jump post-landing hellscape is going to be a matter of luck against the raw chaos and brutality of the first decade. Humans will remain your largest threat, so success in the first jump will depend on joining up with a powerful post-jump political organization and surviving against other humans.
## The second jump
For long-term survival, you need to have a play to survive multiple jumps. You'll want to have relatively modern technology mothballed and recovered each jump, and be able to re-advance technology and not just scavenge off the remnants of the golden age of mankind.
Human civilization lives off energy. Be it grain, cattle, wind, water, fossil, solar or nuclear energy -- the ability to control more energy than a human can as a hunter-gatherer is pretty key. With the massive population collapse of the first jump, the raw materials stored in the ancient cities are going to be a source of wealth (why mine raw ores, when there is a pile of slightly rusted metals in cities), with the exception of processed energy (like oil).
Even if you are extremely dirty, the carbon pollution produced by a 25/100 year tiny human civilization won't cause significantly more global warming.
So, coal fired power plants might be a good plan. Northern Germany has some coal reserves which could make it a good spot.
## Rent
Rent supplies, rent a location. You won't be able to make a custom fort, but you can probably rent a decent one from someone.
## Swap
If you have a car, sell it and buy or rent an ancient Diesel car. Electronics is far less likely to survive than mechanics are. This can drop your budget, because if the world doesn't end you can swap back.
## Befriend
You'll want engineers, mechanics, farmers, outdoors, medical people, etc to be in on it. Have a party. Treat it as a laugh. Curate your list of people.
## Prep
The vat of machine oil with metalic tools and materials is really useful if the vat lasts. Wrap a disassembled generator in oil-soaked cloth (hydrophobic), lift it off the ground on concrete blocks, fill it full of rat poison. Have replacement parts in a vat. Know where nearby gas stations are.
## Survive
The population collapse after the jump will be intense. The place you describe -- northern Germany/Denmark -- is probably going to be a death zone, with 99.9% of the population dead. The only way you'll survive there is luck.
## Fish
The oceans is one of the few spots where food will get easier to harvest. 75 years without humans means oceans will recover. So figure out a way to make a boat survive and learn how to repair and eat fish. This also provides a defence against other land-bound humans.
A protected hull, a diesel engine, a sail, a supply of patches, lubricants, lines and sail cloth, plus fishing supplies. Add in a fortified and hidden base to return to and eat, and a harbor.
## Research
There are going to be many millions of people with the same ideas and solving the same problems. Work out what materials can survive for the gap from them.
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**The whole universe is moving, my dear**
Assume that you vanish, and reappear 75 years later... will be... in space!
Earth itself might be about at the same spot relative to the sun if our time-travel machine calculate 75 years exactly. But even so, you have to take in consideration the precession of the axis, you will be never in the same spot of where you vanished.
Even though, sun its travelling "up" around the center of the galaxy at 250 km/s (about 600 billions km in 75 years). In addition, The Milky Way as a whole is moving at a velocity of approximately 600 km per second (372 miles per second) with respect to extragalactic frames of reference, which is about 1,5 trillions km in 75 years.
So, in my opinion everyone in this scenario will reappear somewhere in the space, but still inside the Oort cloud making billions people, billions of comets.
[Answer]
## Back to basics what do you need to survive. Prepare for many jumps because everything becomes much harder to get after the first.
tools, fire, food, water, shelter, defense, social.
**Tools**
You want hand tools, basic logging, farming, carpentry, sewing, cooking, and metal working tools at a minimum. on the upside hand tools last a long time with only minimal preparation. cover things in enamel paint and bury them in upside down plastic buckets or drums, they can now survive multiple jumps. stone cellars work almost as well. The cooking tools are the exception, no paint, use food safe oils and pack in cat litter, glass stainless steel and cast iron for preference. Hand tools for almost anything will be beneficial prepare anything you can get.
**Fire**
The importance of fire cannot be overstated, if nothing else survives and you have this you have a decent chance. fire provided heat, cooking, safe water, sterilize medical supplies and even safety in the form of light. You want as many ways of making fire as you can get, sealed matches, ferro rods, lens, fire pistons, even old lighters if you have sealed fuel cans.
Does your house have a fireplace and/or cast iron stove if no then these are big priorities for you, you need a safe way to heat your home and cook your food. You can store some fuel, charcoal can be buried in the same way as the tools and survive just fine, you can even pack away heavy oil fuels by burial in sealed containers but it has a higher failure risk.
**Food**
Only a few foods can be stored for that long, dry sealed grains, honey and thats about it, don't count on stored food. store vitamin suppliments and ways to get food. Farming tools, hunting/trapping equipment, fishing gear. Again favor hand tools and pack in paint or oil. Some seeds will survive if stored properly so store some high yield things like potato seeds or grain seeds. Plant some fruit trees if you have farm land available. If you have farm land get it ready for powerless irrigation, which means you have a lot of trenches to dig.
For hunting you want crossbows pack the unstrung with with as many bolts as you can get your hands on. You can pack some firearms but go with black powder firearms, most bullets will not survive the first jump much less subsequent ones. black powder can if properly stored, especially is stored without being mixed. If you want to get ambitious you can try to store chemical equipment to make your own primers or powder provided you can find the raw material. Bullet molds and lead are cheap and can be stored for centuries.
**Water**
Trying to store water is pointless, instead dig a good well and have the tools to maintain it, set it up so it can be sealed. If you can dig more than one. Invest in purifying equipment; a still, pots for boiling store like cooking equipment. A stockpile of iodine powder and bleach are good ideas these can be stores in sealed containers on this time frame and can be used to purify water.
**Shelter**
You don't have a lot of time to do much about this, so hope you live in a stone or brick home with ceramic or slate roofing. You just need to prepare it to survive for 75 year without maintenance. first reinforce your roof, use hurricane brackets, construction adhesive on tiles and flashing, seal like your life depends on it. Buy extra windows and roofing and store them. board up your windows. Small animals are going to get in, you can't stop that in your time frame, so your goal is to keep out weather and large animals. As a back up have some oilcloth, rope, and tarps so you can patch things when you get back, in a pinch you can use these to make a tent. Since you write the story a concrete roof or underground hillside home is even better but a lot rarer.
Clothing is easy, most clothing in a sealed container will last hundreds of years, cover in paper and put in a vacuum bag then seal clothes in a 5 gallon bucket and bury it and have clothing for the rest of your life, choose canvas ovr leather for shoes. If you have time store thread and make your own cloth, thread can be stored for centuries. Water proof clothes but rubber needs special care, it needs to be sealed in an airtight container to prevent degradation, covered in light oil before packing of an even better chance of lasting. Also store lots of dry glue in metal containers, modern shoes are mostly held together with glue.
**Defense**
When everyone gets back people will be starving, which means violence on a large scale. You will need to defend yourselves. Melee weapons are a good idea, many many tools double as weapons. crossbows and bows will be a big help, many guns will survive the first few jumps but ammunition will get scarce quickly, black powder will last a lot longer so if you want a firearm go with black powder. for defense a percussion revolver will be your best bet as it will still likely work and give you multiple shots. But your best defense is friends and anonymity. Solo defense is always a loosing battle and people can't bother you if they don't know your there so in the beginning you don't want to use fire unless you have to as smoke is visible for a long distance.
**Social**
On your own your doomed, humans can barely feed themselves long-term by themselves, we need a social group for support. Diversity in labor and skills is your best advantage. What does your main character have offer, they had better have something, some knowledge or skill that is rare and makes cooperation worth it. They know chemistry or have medical skills, what makes them not just dumb labor in this world, otherwise their story is very boring. If you can collect a few people with useful skills that is even better, make a community we have a lot of questions about that. Do keep in mind that medical technology will be nearly nonexistent if if knowledge survives. So be ready to have a lot of kids because most are going to die in childhood, for modern people this will have a huge impact on their psychology.
**Misc.**
Buy books, print the internet, and look up archival storage techniques. Knowledge and entertainment will be very valuable in the new world. How to make antibiotics, engineering, history, most of science is still useful. Humans are very quickly going to be limited to preindustrial technology by food scarcity, but the science and engineering knowledge can still vastly improve what can be done with that level of technology.
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How do *you, specifically*, survive? Stand on a mountain, above the tree line. Unless there's a major earthquake, you should be fine. The rate of growth of the Rocky Mountains isn't enough to take the soles off of your shoes.
Of course, by your description, everyone will show up naked. Getting down off of the mountain might be complicated, but most of the stuff in your backpack should be ok.
Nakedness will kill many. They'll destroy their clothing, piled up on their shoes, on arrival. Cannibalism would overwhelm the cities in about two days. Fuel in fuel tanks would have oxidized into jelly. We wouldn't quite be pre-industrial, but we would be entirely without perishable resources.
It's a fun thought. The next time around, people will accumulate on monolithic pads of stone.
[Answer]
### No problem - just use caves, mines, or any other underground structure
Your question says that we know the day this will happen. So most of the scenarios in the answers above simply aren't going to happen to anyone except the terminally stupid or foolhardy. (And yes, terminally so.) No "raining men", collapsing skyscrapers, or any of that nonsense.
To be certain of surviving this, you just need to be somewhere which doesn't change for 75 years. For most of the world, that rules out above-ground locations. Weather happens, things erode, structures collapse, and so on. Which leads us to the natural conclusion - ***go underground***.
In the UK we have many Victorian-era tunnels which have survived with little or no maintenance. The London Underground is a good example - for sure the lines need servicing regularly, but the tunnels themselves don't need shoring up or anything. There are tunnels down there which are now unused by trains but are still used for filming, especially historical filming, because they're unchanged from 1945 or 1960 or whenever they stopped being used. Unless you're in an earthquake zone, every underground structure will stay intact for 75 years, no problems. Hell, you can probably reckon on 750 years, never mind 75 - there are church cellars and castle dungeons around Europe which are that old.
You don't need people to be comfortable here. Remember, it's pack yourselves in or die. The packing-in process will naturally take some time to complete, of course. All the portaloos in the country will be requisitioned and moved down there, and water can be piped in. Bring your own food, but you're not going to die of hunger in a few days anyway so that's not so bad. Your government will allocate people to their nearest tunnels, caves or mines, and plan the order of evacuation to stagger arrival times. Unpacking can be less organised, because so long as you can avoid stampedes (men with guns are good here!) then it doesn't have to be perfectly orderly.
### Or go somewhere which won't change significantly in 75 years
Most flatlands are pretty unchanging over time. The American Midwest, the English Fens, Ukraine, the Gobi Desert, central Australia, much of Africa, the Argentinian pampas - all of these are places where (barring human activity) you can overlay the maps from 75 years ago and now and see basically no changes to the terrain. So long as you're not too close to a river, you'll survive the Blip. Mind you, you do also need to not be too far away from a river as well, because you need to be able to eat and drink afterwards!
### And stock up on tins and dehydrated food
Tinned food does come with a shelf life, but that's generally pretty arbitrary. In practise, tins without damage can survive almost indefinitely, and if the contents have been properly prepared then they won't go off.
Dehydrated food is also good, because if it stays dehydrated then it can't go off because no bugs will eat it. And Tupperware boxes don't biodegrade - just keep them out of the sun (they do break down with UV) and you'll be fine.
### And then people starve because of no supply chains or mechanised farming
So you can survive the Blip just fine. What you can't survive is the years that follow. All transportation requires key elements made of synthetic rubber (especially seals) and these will be completely degraded in 75 years. Meantime all petroleum products - oils and fuels - will also be completely degraded. Your car won't work, and there isn't the infrastructure to ***ever*** get oil production back online again, because the same problem has also bitten all the extraction plants and refineries. And without mechanised farming and artificial fertilisers and pesticides you can't get enough yield to feed all the people, and you can't transport the food to them anyway.
[Answer]
Look to the past, not the future.
If you pick a place that hasn't changed in the last few centuries, you've got a good chance it won't change in the next 75. That means a good distance from most things man-made, though a couple of castle ruins or old churches may work in a pinch - shame Northern Germany / Denmark doesn't have too many castles.
Caves are great, just make sure the entrance has a good chance to not be buried in a landslide, and bring tools inside just in case.
Same for your stockpile. Old simple solid tools will be useful. Clothes can easily survive if packed properly, etc. A bike and similar mechanical things should be fine if stored in a dry place. Look around which kind of stuff is from your grandparents time and still good.
As another comment pointed out: Prepare to become a farmer.
And yes, social contacts will be valuable. If 90% of the preppers and 50% of the non-preppers survive, your 500k city will still be 280k strong.
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# Bunkers
We actually have dedicated hardware for this. Bunkers are meant to exist for long times. Though not all, many have options for long time storage, as well as sealing people in safely. Even bunkers that have been made in relatively open fashion to shoot from, like shoreline defence, has great potential.
You then store a years (or even multiple years) supply of food in storage that can survive for many years.
You can add many comfort items like clothing and bed linen in airtight storages as well, so you have something when you wake up.
Some hand cranked lights would be nice, but in general you can go out during the day any way.
To further add to the survivability, you can store things like solar panels or even more simple oil for power when you wake up. With the right equipment yhey should still function well enough.
## Germany and Denmark
Thanks to world wars theres plenty of bunkers around. I'm not saying it is enough for everyone, but they are more prevalent than mines or other underground structures. They can even be in the middle of a city, unassuming to many. Think of old telecommunication buildings for example. They were build to withstand direct hits from bombardments. You can also consider fortifications like the WW2 anti aircraft towers that were made a few of in Germany, of which the surviving ones can house a few hundred people. Not all have to be underground.
As there isn't enough long lasting food to survive a few weeks for 10% of the peopleall other methods seem moot. Sure you have an ok chance to be in a good apartment when you just sit in your bedroom. Bonus points for higher up in an apartment building as they are less accessible to creatures. But if you truly want to ensure your own survival, existing bunkers, or newly made in your back garden, seems to be your best bet. With all the chaos in the world currently there are actually people buying houses with bunkers or loose bunkers for the purpose of survival in case of catastrophes.
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Contrary to most other answerers, I think the safest place for immediate survival would be the ground floor of a modern brick house at most two storeys tall and with no basement, in a country with a mild climate, no significant earthquakes, not near the sea or a river.
Houses are designed to not require routine maintenance in order to stay standing, and recently-built modern houses should not have any structural problems. The main structure of the house, built of bricks, is already designed to withstand whatever severity of earthquakes are plausible to occur in that area over a timespan of at least a hundred years, and subsidence should not be an issue either.
The worst case scenario is high winds breaking the windows or roof tiles, letting the weather in, possibly allowing the timber joists to rot and give way; this is rather unlikely in a place with no monsoon season, but even if it does happen the structural part of the house (made of bricks) will still be standing, and the debris which falls to the ground floor will not be so much that you wouldn't be able to climb out.
Since (as I claim) it is rather easy for a large number of people to find places that are safe for the jump itself, and doesn't require much planning or investment, it doesn't really matter if a significant number of people aren't convinced it will definitely happen. Even most doubters would take the basic precaution of being at home and on the ground floor with the doors and windows closed when the jump is supposed to happen, just in case it does.
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Another option (again considering just immediate survival) which I haven't seen considered yet is to be swimming in the sea when the jump happens. If you're a hundred metres out or so, then there's no chance your location becomes a land mass due to erosion, and so there are only really two things that can go wrong: either the sea level 75 years later is significantly higher and you arrive underwater, or it is significantly lower and you arrive in mid-air (and are underwater soon afterwards).
The change in sea level will mainly be due to the tide, and is unlikely to be more than a few metres; if you're a skilled swimmer, you should survive the jump, and then be able to swim back to land. You start off at a disadvantage (exhausted from swimming and your clothes are wet), but you'll live, for now.
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The question of who survives beyond that, and how, has been covered at great length elsewhere ─ it's basically "all modern technology vanishes, what happens?", similar to [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/10133/83500), [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/141487/83500), [here](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/58910/83500) or other existing Q&As ─ so I've chosen to only address the novel part, which is surviving the immediate jump.
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I would suggest maybe escaping to the isle of the North Atlantic - the Faeroes, Shetlands, Orkneys, etc.
The climate is extreme (cold, wind, rain), but that also means that the growth of trees and other destructive plants and animals is suppressed. There are prehistoric buildings on Shetland which are in a remarkable state of preservation.
You are surrounded by the seas, which after seventy-five years of recovery I expect should provide enough fish for survival.
They are also close enough to the coast of Northern Europe that once you've survived the first few years of craziness in splendid isolation, you can explore down the coast and see if there is a more friendly environment - maybe head down to Bordeaux and restart the wine industry.
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The first jump.
People will starve. Buildings will fall (>proof needed< the ancient greeks and romans building do still stand). People will learn, die and survive.
For one person the obvious survival helpers:
* Stockpiled food.
* Luck that you don't spawn in a tree (maybe being a smartass, calculating where a river should be in 75 years, you try to respawn in that river, cause the possibilities of trees are in fact lower. Beaches kinda move much actually, maybe some more meters back?)
* Likeminded people for survival (if they don't backstab you, just saying)
Watch out though. The civilization can (will?) collapse only after you are transported into the future (the civ has actually a good chance of surviving >proof needed<), meaning stuff will happen, cause "lets save that unprepared guy", and "he's a friend"
* Survival training prep. Farm prep or just someone who is a farmer in your group (And Seeds) or good hunting skills.
* a good burial for tools, food and more WITH a good marker, to find it after 75 years
The interesting part comes from thinking about what a civilization could do, instead of a single human. But that wasn't what you asked for. But that will be the solution the world (and hopefully the protagonist too) will want achieve in 25 years / 50 years. Also humanity achieves pretty much in 25 years. Whole digitalization happened within it ... kinda ... ok cut me some slack, we are working on it
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Fascinating question, and it would be a great story to consider what goes on in the world for the 30 days following the "announcement," whether the jump actually happens or not.
Pick a number for what fraction of the population believes the message. One third, one tenth, whatever. That's an immense number of people regardless, and for those next 30 days, the internet will turn into this thread, on serious steroids, with lots of suppliers getting really rich selling everything suggested here, and more, to those who are now "preppers" with a slightly different flavor and far greater urgency.
For example, glass jars and canning supplies, will probably become backlogged and unavailable at 10X normal prices within days, if not hours, of the announcement. Honey will fly off the shelves, along with salt, bleach, ammunition, and air-tight metal containers of all shapes and sizes. How-to videos for preparing firearms for long-term storage will be all the rage. The best methods of storing everything from clothing to school books to medical supplies will be discussed widely -- including a few "miracle cures" and "one weird trick" methods that probably won't work but sound convincing enough that the gullible may make the purveyors of these tricks rich.
Experts will pop up who can predict how far your continent will drift in 75 years so that you have the best chance to avoid showing up trapped inside of a wall or a tree or cliff or whatever. Groups will spring up for mutual support purposes (how reliable such instant friends will be after the event, may be rather variable). Whatever important records (deeds for property ownership, for example) will be printed & sealed so that they can be found & referenced in the future.
People will have all sorts of ideas -- some obvious, some outlandish, and everything in between -- of what would be good to seal up in various forms of containers to have around, clean & ready to go... cooking pots, plates & silverware, mechanical alarm clocks, scissors, reading glasses, tents (with plenty of spare tent stakes), backpacks, crutches, etc etc etc. Not just for your own use, but to trade later. Would gold coins & jewelry be valuable in 75 years? Not immediately, but after a while, maybe. And that means that *some* people will be burying caches of gold as well, to go dig up in what seems like 30 or 40 days to them, but 75 years to the world they'll be digging in.
Stones like gravestones may become a lively industry for those 30 days -- engrave "Property of John Smith" onto four large granite stones, to be placed at each corner of ones property, for instance -- it's not quite the same as a deed & a survey, but it's close enough to probably work in a world suddenly with scant records.
All of this attention, even by a small fraction of "everybody," will produce both a lot of ideas, but also a lot of shortages. Think you've found the perfect spot to be on April 1? You may find you have lots of company there! You've decided on the kit that you need, with three copies of everything (spare parts) and tools to repair it all? Great, but unless your idea is truly original, many others will be buying and ordering the same things, so you may or may not get it all assembled and sealed up in time. So the prepping process will be complicated by an immense number of other preppers.
Thus, a key to survival may be less in *having* good ideas, than in *evaluating* the myriad of ideas bouncing all over the internet, wisely picking the strategies that one can actually implement in the time remaining, given the competition for such resources, and then executing your plan well, avoiding whatever the most common & most serious misjudgments are.
And then getting lucky... not showing up naked in a tree or rusting car (that you didn't know was parking just the exact distance and bearing that the continent would shift), nor being in the place with a freak snowstorm or (chilling) thunderstorm or flood or drought at the particular hour on April 1 of the year X+75.
[Answer]
**Edited for plan**
What is listed below still stands, with another actual addition - the ground is not static, and on a scale of 75Y jump its vertical movement due to tectonics, and soil buildup due to nature's activity could be significant to plain trap prople, no matter how prepared, in the soil, rock and *concrete*. So not even stone plates are safe. Thankfully the strongest observed ground level change is anthropogenic and is downward, so the hardest initial problem could be surviving the drop. Even the caves are not safe, although one could bring in a pile of hay, grass or foliage to mitigate the risk of being trapped in the raised floor.
**The plan**
First things first. Order a solid titanium shovel, it will be THE HOLY GRAIL past jump. Order/buy a ceramics-coated pot, a set of vacuum-packed clothing, 2-3 boxes of needles plus synthetic threads, the basic tourist survival kit, a set of simplest medicaments (glass-stored iodine solution as an example), the hardest tent to make a house, a snare, several sheets of fabric, preferably also vacuum-packed, a bottle of conservation grease and a steel shovel small enough to fit in your mouth. Ending up naked and bare-handed is enough to die off natural causes too fast to bother. It'll be the best if the shovel would have a detachable handle that would fit in your butt, as there is no other place to store stuff within one's body, you would need an immediate tool to get yourself off tricky situations. Note, NO friends, as friends would get jealous too fast and likely undermine your efforts to stay alive with a simple deathmatch. But if there would be a girl that would share your hero's ideas of living in complete wilderness, have her prepared the same way as him.
Next, learn to forage and hunt, best if you'd do that the harder way, by travelling one way away from civilization with all that you've prepared to somewhere where there is fresh water and a place where you are sure there would be no growing trees within 75 years onward, in order to not getting trapped within a growing tree. The best place would likely be around this planet's Zimbabwe, after all you as a story-setter are able to engineer a proper place with a sizable rock near a water source. Of course, amp your immunity before travel, as tropical diseases would be the things you'd face right away. Try to establish contacts with the closest tribe if there's any, probably exchange some stuff for stone spearheads and tools, or knowledge on how to make some of these yourself. Learn to use spear and knife, learn to fish in streams with either spear or stored fish hook, learn to make fire without anything fancier than a piece of stone. Learning would be the hardest preparation part, but if there would be a book with all this knowledge listed, best buy one and also vacuum-pack it together with the rest of your equipment.
**Day X preparation**
Use one sheet of fabric to get greased in conservant, stuff all your clothing into its plastic package to have a use for that, then wrap everything prepared, including the compacted tent but excluding the big shovel and the emergency shovel, in that piece of fabric, position it about two meters in front of you. Position the big shovel as a landmark over that compound, it would also serve as a weight to lessen the chance of wind or animals tearing up your stash. Use another sheet as a cover under yourself to minimize chances of a tree growing on your very place. If there is a stone protruding out of the ground, use that as a target, yet gather a bit of foliage to not sit on the cold, as well as raise your poor body off its surface to lessen the chance of getting buried at time travel. Stuff the emergency shovel into your mouth and butt - you're to survive mind you! No sentiments against "it's dirty" or "painful". Use a condom if it would prove hurting. If you have a girl with you, convince her to put the shovel handle into her *there*, as that place is the largest to hold such long but not too wide objects, also wrapped in a condom. Stand on prepared space, hugging if there's one to hug, or maybe face outwards to account for immediate danger.
**After the warp**
Provided you did not get rocked or treed and also not in the immediate vicinity of predators, unpack and assemble your emergency shovel that would NOT suffer the 75-year exposure to environment and be ready to do hard work. Then dig out your stash. Set up the tent, no matter how worn it is, unpack clothes, check what has survived the hasty storage, employ the shovels (the titanium one should also be in your possession by now), set up fire, check if any canned food you have left survived, if none, go for forage and hunt, use the nearest tree's bark as makeshift shoes. Set up a fireplace, use the pot to gather, boil and store water, start life as savages.
Consider everyone else dead. If you have established a relation with a nearby tribe, check if they survived and did not end up hostile, if yes, trade needles for homage. Savages are less trained in the art of deception, this and general honesty in your own actions would definitely earn you some safety in the immediate future. Use whatever survived to help the tribe, earn their respect, make children, transfer gathered knowledge, hunt and forage with everyone, wrap in furs, learn from their chieftain or shaman, write the story.
**Second warp**
Most likely the only equipment left from the dead civilization would be the pot and the titanium shovel. Build up a mound of stones no less than a meter high over a former fireplace, put the pot over the shovel bottom up, place the shovel into the mound with the pot visible. Stuff the stone and bone tools nearby, best if soaped or coated in whatever preserving substance the tribe can get, most likely salt and fur, to maximize chances of bone to remain functional. If any glass survived, use that as containers for salt or whatever other consumables the tribe would try to save for the warp. Before the mound, create a big bonfire out of your huts to solidify the ground, and spread people all over the burned patch, best if each human would stand on a separate rock the size of a pumpkin.
**Subsequent warps**
Nothing different, except for the shovel and pot, which would likely still wear out from extensive use. Replace with clay pots. If, however, those aliens won't stop their warping, your tribe is locked up in a 25-year cycle of losing everything, as 75 years of natural wear-and-tear is enough to wither even titanium, let alone crude iron that it would be able to melt with wood. Maybe though the mound would evolve into a carved stone sealable structure like a [Dolmen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen) or a sarcophagus, that would be able to hold stuff designed to survive the warp in at least dry sheltered environment. The tribe may expand outwards, potentially making roads with salted ground to not have them overgrown in their absence, yet humanity won't be able to progress beyond Iron Age, as stone will be the best material to store information, and having to start agriculture or animal herding from scratch won't add anything to ability to progress.
**Frame challenge - preserved for reference**
As you know probably, the universe is ever-moving. Earth flies around the Sun, the Sun flies around the center of Milky Way, that itself is attracted to (yet not too hard) Virgo supercluster, and that set of matter is also attracted somewhere bigger that we might not even know. So, when your spacetime coordinates shift by "(0,0,0,75Y)" all of a sudden, where would you end? About 100% is that you would end in empty space.
Considering those aliens that move humans in spacetime have actually calibrated their foom-stuff to use a coordinate system that's aligned with Earth's surface (which is the hardest among possible coordinate systems, as Earth rotates, revolves and is involved in the entire solar system's *other* movement, solar-centered system would have one less movement to calculate, etc), they should be able to actually disperse humanity across habitable planets in the 75 light year radius from the Sun with the same machinery. And just say "hey it's just Earth's biosphere had mutated over time", or plain leave the time traveller without enough data. I consider the latter effect to be quite a lot better for planetary ecology together with humanity, so they should have considered that possibility at least.
Provided they did overcome this set of complications, the actual outcome would be this:
**The humanity would have been set back in time tech wise, down to no less than Iron Age, and die of hunger and diseases**
PS: this sounds like one good serious clean-up to set up grounds for *Civilization 7: Real Life*... And note that this would be the result of a *single* time travel, the subsequent actions would likely not be needed as humanity would definitely get reduced to five figures worldwide.
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1. Make sure there is a governing system, even a monarchy or dictatorship is better than nothing, otherwise everyone will be a bully and everyone will be a cannibal,under such circumstances everyone will have to take extreme measures even if not in a mean way, being a cannible will somtimes be defensive; even a dictator put some order enough to stop the worst of mankind.
2.there has to be a set of laws
3.community servants; civil workers, such as in charge of getting food
2. democracy is for an advanced cvilazation, with a democratic culture
3. find out what is the culture of the time,who knows maybe slavery will be in favour just this time Black is master and white is slave and the "N" word is so holy that a white man that dares say it is lashed. There will be a new philosophy backed by super ai to prove that is the right way to think. White man will be building new ai based on cosmological DNA to argue that they have to be freed.
4. police and judicial system to enforce the law
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*Disclaimer: Yours is a really, really, really, really long question and I frankly didn't read it word for word. That was rude of me. Sorry. I'm about to give you a really, really, really, really long answer, so I won't be offended if you don't read all of it. But, if I say something below that doesn't make sense because you said something above that I was too lazy to take the time to read. I really do apologize. Anyway, my basic reaction to what I read was...*
**You're screwed!**
But that's not necessarily a bad thing because, you, dear friend, have solved the mysteries of time travel! (And can set the rules of time travel for your world.)
**Solution #1**
Said another way, you've already overcome the basic problem of "where to put people" because you've overcome the problem of spatial translocation. The Sun moves. The solar system moves. The Earth moves. You're not just moving people through time — you're moving them through space — *and you've figured that out.*
What this means is that you can plop people down on the planet *exactly where you want them* in the future.
Whatever organization it is that's solving humanity's problems by moving everyone 75 years into the future, that organization has a prep-crew that's been lavishly provided for who will stay on the Earth for that 75 year period with just one purpose: *To make sure the landing zone is completely clear and ready to receive humanity.* The organization has meticulously determined the rather large acreage they need and where it must be to have the smallest footprint of damage during the long wait.
*Let's say it's New Jersey.*
No offense to anyone living in New Jersey! But poor old New Jersey [has been the butt of jokes like this since the dawn of time](https://youtu.be/-z9FMxgf310). Or at least since *Futurama* first aired. We love the people! But it's time for New Jersey to pony up to help the human race once again.
So your team is working to clear a huge space and keep it level. Let's even make it out of concrete. Yes, we're trying to help poor old Earth, but you're about to drop eight billion people on her again and believe me, that little pad of concrete (no matter how large) will be the least of Earth's problems. Now, you could cover the state of New Jersey with concrete and receive all 8 billion people at once. But that might be an indignity that's too much even for New Jersey and keeping a slab of concrete that big perfectly flat (ignoring the curve of the Earth, which your transporter can handle), would be a pain in the neck.
So, let's just say it's four square miles of lovely, flat concrete that's prepared just six months ahead of the first returnees.
And then you're time travel experts are wise enough to drop only as many people on that four square mile pad as can comfortably fit. Let's be generous and say that each individual needs 16 square feet (children won't need it, a few of my friends might test that size...). That means you can drop about 7 million people at a time onto the pad. Give your team a week to clean them up and send them on their way. And you spend the next 22 years plopping people down on that concrete slab. Honestly, it doesn't matter how long it takes, right?
*This is important, since time travel over any appreciable length of time requires spatial travel as well, that means you have teleporters. That's just time travel where the time dial is set to zero. And you'll need them.*
So, your team takes a week to shuffle 7 million people into transporters that can move them to other locations on the planet, which are either prepared or can be known to be safe destinations because your team was there the whole time to figure that out.
Boom.
**Solution #2**
*People die.*
It's an immutable law of the universe (insofar as we know today). So you follow @RichardKirk's idea of having everybody be at home, sitting on the floor when the time travel occurs, and ship them forward.
Some people will die. Earthquakes will have moved things around. As will hurricanes, tsunami, and a host of other issues. Wildfires will have burned some land to the ground. Trees don't just grow, they fall down, as do rocks. A meteor could hit the Earth changing a LOT of things.
My point?
According to your premise, you're trying to save the Earth. What's a few less people with that goal? A necessary consequence of saving the planet is that some people will die. The casualties are expected losses. You're beaming a plan into people's heads, beam the platitude that they might be making a sacrifice for a notable goal as well.
Of course, that might cause riots, but no fewer than the riots on the other end of transport when people find their loved ones dead in the middle of a tree.
**And one problem to resolve... or ignore... I prefer ignore.**
We're ignoring the idea that teleportation of any kind requires a precision that is really hard to keep within the bounds of suspension of disbelief — which is why so many writers simply don't talk about it. Those transporter pads in Star Trek were brilliant because the pad was part of the emitter/receiver system that could rationalize why your feet weren't a few angstroms into the pad, which would mean you had to peel them off the surface like a cellophane wrapper.
The concrete pad in solution #1 serves the same basic purpose. If we patiently explain that it's as precise as a Hubble Telescope mirror, it justifies a successful transport where people walk away without concern.
If we transport people 75 years into the future in any other way, it's not just trees that are your problem, it's grass and soft dirt, and blown dust, and carpet, and who knows what else that makes the surface the transported people are landing on *unstable.* Yes, you could transport them an inch above the proverbial surface to account for that. You'll scare the beejeebers out of people as they recover from that unexpected one inch drop, but it would help.
But in the end your biggest problem *is the atmosphere.* Atmosphere moves around us as we move, not through us. Teleporting your travelers into the future means they're arriving "within" the atmosphere. Everybody dies from the bends or worse.
So, in the final analysis, don't stress too much about avoiding trees. It's a cool aspect to give your story a bit of flavor — but there are much worse things than trees to worry about and you're not going to solve them without some kind of Star Trek transporter beam that forces everything that's in the way, out of the way.
**Which brings me to solution #3**
Your time travel technology *swaps the volume of space from the future with the volume of space in the past.*
If you can move a human, you can move a can of soup. If you can move a can of soup, you can move a cylindrical space around a human. And by moving the volume of space from the future to the past, you minimize the risk (and solve the atmosphere problem).
You'll still have a few deaths. Earthquakes can move a lot of dirt, which means someone appears in a lovely cylindrical space *inside a hill.* They're dead in minutes. Some appear in the space once occupied by the trunk of a tree. They die when the rest of it falls on them.
But you've minimized the number of deaths.
*It's important to realize that all these issues are not intrinsically bad. You don't want a perfect transport system. Perfection is boring in stories. You want opportunities to explore human emotions. Yes, the fact of transport causes some human emotion, but then there's all the emotions due to the imperfections of transport vs. the good of saving the planet. At least for a while. 8 billion people will screw it up awfully quickly.*
**BTW...**
While the idea is fun to play with, keep in mind that you have some serious impracticalities. At the top of my list is the number of people you'd need to leave behind to keep the infrastructure happy, like dams. And we're not just talking about people at the dams, but people transporting raw and processed material to the dams, and people creating the processed material, and gathering the raw resources, and feeding all those people, and making them liquor to keep them happy, and the police for when the liquor is over applied, and the *millions and millions* of people you'd need to keep things running and ready for 8 billion returnees.
Or you just let all that infrastructure rot. Power stations are unusable. Dams break. Roads go bad. 8 billion people show up to the biggest clean-up project in human history and the very first thing they're going to want is several million bulldozers running on diesel.
Be careful what you ask for. A story about a quick-fix for the Earth's problems — if they really exist ([it's harder than you think to kill the planet](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/147882/40609)) — has serious implications in reality that will often be worse than the problem you're trying to fix.
*Or you can ignore all of that and tell a fun story. If your readers don't like what you have to say... screw them.*
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[Question]
[
In fantasy fiction, we often see that disembodied minds or souls can think just as if they were alive - eg in an afterlife or as incorporeal undead.
In the real world, thinking and other mental activity depends on the brain (as well as a system of glands and hormones, I believe). It is well known that damage to the brain or surgery such as lobotomy can affect the mind and its ability to think.
If disembodied minds can think, then what do they need brains for? In such a world, should brain damage still be a thing?
When I realised this, I decided that in my fictional world, disembodied minds *cannot think*. Souls do exist and can exist without a body, but without a living brain a soul cannot reason. It is in a dreamlike state of very limited consciousness. The soul does have senses beyond those of the body and can form vague, hazy memories of its experiences in this "afterlife" state, but it needs to be bound to a new body with a brain or the equivalent before it can think again and reflect on its memories (and the "incarnation" process may destroy some of the memories).
What about your fantasy world? If disembodied minds or souls can think, then what do they need brains for? Does brain damage also damage the soul, or does the soul regain full functionality when freed of its fleshly prison? Is a brain a limitation? If so, why have brains?
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It’s a metaphysical anchor.
The soul is nice and all, but another name for ‘free-floating soul’ is ‘ghost’. Ghosts are subject to all manner of metaphysical problems (tunnels of light, Valkyrie doing the rounds, Grim Reapers of various forms, wraiths eating the newly departed soul etc. etc.) and as such are highly vulnerable. A brain acts like an anchor, or a storm shelter, keeping the souls firmly in place and protected from the various nasties of the other side. While thus anchored the spirit experiences the sensation of being corporeal. In reality it’s just moving around inside the brain, which happens to be kept functioning by a corporeal body.
If the brain is damaged, some measure of the protection it offers is lost. This means any number of Spiritual Nasties are free to take a bite out of the now vulnerable (but still tethered) spirit. In many ways it’s better for a spirit to just abandon its brain altogether and seek other havens (or heavens), which ends up with brain death. If the spirit clings on, then it can have all manner of chunks taken out of it by various supernatural predators, which could lead to greatly reduced or altered function in a number of ways.
If the body dies, and the brain stops working, then the spirit has no choice: It must flee. If it gets to another receptive brain in time (a newborn, perhaps) it gets another shot at life, though its memories will likely be scrambled by the transfer. If it makes it to an afterlife then it might be afforded some measure of protection by whatever gods/angels are there. If it’s hardy enough (perhaps due to *being* a Nasty Ghost) or has some other kind of spiritual protection like a totem, freshly reanimated corpse or a particularly well-lived-in house, it might be able to hang on in the real world for a while with no brain to support it.
So basically a Brain is a shelter. Which explains why so many necromancers like putting spirits into skulls.
They find it homely.
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The brain is a bridge. Notoriously, ghosts can't interact well with the material world. They pass through walls, they can't dig up the chests of stolen gold that are holding them to this plane, they can't move back the boundary stone they had dishonestly shifted, etc.
The brain allows the spirit to link up to the world.
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The brain is like a radio. A single human consciousness (a.k.a. a soul) is far too vast and complex to exist in a three pound blob of grey goo. The size of the actual hardware on which we each run is unknown but can be assumed to be enormous.
That soul machine communicates with its dedicated brain through something like radio waves but the nature of those "thought waves" only interacts with our reality within brains. Thought waves are therefore invisible to scientific observation since the only scientists who even see them are neurologists who are so dedicated to proving that the brain is the source of consciousness, that they consider any alternative explanation to be religious/superstitious nonsense.
What processing power is actually resident in the brain is mostly dedicated to encryption, ensuring privacy between each soul and its body.
The brain is therefore a two-directional radio transceiver, constantly connecting the corporeal avatars (which we call bodies) to the soul which resides in an elsewhere far beyond.
As for disembodied souls not being able to think, this could be a matter of context. A soul may be capable of an enormous spectrum of consciousness, but the aspect of that capability which we call thought, the aspect which has context for a linear corporeal reality, requires a connection to that reality. Without the brain, the soul has no understanding of time or causality, so the way that it functions when not attached to a brain cannot be recognized as identity or memory or thought. It still is and still functions on many levels, but none of those remaining levels is anything like what we perceive as life.
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The soul is like the CPU. The brain is like the motherboard. The eyes/ears/etc. are like peripherals.
The soul may be the seat of consciousness, but a CPU will not function well if the RAM is not working properly, or if the signals it's getting from the webcam are scrambled.
It's true we observe personality changes if the brain is damaged, but it's harder to say if this is because the soul is somehow also damaged, or if what we see is fallout from the damage to the interface between the soul and the physical world. Personality is shaped by experience, and what a soul experiences is shaped by any number of environmental factors, including hormones, drugs, and physical injury.
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> I decided that in my fictional world, disembodied minds cannot think.
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I think this is fine if that's the way you want to go. An alternative take would be that disembodied souls either don't interact with the physical world at all (Christian perspective), or interact in some totally alternate way that doesn't need a brain.
It could also be that a soul is normally capable of thinking by itself, but trying to think with a damaged brain is like trying to think in a room with loud noises and obnoxiously flashing lights; too many distractions. Alternatively, maybe they experience time in a totally different manner, such that from its perspective, a disembodied soul can think just fine, but trying to "map" that into our physical reality falls apart somehow without the help of a brain to "mediate".
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> The soul does have senses beyond those of the body and can form vague, hazy memories of its experiences in this "afterlife" state, but it needs to be bound to a new body with a brain or the equivalent before it can think again and reflect on its memories (and the "incarnation" process may destroy some of the memories).
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Again, I could see going whatever direction you want. Maybe a disembodied soul experiences time differently, and so doesn't need "memories" pe se (like in [this question](/questions/193003)). Once tied to a body, however, it relies on the brain for memory storage and retrieval, and so has no knowledge of extra-corporeal existence or (if reincarnation is a thing in your setting) past lives.
It's worth noting I've seen a number of settings where *humans* have this limitation but some other species does not, and members of that species *do* retain memories from past lives.
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Fantasy world? This question applies equally to the *real* world. We still don't understand how consciousness works. Who's to say that *you or I* don't have souls? Plenty of people still believe that we do.
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> Does brain damage also damage the soul, or does the soul regain full functionality when freed of its fleshly prison?
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Who can say? For your fictional world, I think you could take whichever answer you prefer and run with it.
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Why have a motherboard in a computer? The brain is the interface between the body and the soul. Without the brain, the soul would have no senses, no way to control the body. We see this clearly in the case of brain damage, or even just age.
p.s. I cannot recommend strongly enough reading [HPatMoR](http://www.hpmor.com/), not just because it's an excellent fanfic, but because it asks *exactly* this question and comes to the opposite conclusion. (As it happens, I disagree with its conclusion.) For an alternate take, I recommend the [Ender's Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_(novel_series)) series, especially the later books. (I'd read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide... and I don't recall if the Card's revealed the juicy bits by then or if you have to read Children of the Mind also. Although Ender in Exile technically happens in between those, it was published later, so in theory won't mess with the arc too much if you skip it.)
p.p.s. You might want to also ask this on Philosophy.SE.
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You can prove a program correct and determine what it will do without running it on a computer or other hardware. Running it on a computer ties its effects to particular input/output devices.
When I rent a cloud server, I can run programs on it. I can hibernate the server and create an image. I can transfer this image to other servers and let it resume there.
What the program does and which state the image reflects is sort of orthogonal to the actual hardware it is running on.
This is of course less accurate with the mind/brain analogy since a brain is plastic: it changes in support of and as a result of the mind's activities.
But you still need a brain to tie a mind to a particular reality.
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There's a controversial hypothesis called [bicameralism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)). The rough idea is that, up until about 3000 year ago, people's minds were psychologically split into two pieces: a "part that did" and a "part that directed". The "part that directed" came across as a mental voice ("the voice of god" if you will) and the "part that did" didn't question this (and lacked the capacity to do so), it followed orders.
If we introduce souls to that idea, the soul would be the "part that directed" and the brain would be the "part that did".
The whole concept strikes me as like driving a self-driving car: You (the soul) give the car (the brain) a destination (an objective) and the car (brain) figures out the details of how to accomplish it, which bits to move and how, even having macros (muscle memory) for common tasks.
So, why would a body have a brain in your scenario? To handle the minutiae of running a body and to convert directives into actions.
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Remember that non-thinking animals still have brains, or at least cerebral ganglia (other than ctenophores and sponges, which are so simple they don't even have central nervous systems).
If for no other reason, you need a brain because it controls bodily functions, and not just conscious functions like fine motor control. Consider that some animals have multiple brains, in order to distribute control of limbs. One of those is the octopus, which given its intelligence probably has some level of self awareness and a single personality, which means the limb brains are not the ones doing any conscious thinking. Some disembodied entity would have no need of a means of controlling bodily functions, so if that's all the brain is being used for, it wouldn't need a brain.
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**The soul is simply an observer**
The body goes its own way and does its own thing according to the laws of physics. It is an automaton. God does not watch humans from outside, he watches from inside using parallel-processing. Souls do not exist as such, they are a part of God's consciousness - the consciousness of the universe. God is the universe and souls allow the universe to observe itself from within.
Imagine someone watching millions of TV sets at once (rather like security monitors in a large building). If one set dies, the observer remains the same. As long as one TV remains, there is something to watch.
When a body dies, it's no different from, say, a TV breaking. God no longer has a way of observing anything in the physical world *through that particular mechanism*.
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Suppose that I have a program running on a modern CPU. Let us suppose that I also have a way of running programs through some much more advanced mechanism: say, some hypothetical [sophisticated computer that runs on photons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing). Suppose my technology is so advanced that I do not even need solids to confine the photons, but I can use gas or plasma or EM fields or whatever. Now, I can couple those two systems, so that the programs are running on the CPU, but if they need to use the resources of my super-advanced light computer, they can *reach out* and execute instructions on that computer instead.
Now suppose that I go one step further. I have the system set up so that if the conventional computer degrades too much to continue running its programs, those programs will be transferred in a rapid and completely continuous1 fashion to the trapped light computer. Thus we do not need to be overly concerned about whether it is still the same operating system, since there is no sharp transition point between when it stops running on the conventional machine and starts running on the light computer. Since I am building the system, I get to determine its behavior, and I say that merely damaging it without rendering it incapable of running will not trigger the transfer.
* Why not just use the optical computer? I am the system designer, and I like conventional computers, so I can do whatever I want. The optical computer is there because I want my system to be robust if the conventional computer fails. Maybe the conventional computer was created by a completely different process, or even by extraordinary random chance and the accumulation of useful innovations, and I am just adding something on. Also, maybe it is slower, like real-life optical computers in 2020, so that the programs are limited in their ability to evolve once they have fully transferred over. This might also mean that to a program on the optical computer, centuries could seem like the blink of an eye.
* Does damaging the CPU also damage the optical computer? Not usually, since the systems are fairly isolated except in exceptional circumstances. Still, maybe there is some powerful electric surge or something similar that would overwhelm those protections and damage the optical computer as well.
Please feel free to replace the conventional computer with a human brain, the optical computer with a soul, and make any other appropriate substitutions.
1: At least from a macroscopic perspective.
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In my world some people can control wind, including its temperature.
* Would it be possible to freeze stuff solid immediately (I’m most interested in freezing people, but animals and inanimate objects also count) or at least very quickly (few seconds)?
* If it’s possible, how cold would the air need to be?
* Is it possible with today’s Earth technology? If yes, how about the energy expenditure of it?
* Would the person being completely wet make it easier (or possible if it’s currently impossible)?
Why and how the people controls the wind is irrelevant. I searched the QA for an answer to this but could not find it. Feel free to mark as duplicate. Thank you!
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It's not possible to quickly freeze thick things in seconds, due to thermodynamics.
Let's take an extreme example of a wind that is at -200 degrees C (close enough to absolute zero, but easy to use numbers) trying to cool down something that is at 23 C (room temperature), to 0 C (freezing). Let's assume the thing is mostly water (such as a human), with a heat capacity of roughly 4kJ/kg-C. Air has a heat capacity of roughly 1kJ/kg-C. This means that if you put 1kg of material in a room with 4kg of air (roughly 4 cubic meters of air), this ultra-cold air and this room temperature body will equalize at roughly freezing. A 100kg human would need 46 cubic meters of such air (roughly the size of a 20ft. cargo shipping container!). Now mind you, this air is colder than anything natural on Earth. The coldest temperature recorded is merely -89C. At that temperature, you'd need roughly twice as much cold air.
That's a large volume of air engaging in a perfect heat transfer, in terribly idealized conditions. In practice, you're going to have to do a lot more than that. The big limitation is insulation. As you freeze the outer surfaces of the object, that layer starts acting like a layer of insulation, slowing down the heat transfer. This is the reverse of the process which explains why you can't thaw a frozen steak simply by throwing it in hot water for a few seconds. It takes quite a long time for the inner center of the object to change temperature, and moving more wind past the outside of the object isn't going to help that much.
Adding water won't help much either. There will be some evaporative cooling, but the colder the wind is, the less that will matter. In fact, if they were wet, that would permit forming a layer of ice outside of their skin, making it even harder to freeze them to the core!
How would I freeze something quickly, if I had to? I'd break them into little bits! It could be a messy process, but it would ensure everything freezes fast enough. This was [demonstrated in Norway](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fChrZRqNnII) a few years back, although for some reason they chose to atomize a cup of boiling water rather than a human being... can't imagine why!
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Heat transfer coefficient of dry air with forced convection is up to 1kW per square meter per 1K temperature difference. Let's assume two square meters and 100kg human. Reasonable for a warrior and easy to calculate. Lowest natural temperature recorded on Earth was −89.2 °C. Let's be generous and assume 200K difference.\*
Seems that best you can do is 400kW in perfect conditions. Perfect as in strong, really cold wind,virtually unlimited amount of air, and nude victim. But you need 3.5kJ to change temperature of 1kg of human flesh by 1 K. So for our example subject it takes 350kJ per 1K. With your wind, you would change his temperature by a bit over one degree during one second. Not instantly, by no means.
Truth to be told, it would be even worse. First, skin would cool down first, decreasing difference, and thus cooling speed, rapidly. Victim would curl, halving exposed area. Things like that.
You could hurt them. But it would take a while. Not even close to instant freeze.
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References:
* <http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convective-heat-transfer-d_430.html>
* <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin>
* <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowest_temperature_recorded_on_Earth>
* <http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/human-body-specific-heat-d_393.html>
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\* I know that 200K difference is a lot. Indeed, it would put air near or over the gas / solid border on the phase diagram. On the other hand, we are talking about moving air and that changes quite a lot, and I'm overestimating to point out how impossible it is, even if conditions are more favorable than what's actually feasible.
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[The lowest natural temperature:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowest_temperature_recorded_on_Earth)
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> The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K), which was at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.
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Lower temperatures have been recording using laboratory equipment. To separate the gases in the air, it is cooled until in a fully liquid state, and then as it warms each gas will evaporate at it's boiling temperature. The method of fractional distillation of air is described [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/edexcel_pre_2011/oneearth/usefulproductsrev2.shtml):
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> -The liquid nitrogen and oxygen are then separated by fractional distillation.
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Since air is 78% nitrogen, let's assume that below -196 degrees the air is mostly water and no longer a gas. Now, the effects of a temperature of -196 degrees on a human being's exterior:
Sudden changes of temperature can have [health problems](http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/environment/sudden-change-from-hot-to-cold-can-harm-health) even in everyday scenarios:
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Assuming you have unlimited air constantly hitting the skin at -196 degrees (this is not possible with current techology, but maybe within your world it is), it is safe to say that the exterior of the body would cool rapidly. This would cause water in the skin cells to freeze and expand, rupturing the cells. This would kill all cells exposed to the blast. The longer you freeze, the more deeply this will go into the body. There would be no bleeding, since cells would freeze together, however the expanding of the water may be enough to crush parts such as capillaries. If a major vein or artery close to the skin's surface were to block due to freezing, blood flow would be severely restricted, removing most of the oxygen supply to the body; the [effects](https://nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/vod/vod23_2/vodspr0816.htm) of this are severe. Stopping blood flow will likely result in a heart attack, and if the heart stops altogether, this results in sudden cardiac arrest:
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> Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA): also known as sudden cardiac death, this is when the heart suddenly and unexpectedly stops beating and blood stops flowing to the brain and other vital organs. SCA usually causes death if not treated in minutes.
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In short, freezing will leave the victim unable to move or resist, and dying. With most of the external parts destroyed by freezing and a case of sudden cardiac arrest, the victim will die within minutes.
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Many answers address the heat transfer rates of air and of people's bodies. I'd like to point out that people will freeze much more quickly if the magicians can also make the air in their victims' lungs drop to absolute zero, not just the air around their victims.
Freezing flatuses in the intestines would speed things up too, but that would just be gross.
What about freezing the oxygen carried by the hemoglobin in the victims' blood? That would reduce the freezing time significantly! I don't think it's gaseous air at that point, so you'd need to decide whether that would be too much of a stretch to your characters' magical powers -- or whether you'll just save that trick for the final boss-battle of your story!
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To add to the answers above, the problem is that there's a limit to how fast you can get heat *out* of any object. That rate depends mainly on the thickness and material of the object, the heat capacities of the surrounding air/fluid and the object, the presence of any surface effects hindering heat flow (surface ice, clothing, air layers, fur/hair and ease of heat transfer across the object's boundary..), and the difference in temperature between the object and the air/fluid. The problem is that most living beings we know are thick enough to hinder heat transfer out, air has a limited and smallish heat capacity, and there is a limit to how much colder it can get outside. Basically "no". Not possible.
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* Yes, it is possible to freeze someone/something solid within 30 seconds or so. I am talking about skinny people and kids here. If you want to freeze an elephant or rhino, it will take many long minutes, no matter how cold you make them. There is a lot of trapped heat inside larger creatures, and the cold penetrates very slowly, slowly freezing from the outside.
* This depends on the temperature difference between the target object and the environment, but for the sake of generalizing, I would say that the air would need to be so cold that gets to liquid state. That is, at least -212 °C (-464 °F)
* Yes it is possible with today's technology. Just spill a couple of drums of liquid nitrogen at someone and watch the fun! I cannot tell you about the energy expenditure right now, but you should be easily able to calculate that.
* No. If the person is wet, it will make it harder to freeze them. Now you have water to freeze, before beginning to freeze the person. And water takes a LOT of heat (and cold/removal of heat) to change temperature.
All in all, if the person controlling the temperature is very very efficient at his skill, I would suggest freezing 2-3 drums volume of air to liquid and spilling it on the target one drum after another, slowly, without any haste.
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I've seen a documentary where the naturalist was in Russia, at -40C°, he had a thermos with some boiling water inside, he just throwed the water outside and most of it just frozen instantly.
Due to thermodynamics if an object is small enough and is exposed to enough cold it will freeze instantly. Maybe bigger objects may take much more.
For instance the Earth is continuosly blowed by froozing winds but its internal core will require milions of years to cool down.
There is a limit to Cold, the temperature cannot drop below 0 Kelvin so you actually have a bound to cooling speed.
Also note that you also have a limit to temperature of your wind, because under a certain temperature air liquify.
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I'm curious what the purpose of a solid freeze would actually be. If you want sudden lethality, there are better ways to use the cold. If your guy can control only air, or gasses and only from the outside the body or object, focus on freezing the openings for air into the body (mouth and nose) or directly blowing super cooled air into the lungs to stop the gas exchange. Of course if you have that level of control, high pressure air into the lungs in order to rupture them would be equally lethal, if not gruesome.
Frozen water spears, ala Avatar: The Last Airbender, are also something for flash-freeze killing.
Control of air can also be used to blow a hapless victim into a wall with enough force for a satisfying splat. Certainly enough to make a point to reluctant minions or cocksure heroes.
Air as the mechanism of freezing is kind of inefficient. Now a mage who could control the amount of energy inherent in a given amount of volume at a molecular vibration level, that might be interesting as well. Make all molecules in a given area vibrate at exactly the same, slow rate. There is your magical instant deep freeze.
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What methods are there to make more powerful bows, besides simply upscaling it? Just for definition, I will take more powerful to mean that it has more draw strength and longer range. The tech level is medieval, but absolutely devoid of gunpowder.
One methods I can think of would be to use pulleys like those found in compound bows, which can increase the range and accuracy, though it makes the weapon harder to maintain.
Another would be to give the bow four arms, ala the [Dwarven Windlance](http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131214174529/lotr/images/thumb/2/2f/Hobbit11.jpg/500px-Hobbit11.jpg) from the Hobbit movies, but I'm not sure about how realistic the physics of that would be.
If it helps, the people using the weapons are the giants as described in my previous question [How to make a realistic 'giant'](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/8569/how-to-make-a-realistic-giant), but I am looking for some other methods to further enhance their bows besides the fact that they are simply bigger.
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**Does it really have to be bows?**
Think of your giants as **walking trebuchets**. A trebuchet is essentially a giant mechanized sling. **Slings** have numerous advantages over bows: simple to construct and maintain, so your giants' awkwardly large hands don't prevent them from building it themselves, and unlike composite bows, slings don't disintegrate in the first heavy rain or whilst crossing a river. Your giants could use slings to break or weaken castle gates from afar, while likely still staying out of range of most man-powered bows. Plus the kind of nasty, brutal blunt damage it causes would make any self-respecting giant happy.
**So it has to be bows**
Ok, so bows are too cool to abandon. Fine. Your giants are still clumsy with making small flimsy things like wooden bows, so they'll naturally go for the largest, most in-your-face weapon they can design, given their ridiculously superior weight carrying capacity. Solution? [**Steel bows**.](http://crossbow.wikia.com/wiki/Steel_as_bow_material) While they weight a lot, they are capable of storing a lot more energy. For this reason steel bows (or crossbows) can easily cast bolts/arrows at similar or higher velocities than wooden bows, if properly designed. The spring-steel-like material must be quite uniform in quality, requiring a little skill in making the bow, but it's virtually indestructible. As a plus, it's pretty much a giant-only bow, in that no one else is likely strong enough to carry, never mind draw, such a puppy. **Essentially giant-portable ballistas**.
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If you're talking about giants, you are looking at one very simple consequence: giants have long arms, therefore the *arrows* will be notably longer and heavier - as long as you're assuming archery of a similar style to ordinary medieval short bowmen. Those longer, heavier arrows would fly further and certainly hit harder, as long as the aerodynamics were not neglected. Like the heavy clothyard shafts of English longbowmen, only more so.
One thing the giants would probably not have much success with is a scaled-up longbow as such. The longbow design, extended to giantish proportions, would be vulnerable to progressive mechanical inefficiencies that would sap some of the draw's power; and such larger bows would be harder to build, if only because of the lack of availability of good wood in such lengths.
However, the giants could accommodate their longer draws with bows of lesser length. You would definitely want to consider the [compound bows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_bow) you mention, which give you a longer draw for the size. The giants themselves might have a tougher time crafting, as well as maintaining, the pulleys - an opportunity for some inter-species commerce, perhaps.
There is one questionable characteristic of compound bows in a medieval world, though: the pulleys are not circular, but eccentric in order to get the maximum advantage. This is a pretty subtle piece of geometry - compound bows were not invented until 1966.
As far as materials and construction goes, your giants would probably find it necessary to resort to [composite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_bow) construction (which, like compound design, gives equivalent draw and power in a shorter bow) rather than all-wood [self bows](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_bow). Once again, the greater requirements of craftsmanship and the complexity of construction would argue for bows built by someone else...
Finally, you are quite right to be skeptical of the physics in any of Peter Jackson's movies. Jackson is far more devoted to Hollywood tropes than to physical realism. :-)
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## There are a few issues that need to be faced when upsizing bows
**Firstly,** we consider **why** the bow is so effective (or **was**, back in the day). This is more or less easily answered: the arrows were downright **sharp**. Whether it was to pierce armour (which it usually wasn't) or take down a few horses (hehe, *Agincourt*), the bow and arrow was effective because **sharp things are annoying**[1].
**Secondly**, we consider how this affects our giants using bows. Ok, so somehow, we manage to construct a **really-long long bow**™ (RLLB). That means we need pretty massive arrows, right? I guarantee firing a correctly scaled arrow from our RLLB will be like launching a battering ram - it will still be devastating but we might as well set it on **fire**[2], make it **bigger**, make it **faster**, make it **stronger**, scrap the useless tip that isn't really a tip any more, and overall, **make people fear it**. Then you call it the **fiery ram from hell**™ (FRFH).
**Thirdly**, we consider how our FRFH will be launched by a mere RLLB. Frankly, **it won't**. It would be like launching a land-to-air missile with a spoon. So we need a new launch method, but still a bow. The RLLB gets an upgrade! Of course, we make it out of steel, because that makes it shiny and shiny things are better. We still have some pretty out of date string here, so we'll change that to... **more** pieces of string[3] (a few hundred should be good) that rest parallel to the original. Because more stuff means more power, right?
**Finally**, we consider how this thing will work. Pretty much, these medieval missiles work best used in a **siege**, but hitting a warrior with a FRFH? More reliable than a measly arrow.
**To sum up**: We can't have little bows for big giants, and we can't have little arrows for big bows. And having a sharp tip on a large log doesn't do much, because tips are for piercing, and you threw piercing out the window the moment you said **giant**. So this new weapon is for **crushing everything**, but is probably ideal for destroying castle walls. And hitting anything that will make a big sound when it gets hit.
*[1]: Being crushed is probably more annoying*
*[2]: Fire makes it go faster* **<<<< Joke <<<<**
*[3]: Couldn't think of anything better than more*
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Well the English long bow was an incredible weapon and could perform feats very few archers could duplicate today. Being able to shoot an arrow up to [400 yds](https://www.google.com/search?q=distance%20of%20british%20long%20bow&oq=distance%20of%20british%20long%20bow&aqs=chrome..69i57.7471j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8), most bows today have a range of ~200 yards. These are also much lighter arrows with high end composite materials.
Something to think about is that the more powerful the bow the stronger the arrow has to be. One thing the long bows have is a more 'constant' acceleration. Even though they don't have the power of the old long bow, today's high powered bows are so fast that they will shatter wooden shafts. So, that is one of the reasons why the [windlance](https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQTY9yoB4nAeqIIFyMBz1XuqtOS5JVFyNv7kbN-FpJ9yQrDLsDS) was shooting an iron arrow, it needed to be strong enough to handle being shot. It wasn't just to penetrate the dragon hide. The Roman [Ballista](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballista) basically shot Javelins. Cross bows have much thicker (and also shorter) arrows than their cousins. Shorter arrows also help prevent shattering issues.
So you need to think about that as well, giants are going to have longer arms, which can pull longer arrows which will need to be much thicker, and will still probably fly farther if they are proportionally larger. It would be more like each giant was carrying around a ballista. That is frightful enough in my opinion.
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Does it have to be a bow? Similar to the sling comment, [a spear thrower or Atl-Atl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower) would be a great option for a giant to deliver an arrow. It is a simple tool that could be sized up easily and quickly even for giants.
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Firstly you want to look at different materials than wood. Due to the giants greater draw strength, looking at different materials for a bow there are a few requirements they should meet:
* **elasticity**, the bow would need to return to its original shape after the draw is released, this would rule out things like rock/steel (which would have some but not enough to last more than heavy use).
* **how the force is distributed**, a wooden bow works particularly well because is is not brittle, the grain enforces the structure by spreading the force equally over the bow. If a bow has a knot in it or twisted grain it is likely to snap when placed under the pressure it is used at.
These are the main requirements for a **good** bow to be made.
One form of current bow is a laminated bow, several layers of wood glued and pressured together. you could use this having the giants pounding a trunk so that it is thin enough to comfortably fit in the hand.
Recurve horn bows gained their reputation from the mongols, these were wooden bows tipped with horn, as a bow entirely made from horn would be to hard to draw and if there are giant animals the horn would be easier to get hold of. also bone or horns have a grain which would give it a similar structure to the wooden bows in terms of strength.
I would recommend a horn bow if it is possible to get the materials to make it.
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Have you considered the idea more along the lines of a giant caber? (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caber_toss>) As stated by another poster, the point of an arrow was pierce, at scale this useless. But if you consider what the trunk of a giant redwood for instance, would do an army of foot soldiers rolling down hill or across a plain, the damage potential would be terrifying.
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I think you are operating under the misunderstanding that bows are somehow at a pinnacle of strength. That is not the case at all, it's not hard to make a bow that will shoot an arrow faster.
The limits are whether you can draw the bow and whether the arrow can survive the launch. After all, consider the crossbow--the same basic technology level but with a much stronger draw. Any creature that can build a crossbow can build a normal bow of the same strength, the point of a crossbow is to use mechanical advantage to draw it and then allow the shooter to relax while aiming.
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With natural materials, a steel crossbow is probably the apex of "tension" devices like bows, and as noted the launch force wold require arrows (technically "quarrels") to be shorter and thicker proportionally to survive.
The ancient Greeks and Romans used "torsion" weapons, which used twisted bundles of fibre to provide the power to the throwing arms. By the end, there was a sophisticated body of science behind them, including methods of calculating things like how tight to twist the torsion skeins, the proper angles for the launch arms relative to the torsion skein and the body of the weapon and so on. These were very expensive and required a skilled team of *ingeniares* to build, although ordinary soldiers could operate them. These came in all sizes, from Roman "Scorpions" (essentially squad level weapons that were operated by two or three man teams) to giant siege engines. More can be found at this link: <http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/Catapults.htm>
Counterpoise weapons like Trebuchets are not really suitable as personal weapons due to their design (they use the power of gravity to "pull" the counterweight down and move the lever arm, so if they are not straight "up and down" they lose considerable power), so unless the giant is "so" giant they can pull one out of a pocket or backpack and put it on the ground, it isn't going to help in a battle.
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I had debated whether asking this but given the very good answers on [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/193826/how-would-muslims-adapt-to-follow-their-prayer-rituals-in-the-loss-of-earth/194018#194018) I thought it would be worth a shot. I have a character in my story who is a vampire and a practicing Muslim. Specifically not undead, but a living being with altered physiology and a craving for blood similar to alcoholism. They are more or less a normal person and don't go around biting other living things.
Originally the idea was that the character satisfied their cravings for blood by making food with blood byproducts like blood sausage. However, upon further research, blood is one of the few foods that is completely haram with almost no exceptions. **Given this, I'm not sure how I can depict them being both a vampire and a good Muslim, because if they were a good Muslim they'd abstain from blood entirely.**
The only loophole I could think to this law is the degree that Muslims are allowed to eat non-halal foods in the event of necessity if there is no other food available. If this is correct this would mean that a vampire that has to feed on blood would be exempt from the restriction (because they *need* blood to survive), but my character would still not fall into the loophole.
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Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
In the case of eating forbidden food, the Qur'an offers an out for those who really did not want to eat it, but were compelled to by hunger. The Islam stack exchange has [an answer which provides 4 verses](https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/62065/are-muslims-allowed-to-eat-pork-and-other-forbidden-food-when-imprisoned-during) to this end. Feel free to peruse the answer there, with the associated commentary, as they are naturally far more invested in these rules than others of us might be, but I will quote one of the verses here:
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> He has only forbidden to you dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah . **But whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], there is no sin upon him. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.** (2:173)
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I remember the mental anguish of a vampire in Interview with a Vampire, who decided that human blood was no morally acceptable to drink, and tried his best to subsist on rats. In this case, the rules condemn all blood, not just human blood, so even the rats would fall under these rules.
Now if your vampire must kill a human to get their blood, that could be a different story. Murder of a believer may be more difficult to forgive. I will not speculate on what the Qur'an may say on killing non-believers to subsist. I am rather confident that none of the rules were designed to support vampires (Christianity has the same issue, as do many other religions), so the readings may become more tortured there. But at least the blood aspect of this scenario would be deemed acceptable. One might hypothesize that the vampire could put themselves into a position where killing is acceptable? Perhaps they engage in warfare as a "livelihood?" I don't know the particular rules for Islam, but I have found all religions either have a clause permitting killing in warfare, or that religion doesn't last very long.
Now one could explore an interesting corner case of human(?) psychology, riffing on the phrase "... desiring it..." Your vampire could live in mortal fear: "What if I start desiring it? What if blood starts to taste good and I crave it?" This could start to fall into a corner care of the rules. Islam, like all religions, calls for a degree of interpretation of the rules. Most practitioners who face a thorny issue, like [which direction to face when praying in space](https://www.wired.com/2007/09/mecca-in-orbit/), can seek a [Fatwah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwah), requesting a scholar help them with the interpretation. If your vampires are as secretive as they are in other stories, it could be particularly difficult to explain the circumstances around these inquiries without invoking too many questions.
*And now I'm intrigued by how this interacts with Ramadan. There's something decidedly not religious about "fasting" by sleeping through the entire sunrise to sunset period! And the daily prayers are interesting. Everything I've seen in my cursory search suggests they are an interesting challenge for people who work night shifts.*
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## They Can Try:
I think this might be more of a writing SE question and less of a worldbuilding one. I'm on both stack-exchange sites, so I'll try to hit both sides. It all has to do with the psychology of your character and the physiology you choose to have the vampire deal with. So there is no RIGHT answer, per se, but that's a philosophical view. An "absolute" right or wrong answer might be better addressed by an Imam, though.
I have had vampiric characters who desperately tried to cling to their belief systems, to the point they went to a Catholic Church are received communion (and the magic/faith system of the game had interesting things to say about that...) A good book to read that deals with something somewhat similar is *When Gravity Fails*, a scifi novel about a Muslim character who doesn't have much faith until after he gets cybernetic implants that are technically considered against the faith. Ironically something that made him more out of synch with his religion helped him find belief.
The struggle to be faithful in the face of a reality that makes it hard is a beautiful literary trope. In my mind, it is less critical if the character is technically following all the rules, and more important HOW he deals with the choices, and how he reconciles the seemingly impossible paradoxes of his new life. This sounds like the makings of a compelling plot element.
* I believe Muslims are still allowed to receive transfusions (but I'm not Muslim, so I'm not 100% - on the other hand I know Muslims who work as blood bankers at hospitals) since medicine is in a separate category. Some faiths DON'T even allow this (Jehovah's witnesses, for example). Perhaps your character gets transfusions instead of eating - so then they aren't violating the letter of the restriction.
* Perhaps there is a Muslim sect of vampires, and they have their own Imams and rules, making VERY different interpretations of the Koran to fill their needs. In this case, being a practicing Muslim becomes more definitional again - if the subgroup declares blood is essential, the character can decide if they accept the group ruling or not.
* Your original interpretation about blood might not be completely off base. There is controversy as to whether foods that contain [SOME traces](https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/comments/9d607h/what_is_the_ruling_on_eating_raw_meat_seafood/) of blood are acceptable or not. It looks like there may be enough wiggle room to allow a Muslim vampire who interprets things the right way to at least consider themselves practicing. The strictest interpretation would preclude things like raw beef, but not all.
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# Frame challenge
If this vampire is a natural creature, then the whole set up of the world in which this hypothetical is set is foundationally different, and the Qur'an (and thus Islam) would have taken this into account, to cater for the different biologies.
Take a reference in Islam of how men and women are treated equally in some obligations, and treated differently in others. Women are obligated to abstain from (normally obligatory) prayers when on their periods, while there is no such allowance for men. Another example is elderly and sick individuals are permitted to abstain from fasting if they so wish, while healthy individuals are not.
In conclusion, there would be an allowance in the Qur'an to cater for vampirism and its consequences. Thus, they would possibly either be told to abstain from feeding blood from others (if feeding was harmful to the target), or to use some harmless alternative (Animal blood? Tea? Something else?).
This can get technical and complicated though, and given that we're discussing commandments from God, many of which may have wisdoms that humanity barely can understand (God being All-Wise and humans not), you can have a lot of flexibility with deciding the details. The general rule to follow is to avoid harming others, and to weigh the benefits vs the costs (from an Islamic perspective).
## However, a word of warning
I would severely refrain from any mentions of alterations to the Qur'an[1], and generally avoid going into the technical aspects as it may easily be perceived as modification of Islam in a way that is not permitted. Best to hand-wave from afar any justification. A possibly safe example would be to say "Just as Islam caters for differences between men and women, young and old, it also caters for differences between humans and vampires" without going into detail, even if asked by fans.
[1] By this, I mean the author altering the Qur'an by inserting hypothetical verses and other evidences. I don't mean to imply creating a taboo. It's just that there is a lot of justified aversion to actual alteration of the Qur'an and a lot of caution and sensitivity to anything that attempts to come close.
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### Eat halal steaks rare or uncooked.
Blood is haram. Blood dripping off an undercooked steak, so long as that steak is killed halal, is not haram.
Sources:
* [source 1](https://medium.com/@alboriqee/the-proper-fiqh-determination-on-eating-red-meat-beef-steaks-3f78a32c32c9) - goes into the scripture a bit.
* [source 2](http://muslimeater.com/2015/12/18/red-meat-a-little-rare-is-okay-and-tastes-better/) - muslimeater.com says it's fine.
* source 3: Kibbeh nayeh is a dish of raw lamb or beef mixed with spices, and its [sold in a halal shop](https://www.halalfood.com.au/product-page/kibbeh-nayeh)
Your character loves their steaks rare. Now they can get their blood requirement served with chips and sauce in a classy restaurant and nobody will bat an eyelid.
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In the movie *Kingsmen*, there is a poison which behaves differently from most other poisons.
It has to be ingested in order to kill, but that is not enough. It is harmless until a radio signal is broadcast close to the victim, which causes death in a few seconds. This allows spies and assassins to do things such as timing their victims' deaths, or negotiating mercy in exchange for info.
Is it possible to make such a poison with current technology, or at least with technology expected to be available within the next decade?
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**A radio activated pill about 15mm long by 5mm diameter would probably do the trick.**
The human body is fairly transparent to 100MHz radio signals.
The speed of light in human tissues and fluids is roughly 1/6th that of free space.
Therefore the wavelength of a 100MHz signal passing through the human digestive tissues and fluids would be roughly c / 100MHz / 6 = 50cm (as opposed to 300cm in air).
A receiving antenna typically needs to be 1/4th wavelength, which in this case is 12.5 cm.
Construct a pill having an inner enclosure. An antenna made of 12.5cm of 30 gauge enameled spring wire, and a gelatin outer coating.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5ox1O.png)
The antenna spring wire wants to spring into a straight position, but is coiled around the inner chamber and held in place by a gelatin coating. You would need to wrap the antenna 12.5cm / 5mm / pi = 8 times around the body of the 5mm diameter capsule to get the required length.
When the pill is ingested the gelatin dissolves and the spring wire extends to its naturally straight position. The human stomach is about 12 inches long so there is more than enough room for a 12cm antenna to extend.
The body of the inner capsule contains two electrodes. One made of aluminum and the other made of copper oxide (you can pick any other two metals if you wish). When the gelatin outer coating dissolves and the electrodes are exposed to stomach acid they will form an aluminum copper battery that will power the receiver. Prior to being exposed the battery will have no electrolyte and will remain inactive.
The inner chamber is sealed and contains a small low-voltage ASIC chip, a small charge of gunpowder, and the required poison. Upon receiving the signal the chip will use the charge in the battery to ignite the gunpowder thus releasing the poison.
**Or You could bluff**
Create a poison pill with a coating that dissolves in a certain amount of time. The amount of time it takes the stomach acid to dissolve the coating would be proportional to the thickness of the coating.
Based on your knowledge of how the time release mechanism works you have a good guess of when the victim will fall ill. A little before the appointed time you watch closely for signs that your victim is being affected. Your well trained eye allows you to see the effects before others notice it. Then announce that you are going to trigger the poison. Pull out your remote and conspicuously press the button. Soon afterwards the victim dies. Everyone assumes it was you.
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The big problem here is wavelength. Radiowaves have relatively long wavelengths and are best received by macroscopic metal antennae. On the scale of individual molecules, you simply won't get enough energy absorbed to see any actual changes. "Oh, but what about microwaves?" I imagine someone saying. Well, microwaves work by imparting energy to polar solvents, like water. If you have to microwave someone in order to make the poison work, you're probably going to have to heat them up in a very painful and probably fatal way which isn't going to be at all subtle and you may as well use instead of faffing about with poison.
Visible light has a short enough wavelength that it can impart a decent amount of energy to matter (have a think about why visible light is *visible* in the first place) but humans are largely opaque to visible light. The combination of "imparts enough energy to matter to cause interesting chemical changes" and "penetrates human bodies" gets you x-rays and gamma rays, and if you can subtly irradiate someone with large doses of ionising radiation then you can probably dispense with the poison bit and just zap them to death.
Existing approaches to using magnetic or electromagnetic means of affecting materials in a human body also won't do what you want. The [magnetic nanoparticles](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1549963415000076) linked by L. Dutch aren't changed by the magnetic field, just pulled into the right location. This means you'd need to dose someone with something extremely toxic that stays resident in the system and hope that it doesn't kill them before you give them a massage with a big magnet.
There's another neat trick using visible light to trigger preprogrammed genetic effects, called [optogenetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optogenetics) which is closer to what you want, but in order to make it work you need to surgically implant a load of LEDs or fibre optics in your target, which is also awkward (to say the least).
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Targeted delivery of drugs has already been demonstrated by using nanoparticles and magnetic fields ([source](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1549963415000076)).
Therefore it is plausible to think of nanoparticles which are activated or concentrated by an EM signal.
I.e. one could inject the nanoparticle below the toxicity threshold, and a magnetic or electromagnetic field could be used to locally concentrate them above the toxicity threshold. It could be a fantastic chemotherapy or a lethal poison.
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RFID chips can now be produced in sizes below 200 µm. That's below "grain of salt" size, and could be embedded in any food or beverage expected to contain coarse texture. These are active electronic components that can report or respond to unique digital signals. On top of that, all you need is a low-power micro-mechanical mechanism to release the actual poison from a sealed container, gated on receipt of matching data payload. The energy to release could be mostly chemical energy, rather than from the RF, with a tiny amount of energy from RF source merely as the activation.
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Microwave radiation could, possibly, be used to initiate a polymerisation reaction by agitating water buffered organic monomers. A large enough mass polymerisation event could create lethal blockages of small blood vessels throughout the body. There are major problems with this idea though:
* The chemicals in question are not going to linger in the body for all that long, the human body is pretty good at breaking down or flushing out unwanted organic compounds. So your poisoning window is probably only going to be 48 hours at most.
* Given the level of microwave background radiation in our modern environment low levels of polymerisation are going to start immediately exacerbating the decay of the poison's potential efficacy, and also introducing the slim possibility of a lethal "misfire".
* The dose of radiation needed to create a mass polymerisation that is definitely going to be lethal is going to be very high, you'd probably need to point a long range communication antennae at the person you want to kill at which point the poison is, if some things I've heard are to be believed, superfluous and regardless makes it rather impractical.
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**Nanites**
A poison itself, not so much but a poison delivery system where nanites can release the poison on command would work.
Currently scientists are working on a [nanite delivery system](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/nanobot-treatment-doctors-cancer/400613/) for cancer drugs.
Alternately you could forget the poison and just have buzzsaw nanites that just start cutting on command.
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**Resonance Sensitive Membrane**
One may develop an artificial microorganism (nanite or nanoparticle) that has a cellular membrane which is sensitive to a particular frequency of radio waves.
Just like an opera singer breaks a glass by matching its resonant frequency, these microorganisms' membrane will rupture under the suitable radio waves, thus releasing the deadly poison or virus or bacteria or whatever you like, that is trapped inside it.
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A sub-dermal capsule seems the best solution. Poison dart frog poison is functional in extremely tiny doses so a small bb with an electro-mechanical release seems plausible with not needing much range/penetration on RF signal. There are certain ceramics out there you can drill with the smallest drill you can find then heat shrink down smaller. This is used in some chip manufacture. Small poison bb's were supposedly used by the secret police in either NAZI Germany or old USSR I can't remember which.
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Many answers already are great, but I think they don't really go for what you really want. As I read it, you want this poison to only be triggered when you want. Current solutions described are poison triggered by a radio signal, but not "triggered by only THAT ONE radio signal". So your victim will just die when going too close to a radio emitter, or an electric induction cooking system. So by only reacting to a particular wavelength, you will be fearing any EM noise. Still works if in a controlled environment, but clearly not as in the movie.
To get something to react to a heavily encrypted radio signal with our current tech, I am afraid that you will need some electronic parts in your poison, so a releasing capsule seems to correspond the best. Either ingested or inoculated. So it will be easier to detect and to get out of the system.
It still seems possible to expect some high end lab dedicated to the task to get some result with a biological entity reacting differently depending on signal received (Some studies show different reactions to music in plants), but going from no symptoms to lethal with specifically that one signal, it seems far fetched. And from a potential victim point of view, it's not that bad.
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YES.
Why? Because we can kill people with "radio" waves already. People living near power lines get cancer [California sources](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4931365/). Microwaves can cause problems. So we know that Non-Ionizing Electromagnetic Radiation can kill you. Just slowly.
So the poison would actually be just Catalysis. Something that mixed with oxygen in blood or acid in stomach AND exposed to radiation will react in way that would kill the host.
We know that microwaves can boil water. Not enough energy in protons to brake O-H bond but, well, boiling water inside someone head is enough.
So **if** you can **make the chemicals** more sensitive to FM (which is closest in length to microwaves) you can create something that could be used as such poison.
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Presume a decade of darkness, after a several months of steadily shortening daylight. Assume that the temperature and weather patterns remain (inexplicably) fairly unchanged.
Ten years later, when the sun comes back: which species of flora and fauna are most likely to be capable of recovering? I know that some plants produce seeds that can sprout after extended period of dormancy, but not which species have seeds for which a decade of unsuitable environment is nothing, and which are likely to die out after a few years of not being able to reproduce/grow. Categories are useful, it doesn't need to be specifics; e.g., pitted fruits or pines or root veggies, or whatever. The internet just wants to tell me how long I can store my seed packets for, and I want to know which types of seeds can actually pull off long-term storage in the wild.
If you've got any idea which plants' survival chances might also suffer more/less from the depradations of desperate starving animals, that would also be helpful, but isn't as critical.
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> which species of flora and fauna are most likely to be capable of recovering?
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Though some seeds can still be vital after more than 10 years (see Pink Sweetener's answer), animal's seeds won't generally last that long. Except maybe some tardigrade and bacteria, you will not have much more animal life around.
And that brings a huge problem: you will have some plants sprouting, but then, with no insects or other animals around to do their duties as pollen vectors, only anemophile plants will be able to reproduce (i.e. conifers). You might also have local communities of plants reproducing though root propagation, but that is necessarily limited as form of propagation.
To summarize, you will end up with a rather less diverse word, with many less species, where evolution has to start over again. Cave organisms or the habitats existing around volcanic vents would probably be unaffected, but they represent a small fraction of the entire biome, anyway, and have no known role in plant reproduction.
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Many plants produce seeds which would remain viable after 10 years. A few years ago, a group of students managed to produce a crop from [800 year old squash seeds](https://www.mnn.com/your-home/organic-farming-gardening/blogs/students-revive-extinct-squash-800-year-old-seeds).
Online, you will find charts indicating that many common garden vegetable seeds are only good for 2-5 years. This is more an indication of "best-by" dates: the majority of a sample of seeds might become spoiled after 10 years, but even delicate nightshades like tomatoes will have a few viable seeds after a decade.
In fact, from personal experience and a bit of online research, a better question might be which plant seeds would *not* be viable after 10 years. Many would make it! Plants are hardy things.
That said, a ten year blackout would have a devastating ecological effect that would drive many species to extinction, without doubt, but it's hard to count off all of the species that would die because of this. On the one hand you might think plants earlier in [ecological succession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession), better adapted to disruption, might survive better - but on the other hand perhaps later succession plants are better adapted to long dormancy period. There are a lot of hard factors to consider.
Sorry I can't give a clearer answer. Hope someone smarter than me chips in!
EDIT: Just another note. One of the biggest ecological problems would probably be atmospheric. The obvious issue here is no oxygen without plants. When the sun returns, you still wouldn't see plants return because plants need oxygen just as much as animals do. But even if the oxygen supply were somehow sci-fied away, there is also the issue of CO2: after the sun blacks out, virtually all plants on earth will die, and their decaying remains would release vast quantities of carbon dioxide and methane. Runaway greenhouse gas effect, ocean acidification, and probably even asphyxiation (even with oxygen somehow supplied!) follows.
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In an uncontrolled environment, I'm sure purslane would survive, as well as a number of other noxious weeds. The seeds can be dormant in soil for something like 40+ years. Purslane is edible, however.
Field bindweed seeds can stay viable for 50 years. It's a perennial with rhizomes (so when it sprouts, it won't have to rely on seeds to be around for a really long time).
Lambsquarter and mallow seeds can remain viable in soil for decades.
There are many plants that could survive. You might look at lists of noxious weeds, such as [these](http://www.idahoweedawareness.net/vfg/weedlist/weedlist.html), to study for those that would suit your purposes.
In a controlled environment, you can store many kinds of vegetable seeds for 10+ years and still grow them afterward (although stores only guarantee them for a shorter period, and germination rates may or may not change), including tomatoes (which don't require insects for pollination per se, since they have perfect flowers with both male and female parts, and wind can cause them to pollinate themselves).
I'd guess life that uses chemosynthesis, including some life in the deepest parts of the ocean, would survive, and potentially go higher in the ocean.
My guess is that a hitherto uncommon set of life-forms would prosper in the dark, and eventually colonize the planet. Given a period of eons, you might get some really interesting things going on, but after just ten years, it's hard to say. You'd still have life, whatever the case, including weeds. Much of the life that would survive afterward would probably be able to reproduce without pollinating insects, whether or not it could also reproduce with their help.
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In terms of the types of plants which will survive best, annuals and biennials have the most resistant seeds, while nuts and larger seeds do not last as long (according to iowa state university <http://agron-www.agron.iastate.edu/~weeds/Ag317/bioeco/lifecycle/seedbank.html>).
They also note that the depth at which seeds are buried affects their survival - with seeds deeper in the soil lasting longer. Thus plowing the soil could turn up seeds which have not survived as well at the soil surface.
Grass seeds apparently do not survive as well, according to J Lewis (1973).(LEWIS, J. (1973), LONGEVITY OF CROP AND WEED SEEDS: SURVIVAL AFTER 20 YEARS IN SOIL. Weed Research, 13: 179-191. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3180.1973.tb01262.x).
I tried to find out if grasses could persist as rhizomes, but I didn't find much data on that.
With regards to the problem of your research only turning up shelf-lives of seed packets, I would recommend researching "the soil seed bank", as it should turn up more results about the survival of seeds in the soil.
Persistence in the soil seed bank refers to how long seeds last in the soil in normal conditions, it takes into account those seeds which germinate. The germination process has a degree of randomness, so while some seeds germinate every year, some remain. Seeds may also be deeply buried, where conditions inhibit germination, and only released later by human actions or natural events.
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<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantana> (in particular, the roots left in soil) is so robust it's almost ineradicable. I've seen it spring back up approx. ten years after being covered by concrete.
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It might not be answering the question, by not suggesting any plants, but if the temperature and weather are staying the same, seeds won't last until there is sunlight.
The first thing that sprang to my mind when reading your question is that most plants in the soil use the seasonal temperature changes and moisture levels to trigger when to start growing/germinate.
They don't know that there is sufficient sunlight above ground (but it is the usual reason for the temperature rise), and expend most of their stored energy growing to the surface. Without sunlight for ten years, I'd expect most of the plants in the ground to surface in spring only to die from lack of sunlight.
Most of the other answers focus on the viability of seeds - but none mention if/how those seeds would not germinate before the arrival of sunlight. If you've got humans (or other) storing the seeds and planting when the sunlight returns, that'd work - but I'm not sure there are any plants that would re-populate without external intervention.
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Other answers have pointed out that even if seeds can stay technically viable, that doesn't mean they'd survive in the described environment; for example, environmental factors could trigger their germination before the 10 years are out which would kill them.
I'll point out in turn that this is true, but you need to consider the amount of seeds and species involved here. It might seem implausible to hypothesize a seed that happened to be buried too deep to be affected by environmental factors, and then happened to get brought back to the surface by some disturbance or erosion right after the sunlight came back. But they key is, there are trillions of seeds on Earth at any given time. And any seed that does germinate after the decade of darkness will find itself in a world with no competition for light and resources, and abundant nutrients in the soil (because the last other living things in the darkness will have been the decomposers feasting on all the dead matter). Those plants are likely to thrive on an individual level, and some will even be able to reproduce, and once that happens there will be nothing preventing them from spreading as far as the environment, and evolution on the longer term, will let them.
This even affects the question of viability, frankly. A plant for whom 99% of seeds are nonviable after 10 years would qualify "not having viable seeds after 10 years" by most standards, but if the plant is common enough then 99% nonviable still leaves quite a few seeds with a chance to make it in the new world.
(one could counter this point however by pointing out that plants with seeds that *are* likely to make it through ten years of darkness will be much more numerous, which is relevant to the question of what the overall flora will look like. It is also true however that once X plants have grown back and managed to reproduce, "survival of seeds for 10 years of darkness" is no longer the only factor in how common they'd be another 10 years down the line. At that point being successful in the new environment will be more important.)
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Best chance of survival would be:
Flora: **mushrooms**
Fauna: [**ocean floor dwellers**](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/oceans/photos/deep-sea-creatures/#/18161.jpg)
These guys don't require sunlight already, so, in the absence of any other changes they should happily continue during the big dark.
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Other answers have established that there are plant seeds that would be viable after 10 years, however, I'm not sure that's entirely relevant.
Consider that if the temperature and everything else stay the same, viable seeds are going to sprout; Seeds can't tell if there's light or not when underground. Given this, most of the viable seeds are going to sprout into a world with no light, then *die*. Similarly, any perennials are going to grow again in the spring, exhaust their energy reserves, make none of them back, then *die*.
I imagine 10 years of this will exhaust a vast majority of the viable seeds in the world unless they are specifically preserved by humans or similar until the light comes back.
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## [Bulbs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulb)
A common type of house plant are ornamental bulbs which have large energy stores below the surface for their dormancy. Most of the bulb styled plants can [reproduce asexually](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornamental_bulbous_plant#Multiplication), by creating new bulbs off of the largest one which can be broken off and planted else where.
These kinds of plants would love this new environment and survive the decades of darkness to get there.
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It depends on your technological advancement and/or do they have to survive on there own in the wild.
If you have the technology you can completely nullify the problem. Why be stuck with old seeds when you can have fresh one!
LED lighting to the rescue, using shades of red and blue light you can grow plants. I was just watching a science show where they were growing lettuce or was it cabbage in half the time with LED lighting. They had no soil, but a white Styrofoam like sheets. They pumped in water with nutrients in the water, and grew them just fine. They found 20% of the time darkness was needed for that particular crop.
You can do it indoors with no external light source.
Keep growing, and maintain a fresh stock of seeds.
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Basically, what would cause an army to go back to riding creatures in cavalry, as opposed to armored vehicles.
* The mounts can be armored, but they have to be what you'd normally think of as creatures; horses, turtles, etc. Said mounts do not have to be real, but they have to be within the bounds of what we could create with modern breeding and/or genetic engineering within a 100 year timeframe.
* The people the cavalry are riding against is a modern army, although you can make changes to this if that's what would allow cavalry to return.
* The people riding the creatures are modern soldiers, although, as above, this can be changed.
* The cavalry doesn't have to *win*, it just has to be there. Of course, if it doesn't win, modern armies probably wouldn't use them.
* By "used", I mean in battle.
* People are still using all the techniques of modern warfare; not just a wall of infantry.
* Make sure the answers are resource-viable.
Thanks in advance!
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You need to remove the factors that drove horses off the battlefield. The most prominent of those are:
* Machine guns, which slaughter them. Sufficient armour to protect against them is too heavy for horses to remain useful.
* Barbed wire, which stops them.
* Chemical weapons. It's almost impossible to protect horses against them.
Machine guns and barbed wire were in use at the start of WWI, and made horses impractical on the battlefield. They remained useful as transport across very rough country (and were used for that by some US special operations troops in Afghanistan in 2001-02), and for attacking rear areas (there were cavalry charges for that during WWII).
Tanks were introduced to allow attacks against machine guns and barbed wire, some time after it had become clear that horses weren't viable for that. Other fighting vehicles grew from that start as new needs developed.
Chemical weapons were introduced to try to break through the trench lines of WWI, but their success was limited.
To make horses valuable on the battlefield, you need a collapse of manufacturing, so that barbed wire can't be made in large quantities, and the millions of rounds of ammunition needed to feed an army's machine guns aren't available. Since both those things are fairly simple to make, you need to roll manufacturing back to an early nineteenth century state.
You can do this via resource shortages, or economic collapse, but either will have to be quite serious, and will have major effects on society.
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## Change the battlefield:
This answer is based on the on the one I gave in [THIS](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/209117/could-genetically-engineered-horses-make-cavalry-survivable-on-a-battlefield-wit) question.
Short of giving intelligent hexapod horses functional arms to carry weapons in, you aren't going to change horses enough to make them practical on the field. But if the battlefield itself became hostile to modern vehicles, then whatever transportation could still operate would reign supreme.
* **Man-portable super weapons**: If every individual soldier has a relatively cheap, rugged weapon that can destroy any vehicle on the field, then planes, tanks, and possibly eventually even trucks and jeeps will become an expensive and wasteful investment. There will still be a need for transport, but weapons will make the form of transport as cheap as possible. Trenches would be ineffective except as a fixed and vulnerable means of concealment. My favorite weapon in this case would be some form of mini rocket launcher with various types of specialty munitions, but lasers, plasma guns, and the like are all fodder for these weapons.
* **EMP**: If these weapons (or related weapons) unleash massive amounts of electromagnetic interference, then drones and robotic weapons will be rendered increasingly worthless. even vehicle ignition systems will be rendered obsolete, and trucks would need to move troops to the edge of the battlefield, then drop them there or risk being incapacitated. Even missiles today are extremely dependent on electronics, and would need long "dumb" portions of their attack to overcome abundant EMP attacks. Surveillance and communications on the battlefield would be operated by simpler and simpler systems as even radios were destroyed.
* **Abundance/supply**: You can have modern forces, but if much of the world's industrial base has been shattered, then there may be significant forces around the world that only have limited access to trucks, tanks, etc. A world broken and rebuilt to only 20-30% will have variable tech, and horses may be relatively abundant while vehicles are scarce and short on parts.
* **Challenging terrain**: The roads are really bad, the mud is epic, the trees are dense enough vehicles can't get through, the passes and roads through the mountains aren't wide enough for vehicles. The soldiers may FIGHT from the ground, but move on horses.
* **Raiding tactics**: Your cavalry spends a lot of time on the move, burning villages, farms, supply depots, and the like in small, easily concealable bands. They ride into town, spray bullets everywhere, throw a bunch of Molotov cocktails, and generally try to make a mess of things. They would probably need to be able to steal the forage and other supplies they would need for their mounts.
So to actually carry men faster on the battlefield, or move supplies about in and quantity, you would need horses (or something like them). Infantry on horses with hit-and-run tactics would be more mobile than infantry. Any equipment in the direct field of conflict would get hauled by a horse or a horse-drawn cart.
Horses are still used in primitive conditions (especially in asymmetrical warfare) for hauling and mobility, but can't compete for these functions with modern equipment. So get rid of the modern equipment and see what happens. What is old is new again.
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**Break up infantry accompanying tanks.**
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/A9le4.jpg)
<https://alchetron.com/Charge-at-Krojanty>
I was watching videos of drones blowing up Russian tanks. These tanks usually have infantry around them as tanks should. I thought that cavalry would be good for a surprise attack out of the forest. The Poles thought so too in the above depicted Charge at Krojanty. Now I understand there are fine points about how this really went down but Polish cavalry did really attack tanks and infantry.
In a forest operation horses can go places that vehicles cannot, and they can go faster than people on foot. A mobile operation harassing a force moving through a forest would be a good use of cavalry.
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A specific example of depleted resources, a bacteria develops that has a particular taste for gasoline and other light-weight hydrocarbons. (Even more fun if it was developed secretly by some green-terror group and deliberately spread far and wide).
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Depletion of resources
Maybe resources such as fuel has become so depleted that only large governments such as in the one in your world, are able to afford fuel for their armoured vehicles. This means most people use horses and other battle mounts as they of course don't need fuel. Also maybe iron and other metals have also became so rare that many can't afford to use them for vehicles.
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What about dragoons?
If – for some reason – motor vehicles became impossible to produce or use, horses would be a good solution for transport to the battlefield. Dragoons originally dismounted for combat but then started to fight from horseback.
Another option is rough or mountainous or forest terrain which would also suit horses (or goats) more than tanks or motorcycles. Maybe not for riding into combat, but at least for transport.
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## Better horses
* Your horses have been reengineered for physical toughness. The usual graphene tendons and ligaments, diamond/lonsdaleite bone matrix and so on. This also works well on the soldiers and makes them more comfortable in the saddle.
* Like your soldiers, your horses have remarkable regenerative capacity. They can regrow lost limbs rapidly if given sufficient nutrients.
* Your horses have been reengineered for control. You can directly alter their autonomic reflexes so they are all consummate warhorses without fear of battle. Their coordination allows them to leap onto precarious platforms with great ease and confidence, ready to face off against the enemy. *This* also works well on your soldiers, at least from the government's point of view.
* Your horses have built-in quantum encrypted neural communications. They can be controlled at the speed of thought, like *Avatar* without the nice hairstyle.
* Your horses have a fully programmable biochemistry at the cellular level throughout their digestive tract. Their rumens and colons can generate a vast diversity of custom-coded chemical products, including explosive compositions, and package them in polymer enclosures. (The enemy still thinks this is horse\*\*\*t, but they will learn better soon!)
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**Change the battlefield** (but not in the same way as the other answer):
With one hundred years of military motivated selective breeding, you could ride almost what you want depending of the terrain:
* Ride big goats in steep moutain ranges. They can climb things that neither vehicules, horses nor men could.
* Ride big felines in deep jungles.
* Ride big ostriches in swamps...
There's a lot of places where vehicles aren't practical (and it's even more distinct when the terrain changes often).
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The US military already has a need for actual mounted cavalry, and various reports are issued on a yearly basis about the problems associated with the lack of.
While tanks and jeeps (humvees now, I guess) are meant to go offroad, they have limitations that preclude them from going through the roughest sorts of terrain. Often though, that's the exact place you need to send soldiers. Think "mountains of Afghanistan" though the problem isn't exclusive to that country. A soldier on foot can, in such terrain, move only 2-5 miles per day or something like that. It's not really an option to have them carry less stuff so that they can travel a few miles further.
The solution is for the military to have horses (and mules). They don't need gasoline or diesel, the things run on some grass or plant life you can usually find along the way. They can travel up inclines almost as well as humans themselves can, and they can carry alot of equipment with them if needed.
This solution isn't implemented for various reasons, one of which that the military has an incredible amount of inertia and often refuses to start doing what hasn't been done yet or refuses to stop what it has been doing. But probably the most pertinent is that it would cost alot to do this, for only small benefit. The animals are large, costly to maintain (and not just the animals, but having an actual corps or department to care for them, to train, etc), costly to move to the theater where they'd be used, and costly to return home once the mission is over. Even just training some soldiers to ride would be a not-inexpensive proposition.
Now, that said, this isn't "every soldier gets a horse" with big long lines ready to charge into the field of battle. This would be equipping a platoon or a company for specific missions, after which they might have the need again for a long while (or ever).
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**Lack of (compact) fuel and strong, lightweight armor**
This is really just an elaboration on John Dallman's answer - In a world without good compact power sources, animal power is needed. If we have strong enough armor to make an exosuit that is as effective against a machine gun as tank armor, then a horse could easily serve the same purpose as a tank. Riders could have similar armor and powerful rocket launchers to replace the munitions aspect of a tank.
Barbed wire is easily solved with some kind of lightweight plow (It already poses no cutting danger, but could still trip a horse), and the exosuit could incorporate a gas mask for chemical warfare
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**TL;DR**, it comes down to these points:
* **Cost of Fuel resources** (extraction cost & natural availability)
* **Accessibility on Terrains** (Wheels/Fans vs Legs/Wings)
* **Maintenance Overheads** (Stables vs Garages, Engineers vs Vets)
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Let us assume there's a stellar scientific research laboratory that has excelled in genetic engineering and mutations. They were able to create powerful war machines after mutating generations of domestic and wild animals. We are not talking horses or camels that run fast or elephants that are heavier. Imagine a rhino-horse that can run swiftly and can breakthrough enemy barriers including concrete walls. Mammoth elephant with the bone-strength of adamantium that can fully crush a tank if it stomps. Large wolf/cat-beasts that can bite/scratch steel.
Eventually it does come down to the source of fuel. Especially because fuel is the cost of operating a vehicle. Mutant-beast cavalry is a good fit for armies that reside in very inconsistent/difficult terrains which are devoid of fuel material and abundant in food. You can refer the climax fight of James Cameron's Avatar if you haven't already.
As someone had pointed out the use of modern artillery, either you can make the opponents not use them (which would be pretty anti-climatic) or design your army's battle strategies so that it will seem your army has the upper hand. For example, your army is fighting against the enemy in a rocky mountain rain-forest and the enemy has tanks and 4-wheelers, etc. As long as the enemy has all his ATVs/Aerial units functioning, they might win. Find a way for your army to get those numbers down, victory is yours.
Then again, battle strategy would be entirely up to your story scene. You might choose to keep a head-on battle also. Personally, not a favourite.
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# Ritualization of War
It could have become "dirty" or "not honorable" to fight wars with the stakes of the whole population of a country. Only a small military that is even standardised (every country has exactly 1000 soldiers, etc.) can do it similar to a sport. Think back to the concept of the duel over 100 years ago, that ha quite similar concepts.
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Big Government.
Really, really big, world spanning government. Or church, even.
While it's fine with civilian technology, any fief that takes on its neighbour had better use technology from prior to 1850, or it'll be instantly obliterated by the government's nukes or space mounted orbital laser systems immediately.
So horses it is! And duels.
The Catholic Church tried to regulate and even ban crossbows for a while, it's not as silly as it seems.
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Your enemy has an equine phobia so intense it paralyzes them into utter inaction at the mere sight of horses or hearing the approach of their hooves clopping.
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One thing that would cause horses to turn back is several rows of pikes. This was a defense against superior cavalry numbers utilized by infantry on foot. It is difficult to forc a horse to impale itself in a row of spikes as long as say 19 feet long. This is what their main purpose was to defend against cavalry attacks before gunpowder became a standard in European armies in particular. Later,
bayonets would be used the same way and perfected in a units ability (typically by battalion or company) to "form square" This required alot of training and discipline, if aught off guard and breached before they could form, usually in 4 sided "squares" 3 ranks deep as i battle at Quatre-Bras as a ptequ3lhere British (Scots and Coldstream-Guards forces repelled marshal Ney where they were held off after many repeated attempts to use infantry to force them to present a single line just to then try to force a way through by charging with cavalry before they could form square again
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In my world, a group of high-ranking politicians and military officials (along with their families and a few skilled engineers) realized that WW3 was imminent, and decided to bunker-down, big time: Using the most state-of-the-art technology, they built an impenetrable underground fortress, and remained within it for about 200 years.
About 180 years in, a woman named Christina Anders is born, unaware of life on the surface. But the surface dwellers still exist, and after encountering a group of them, she decides she wants to go up.
The surface is a wasteland. The region they’re in is a giant desert basically, with only a few scattered regions of fertile plant growth, and dozens of still existing radioactive hotspots.
This question came to me the other day: since Christina grew up underground her entire life, would this have any dire effects on her survival in the wasteland? If so, what are good ways for me to deal with said problems?
Context- The bunker dwellers live underground enclosed within the bunkers confines. I imagine something like a small underground town, made of metal and concrete. They have air, and lighting and whatnot, and are completely self-sufficient, growing food and producing/recycling water. Also all this is done with modern day tech.
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### Crippling hayfever. Possibly anaphylaxis.
When apollo 17 astronauts were exposed to dust particles their immune systems had never experienced before, they [had really bad hayfever.](https://www.futurity.org/lunar-hay-fever-astronauts-1749272/#:%7E:text=When%20US%20astronauts%20visited%20the,eyes%2C%20and%20a%20sore%20throat.) Your people have had purified air for generations, new pollen and dust will panic your immune systems.
You will hope you have kept some anti-histamines in reserve, as you'll probably need to take them for the rest of your lives.
If you're lucky, you'll only get symptoms outdoors in Spring. If you're unlucky, youl'll need to take it year-round.
### Supplement overdose
Assuming there previous diet was perfectly optimal (including supplements for things like vitamin d), and they come up and [continued that diet, while getting exposure to lots of sun](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-side-effects#13), they'd be a low risk of:
* vitamin d toxicity.
* hypercalcemia, or high blood calcium levels(digestive distress, such as vomiting, nausea, and stomach painn fatigue, dizziness, and confusion, excessive thirst, frequent urination)
* nausea, vomiting, poor appetite
* Stomach pain, constipation, or diarrhea
* Bone loss
* kidney disease and or failure.
Although this would take a long time to show up, theyd probably stop taking high levels of supplements long before it became an issue.
### Pandemic
You're bunker population, and the outside world, have gotten different viruses evolution over the 200 years. Merging these two biomes back together you'd see an outbreak of a new disease through your population. It may be a mild cold. It may be smallpox.
### Mental health issues:
* They'd find sleep very hard, their underground world was loud from machinery / air flow and dark, night in the wild is silent and, with the moon, can be quite bright.
* Some may be scared of open spaces.
* They'd have no sense of predators, and while they will be hunted by wolves, but wont be able to read the terrain / sounds / etc. They will be paranoid about any unexpected movement.
### Unable to read what their bodies are saying:
* Rain / snow / cold / exposure / frostbite / hypothermia would be a foreign concept. They wont know warning signs.
* Highly suspectable to Heatstroke / sunburn. Also wont know warning signs.
### Other:
They'd also he unfamiliar with the new environment and its risks, which would also affect them physically indirectly:
* Their eyes would struggle with bright sun. This would take a long time re-adjust.
* Theyd have no sense of direction and will get easily lost. Theyd have no long distance sense of distance either (that mountain looks so close!)
* Theyd be unable to walk or run long distance, even if relatively fit, having never walked more than a few hundred meters a day, the muscles wouldn't be used as much and they'd get sore muscles very quickly. (Depends on bunker layout)
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Assuming that the group will be able to steer her away from potential fatal errors from ignorance, here are some problems she may face:
1. Agoraphobia. Even if they had fairly large caves, the sky is far larger, especially since she's in a desert and there's no clouds. Slow acclimatization may be her best bet.
2. Eye issues. Much will depend on how bright the lighting is in the fortress, but they will not illuminate it as brilliantly as the desert can get. Sunglasses are important if possible. Otherwise she may have to try to stay inside during daylight hours, or use cloth to filter light
3. Sunburn. She has never been exposed to the sunlight's intensity and will burn badly. Sunscreen may not feasible in this era, so she may have to use clothing to protect herself, or avoid the bright days.
4. Heat and cold. Deserts tend to have severe variation between night and day in temperature, and she's not used to it. Following the guidance of her companions on clothes will help.
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If it is indeed a well-constructed underground habitat with sufficient ventilation, lighting, food production, medical facilities, and carefully managed population, there should be no physical effects at all. Ms Anders would lack only practical skills needed to navigate the outside world and communicate with surface dwellers.
It is fathomable that she would feel uncomfortable in big open areas or under a plain sky. But this is not necessarily a long-term condition. Once she adjusts to the new environment she should be completely fine.
I think that the only realistic possibility is lower resistance (up to no resistance) to bacteria/viri. Your bunker might be too clean and do not have enough microbial life for Ms Anders to develop immunity to pathogens common in the outside world. It is also probable that some bacteria/viri mutated in the past 180 years. If it is the case, she might also have some problems with indigestion while her digestion tract is being populated with the correct bacteria.
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Apart from everything else: [it's currently speculated that eye development is tied to sunlight](https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120), specifically the eyeball proportion gets out of whack if a person is too much in dim-ish light in their youth (compared to the outdoors). The result is myopia because the image is not focused on the retina despite the lens' capability.
Dunno about any developments in supporting or refuting this hypothesis.
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They would suffer from a radical shift in their **circadian rhythms**.
Our normal cycle of sleeping and waking up is based on a number of variables, but the most important is when we are exposed to sunlight. Without that external feedback people would adopt very different patterns, especially if they are underground their entire lives. When experiments were done where people were isolated in a dark cave for months on end they completely lost track of time, occasionally sleeping for over a day at a time without realizing it. This may be mitigated when there is a societal structure that could keep each other in check, but there is no reason they would live on a 24 hour cycle.
Coming up to the surface they would suddenly be exposed to a day/night cycle on a strict 24 hour cycle, which could completely upend the way they live. At best this could feel like extreme jet lag to them, but more likely their bodies would have no ability to adjust to the new cycle. This would be like a surface dweller suddenly trying to switch to a 30 hour day. It would be very disorienting and would feel like a constant jet lag over and over. It could take weeks or months to stablize, and some people may not be able to adjust at all
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My question is inspired by the Tolkienesque elven cycle of rebirth, but with a twist.
Suppose "elves":
* Do not experience aging after reaching maturity and do not die of old age or diseases
* Mature about half of the pace of a human
* After death reincarnate in new body
* Have similar fertility as humans, but there is a finite number of "elven spirits" and if all are incarnated then there is no possibility of conception (until somebody dies)
* Inheriting the "spirit" may have some mystical consequences (carrying over curses or prophecies) but nothing mundane like accumulating memory and knowledge.
* The pool size should be of a size that matters - this meaning being maxed-out during times of peace and prosperity. Let's say 100K or 1M.
* I would assume that the "elves" do not have too much pressure to breed - they have a lot time to have offspring. On the other hand, with being ageless, they need to dedicate a much smaller fraction of their lifespan to child rearing - so they can have a lot of children if they decide to.
I wonder what effect on demography would such setup would have?
I suspect that there would be a tendency for bigger communities to capture "slots" from smaller ones and, in effect, concentrate the population - but it is only a hunch. And conversely, when disaster strikes - a "breeding pair" in the wild can quickly rebuild population given lack of aging and diseases.
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Your elves will end up cautious.
The only way an elf can die is by accident or violence. All other things being equal: the birth rate amongst the various elf demographics is even and pegged to the species death rate, but the inter-group death rates are not equal, therefore the groups that grow the fastest are the ones that die the slowest.
Therefore: groups of elves whose cultures endorse caution will end up being the largest as their hastier brethren die and get reincarnated into the more cautious group.
This does assume that the rate of elf... erm... procreative events is uniform.
Otherwise: cautious, promiscuous groups grow fastest.
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**First, even before considering demographics.**
The main problem is, with ageless bodies, the pressure to have descendants lessen or may completely disappear. This kind of immortality brings a whole lot of problems and changes, which are partly solved by the limited numbers of souls. Overpopulation for one.
The elf civilization will have two repeating stages. Growing and peak.
**The growing stage:**
The elf population starts with low numbers. They will have limited and pretty unbalanced civilization, scaled towards the oldest and most knowledgable surviving elves talents and interests. They will make baby elves regularly and without care. The oldest are honored as keepers of knowledge. There may be elves out there who lived through numerous civilizational cycles. Their lifespan will be truly ageless and transcendent from worldly affairs, creating a mini council and sociaty of their own, to guide the "repeaters".
**The peak stage:**
The elf population reached its maximum. During the growing phase, there may have been conflicts during the families, but they put that behind themselves, by either uniting under a single family (ohh, sooo much incest!!!) or various families coming to agreement. The latter shouldn't be hard as with ageless bodies, much of the biological pressures which causes conflict are mitigated. You can simply wait your turn, improve existing technologies to have more.
The oldest elders are still honored, but there will be a shift. Having a child will be viewed as a gift, a blessing for those who want them. The youngest will be focused on by the whole community and they will be mini celebs, with all the resources at their disposal. Which will spoil them rotten, hastening the collapse of peak stage. Just look up the chinese little princes, with four grandparents. The same here just worst!
Babymaking will be either heavily regulated. It may reach sacred, ritualistic levels with priests and observers as the couple "summon" the spirit repeatedly. (Elf porn ftw!) The right of having one given to the priviliged or those who are next in line. Or they will slowly descend to nothing else but constantly trying to make babies, to increase the chance.
The truly desperate may kill the fellow elves to "free" their spirit... and fornicate on their victim's dying body to capture its spirit (Ghostbusters elf edition?) ... And its just part of the fun. In a max out population, with managable numbers like one million, each death is quickly noticed. A new pregnancy too. Which will lead to "spirit" lineages and other esotheric stuff.
The parents will give birth to the killed elf, good things memories aren't carried over... the dead's family will see the newborn as a lost loved one come back, made worse that relationships may lasts hundreds of years. All kind of insanity and craziness ensue, which will lead to the collapse and mass death of the elves.
**The cycle will start anew**, with the lead of the wise old who may have many such cycles behind them. Some of those may try to fix the problem, some may be dumb to the whole thing, as they lived through it so, so many times. Suicide among those may not be uncommon or negatively judged...
It would lead to all kind of interesting tradition, worldviews, religion, temperament, technologies and individuals, especially among the truly old.
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## Elves will value war.
During wartime, childbearing is encouraged, children are valued, and elders are revered.
During peacetime, childbearing is strictly regulated (both socially and with the inability to conceive imposed due to lack of souls), having too many children is seen as selfish, and elders are scrutinized for any sign of faltering (there might be more "accidents" or a ritual ending).
War is messy and inconvenient though. This means the elves will develop social class (or reinforce what they already have). The elite live in well-protected cities and the soldier-class elves fight for honor, land, glory, riches, whatever motivates them.
Just enough to keep the overall elf population down to a manageable level. By which I mean, the elite can have all the children they want and not suffer any social push-back from doing so, or from keeping their elders around forever. Soldier-class families can do the same, though they won't have many elders and the children will learn to fight and go off to war as they reach maturity, so there isn't time to have a lot of kids.
The elite population will increase though and, eventually, might reach a critical mass. No matter. The elites are already stratified and the lowest of them must now send their children (and all future generations) out to be officers in the fight for justi...whatever.
Those children raise their families out in the danger zone and population equilibrium returns. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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As a direct counter to one of the other answers, bear in mind that some of the points below may be mutually exclusive;
**Your Elves will end up reckless**
Once the Elven population reached ElfMax, each individual knows that their death will be followed very shortly by their rebirth. Sure they'll forget things, but members of a society with such strong evidence of the continuation of the soul may regard death and rebirth as important life stages.
**Health Benefit**
Even if you're not ageing, that doesn't mean you haven't let yourself go. Accident or over indulgence can cause issue for everyone. Eventually a renewal of your policy is called for, even if it does mean you have to watch the Harry Potter movies again.
**Draconian Society Management**
Everyone lives for ever, and in an interconnected society? That guy who keeps cutting me up on the tree branch is making my blood boil every god damn day. And he feels that same about you. Eventually the magistrates have to step in and assign both of you to reincarnation to get over it. After all it's still you, and you shouldn't have let this get so far out of hand.
**Chasing the Power**
The question says that mythical things can carry over to the re-incarnation. Just like the bank accounts in [Jupiter Ascending](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1617661/), well every family wants those mythical powers and/or cash for themselves. If the family Assassin can take out the current holder of the AllSpark, just as our team of marathon procreaters are getting started, then we can control that power.
**Personal Situation Improvement**
Maybe it is just not going well; homeless, broke or unlucky in love? Why not roll the dice again? I could be a Prince next time.
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Such a reality could also create wandering elves. As having families is restricted to those who are lucky/rich enough to win the child lottery, the idea of perpetually living in the same groups could cause some to leave to find new experiences outside the elvish realm.
They might try and form families with other races like humans, potentially with offspring who would then have human souls. You could have a whole other issue if one of these mixed offspring was to get a precious elvish soul - there would likely be some group or certainly families that would seek to kill these mixed people to free their souls for use by the core elvish population.
There might be rituals developed so that someone who is killed can have their soul imparted into a pregnancy straight away. That all depends on how things work. Are souls bound to a body during conception, before birth. Can a female get pregnant then hold the baby at an early stage of development until a soul is ready? Are souls only ever randomly assigned or can the process be manipulated?
Going back to the wanderers, they may also be targets for assassination to free their souls or simply to bring them back to pledge allegiance to one faction or another. In a limited pool, numbers would be important and controlling as many as possible would be key. I don't see any impoverished elves in such a situation as the rich would use their wealth to buy the support of those with less. This could then lead to large numbers of elves becoming lazy as they see their existence is more important than their efforts - conversely lazy elves might be killed to make room for potentially more productive elves.
Lots of possibilities here, interesting question.
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What is this "spirit" that is inherited through reincarnation? It seems to me that a person is very nearly completely defined by his memories, particularly if you extend the concept of memory to include all changes to the brain that result from perception. That is, changes to personality that result from experience, as well as conventional recollections but excluding physical damage to the brain. The personality will also be affected by the body in which it finds itself, but this is pretty well covered by genetics and the accidents of development.
Without memory how could anyone (including the person reincarnated) determine who had been reincarnated where? In any case, what significance would it have?
Presumably there would be some kind of spiritual civil service to make sure that the curses and prophesies are correctly allocated.
On the other hand, if memory was inherited physical evolution could be accelerated, as anyone finding themselves in an unsatisfactory body could kill it and hope to get a better one next time.
As long as curses and prophesies are the only tangible attributes transferred to a new incarnation they will be what determines rational behaviour. As an example, imagine that someone was cursed with death by dragon fire. There would then be a clear incentive for the rest of the population to put him in the path of a belligerent dragon to avoid the risk of someone's child inheriting his fate.
Similarly, if a person of whom it was prophesied that he would bring great wealth and honour to his parents were to die with the prophecy unfulfilled this could prompt a surge of copulation by people hoping to capture the spirit, and hence the prophecy, in their child.
I would expect people who had, or at least could convincingly claim to have, a good understanding of the way in which spirits were allocated to new bodies, and who could advise prospective parents on the most propitious times for conception, to be a prominent feature of the society.
Of course this assumes that curses and prophesies are tangible phenomena. Otherwise all you have is another superstition, of which you could find several similar examples in human culture.
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This system would have some interesting consequences with regard to the criminal demographic. To start with, death is not the end of the world, but a (monumental) setback. Therefore, murder can be seen as comparable to theft or vandalism. This also means that the death penalty is a less harsh punishment as it is a free "get out of jail"-card. Even better in fact, since the criminal starts with a clean slate. However, curses are transcendal, so a logical solution would be curses which would mark criminals until their punishment is finished. This would result in a caste of "untouchables", similar to real-life communities who believe in reincarnation.
Considering that elves don't age, and the death penalty is less harsh, the most severe punishment would be livelong imprisonment. This punishment would be reserved for the most monstrous criminals who are not allowed redemption. This system would ensure that they suffer as much as possible, but not being allowed to die, creating a Hell for the living. On long term, this would mean that the most ancient elves are not the wise and respected elders, as one would expect, but the most heinous criminals.
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In a lot of fantasy world's the instruments used are the same or very similar to our own, the real reason why is obvious: the creators would have to create a music system from the down up which is very difficult. However I would like to know if there is a good reason why they tend to be similar, and whether I am going to have to either just have similar instruments or rebuild the music system (I don't want to do that)?
I would like to clarify that the reason I haven't disclosed specifics of the world I am creating is that I am just asking in general but as it has been asked I will share the materials. The most important factor is the general rarity of wood but abundance of Bamboo like materials and, for the characters, for now they can just be humans.
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If you're assuming an atmosphere anywhere like ours (so basically the same acoustics), ears anywhere like ours (20 -- 20,000 Hz.) and hands like ours, then **yes, you would probably see considerable convergent evolution of musical instruments, based on a few key mechanical oscillators or resonators, namely, vibrating membranes, air columns or strings:**
* drums: An enclosed air volume in a thin-walled container; energy from being struck by something else. Often with a vibrating membrane covering an opening. The vibrating membrane or thin walls transfer their vibrations to the air. (Gongs or cymbals are similar, a semirigid membrane, by itself.)
* whistles: A long, thin column of air is excited by air blown into a reed or across an opening. The column (and its container) may be flared at one end to better couple the vibrations into the outer air.
* vibrating strings: Strummed, bowed, plucked or struck strings, if under sufficient tension, will sustain vibration. These can be bare (old lyres and harps), coupled to a resonating volume and/or a resonating membrane (banjo.)
Note: The above isn't meant to be all inclusive.
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If you take a string and vibrate it, and then take a string identical to the first but half its length, you will notice it makes a sound exactly one octave higher than the original.
Many key concepts to primitive music are very simple and likely to be discovered by any culture with a creative instinct. Even the piano isn't so complicated: all it does at its most basic level is strike a string with a hammer when a key is pressed.
You may want to preserve some of the original instruments like the flute and lyre, but maybe expand based on your people's tastes or preferences. A culture that doesn't value individualism all that much would probably focus on many small instruments each playing their part. A culture that does would probably develop something like the piano that has a wide range and can play solo music easily.
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I think that the broad *categories* of instruments would remain, as they are simply ways of making a pleasant noise. Strings, percussion and wind are likely to evolve whatever happens.
Past that though, who knows what will happen? The drum is pretty likely to occur, but who knows what might turn up in the strings or wind sections? The more complex the instrument, the less likely it is to turn up in a parallel universe - so a recorder or flute is quite likely, a piano much less so.
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Music is the mathematics of sound, an A 440 is going to be an A 440 cycles per second. An octave above is going to be 880, and an octave below is going to be 220.
Since math and physics don't change, the required design of musical instruments is going to have to adhere to the physics behind producing sound. The length, tension, and thickness of strings is going to be consistent, as will the distance between holes on flutes and other similar instruments. Same thing with percussion, skins on drums will have to conform, as will shapes, and other designs.
The math and physics of sound are constant, and will therefore restrict the design of instruments.
The exception would be as with some instruments in Asia which follow different musical rules and don't use the octal or chromatic scales, so if you had music that followed different rules, the instruments may take on a slightly different appearance, but the basic rules would still apply. Regardless of the tone, the only thing that would change from a microtone string instrument, would be the length and tension on the strings, and perhaps the number of strings, however, the limitations on the human body would also dictate the design.
For example, a guitar could not exceed the length for a human to play it. A keyboard would retain the same basic design, as it would have to accommodate the reach of a human hand, Schumann tried to extend his reach, but ended up crippling himself.
The same applies for amplification, you need an opening or openings behind the strings to amplify the sound.
Then of course different materials make different sounds based on their materials, and the materials are also restricted by physics. Glass is rarely used due to it's fragility and the difficulties that resonance brings to the table. (ever see an opera singer shatter a glass?)
Math, physics, and the limitations of the human body are constants and will severely limit what musical instruments can look like.
Now, if you had an alien physiology, then some interesting designs could occur, and that would overcome the limitations of the human body, but the same physical limitations would apply to what actually makes the sound, and amplification of the sound (assuming no power to amplify by other means)
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Think of the evolution of music as an abstract expression of language and biology. You've got the rhythmic - heartbeats, sex, breathing -
and the melodic - language, and tonal communication like grunts, yelps, etc.
And less important today, but probably very central in primitive societies - sound effects, for story telling - rattles, rainsticks, stylised and simulated animal and bird calls
So when we discovered music, it was because something in it connected with us - the plinks of water in this cave sounded like it was talking to us; or hitting something in time as a sexual frustration. It's very primal stuff, of course it matured and was refined, and nowadays all the variations of it are purely cultural. We like what we are brought up with and are used to - tuning systems can get weird, time signatures can be complicated, but the roots of sex and communication remain.
In terms of pre-electronic instrument design, they're always going to conform to the fairly limited methods of producing percussive and melodic sounds, which others have run through far better than me. But in terms of the musical system, overall anything human is going to be roughly similar in the same way that human language is roughly similar. For an alien species, their music is going to be inspired by their biology and their language and communication. So probably won't sound anything like the Mos Eisley band. But totally plausible that aliens may like listening to subtle variations of white noise, or painful shrill droning. It's pretty much infinite
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If your fantady world is roughly like our own, you get the answers provided previously, which make this implicit assumption.
But if they're [underwater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_vocalization#Production_of_sound) sound has some different qualities and different building methods are available.
If they are in a supercritical fluid, a vacuum, a nonlinear medium etc. you will also have differences, as we noted above in a noncompressible medium.
In a [two dimensional world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Planiverse) A. K. Dewdney notes the construction of several possible instruments and also alludes to the fact that air vibrations will distort with distance, changing the nature of the music.
But you said this is a *fantasy* world,so we are not limited by physics. You can have completely novel instruments that rely on magic to function. You can have made-up rulee for how sound interacts with magical objects and even the air itself around holy sites.
You ask, however, why similar instruments *would* develop, not whether different instruments would (also) develop. So a fantasy world may have unique magical instruments, but does the presence of a recognisable lyre or flute need to be *explained*? They will develop (also) **if they are possible**. If the physics and environment allow such instruments to work, and suitable materials are available, then you will have convergent development of the families of instruments we recognise.
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Well, in terms of differences, to start, the octave would probably be divided into a different number of basic parts. We use 12 here in America, but what's to stop them from using less or more? The frequencies of notes would also be different, since these are arbitrary (so it would probably sound exotic and/or out of tune with music we hear). Strings vibrating, Membranes vibrating, air columns vibrating are all good general types of instruments. Vocals would also probably be somewhat replicated, as long as whatever the species communicates with uses sound. The rhythms too would be different. We tend to like 4s for beats, but this is arbitrary. There might be, say, 17 beats per measure. And just imagine all the crazy scales! Minor may sound sad to us, but with so many other variables, anything could happen. I'd say try to be creative in not conforming too closely with human musical trends.
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Assuming similar environmental conditions for a fantasy world (not an underwater or vacuum atmosphere, for example) and a similar physics system, the basic methods of making sound (and thus music) will remain the same.
There is a short movie created by Disney in 1953 titled ['Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iVf0pPHvjc) That talks about how all music instruments are based on brass (toot), woodwinds (whistle), stringed, (plunk), or percussion (boom). In other words, to make a vibration you can hear in the air, you can cause a tube of air to vibrate (brass such as trumpet or tuba), a vibration due to a constriction of a flow of air (a whistle or woodwind), a vibrating string under tension (guitar, piano, violins, or human vocal chords), or cause an object to vibrate by striking it (drums, bells, or rattles).
Since humans have experimented with many variations of these four basic sound producing methods, any fantasy world will probably have musical instruments similar to if not identical to a historical human instrument.
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For completeness, I add the somewhat obvious (but not mentioned yet) conjecture that any human society with our or a similar level of technology will develop **electronic music** (and whatever you would like to call the "instruments" (computers) that produce such music).
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I agree with other authors here. Music itself will emerge from the physics of sound, and running humanity over again from backup will result in something roughly the same. However, it all depends on human physiology and our atmosphere: change our bodies (to hear differently, broader ranges of frequencies for instance, or give us fins instead of arms?) and the sky's the limit.
Different bodies in different media (air, water, space gas) will cause a different set of 'rules and requirements' for musical instrument design, I'd think.
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I can imagine our own civilisation becoming [autotrophic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotroph) eventually, if biological life gives way to a population of machines that need only sunlight. However, the history of that situation still involved a long period of organic life forms eating each other.
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So my question is about an **organic evolutionary history** with **only autotrophic organisms**, that still leads to civilisation.
I'm imagining a world in which organic life forms evolve to gain energy from light/other radiation/heat/chemicals in the environment without any of them ever evolving to gain energy from eating other life forms. That is, an entire evolutionary history without any of the life forms eating others.
I see two potential obstacles to this:
* Without the increased complexity of competition involved with eating and being eaten, and the far higher energy density available, intelligence may never emerge.
* Even if the emergence of intelligence *is* possible that way, it may be impossible to have a large varied population without the spontaneous emergence of organisms that eat others.
I'd like to know if there are natural situations in which these two obstacles would not apply (naturally - not in the form of an overseeing species that tends the life on a new world to remove heterotrophs). I'd also like to hear about any other potential obstacles that I should take into account if this autotroph world is to be believable.
Since "civilisation" is subjective, I'm looking for a world that has developed to the point of having at least one species using learned language to communicate and record history.
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***To clarify, I am looking for a natural evolution from scratch, not asking about machines. The introductory paragraph shows a simple example of a population ending up autotrophic, to contrast with my goal of a population that has always been autotrophic, right through its evolutionary history.***
Also, the environment need not be Earth-like. I'm looking for environment/conditions under which this might be plausible. So if the limited amount of energy on Earth is a restricting factor, could it still be possible in a very different environment with much more available energy?
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I don't see how the situation you suggest is possible. As soon as one species develops the ability to consume another it will have a massive competitive advantage since animals are a denser source of energy than plants which are a denser source of energy than sunlight.
In other words you would need something pretty massive in place to stop the evolution of consumption. The Giant's Trilogy (James P Hogan, good trilogy, I recommend it) has an alien world where all animals have evolved a way to be incredibly toxic to each other. This means that they are all herbivores as no carnivores evolve, but even there the animals eat plants.
Assuming it did happen though then competition would definitely still emerge (just look at trees in a forest jostling each other for light for example). Intelligence is much harder to justify though, there is a huge energy cost in running a brain and so the gains need to outweigh those costs. Plants are not mobile enough to need much intelligence, and sunlight is not a dense enough power source to give them much mobility.
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life in abundance produces competition. Go to any forest, (it's more obvious than a prairie) you can see the trees and other plants all fighting to get their share of the sunlight.
And plants have fungus and bacteria that attack them.
Maybe if one thing only eats something else after it has died? because you will need something to eat and 'decompose' the dead or you everything will just die and take up space, or the life forms never die. I think right there is the major problem, what happens to the dead? And once you have something that eats the dead, what stops them from starting on the feeble? or making them sick/feeble?
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You might see this if life somehow evolved in **extremely high radiation.** Either much closer to a star, or around a much hotter/brighter star.
Then it might be possible that energy storage actually ends up being less efficient than simply getting it from the environment. So autotrophs would have the advantage, and "eating other things" wouldn't really make sense. Competition would be competing for raw energy collection, which might involve combat but lifeforms wouldn't be eating each other for energy. This would provide the potential impetuous to develop intelligence.
You will likely need *something* to at least break down other things for the raw ingredients, the "what to do with the dead" question that other answers have brought up.
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Plants are out. Even if you increased the efficiency of photosynthesis to the point that a plant could think and run around, there would be no reason for it to. Sunlight is the same everywhere within reasonable walking distance, so there is little incentive to move, especially when you have to be huge to expose enough area to the sun.
Chemotrophs could work though. With the right conditions they could behave much like regular animals - they just happen to eat rocks instead of plants or other animals.
**Single celled life**
Start with the necessary chemicals bubbling up from underground. When this happens, small organisms reproduce rapidly, feeding until there is no usable energy left and the rock has been reduced to a fine dust.
Wind picks up the surface layer of dust, and a few survive long enough to be blown to a new deposit, where the cycle repeats.
**Early evolution**
Mobility would be an advantage in this environment - first to simply move to denser energy sources faster than the competition, but also to make it to the next food source. Some would grow wings to more easily catch the wind and be carried further. Others would grow legs and store enough energy to be able to walk a useful distance into the desert. Most would still die, but the slightest advantage is enough to get evolution going.
You could also have trees, extending roots down to get at chemicals deep underground. The bacteria can't do that if the reaction also requires something from the air.
**Complex organisms**
Walking around works best with an internal digestive system, so these creatures would probably lose the ability to simply sit on a rock and absorb it. There are a couple of ways it could work.
* All the cells could retain the ability to use the original energy source. Digestion just means separating it from the ingested rock and getting it into the bloodstream.
* Cells are more specialized to the point of being similar to regular animal cells. Stomach bacteria convert the rock and air into organic material that can be digested in the normal way.
The creatures would grow larger, because that makes it easier to walk long distances between food sources, or to fight off any competition once you get there. This isn't necessarily a peaceful planet - nothing worth eating is quite different from nothing worth killing.
**Intelligence**
With larger creatures it is possible to have a large brain without using too high a percentage of the available energy.
Evolving intelligence would be a definite advantage. Recognizing the geology that is likely to mean a fresh energy source nearby. Tool use to dig through the dust and uncover deeper deposits without waiting for them to be exposed naturally.
**Civilization**
Mining takes the place of agriculture on Earth, allowing the people to settle in one place and develop a civilization. Depending on the chemical reaction used as the original energy source, it may be reversible once the civilization can use fire or another external energy source, which would make it even easier to grow a city.
**Removing heterotrophs**
Avoiding the development of predators (or even mushrooms) is harder. Life has a way of filling every niche there is.
I don't think toxicity will work. For just about any toxic substance you can name, there is something out there that will happily eat it.
Energy density is better, but not perfect. The initial bacteria can be efficient enough that almost all of the material they take in is converted into an unusable low energy form that isn't worth eating, but once the original food supply is exhausted, being able to feed on what's left would be a huge advantage.
**Limiting heterotrophs**
It might be possible to limit heterotrophs to lower life forms if there is generally not enough extractable energy in animal cells - fungi growing on a carcass is unavoidable, but chasing down prey to eat is never worthwhile. The concept of heterotrophy would be familiar, but a civilization of humanoid mushrooms would seem very alien.
Earth type life evolving independently is also a possibility. You could slow that down with active geology that is helpful to the chemotrophs until they start trying to build cities and a shortage of liquid water.
Stable civilization requires the planet to quieten down a bit, so life as we know it will still evolve, but the chemotrophs have a billion year head start - They are building a civilization while everything else is still limited to single celled organisms.
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Realistically? No.
But as far as world building goes I think you could do it by taking Tim B's answer as a basis: Extreme toxicity, but then of course in the plants themselves. Now he claims that there is no reason for the plants to develop mobility and/or intelligence, but all you need for that is a more aggressive planet. The most peaceful option would for example be a huge planet with an extremely strong star and a very dense set of clouds with holes in them moving *extremely* slowly (no idea what the correct name for it would be, but we have them here on Earth from time to time, so creating a world where they are far more common would be doable) and give a huge advantage to a 'plant' moving along with the hole. Even better this would lead to more and more fighting between the 'plants' to stay 'in' the hole and even though they can't eat each other, this will still cause a nice amount of competition and as cloud coverage isn't exactly constant it can lead to a bit of diversity (e.g. the mobile plants develop in the desert where holes are constant, whilst around mountains you get more traditional plants). So what is the weak point in all of this? You probably can't make a plant toxic to *all* other organisms. Still though, world building has never been about perfect realism, it's about creating believable worlds and for that the idea of toxicity is perfectly adequate. The trick is just in thinking up a scenario where competition and murder will become worth it.
Either way, given the above you would then allow these 'plants' grow more powerful and bigger and bigger. These bigger, stronger 'plants' would overtake the 'dumber' communities that exist in places where the cloud coverage isn't as bad. Here they would very slowly develop till they figure out ways to disrupt the flow of the clouds using some kind of combined effort which would allow the creation of villages in the rest of the world as well.
An interesting alternative to sunlight would be organisms fighting for heat from an active core of a planet. There are [deep sea communities which live near underwater volcanoes that function like this](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hydrothermal_vent#/Biological_communities). Still I think it's harder based on that to build a full ecosystem, but just maybe you could use it as a foundation for some more diversity in the previously described ecosystem. As in, you could have lots of lava vents in the world and as there is no competition with photosynthetic plants most of the time they would be free to grow. Next the mobile 'plants' could murder whatever shape these communities take and build their tools out of them or something.
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Read Ben Bova's *Jupiter* or *Leviathans of Jupiter*. For this science fiction novel he postulates that the storms and high densities in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter create a nutrient/food that is not a living entity. This filters down to the depths of Jupiter where the Leviathans have evolved (with intelligence). The leviathans eat only this "manna" like substance. In this story other creates eat the Leviathans, but you could easily take them out of the picture. Population levels would fluctuate based upon the availability of the manna. The Leviathans in the story reproduce through a process very similar to mitosis. So when food is scare they stop dividing. When food is plentiful the divide more frequently.
Any location that could support life, had sufficiently large source of energy and sufficient space could potentially develop life as you suggest.
Perhaps the right stellar nebular has bred intelligent life in this way. The energy demands of movement in 0-g and low-g environments is much lower and perhaps sunlight could be strong enough to support it.
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For four years, I lived in the Amazon forest. Of all the environments on earth, you would think this to be the most likely to be the most closely autotrophic environment on earth, huge rainforest, just converting light energy to life sustenance. But it is the most violent place I have ever seen. I tell people that when a person walks into the Amazon, the jungle starts licking its lips. Even the native people's relationship with the jungle is one of nearly animalistic survival - consume the jungle or be consumed by it.
The soil in the Amazon is terrible. All the rain washes out the nutrients from the soil terribly fast. So when the native people clear out a plot to plant anything, they get soil that supports hardly any crops. So one wonders why the forest is so green. The answer is in a very fast, efficient, ruthless cycle of life and death. Plants and animals alike are constantly dying and the survivors consume as much of the nutrients as they can before the rain washes them away. And the plants are not just passively competing for light. They are actively killing each other and animals, so they may have more nutrients. Many of the plants will even inject chemicals into the soil, by their roots, to do away with competition, and when trees outgrow each other, they are only too happy to consume the loser's rotten remains.
So if the most likely autotrophic environment we know turns out to be the most perfect example of eat-or-be-eaten. I'd say the indications we have is that no matter which way you slice it, things will develop ways to eat each other.
Faxn and Quentin propose some plausible scenarios, but even there, I can imagine predatorial traits developing. Quentin shows the difficulty of removing or even limiting heterotrophs, and in Faxn's world, I can easily imagine that survivors at the edges of one of the catastrophic events might benefit from turning around and eating the dead or even other weakened lifeforms. Imagine if in Faxn's world, some of the lifeforms realize that if they run toward the danger warning, they will encounter a ready source of predigested energy. The danger warning becomes a dinner bell to predators - too tempting a possibility for life not to give it a shot.
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I like the way you're thinking and would like to offer some reasons why the species may evolve. However, there is one thing I'm not sure about, but I'll get to that.
**Competition**
* You brought up a great point about competition being a factor in the necessity to for a species to grow and develop to the point you're speaking of. Even without the search for food, there's always something to compete over. If the planet were completely 100% autotrophic, and no life were to develop the ability to consume other life(even single celled organisms), then there will likely still be the need to procreate and therefore populate new land. Species might compete for land to support their populations, thus giving reason why they may evolve defensive and offensive abilities, as well as behaviors, strategies, and innovations to suit.
**Communication**
* I would expect that since they get their energy from the sun or heat or radiation etc, that they still would need a good source of water. They may never have orifices for any reason other than breathing, drinking, hearing, and scent(which would be for finding water sources and evading competitors). In fact, they may be able to absorb moisture through their skin like some reptiles and amphibians. This might limit their communication to skin coloration(much like the giant squid), physical motion, etc. rather than truly vocal communication.
**Fire**
* As many animals do, this species may get creative when looking for their needed energy sources(especially if they get energy from the sun/heat and seek more energy after sunset). This could eventually lead to an understanding of the dynamics of fire, and the creation of fire.
**Higher Intelligence**
* One of the greatest contributing factors to higher intelligence is the capacity for imagination. Imagination, innovation and creativity are closely tied together. If the species can be creative/imaginative/innovative, they can grow in that creativity and become truly sentient.
**But...**
* They don't consume matter, so their bodies have no matter to work with to grow or maintain itself. So, they would have to have some way to get all they need from minerals/chemicals. Even plants require some matter along with their sun air, and water. Seeds are packed with nutrients that the plant needs to begin the fulfillment of its potential for life. Where would these things start? What matter does their body use? Do they only absorb matter that is soluble?
Many questions, but still intriguing enough that I created an account to answer.
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I think it might be plasuble for predators to never evolve. Here's an abstract template for such a world.
Imagine life evolving on a world that has frequent extremely destructive natural disasters, like meteors strikes or high intensity storms (or something more fantastical like spacequakes or phlebotinum shocks).
There are various ways life can evolve around such a pressure, but one in particular gets the result you want, spreading thin. Populations of autotrophs get as far away from each other as they can manage to increase chances that more of them are where the disaster isn't and thus survive to make a next generation.
They evolve movement to facilitiate this spreading out, basic communication might evolve as a warning system, even if they are never fast enough to escape a disaster once it's detectable, if A detects a disaster and warns B b might be able to move father away sooner and thus live.
Now imagine a predator trying to evolve in this, your prey spread out to the farthest edges of their preception, and their first, most important communication is "danger! get away from here!".
Stopping carrion eaters is harder, plentiful corpses from the disaster would build up. This might be fixed by placing this whole thing on a gas giant. living things float, dead things fall the core where the pressure is too high for life.
Inteligence and socicity evolve from the shouted warnings of disasters, If patterns exist in the disasters being able to predict them is a huge advantage. Even just being able to describe the location of current storms better could help.
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I'm going to break from the mold and say this is plausible; here is why:
Competition is not the only agency at work in evolution. In fact, it isn't even a majority shareholder. Most life-on-life interactions are either complementary or indifferent. Few relationships are actually competitive. Early scientists where not immune from injecting philosophical bias into their theories; people, in general, find it difficult to even notice, let alone understand, unfamiliar behaviors. The idea the life in forest ecologies are competitive by nature is an example of just such an anthropic projection. Sunlight is mostly anti-biotic and trees rush to fill gaps in the canopy to protect and nurture life in the understory, which in turn recycle the tree's waste. Plants tent to only grow within their niche and few plants actively 'steal' food from others. Hemlock grows slower than Douglas Fir, and as such spends much of its life shaded. It does, however, tend to average a longer lifespan, the wood is hardier, denser and will, eventually, break through to the upper canopy. Trees can still grow in shade/partial sunlight(albeit retarded), the main advantage of filling the canopy comes from protecting the understory, a completely symbiotic act. Imagine a couple of big, old oak trees who have grown into each other and become entangled. One person might look at this and 'see' them competing for sunlight and canopy space. Another person, of a different altruistic persuasion, might 'see' them providing structural support for each other. Many modern biologists have been attempting to trend perception of evolutionary mechanisms to reflect evidence suggesting that, in the game of life, altruism is the best, most used strategy. Although any strat, so long as it's reproductively successful, can persist. Intelligence, I'd contend, is more the product of reproductive selection than survivability.
However, this is an argument against competition in evolution is nearly moot when considering a completely autotrophic ecology (I felt someone had to be the voice of Kropotkin amongst all these Darwinists). With this question, we're muddling about the thin, hazy ontologic boarder between what constitutes 'life' and 'non-life'. Is life the process or the processor? Or both? Does it have to be cellular? Can not any indefinitely sustainable chemical reaction be considered alive? It's not simple to strictly separate 'organic' from 'inorganic' compounds in this respect. We tend to think of life as being cellular, and when observing the cell we see a complex factory, self sustaining and replicating at the behest of thousands of decidedly non-autorophic, indeed heterotrophic processes. For you to argue a completely autotrophic ecosystem, than you are most likely to describe non-cellular basis for life, molecular automatons, which would themselves hardly be recognizable as 'life', and might simply be dismissed as a wholly chemical, geologic, or otherwise 'natural' process.
Yet we yield, for the sake of the question, arriving at a civilization of intelligent beings after some process akin to evolution. To do this we would accept beings of 'structural complexity', rather than 'chemical complexity'. A very subtle distinction. The main contention with your idea of a strictly autotrophic ecology is the build up of waste. Excrement, shedding, carcases, and other materials must be recycled in some way, or else the entire niche might eventually suffocate. If you're attempting some sort of 'living sand', 'living slime', or 'living smoke' I don't see how it would be distinguishable as 'living' without making some chemical alteration to its structure and strata. Even then, the mechanism responsible for building/stacking is going to require fuel for motivation, a chemical reaction, or else we sorta deflate the meaning of the word 'food'. To be truly autorophic we would describe some natural process which can recycle chemical(food) waste.
Because we have fuel requirements to attain locomotion for large organisms, these organisms would be an advancement of growth, rather than separable species. That is to say, your beings are theoretically immortal, beginning life as something similar to lichen or slime mold, and growing into an intelligent, complex being. I would imagine alteration in life cycle would lend to an interesting social structure. The young are 'cultured', and grown as we humans would tend a garden. Even so, we need some mechanism for the building/stacking of the 'organic' aspects and a way to distinguish where one sand monster ends and another begins, and what exactly differentiates them from their environment. This is some form of life with a distinctly different chemistry than what we are familiar with on earth. Think an ecosystem at home in the churning storms of a gas giant, or a very actively volcanic world, or something truly exotic living in a heliosphere, or within the probabilistic permutations of a black hole's compressed condensate. Someplace where natural processes can fill in the gaps which would otherwise be filled by other organisms.
Careful, however, if we stretch the definition of life too far, than even the hydrogen atom could be considered alive!
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It is not possible for an entire eco-system to be autotrophic. Eventually a mutation will allow a species to consume the other, and when that happens the consuming species will have a *MASSIVE* evolutionary advantage in the form of significantly higher energy densities ensuring that mutation will spread.
However, civilization doesn't usually refer to an entire eco-system, only the collection of sapient beings. You could therefore try looking at the idea of autotrophic sapients evolving in a world with other non-autotrophic organisms.
For this to be possible at all it would require *MUCH* higher energy density then the earths sun provides though. There isn't enough energy density to support active movement from the sun, and without that not much reason to waste further energy on a brain.
I don't think you can just move a planet closer to the sun either. Rather or not intellegent life can evolve so close to a sun and at such high temperatures implied by such is...a complicated subject that not everyone agrees on. However, it doesn't really matter, as no matter how much energy is available from the sun it's unlikely that sapients would evolve from photosynthesis. The problem is that with photosynthesis the more surface area available the more energy available, and thus life will be encouraged to focus on covering as much surface area as possible. There isn't enough of a justification to evolve complex intellect and movement, even if the energy density allowed it, for a 'plant', the optimal strategy is to go with the R approach of spreading uot with lots of plants and growing as fast as possible, and generally just enduring being eaten, rather then adopting complex locomotion that would be a prerequesite for a sapient brain to be advantageous.
Instead the only means I could see is for this species to produce their energy via a form of chemosynthesis which requires a *limited* chemical or substance to fuel the reaction. Such that the creature had to evolve locomation to persue this chemical it needs to fuel it's energy production. Effectively the creature still 'eats' and still 'hunts', it just happens to be hunting a non-organic substance which technically makes it autotrophic.
This substance would have to be renewable enough to sustain a species for a very long time, even from an evolutionary perspective, but also require hunting to find. This would suggest it's a substance created as a side effect of a major weather pattern or something similar. As to what that substance is...I have no idea. I'm not a chemist so I can't even begin to think of a good source of energy that would be produced regularly enough but still be consolidated into a high energy density container *and* spread out enough to require movement to find and collect it.
Even assuming you had that though...the species in question is unlikely to ever become sapient. It's not that such a species couldn't theoretcially become sapient, the problem is that they are too slow in the evolutionary arms race. Species that prey on this species will have a far higher energy density available to them, which will mean more available energy to spend on brain power. Predatory species will also have an additional driver in intellect due to their need to hunt more intellegent prey trying to avoid them. The net result is that the non-autotrophic species likely will be driven towards sapiens faster and it's quite likely they will achieve it first. Once that happens it's unlikely a second species will ever achieve sapience since the first species will likely domesticate or alter the living paterns of other intellegent species before they can evolve to sapients (and on a grimer, but frankly accurate, stand point it's likely the sapient species will develop technology of such a scale that they manage to so alter the world that they drie other species to extinction. The exponential rate of technological development once sapience is reached is so high that unimaginablely powerful technology is expected within a evolutionary heartbeat, it's just a matter of time before someone employs that technology foolishly).
So...yeah it still wouldn't happen. But I think the above description is the most proabably option if you wanted to create a world with an autotrophic sapient species and you would simply have to handwave the other topics.
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Some form of competition would seem to be inevitable, as various sub elements of the machine ecosystem competed for resources. They might not "eat" each other in ways that we would understand the term, but there would be analogous behaviours including predation, parasitism and even symbiosis, and perhaps stranger behaviours which have no direct analogues in the natural environment.
Taking over CPU cycles of "prey" and running botnets to consume their computing resources could be considered a form of predation if done by force, or parasitism if delivered stealthily. There may even be mutually beneficial relationships between elements of machine ecosystems where units share CPU cycles for particular tasks in a symbiotic relationship. This is just a very simple analogy, and I'm sure far more complex arrangements could be imagined.
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You could rig a scenario where only one species evolved and survived. If your ancestor species died out due to an environmental change you could have a singular species. This would ease pressure and allow you to stay stationary evolution wise. You would need some way to keep them stationary on autotrophism though, so they didn't branch out into another species through random mutation. Two ways I can think to do this are DNA repair on (or more likely above) the level of [Deinococcus radiodurans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans) and/or being on a local or global optima for the environment. You could still have genetic variation as long as it was for minor traits, but a smaller gene pool like in Cheetahs would be ideal.
As others have pointed out, sentience requires a high price in energy and so civilization may be a large leap even with these constraints. You would require an energy source rivaling fat and protein, as well as pressure to evolve sentience. I would imagine photosythesis would need to be better than any we currently know of, on top of having something like smart carnivores in your prehistory to drive evolution.
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So compitition among plants is very much possible. As an on and off gardener, I have to do something about the weeds that will pull nutrients out of the soil from my desired plants. And don't get me started on my neighbors, who thought Ivy was a good idea and it's now running into my arms and agressively strangling every tree it can get it's runners on. And if a tree falls in a rainforest, and no one is around to hear it, I couldn't tell you what sound it makes, but there will be a lot of up and coming vegetation that will take advantage of an opening of sun in the otherwise dark canopy.
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The [Semiosis Duology](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07MPBQL8C) by Sue Burke features an autotrophic civilization (or at least the remains of a past one) on the planet Pax, but not a completely autotrophic ecosystem. Pax has animals, and the animals eat plants, and they eat each other... but the pressure of competing with other plants in the presence of animals has resulting in many plants developing intelligence. This allows them to do three things: to intentionally tailor their growth patterns and toxin production to better compete with whatever specific other plants are trying to grow in their vicinity, to negotiate with other plants growing in their vicinity to share resources and improve their chances against other plants, and to actively control animals.
On Earth, there are plenty of examples of animal/plant pairs co-evolving symbiotic relationships, but new ones take evolutionary time scales to establish. The fact that plants on Pax are sapient, however, allows them to intentionally establish new animal relationships on the scales of months, rather than tens or hundred of generations, using intentional growth patterns and targeted production of psychoactive chemicals to teach and take control of animals that they find useful--and that gives them the ability to build a technological civilization, using the most convenient animal drones that are available to them in any particular place or time.
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Cities usually emerge at places where transportation is easy (on a plain, near a sea or a river, etc.) so that people can come and go (facilitating trade) and water and food can be brought to the city.
Under what conditions can a big city emerge on a mountain (for example in a valley)? How large can it become in the middle ages? What about the colonial or the industrial era?
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**The choice to build a city atop a mountain is governed by the balance of defense, resources and proximity. With a nod to tradition.**
(Note: my answer is addresses an entire "city **ON A** mountain." Not "located near a mountain," "located within a mountain range," nor "nestled between mountains;" not a "castle on a mountain" with a city nearby below; not a city "on a relatively large hill." However, in any of these cases, all of the conditions below still apply, including the excellent answers and comments of the other esteemed contributors.)
Having an entire city situated upon a mountain, plateau, or mountainous hill is unusual enough to merit an analysis of its attributes.
**Defense:** Remote proximity from potential enemies, greater field of vision for surveillance, height advantage in combat. Safeguarding the nearby trade routes (roads and waterways) by being close enough to oversee them and to quickly deploy troops when necessary. Proximity to natural barriers that prevent enemy entry (rivers, seas, mountain ridges/cliffs, canyons) and to the structures that allow trade access despite these barriers (bridges, harbors, mountain passes, switchbacks). The nearby natural barriers protect the city, while the city protects the nearby trade structures.
**Resources:** Starting with food and water. A small town may hunt and farm the surrounding foothills, but it is difficult. Therefore in any larger settlement trade with nearby communities is also essential, and a proximity with them is also imperative. **Cities built within *mountain ranges* are often in a valley bowl that is arable.**
One acre of crops can feed up to 20 people for a year, if it is managed extremely well. See: <https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-can-be-fed-year-round-off-of-one-acre-of-crop-growing>
In colder climates the water can be collected from wells fed by snowpack runoff and natural aquifers in the mountain, but in Mediterranean or desert climates (near sea level elevations) the wells would have to extend down to the water table (sea level) just to fill a bucket. In these arid climates the majority of water was delivered by porters who trekked daily to retrieve it. This again requires a practical proximity. As a secondary system Masada had cisterns to collect rain. A mechanical water delivery system is plausible, but they tend not to work in the real pre-modern world. It is far more likely to have discovered volcanic activity producing constant hot springs near the top of a mountain.
Mining resources are a strong possibility, but not feasible without trade established among other cities, which again requires either proximity or waterway transportation. In this case it is more likely that the town sprung up around the mine, to house the families of miners, and businesses to cater to the families.
**Religious Directive:** (@AarthewIII - ingenious!) The deity/prophet indicated that this his desired location, holy ground, the birthplace of the deity/prophet, the burial grounds of ancestors, the place to make a stand against the encroaching enemies of the faith. Or simply tradition. (Some would argue that the deity aims to protect his flock, via all the wisdom given above.) The deal is: if the location of the city is not defensible and sustainable, then the next generation does not survive to carry on the tradition/religion.
To ensure we are defining like attributes here is a quick chart with notable "mountain cities," as defined in the chart:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ODfTj.jpg)
And because some cities on large hills are very interesting, here is a chart of "hill cities," as defined below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4YvjN.jpg)
*(Any good suggestions made in the comments below will be considered for the next update.)*
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It's all about reasons. You need a reason to build there.
There are two reason that lots of inaccessible areas got settled in our world.
1. Defense. The city's position makes it very hard to attack. In a hostile area this defense may be more important than accessibility.
2. Resources. There are rare and extremely valuable resources here, for example gold or diamond mines.
Either of those things might make it valuable enough to be worth importing the food etc.
The size limitation is hard to answer because it depends on just how much the location is worth. If there is enough reason for enough people to be there then surprisingly large. Certainly thousands of people.
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Consider a very important factor: **safety**. I'm not into Game of Thrones, but I have some fading memory about a castle on a mountain that is so incredibly hard even to approach that it's practically impossible to conquer.
Also, **logistical hubs** - /r/worldbuilding provided this amazing chart:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/23BY6.png)
The right side may provide help for you. I can also see the point in a city used to rest in a tough mountain ride.
Actually, these two, as you can see, are quite important aspects of settlements, and even though they are not the only options, they are noticeable in several cases. Even when I was as young as 11, I was taught in history class that in Europe, several former Roman settlements were used in establishing new cities - and needless to say, they were the very professionals at both.
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Let us first look at reasons to build cities/castles in general.
1. Defense (as already stated by [@Tim B](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/38476/2679))
2. Resources (also already stated by [@Tim B](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/38476/2679))
3. Geographical strategic positioning\*
4. Religious reasons: "God told us to build a city on this mount."
5. Agriculture: "this is good soil. Let's all grow stuff here."
\*This is different from 1) because the city is not built because it protects itself but because it protects the nation.
Ok, so the only reasons that would work for a mountain city are 1-4. (Mountain farming is hard, just look up steppe farming. No fun, the Mongols got bored of it and decided to invade China and Europe.)
As far as part two "how large can it become …" really depends on how much the nation or its people want to live there and geographical location. You could consider a valley city right next to them that they get food from. This would boost their population. The size and fertility of the mountain and valley will effect its population as well.
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Many Italian towns and cities are on the top of hills. Rome is famously built on seven hills. The reason is very simple - it makes your town/city easier to defend. If you're living in a nice civilised society, this isn't an issue. But if you're in a society consisting of a loose coalition of petty princedoms, any of whom might decide to have a skirmish with their neighbours over a matter of honour or simply because the aristocrats at the top think there might be some benefit to themselves, then you have a strong reason for strong walls.
Greece also has a lot of towns and cities on hillsides. This is a slightly different reason though - there simply isn't much flat land to build on, or to farm. Most Greek towns are on the coast because the sea was the only reliable way to get enough food, and most Greek coastline goes straight from shore to mountain with very little flat space in between. So you see a lot of towns built on the side of hills, on the least-worst slope of course, but still with substantial amounts of up-and-down.
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A mountain was hit by a meteorite, leaving a huge crater that filled with water, forming a freshwater lake capable of supplying a city built on the part of the mountain that was not destroyed by the meteorite.
The lake was afterward stocked with fish, and overflow from the lake is directed via irrigation ditches to terraces built against the mountainside.
To repel invaders, extra water is held behind a dam, to be released down the only road leading up the mountain.
Mining operations are facilitated by water power, and sluice-works for separating ore from rock.
To allow the nobility to escape rapidly in case of disaster, a gondola runs to a well-defended neighboring peak having a lower elevation. The cables for the gondola are made from woven bamboo, which the Chinese discovered over a thousand years ago is nearly as strong as a modern steel cable.
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The society has nobles, each of whom is the "lord of all he surveys". In order to maximize the territory he rules, each noble establishes his capital at the top of the local mountain with the best views.
In ancient and medieval times, these cities will have populations of a few hundred -- servants, guards, clerks, porters, smiths, armorers, bakers, barmaids, *et cetera*.
The mountain-top cities use line-of-sight communication methods. Early on, these might be smoke-signals, heliographs, and/or semaphores.
These cities will benefit from developing windmill and pumping technologies early. Windmills can power deep wells, to provide water for "hanging" gardens and/or hydroponic farming. Windmills are also similar to some semaphore signalling technologies. If iron ore, copper, and silk are available, the blacksmiths might develop electric motors and electric generators relatively early.
Colonial America had printing presses, windmills, smithies, and tiny colleges.
By 1834, Vermonters could afford silk wedding dresses. Blacksmiths could visit Institutes with experimental electromagnets. This allowed them to invent electric motors, electrified railroads, and electrified printing presses. If they had reversed the motors, they could have had generators too.
With the hypothetical culture's focus on line-of-sight long-distance communications, inventors might skip over telegraphy directly to radio. They might move on to microwaves and/or lasers. Communications and electronics research facilities could grow up in these cities. Eventually, television stations, computer manufacturers, and aerospace firms might be found in these cities.
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Try google "kogi mama" and/or Alan Ereira, watch his video (aired by BBC in 1990) and be amazed. These stone age people who still live in Colombia built sustainable cities on mountains for over a thousand years, housing more than 25.000 inhabitants. Very impressive!
In the film the requirements to build such a city are also summed up..
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Depending on your world, if you have easy access to flight, especially VTOL, then building on a mountain is just as much sense as building along a river delta.
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And what would be needed to expand this effect, scaling up to the size of a city, or maybe a country?
I've seen [this](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/11930/by-how-much-exactly-would-the-time-flow-be-slown-down-inside-a-gravity-room) question, and it seems that while one could do it with gravity, the effectiveness and side-effects would be rather undesirable. Please note that while I'm looking for a "plausible" mean to achieve this, I'd like to discard unfeasibility due to the lack of energy or material resources.
So, let's just assume we have an **infinite stash of all materials, and an infinite amount of energy**. But we still need to get **humans inside and they must be able to live exactly as we do**: same gravity, same pace and all: it would just be faster from the view of outsiders.
In short terms, the goal is to **create a room, or even a city, where time flows faster, at the rate of at least 1 year per second**. So, outside this place, I could see what would happen in hundreds or thousands of years.
Another restriction would be that this room cannot be too far from the outside world. I'm talking about maybe some kilometers at most.
Are there any "plausible" ways for this to happen? Please forgive me if this question threads on the lines of nuisance, I'm no physicist.
Also, if there aren't any known ways to distort time like this, are there any unproven theories I could use?
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## You need 3 things:
1. A **Materializing/Dematerializing Cascade**. This is a small region of space, no more than a few meters across, separating SpeedTown from the Boring World Out There. It is periodically swept by invisible, but incredibly fine-tuned and hyper-complex energy fields, precisely controlled by an impossibly powerful friendly AI genie. Every 10 seconds, external material objects that have entered the Cascade are destructively scanned and uploaded to a simulation, 'inside' the room. Every 10 seconds, information patterns that have been selected to be 'output' from SpeedTown are materialized, and pushed outside the cascade.
2. **SpeedTown**: A powerful simulated city. Your destructively scanned citizens live their lives here. Because of the power of the computronium substrate, the simulated humans therein are perfect simulations down to a subatomic scale (quarks, gluons, electrons and photons in a simulated quantum foam). Not only that, but the substrate is sped up by a factor of about 30,000,000, so that it almost becomes true that every day is an eternity. The 'inner' walls of SpeedTown are rendered to depict the slow, glacial-speed world outside, where birds appear frozen mid-air, raindrops float and people appear to move with the speed of geological processes. The 'outer' walls of SpeedTown, visible from the outside, depict an incredible blur, where new buildings pop in and out of existence in seconds, and individual humans within are just blurs of speed, whereby the whole city seems to be a fast-moving gas of some sort.
3. **[A friendly AI](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/6340/the-challenge-of-controlling-a-powerful-ai)**, to handle the impossibly complex transitions in and out of SpeedTown, as well as prevent any world-annihilating device completed within to be transferred outside, as well as repopulating from a (troublemaker-corrected) backup in the case the people within manage to blow their entire simulated universe up somehow.
## What would happen?
Well, assuming this is built today, somehow, in about 3 minutes, or say 200 seconds, the SpeedTowners will have had two more centuries of technological progress to build on the industrial revolution we so recently started.
In about a day, people within will have been conscious and civilized for as long as Homo Sapiens Sapiens has existed as a species. They will be as far from us as we are from the invention of language.
In about 2 years, they will be as far away from the outsiders, subjectively, as we are from the dinosaur era.
In about 500 years, they will have experienced a span of time equal to the interval reckoned to have passed since the Big Bang.
## What does that mean?
* Sending someone inside, for a minute, will have them returned aged by 60 years, or perhaps dead.
* Sending someone outside, for two minutes, means that all of your friends inside will be dead, assuming no cure for aging is invented while you were away. Either way, you'll be a distant forgotten memory at best.
* The people inside will, if SpeedTown is sufficiently large to accommodate a full industrial infrastructure (or if the AI Genie is particularly accommodating), likely progress technologically beyond our wildest dreams, within the limits of the simulation.
* There will be virtually no trade, since the outside goods will take centuries or millenia to be delivered.
* The culture and civilization of SpeedTown will diverge exponentially from that of the Boring World Out There.
* The people inside will likely destroy their world on a regular basis, unless you expect mankind's wisdom to somehow increase with time.
* Anything coming out of the materializing cascade should be treated as a potentially lethal alien artefact.
## But is this even physically possible?
Depends. We currently know of no way of creating a de/re-materializing cascade, but there is nothing that technically forbids it, down to the Heisenberg limit itself. Given that as far as we know, most (all?) consciousness-related processes happen at a molecular level, the level of recording precision should be sufficient for a physically correct capture.
Now the more interesting question is whether a 3e7 speedup is feasible or not. A lot of it comes down to the level of precision we can shave off and the density of the computronium substrate. If a neutron-star level density can be achieved ($5.9×10^{17} kg/m^3$), a one cubic meter substrate would have a computational mass more than sufficient for the purposes of simulating an entire city at the specified speedup with ease.
If we have a denser-than-platinum but less dense than degenerate matter computational substrate, we can probably achieve 1:1 space mapping and still achieve the speedup.
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**It's not possible.**
Time dilation works the other way. You can theoretically accelerate to near light speed or sit in a massive gravity well and time will appear to pass more slowly. To speed up time for a small section of the universe, you would need to do those things to everything except a small section, which can't be done.
Even if you mean to slow down time in the small section, with the restrictions (identical gravity, in a fixed place, and science based) this can't be done. Even allowing for infinite energy or materials. There simply is not a way, known to physics (or any theories I know of), to get time to flow that differently between two places that are near each other, with identical gravity, and based in science.
Think about walking over the boundary to such a place. Your nose could experience a year before the back of your head made it through. Your nose would promptly die and rot off in the six months before the heart was back in sync with it. When switching to fantasy to complete this idea, do thoroughly consider the boundary effects of having such disparate time flows.
EDIT:
Thanks to RBarryYoung for pointing out the OP wanted to *speed up* time in a small area, not slow it down.
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Here's one method that doesn't rely on either gravitational time dilation or simulation:
If you look at the basic equations of quantum mechanics, you notice that if you scale all masses by a common factor, you'll get essentially the same physics, just at different length and time scales. In particular, when all masses are multiplied by a factor $\lambda$, all lengths get scaled by a factor $1/\lambda$ and all processes go faster by a factor $\lambda$, The latter being exactly what you want. (Caveat: I don't know enough about nuclear physics/QCD to say for sure that this is the case there, too, but I suspect it is; indeed I seem to remember having read somewhere that the mass scaling is a requirement for the standard renormalization procedures — the way how infinities are avoided in quantum field theories — to work.)
Now the question is of course how you could scale all masses. Well, according to Higgs theory, the fundamental particles get their rest masses from interaction with the Higgs field (all other mass contributions are ultimately just kinetic/potential energies which automatically scale the right way). So one might think that if you find a way to manipulate the Higgs field, you should be able to scale masses that way.
## How to apply it to your specific requirements
A speed-up to one second per year would be a factor of about $3\cdot 10^8$, that is, you'd have to scale masses up by that amount. This would also scale down sizes by the same amount, so a human would shrink to about half a dozen nanometers. That is, you could easily put a complete city into a matchbox.
However there's a caveat: Your human would now weight about $10^{10}\,\rm kg$. I guess that would locally give quite strong gravitational fields (gravitation does *not* follow the scaling law; correspondingly quantizing it the standard way does not work). So quite possibly you'd not be able to achieve *that* large acceleration without adverse gravitational effects, unless you're also able to locally manipulate the gravitational constant so that also the gravitation plays nice with it. Note also that a strong gravitational field would add a slowdown counteracting your speedup; this is another reason to decrease it.
So in summary: You'd need to be able to manipulate the Higgs field to get the speedup (combined with a shrinking), and additionally to locally manipulate the gravitational constant (to avoid the gravitational effects of the increased masses). But if you can do both, you'll get a sped-up city in a matchbox.
## Further caveats to the speed-up
The speed-up inevitably means that any radiation coming from outside will be seen as very low frequency in your town. That means you'll have to ensure sufficient thermal insulation in order to prevent your town from freezing. Similarly, any radiation coming from your town will be shifted up in energy; with one second per year, even visible light will turn into gamma radiation. So to protect yourself, you better surround that city with appropriate radiation shielding.
If you settle with less extreme speed-ups (say, just one day per second), you'll reduce the problems with the radiation from the city; however it will still be very hot when viewed from outside; better make that matchbox out of fireproof material.
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To expand on part of Samuel's answer, if we set aside the issue of how to achieve it, the result would be largely useless for a few reasons.
1. The interface between the fast-time and normal-time areas would have a temporal gradient so severe that any solid substance in contact with it would be destroyed, not just for the age problem but for pure structural reasons.
If your fast-time is running at 1000x normal (16m40 per second) and something is moving at 1m/s inside (relative to the inner frame of reference) it would appear to move at 1km/s observed from the outer frame. If that thing were straddling the border between the two frames the outcome would be "unfortunate".
2. The vast bulk of energy for an ecosystem is solar, but if you're accelerating a bubble you're going to be depriving them of that energy. If we assume 1000W/m2 of power then our 1000x speed bubble would be getting 1W/m2. Without that solar energy everything goes wonky: food supply, carbon and nitrogen cycles and solar heating are the first ones to jump to mind.
3. The other energy problem, assuming you have something in there using power, is how does whatever is inside the bubble source it's power? Fossil fuels are likely out, even nuclear is going to be a bit questionable for a period of hundreds of thousands of year.
Other aspects of the question cause more technical questions, but those 3 by themselves make the result of little practical use. You could maybe bypass problems 2 and 3 if you're somehow able to cram a lot of supplies inside that bubble, but problem 1 is going to need some kind of shielding bubble to make the gradient mostly vacuum. You're also probably going to have to insulate the thing from any EM coming in or out.
Quick summaries of some of the other issues:
1. Being able to view the other frame is a problem in both mechanical and relativistic terms because of the speed of light at the very least.
2. It would be questionable as to whether your inhabitants would have a sense of gravity since all the orbital forces are equally attenuated.
3. The inhabitants would have no apparent motion of sun, moon or stars so their own sense of time would be an artificially created one. Realistically they'd have to fake a day/night cycle in much the same way as The Truman Show.
4. After hundreds of thousands of years, the chances of the ex-humans inside the bubble being even remotely recognisable, on a cultural level if not biological level, is minimal.
5. After hundreds of thousands of years, any viral or microbial life inside the bubble will have mutated to the point that the poor people outside the bubble will likely have no immunity to it.
6. Your requested 1 year per second maths out to ~86,400 years per Earth day, one would imagine the energy needed to achieve this would have some rather unpleasant thermodynamic side effects... could actually throw in some ionising radiation as well in the form of gamma rays... you know, just for fun.
As noted, speeding up time in a local area doesn't agree with relativity.
From a layman point of view, think of a car travelling along a road. The car covers a constant 60 miles of road every hour, but if it's travelling up a 50% gradient the *horizontal* speed is only 30 miles an hour. The steeper the gradient the slower the car travels *horizontally*.
Reversing that, though, the car can't be made to cover more distance than it can on a perfectly flat road.
A relativistic time slow can be thought of being much the same. Increasing the amount of gravity will slow time down, but you can't reduce the effect of gravity below 0.
(If anyone knows the principles of relativity better than me and thinks that needs correcting, please do so :))
If you really wanted to do this anyway, even with all the problems, the only practical way of speeding up time in a chunk of the universe would be to remove it from the universe. You'd need to discover some method by which your chunk of reality could be wrapped up in a bubble of spacetime that was completely disconnected from our own, while still being manipulatable, and then cause the rate of time within that bubble to move faster than our own.
Imagine the multiverse equivalent of a hamster wheel with the inside spinning away at super speed while the outer context remains synced with the world around it.
That won't get you everything you asked for, as you need a 100% isolation between the pocket spacetime and the real one, so no observation would be possible.
The only thing that you need to hand wave is being able to manipulate the fabric of space time in such a way. It's not that much worse than some space travel techs, though if you're after hard science it might be too much of a stretch.
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I just realized how you could do it. Given infinite materials, you could construct a 100% perfect and accurate computer simulation. Sure, it would take the processing power of a galaxy to model something as small as a city, but you have that - and more. With a computer of near-infinite power, you could have a simulation that was as accurate as reality.
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I think your best bet would be to open a portal to a dimension that time flows at a different rate. 'Creating' such an place would be fairly dramatic, but finding a place that 'exists' might be much more feasible.
The big thing is in either case, you'd have to be able to get all your 'people' there en mass, so that the first person doesn't age 10 years before his wife and children show up.
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So time dilation isn't the way to go, because that just makes time slow down, not speed up.
I think the only way you're going to be able to do this is by getting into String Theory (M Theory?) a little bit. Which is tricky, but I believe that it does allow for pocket dimensions where time doesn't flow the same way that it does in our perception of reality.
Maybe check with the people over in Physics?
At this point you're getting out beyond anything we can test, so you may have to go to the sci-fi equivalent of magic...
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To expand further on Samuel and Kaithar's answers, it's instructive to examine the consequences of energy flow the other way.
So you've got some poor guy living in "the bubble" for a year subjective. A good rough number for metabolic processes in a human is 100 watts. During his year in fast time, he produces 3 gJ of thermal energy, and this must be radiated out into slow time (if it isn't, the guy roasts). This causes the bubble to radiate at 3 GW for one second, which is unlikely to be good for the surrounding area. At a distance of 10 feet, the power flux is about 28 MW/square meter, or 28,000 times the power of the sun. Larry Niven wrote a story which used the effect, and a sped-up researcher burned off the face of an associate with a flashlight.
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The simulation idea is pretty fun.
If not simulated -
From previous posts, it looks like the issues would be
* a harsh time-dilation gradient
* distance from normal world
* high-energy radiation leaking to normal world and only low-energy
radiation reaching fast world.
for something approaching real science, I think you would need to combine some of the ideas to overcome the gradient (eg shrinking over a long period of time and distance)
or just use greater distance, keeping in mind that at super high speeds, that distance can be covered quickly. your "room" could be on a figure-eight orbit between two hypermassive objects and your "normal" space could be a planet or solar system at the point of equidistance between those objects and far enough from both objects that the internal gravitational forces of the solar system are not overpowered by the distant hypermassives (so, the system is not being pulled apart). you need the countering forces of orbit to expose the room to an extremely forceful gravity well without turning the room into hyper-dense slush. and you need distance from normal world for extreme relative velocity.
your room is going to experience some extreme red-shift variations as it accelerates toward each super massive and decelerates away from each. So, there will be burns on the "front" side of the room and anything ahead of it in the trajectory, if it is emitting radiation.
at the point of least relative velocity (intersecting with the gravity neutral point between the hyper massives) the room could use a large energy burn (since the OP is giving us all the e we could need) to decelerate into the normal world. The normal world would have to exists as one of a perfectly balanced set of planets orbiting a binary star system (at minimum) with perfect radial symmetry and the timing or trajectory of the orbits would have to keep the gravity-neutral equidistant point (and all points of room's trajectory within the system) clear - otherwise, our room would have been colliding with or diverted by objects in the target system / normal world. That would take care of the gradient issue and distance, but leaving and entering the room while at velocity would not be an option - so, no walking in and out during time differential.
To throw another wrinkle in and solve the internal energy problem for the room (without resorting to storing high - energy radiation from the "front" side of the room), the room could itself be orbiting a high-mass, high density object and be counterbalanced by a larger, less-dense object for radiation shielding (this would require a double pendulum approach to orbits in order to have the shielding object on the front side of the high density object along its orbit while approaching the hyper-massives). The high density object (like black hole or dark matter) on the figure-8 orbit could be used as an energy source either in the emission of infrared radiation or . . .
It could also be a star.
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Slowing down time is simple. Speeding it up is tricky. The faster you go, the slower you experience time (relative to an outside observer) but as far as I know there's no way to cause your time to speed up relative to an outside observer. In theory though, you could create a small planet that's (relatively) stationary, and then orbit it at relativistic speeds, thus slowing down the observer's timeframe.
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Put rockets on the room/city/country and aim it so that it loses velocity relative to the space everyone else is hurtling through...anti-orbit is an option, closer to center of Earth is another.
Time won't pass **that** much faster in the room though...kind of a lot of effort for not a lot of payoff.
Think blue clock:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#/media/File:Nonsymmetric_velocity_time_dilation.gif>
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Assuming that you are using a fast-moving planet to do this, one big problem would be what the planet would look like from the perspective of an outside observer, from the outside, the bubble would look *slowed down*. On the other hand, from the perspective of a person inside the bubble, the outside would look slowed down. So from the perspective of an outside observer, the effect would seem reversed, but from the perspective of an observer on the inside, it would seem as if everything else was slowed down.
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A generation spaceship (a spaceship designed for multiple generations of humans to live in) could sail through the galaxy for hundreds of years before finding another planet, let alone a planet with water. What method would such a spaceship use to maintain a source of water fit for humans to drink (for an indefinite period of time)?
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Here I will evaluate the most obvious option: can a ship actually simply *store* the amount of water needed? Using Fermi estimation, we can suggest that each persons drinks maybe 2 litres of water a day to stay healthy, which is about 730L or so. If the population of the ship were about 105 people, we'd need about 108 L of water each year. If every 106 years or so the ship managed to find fresh water (on a new planet) to refill, the ship would need to store a total of 1014 litres of water.
Is it viable to store 1014 litres of water on a spaceship? A litre of water occupies 1000cm3, so 1014 litres of water would occupy 1011 cubic metres of space. Wolfram Alpha [helpfully informs us](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10%5E11+cubic+metres) that 1011 cubic metres of space is about two and a half the volume of the [Three Gorges Dam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam) in China:
[Image](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Gorges_Dam.jpg) by Dan Kamminga, via Wikimedia Commons. Used under the [CC BY-SA 2.0](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en) license.
According to Wikipedia, the volume of the Three Gorges Dam is about 40km3, so if we can have 120km3 space (in addition to space for living, etc.) we could actually simply *store* the amount of water required. The [Bernal sphere](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernal_sphere), an existing proposed generational ship, is a sphere with diameter 16km. The volume of that sphere is 2144km3, so it easily has enough space to store water to keep humans alive for hundreds of thousands of years. A surprising result, but one that is actually entirely viable. In addition to this, resuse of water and recycling could even decrease the amount of water needed from my estimation, making this method even more possible.
However, as soon as we get to higher orders of magnitude of how long we wait in space for without any additional water "refills", this storage method becomes impractical. At 1015 litres of water it is already impossible to store all of the water - we'd need *250* Three Gorges Dams to store all the water -- clearly an impossible task. We'd have to create the water instead.
Water has the chemical formula H2O, which means it is formed out of two hydrogen parts and one oxygen part. If we had the parts, and enough energy to do it, we could synthesise water. We won't worry about where the energy comes from - we'll just assume we have a magic energy crystal or something. If we also had an infinite supply of oxygen and hydrogen, we would have an infinite supply of water - this way, no matter how long we stay in space for, there would always be water. But where could we get an infinite supply of oxygen and hydrogen from?
Even the deep vacuum of outer space is not completely devoid of hydrogen - there is an average of 0.1 hydrogen atoms per cubic metre in outer space. Assuming that this value probably is higher nearer to planets, and considering the large surface area of the generational ship, this may be a valid option to create water. There is about 3.34 \* 1025 molecules of water in a litre, with each molecule needing two hydrogen atoms. The surface area of the Bernal sphere is about 804 km2. Assuming it moves at least its length per minute, and the surface area of the ship is capable of 'absorbing' hydrogen atoms, it would be getting 8.04 \* 107 hydrogen atoms per minute, which is a litre of water every five minutes or so. This isn't sustainable for 105 people, but remember that the 0.1 hydrogen atoms per cubmic metre figure is only for outer space -- nearer planets and in astroid belts, etc. will have much higher values. For Oxygen, obviously the ship is producing oxygen somehow for the people inside to breathe - so water production could just use the same source as whatever source the ship is using. Altogether, this seems like a viable approach to water storage as well for very long distance travel.
In addition, it should also be noted that most of the water would likely be recycled -- this would further reduce the water requirements. I'm not sure how much of the water could be recycled with each go and how much would be lost to space, but if the ratio is even only one half, that already means halfing the number of Three Gorge Dams the ship needs to store, or halfing the required rate of synthesis of new water. My calculations -- especially with the water synthesis -- is very conservative, so it is more than likely for 106 years or less of travel, storage of water is a good solution, whereas for greater than that, you'd have to resort to making your own water.
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Generation ships would need to have reserves to cover loss into space but the vast majority of the water would be recycled. This could either be done artificially (using filters, processing plants etc) or naturally by simulating the water cycle on earth using rivers, lakes, etc.
There is a certain "yuck" factor to the idea of drinking water that someone else eliminated but you have to remember that that's exactly what you do every time you take a drink here on earth. Most of the water on the planet has passed through a multitude of creatures at some point in its existence!
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Since you're talking about a space ship designed to operate for hundreds of years I'm assuming a fairly decent level of technological advancement for the ship to have been built, as such
**Method 1: Recycle**
How are the people on board cleaning dishes, bathing or going to the toilet? If they use water, what's happening to the dirty water? Rather that blowing out into space, store it and treat it to become drinkable again.
**Method 2: Molecular Construction**
Obviously the people who built the ship know that water is made from 2 parts Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen. Since Oxygen is in the air needed for humans to breath, how is the ship generating enough air for everyone? Maybe boost it to supply Oxygen and find some indefinite source of Hydrogen (eg. regular detours to asteroids every...say 50 years?) then with these build the molecules to make water.
**Method 3: Still unknown technology**
Maybe there's a piece of technology (or artifact) that is producing water (a machine, a crystal which seeps water), its mystery could be the focus of a plot/scenario to discover its origins. Maybe it itself was the reason why the ship was built since water is seen as the source of life the ship was build as a means to sustain generations from a single source of water.
**Method 4: Evolution**
Maybe with scarce water humanity on the ship has evolved so no longer require it...though this method kinda defeats the purpose of your question.
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We already have the technology to purify sewage to drinkability, what you are after is trivial compared to what else is needed for a generation ship.
I forget the name of the process but under enough heat and pressure water becomes incredibly reactive and can tear apart most anything organic in it. Add enough oxygen and the output products are water and atmospheric gasses.
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Considering the size of a generation ship, there's a few options available
1. Using water mixed with *organic waste products* for food growing. There's good nutrients there, and the right plants plants fairly efficiently convert waste water and other nutrient rich, post-consumer substances into oxygen, biomass and water vapor, which could be condensed into fairly clean drinking water, and processed into other products. Some algae may even produce fossil fuel analogs or plastic.
2. the swimming pool/beach in space is a common thrope in science fiction - You *want* to store a fair quantity of water anyway - its great, [low cost radiation shielding](https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/1336/what-thickness-depth-of-water-would-be-required-to-provide-radiation-shielding-i) and at a pinch could be used for reaction mass.
3. Assuming you have energy, water recycling is not a hard problem - not just taking into account the biological approach, assuming you have energy or funding, its a fairly mature technology. There's even consumer ultra/nano filtration systems and/or devices that wick moisture from the athmosphere. And least in singapore, part of the water we drink is post consumer, and recycled from our waste system. No one really complains. We even have bottles of the stuff given away at official functions.
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The name of the process you are looking for is reverse osmosis. It's currently cheap, quick, effective and easy. You can turn waste water into drinking water in seconds. Add a ion exchange resin and you get almost pure water. Now you have a problem that is treating the solid waste. This can be done with composting. Water will lose its salt content so you need to extract back the salts from the solid components that you composted.
The resulting water will have very low salt content, and will be toxic if ingested as such - considering a very powerful reverse osmosis membrane - now you have to return salts to it.
Use the composted solids to increase soil yield. Build your agriculture ponds in such a way that they have solid compost on the top layer, followed by fine sand, gross sand, small pebbles, large pebbles and a base plate full of holes that drain into a storage tank. This water will be clean while at the same time will have the correct salts to avoid demineralized water toxicity.
It's useful to link your water recycling system to your agriculture, because this mimics how hydrological cycle works on earth.
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Combining oxygen and hydrogen with a spark is one way.
Storing liquid O2 and liquid H2 would probably take up less space. (water is wide)
Humans EXHALE water every day. 2 liters is a figure that pops to mind. I cant remember if it was every 24 hrs, I was reading about moisture accumulation on walls of a tent so I think it was in 8 hrs, so 3x as much = 6 liters.
Food waste contains water.
HUMAN WASTE contains water that can be recycled.
Comets could be "harvested" by smaller scout ships along the way.
Some moisture MUST be in the air we breathe to keep lungs from drying out.
and too little humidity is actually bad for computers(hard to imagine),
causing static to build and discharge, damaging electronics.
(source... some Intel documentation a few years ago...)
Waste humans (not sewage... dead people!) can be dehydrated and purified.
Extra hydrogen can be gathered from the interstellar medium, would need oxygen to construct water though. Roughly one atom per cubic meter? Due to solar winds, space is not actually COMPLETELY empty! A massive enough star could expel trace amounts of oxygen as well.
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Agriculture in interstellar space? Guess again. There is no sunshine out there. “Grow lights” would need an energy source. Nuclear energy would be good for about six years and then you would need some fresh fuel rods. Not even out of the solar system yet, let alone getting to Proxima Centauri which will take a lot more than six years.
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Setting: Generic medieval fantasy world, suited for a game
### Mainstream adventuring
In the real world, adventurers appear during times of new technology.
The most adventurous period on Earth was the New World era, where colonists traveled to distant lands and brought back ships filled with treasure. This was brought about by shipbuilding technology and distant discoveries.
There were also other periods. The industrial age, brought on by fossil fuel and steam engines. The dot com era, brought on by computers and Internet.
All these eras were opportunities for certain individuals to become wealthier and 100x more productive than your average individual, by taking risk and doing something new.
During these times, adventurers (entrepreneurs) were common, and it was socially acceptable to want to do it as a career path.
### The Setting
I'm looking for an era where adventurers have become a career. Where adventurer guilds appear everywhere, much like how startup accelerators are everywhere in 2015.
Senior adventurers sponsor and train younger ones to go out there and take risk, since they're too old and comfortable to do it themselves.
The main condition is that there needs to be a lot of danger but large amounts of wealth should be out there for the taking. So someone could bring in a dragon's hoard or artifact and become richer and more powerful than the local king (even after taxes).
## Why Now?
The big question: If dungeons and dragons have existed for centuries, why haven't they all been looted by previous adventurers?
What kind of event or technology would suddenly turn adventuring into a common career option?
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by your definition of adventuring, we already have it. Look at Deadleast catch, or Dog the bounty hunter, for reality shows specificly focused on people with high risk for reward jobs. These are just a few examples though.
Look at people who climb poles to maintain power lines. Those that rescue people from burning buildings or sinking ships in a tsunami. Private mercenary companies. I could go on, but there are many dozens of jobs that already are high risk for reward.
Perhaps most keeping with what I think your intent was are, private mercenary companies and bounty hunters who face risk from other humans. In addition both have 'guilds' set up for them. In the case of private mercenaries, the company that employes them is their guild, finding them government contracts to risk their life for gold (or cash).
In the case of bounty hunter's it's a little less clear, but still the government has set up a system for bounty hunters to get bounties, decide which to peruse, and get rewarded for them. That's pretty similar to the 'adventure board' of many adventuring guilds in fiction and games.
If you want to increase adventuring, I would take a look at the existing adventuring, and expand on it. Maybe lots of small wars have broken out and there are more uses for private mercnaries; see my answer here: [Implications of a world where mercenaries are more capable than most militaries?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12423/implications-of-a-world-where-mercenaries-are-more-capable-than-most-militaries/12429#12429)
For bounty hunters, simply make a system where more bounties existed with dangerous foes (right now most bounties are collected from people who aren't dangerous and are simply too hard to find, the bounty hunter is playing as much a role as PI finding the guy as enforcer). Create a system where the government is failing to control crime. Perhaps add a mafia or similar crime syndicate that tends to pay absurdly high bail for their enforcers, and deal harshly with those that try to catch enforcers.
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You almost gave yourself the answer: **new technology**
There are several ways how new technology is a must-have to do certain quests:
### Need of GPS
Making the Dungeon so extremely hard to find, or having an impressively intricate labyrinth might require some geolocalization system in order to find the dungeon or not getting lost.
### Modern weapons
Guns and other modern weapons let adventurers fight enemies that in the past would be too powerful: A simple dragon could be a good example of an unbeatable enemy without the use of these modern weapons.
### Submarine Dungeons
If you need to hold your breath for more than 10 minutes in order to loot the dungeon, you can't do it without some breathing system. Make it longer to ensure a modern one has to be used.
### Aerial Dungeons
Using the same idea as before, having dungeons only accessible by air, makes it impossible to access without some kind of airplane.
### Devilish Puzzles
There are certain puzzles that can't be solved without the use of modern technology (computer power) or knowledge (some advanced mathematics, for example). Make one of these puzzles a necessary key for entering the dungeon.
I guess you can take some ideas from these, though of course, anything that requires modern technology or knowledge can be used.
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## Romanticize errantry
During the Middle Ages, tales of knights-errant were a popular trope. In order to prove their chivalry and win the love of fair maidens, knights would wander the country in search of honor and adventure, when not fighting in wars for their lieges. At least, that's what the tales of the time would say. Whether or not most knights actually were errant, I couldn't tell - but the genre of literature was popular.
By the 1600s, these tales were going out of style. In *Don Quixote*, Cervantes more or less lambasted the whole idea by presenting a character who, after becoming engrossed in tales of knight-errantry, deluded himself into believing he was a knight and had to go in search of adventure and defend the weak and helpless. As we know, the adventures he encountered were pretty much just figments of his imagination. This comical portrayal of knight-errantry was so popular, that the word *quixotic* (one of my favorite words, by the way) was born, an adjective applied to someone who is given to wildly pursuing idealistic and unrealistic ambitions.
Your assertion of how new technology spurs adventure is correct. However, if the ideals of chivalry and knight-errantry are popular and romantic in your culture, you don't necessarily *need* new technology to encourage adventure...the literature and customs of the time can do that. As long as there is evil in the world, maidens in distress, and gold to be had, you can have adventurers.
And what to do once all of the dungeons have been looted? Well, it's not like that treasure just disappears. In the end, all that looting is is just a constant shifting of treasure from someone's dungeon to someone else's.
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The general case is simple economics: it's suddenly vastly more worthwhile to try. Anything (or combination of things) that changes the risk to reward ratio spurs entrepreneurship. Drastic drops in risk generally mean that there would be few to no people with the requisite skills, since if something wasn't previously possible who would know how? Drastic changes in valuation are more likely to have a few daring individuals with some experience: it was possible before, but not worth it for many.
The other responses already cover some scenarios, which I include to be complete. Where someone else hasn't covered it, I'll provide an example:
On the risk side:
**Couldn't get there**
Locations previously inaccessible or non-existent. (several responses)
Another possible scenario: Drones. Perhaps cave systems are inaccessible due to the presence of toxic chemicals. A remote device could get in and out. Similarly, monsters which hunt by scent might not attack a drone.
Fall of an advanced civilization: A staple of the genre is the existence of some vastly powerful ancient civilization which falls to some horrible tragedy. The circumstances of the fall leave behind untold riches, etc... So immediately after the fall, those untold riches are suddenly available to those who would hazard the perils which destroyed that once proud empire from within.
**Couldn't win**
Opponents unbeatable w/o new weapons. (covered elsewhere)
**Couldn't carry the loot**
The item of value was too dangerous to retrieve before. New containment techniques/materials significantly reduce the risk to life and limb. For example: The resource in question must be taken from a live monster. Once a reasonably safe way to trap it is invented, a new industry is born. Similarly, natural threats such as fungal spores or radioactivity, once understood, become possible to counteract.
**Couldn't survive**
New medical technology severely reduces the risk of death. For example: lots of monsters who carry deadly bacteria. Before antibiotics, a small wound became a death sentence.
On the reward side:
**Wasn't worth it**
Something is now worth going after that wasn't before. The new value could be in social influence rather than capital valuation.(covered)
The tools needed for the job get significantly cheaper. For example: mass production makes quality armor/weaponry widely affordable. So while you could get them before, they cost more than one could reasonably expect to earn over an adventuring career. This would be a great source of experienced veterans. "I remember when only respectable folk could afford a decent suit of armor to hunt wumpus. Now any peasant with more greed than sense is hacking up the undergrowth in scale and greaves. You want to learn the ropes? Fine, you deal with the riff-raff. I'm retired."
People with the required skills become more common. For example: An external threat leads to the training of a large army who ends up not actually having to fight . Now there are lots of combat-ready, armed, young adults just sitting around. This one ties well with the fall of an advanced civilization. For example: The army was raised to defend against the ancient and powerful empire when said threat destroyed itself or succumbed to an (un)natural disaster (rain of fire, "Do not call up what you cannot put down", etc...). Now there's tons of loot lying around if you can survive the radiation/army of the dead/demon horde/and so on...
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In the past there have been powerful triggers that opened up new avenues:
1. Silk road/Marco polo (small scale but legendary)
2. Crusades
3. Exploration/Spice trade
4. Colonialism
5. Privateering/Piracy
6. Gold rush
Etcetera. They all have in common that risk and commitment paid off quite handsomely (at least for a few).
So it does not have to be "old gold" for our new adventurers.
It can be that some gold-eating critter has escaped the dwarven mines, proliferated, which offer a good return for the enterprising hunter. That would provide a nice, growing, running target for our hero-to-be. It can be as aggressive as you want.
Also in a staid and rich realm a sudden plague of monsters will lead to a sleuth of bounties drawing our heroes far and wide. Slight wizardry portal mishap and you are on.
I'll be thinking of more options... that portal idea can work both ways...
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**Lost Magic**
Your current world - or at least parts of it - is the post-apocalyptic remnant of a previous, High Magic civilization that reached heights your setting has yet to duplicate or even approach.
The Old Cities are lootable, but there's a catch. All of the cities had automatic defensive and police systems set up, and they're still active. Just entering the city without papers is enough to get you locked up for trespassing, and since there are no judges left, it'll be a long stay. Additionally, going in with large numbers is treated as an offensive attack, as is entering with anything more than basic swords/daggers/bows.
**The Trigger**
Recently a legal historian discovered that the right passphrase will let you avoid being *immediately* incarcerated - instead it will give you a one week window, during which the automated police systems won't lock you up just for being there. They will still watch out for other crimes - like looting, stealing, murder, etc - but if you're careful, you can get tremendous wealth if you avoid them, or if you're careful how you fight them.
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A new invention or discovery causes a material that is rare, but previously worthless, to become valuable. e.g. Oil has run out, every village in the world has a nuclear reactor, but it turns out that handwavium which exist in deposits existing only in dangerous places can be alchemistrised into uranium quite cheaply.
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## **Dungeons appearance**
This is a setting from a [manga: Magi The Labyrinth of Magic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi%3A_The_Labyrinth_of_Magic)1: since you're in a fantasy world, you are allowed magic.
For a reason2 fully equiped (monsters, loot, etc) appear or disappear from the ground at random time. Some people claim that the dongeons are there in the grounds, but only coming out at some given time. Whereas others claim that they are materialised or created at their appearance time.
As this started, a few adventurers started dungeons crawling. And as some came out richer than non-adventurers, and possibly equiped with magic items, more were following their path.
As time passed some became started to form teams, take on apprentices, became tutors and eventually founded guilds. You then get something similar to your typical MMORPG, where guilds have the following objectives:
* ensuring the continuity of the guild by training new members,
* search for newly appeared dungeons: you have to get in before the others,
* send parties to crawl found dungeons.
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An alternative could be that suddenly many dungeons appeared not that long ago: not all of them are fully looted, and maybe due to their difficulties, they are almost impossible to get to the end, as illustrated by a cave in the [manga Dragon Quest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest:_Dai_no_Daib%C5%8Dken).
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1: which is rapidly forgotten in the manga to get more into political discussions
2: also in itself an interesting quest, with possibly specialised guilds trying to find the reason behind it.
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**Fall of an evil empire**
If all of these dungeons, dragons etc. were guarded by an organized military force which was defeated (like Sauron from LOTR), it would leave vast wealth and many individual mosters fighting alone much more suitable to adventuring.
**Rise of a good Empire**
Think Rome. Safe travel and infrastructure, as well as markets to sell your goods in. The actual area of adventure needs to remain "wild", more or less, but imagine the difference adventuring in Scotland from a home base in Jerusalem in AD 100(height of Roman empire) verses doing the same in AD 650 (well after the fall of the western Roman empire).
[Answer]
## New paths/teaching granted to the masses
There has always been rumored treasure in the mountains of [area], but the dragons or other wild things are too dangerous and nobody has ever returned.
Suddenly, One, or a few, great explorers have come back. They have great tales of their heroics and are essentially heroes. Also, they have started taking students, and teaching them what they have learned. There are great tunnels or paths in [area], and endless treasure to be had. Even more come back as successful adventurers, claiming to be even better than their peers. Each of the new adventurers start their own guilds, and contests emerge. A wave of adventuring is born.
(I am imagining a dojo-like martial art guild culture but for adventuring)
Alternatively, they have discovered that the dangerous guardians of the area hate [object]. Using [object] to get through the entrance leads to the same as above.
---
This could really apply to any new knowledge or discovery that allows people access into an area that they didn't have access to before. (The area happens to have nearly endless treasure).
[Answer]
**Dungeons are a Renewable Resource**
Not all dungeons are ancient; villages go missing and ships get wrecked all the time. Goblins dig out underground outposts along with their attempts at military conquest. Orcs build forts. Even humans have elaborate sewers underneath their cities and dungeons beneath their castles!
Furthermore, it behooves the ruling class to encourage adventuring, so as to have ready access to trained professionals to hire for special operations, or to conscript into their armies when needed — they may even go so far as to conspire to *create* dungeons to ensure a ready supply of adventures.
[Answer]
## The invention of Magic
The "technology" could be magic. Lets say the dwarf miners of Alaton have found deep in their mines a new resource, which has strange affects on people.
After not too much experimentation they found that this new resource could be used to practice "magic": Ability to control the flow of power and the elements with your mind.
After realizing how the dragons must have gotten their power too, the adventurous type gotten themselves some of this new "mana" and set out to fight the dragons with their own powers.
Because dragons are immensely powerful, this is very risky, and mana is scarce, and because of this not everyone can become a dragon hunter. The best warriors and magi are being chosen by the council and given mana for dungeon raids, and in turn they come back with the goods the dragons have stolen over the centuries. Or don't come back at all.
[Answer]
**Marie Celese / Bermuda Triangle / Roanoke effect**
Occasionally in human history people, vessels and colonies vanish without trace. What if we make this a lot more common? We also need a threat that will drive people to create fortresses full of valuables. And possibly construction magic to make their construction more common.
So populate the world with DnD-style hostile roaming humanoids (like kobolds and goblins). Let's say they are interested in our food but not our art, gold or other valuables. It's harder for bits of civilization to communicate, and we're keen to build dungeon fortresses to live in.
But every now and again, the few travellers between dungeons find that one is simply depopulated. No sign of violence. It's just that everyone's gone and is never seen again. The great mystery of the world, perhaps related to magic. This provides you with an opportunity to take their stuff. But maybe the other humanoids are sneaking around as well...
[Answer]
I wanted to add something more practical:
For something to be mainstream, **money** is always there in the details. It has to be worth the risk of losing one's life, and money represent worth for most human beings. Barring any very abnormal circumstances, like dungeons floating in the sky, there would have to be a lot of the world that is unexplored and a decent amount of wealth in the populated parts. Basically, not too different than it is now: people with money want to multiply their money by financing adventures (businesses) with high prospect of more money. They can afford to equip the adventurers with the best supplies to have the best chance of success. Plus, they don't have to risk their life.
There would have to be a few extremely profitable adventures having taken place in recent history to begin a gold-rush-like mainstreaming of adventuring. The most popular adventurers could be celebrities, invited to meet the Kings and Queens, give speeches, and have statues made after them.
And still, there could be independent adventurers who finance their own adventures.
Anyway, I think money is the more practical answer if you're not looking to invent fantastic reasons.
[Answer]
**Umbrella group / cultural solidarity / religious dignity.**
I am impressed that the modern adventurers are the people who leave their homes to join ISIS. I suspect the motivations of these ISIS adventurers are similar to those who joined the Crusades and even the Spanish conquest of the New World. Some are motivated more strongly by personal gain (financial, sexual, status) and some by principles (righting a historic wrong, converting the heathens, accomplishing something for their cultural group) but these folks probably had the same sort of feelings and motivations before they headed out.
The unifying cultural / religious piece dignifies the endeavor and so makes it possible. What makes these folks actually pack up and go is the prospect of being received by an organized group of like minded individuals united by a higher purpose and a bond above and beyond worldly things. Even if my real motivation is loot and slave girls it might be hard to say that out loud, even to myself. Most people and especially young unjaded people want to be good even if they are also horrifically greedy and horny. Joining forces with brothers in arms who are fighting infidels for the good of our shared principles is something I can tell my mom. Even if she cries, she will be proud.
So: your adventurer's guild is a quasireligious crusading organization which is rolling back the forces of evil in the name of Mithra. There may, possibly, turn out to be opportunities to loot and plunder although of course that is secondary. Just be sure you render unto Mithra what is Mithra's when you come out of the dungeon.
[Answer]
In general, inventing something or coming up with a novel idea is quite hard, but once it is there it can be learned and used fairly easily by others, even by people who would not have the "brain power" to come up with that idea themselves.
Also, once a new idea is there, other new ideas emerge from that. (Which is more or less a very shor summary of @AlbertMasclans` very good answer.
But it does not have to be technology, it does not have to be a very clever puzzle that you cannot solve without some high tech tools.
Simple superstition or ignorance could have prevented ancestor generations from looting a dungeon: It could have been "common belief" that the place is cursed, or it simply was not found and was only recently discovered by an act of pure chance (think about a shepherd searchign for a lost lamb and accidentally stumpling over the lever that operated the dungeon doors).
After the initial discovery (the door, or the knowledge the dungeon is there, or the knowledge that the mighty curse simply does not exist), it is very easy to exploit that new found knowledge. (And the dungeon, of course)
[Answer]
You need to look at what "adventuring" - meaning a search for treasure/loot - can do to the economy of your country. You mention the New World, but consider that though Spain brought back uncounted shiploads of gold, silver, & precious gems, it didn't last as a world power, because the treasure caused inflation - "Everything is dear in Spain except silver" - and diverted resources away from more productive enterprises. (Greatly oversimplified, of course: for a basic introduction see e.g. the Wikipedia article here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Empire#The_Spanish_Habsburgs:_The_Sun_Never_Sets_.281516.E2.80.931700.29>
By contrast, the British didn't bring back vast amounts of treasure. They brought back useful materials like food & fabrics, and sent manufactured goods out in exchange.
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[Question]
[
So in my world interdimensional travel produces UV light. However, there are obviously other things which produce UV light/reflect it and look different. **Being a non-physics person, can someone explain what looks particularly different when viewed with UV light?**
Some ideas I have are that the night sky, flowers and electricity would look particularly different. By the way, I'm looking for particularly big differences, not small ones such as "this looks a little bit more purple."
[Answer]
Assuming that the ability to see into the UV spectrum is an additional, fourth elementary color, and that red, green, and blue vision remain unaffected, keeping this person's ability to see all of the colors that they can see now, in addition to seeing UV...
It would be a whole new color. There really isn't much room in human understanding to comprehend new colors. The best that UV sensitive cameras can do is translate UV into a range of colors that we're familiar with.
One of the reasons why humans don't have UV vision is that it's a wavelength of light that gets scattered quite a bit by our atmosphere. So, anyone who has UV vision would see a uniform UV colored haze during the day when outside, and just as hazy, cloudy weather reduces shadows, making everything look somewhat more flat and drab, this is what the UV color would look like all the time: rather uniform with few shadows.
The biggest thing we'd notice is that phosphorescents -- things that glow to humans under black lights, will be noticeably darker.
This is because the phosphorescent surface is absorbing the UV light and re-emitting at a different color. There will always be a loss of energy in this conversion.
There are some plants that generate stripes that can only be seen in UV ranges.
Clothes washed in detergent that is meant to make clothes brighter will look much more drab and dirty. These detergents use a phosphorescent residue.
Some glass will be completely opaque to the UV color... just like different colored glass is opaque to other colors... For instance, red glass blocks green light. (Digital cameras use glass that is opaque to IR and UV on purpose, to pre-filter to just the band that is visible to humans.)
There would be little that's "new" that you would see. You'd still see a rock on the ground; it would just have a new color depending on its surface properties. Some few things that look identical to normal human vision might have differences to your expanded-color-vision person. For instance, they'll be able to tell at a glance when someone is wearing sunscreen, and can easily tell just how effective that sunscreen is.
[Answer]
Your specific question is, "what could a UV-sighted person see that the rest of us can't?" While there are many things that such a person would see *differently* than we (things that we would also see, but would perceive differently). Therefore, I reject fluorescing rocks because we limited beings can see the rocks just fine.
Dried or wet, there are some invisible things a UV sensitive person could see (basic list from [here](https://sciencing.com/kind-stains-black-lights-detect-5045775.html):
* Saliva & urine
* Bleach and some liquid detergents
* Liquids containing quinine including club soda
* Lemon juice (though this isn't *quite* invisible to our regular eyes)
Blood is an interesting topic. By itself we can see it wet or dry. But if cleaned simply with soap and water, it's no longer visible to us, but would be visible to someone capable of seeing in the UV spectrum.
I'm not a chemical engineer, so I can't tell you what compounds are involved (other than quinine, which I found quickly online), but that list of compounds is what would be of greatest interest to you.
[Answer]
This resource has a lot of options:
<https://www.thoughtco.com/what-glows-under-a-black-light-607615>
Some of the most interesting, in my mind, were:
1. Plants (or the chlorophyll in them) glows red
2. Scorpions glow bright blue-green
3. Body fluids also glow
People also glow under UV light, which might be an interesting skill for your protagonist to have.
[Answer]
The link by Caleb Syring is excellent.
The useful bits for Sci-Fi scenario could be:
* Can tell humans from humanoid robots (b/c plastic skin glows, and human skin absorbs UV). Same for artificial limbs. I know I can see all the tooth fillings and crowns in my mouth under UV light.
* Can see traces of blood on vampire's lips, even if they are wearing red lipstick. Or can see traces of bloody massacre even after it was cleaned up.
* Can see mold before it becomes visible to humans. Including the bioengineered mind-altering mold.
* Can see traces of slime left by monsters or aliens.
[Answer]
**Almost nothing, under every day circumstances**
Our atmosphere blocks out almost all UV light - this is why the other answers are talking about shining UV light on things.
Q: If you get a UV camera and just point it out your window, what does it pick up?
A: Practically nothing - there will be more input from electrical noise in the camera affecting the sensor than there will be UV input, unless you point it directly at the sun.
Your character will be able to see UV sources directly, without needing things to flouresce to detect its presence.
electrical arcs, blacklights, rocket motors etc would be more visible to them.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet#Visibility) notes that some people can see UV light
>
> Ultraviolet rays are invisible to most humans. The lens of the human
> eye blocks most radiation in the wavelength range of 300–400 nm;
> shorter wavelengths are blocked by the cornea. Humans lack color
> receptor adaptations for ultraviolet rays. Nevertheless, the
> photoreceptors of the retina are sensitive to near-UV, and people
> lacking a lens (a condition known as aphakia) perceive near-UV as
> whitish-blue or whitish-violet. Under some conditions, children and
> young adults can see ultraviolet down to wavelengths of about 310
> nm.
>
>
>
For Near UV light vison, this will be like having near IR vision - like a cheap camera such as you will find in your phone or as a webcam has - it'll pick up on e.g. a remote control for a TV (which uses near IR) as a glow, but it can't see beyond that - in the IR space that would be thermal vision.
There still isn't much UV light that makes it to the surface of the earth. These people are able to see the light from UV sources primarilly.
For UV, being able to see beyond near UV light, you're passing out of the range covered by blacklights to the shorter wavelengths, that are absorbed by the Ozone layer.
>
> Ozone absorbs more than 99 percent of UV-C rays -- the most dangerous portion of the spectrum. Ozone absorbs about 90 percent of the UV-B rays
>
>
> [sciencing.com](https://sciencing.com/percent-uv-ozone-absorb-20509.html)
>
>
>
you're not going to see much at all in this region, even if you block out all of the visible light.
The main reason we have evolved to see the visible spectrum is because that range is mostly transparent to our atmosphere - the light in that range reaches us. Having a larger visual range is not beneficial, as the intensity drops off rapidly:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VQOve.jpg)
[Answer]
There are already some great answers, I'd like to point out a few more things that they would be able to see. Mostly, I'm thinking of manufacture pigments that are designed to trick people who see visual light, but wouldn't fool someone who can see ultraviolet.
* False teeth, which are designed to look identical to natural teeth are often different colors in UV.
* Makeup, it might match the skin very well in visibly light, but it's extremely obvious in UV
* You can tell who is wearing sunscreen
* You might be able tell what has been repainted when other people can't
* Some freckles are only in UV, you'll disagree with other people about who is covered in freckles
* You might be better at identifying natural sunlight
Maybe it's not amazingly useful, but you could leave hidden messages for your UV seeing friends. You wouldn't need special UV paint, just put zinc white over titanium dioxide white.
I also think it's worth pointing out that you'd loose most of these abilities indoors, especially under incandescent and LED lights. Florescent light bulbs have more UV, but if there is no UV light source in the room, everything would look the same to you as to everyone else.
[Answer]
In addition to the above items, this person may also be able to "see" radioactivity, after a fashion. Alpha particles, Beta particles, X-rays and gamma rays all have [modes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremsstrahlung) by which they will produce UV upon interacting with air or matter.
[Answer]
Visiting an art museum might have some interesting results...
Many old masterpieces look quite different when viewed with X-Ray, UV, Infrared, or other special cameras.
<https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5995pb/7-hidden-art-secrets-that-were-uncovered-with-technology>
I would also note that UV light often harms a normal person's eyes. So in addition to being able to see UV light their eyes would probably benefit from a resistance to its harmful effects. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to use that ability very much.
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[Question]
[
[Another question from Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/2t9ncv/would_it_be_plausible_to_ride_a_rhinoceros_into/) that may fit the format of this site.
Elephants used to be used for warfare in the past, and even those are hard to tame. Would it be possible that instead of horses, rhinos are used for cavalries?
[Answer]
Horses are used for their great acceleration and speed, as well as being able to carry quite a heavy load. They can rear up and aid the knight in battle, as well as be trained quite well to charge the enemy without shying away.
Elephants can be very aggressive when the situation warrants, and their hide is very tough and thick, making it very hard to kill. They were huge targets, however, so archers and ballistic devices could target them easily and bring them down without them so much as touching a soldier.
Rhinos, however, are a whole different beast. Sure, they can get up to some insane speeds and gore the living crap out of someone, or even a horse, but they have very poor eyesight. Not to mention, do you know anyone who would be brave enough to approach a wild Rhino? They are extremely aggressive, and would most likely be extremely hard to train. They are quite dumb beasts, and will take a few hundred years of taming and breeding in order to train them to fight.
And when they do get to the battlefield, their poor eyesight will lead them astray. They will pick up speed over time, and get ready to charge a man on his horse with a javelin, but all the horse has to do is veer off a few feet to the right when the rhino is a few dozen meters away and the rider will be perfectly safe to lop off the rider's head as the rhino charges off into the forest.
All in all, they just aren't made for that sort of thing. They are very clumsy with their poor eyesight, and would be left in the dust by the cavalries consisting of horses alone.
[Answer]
It might be *possible* to have rhino cavalries, but they would most certainly not be very advantageous.
# Pros of a rhino cavalry:
* The weight difference between a rhino and a horse would mean that a charging rhino would shove a horse (alongwith rider) aside with some heavy damage. Little humans would be flung aside like pebbles.
* The extremely aggressive nature of a rhino, combined with its speed and weight would mean that the rhinos can go on crazy rampages once inside the enemy lines. The kill spree would be so fast, each rhino would be killing a human in an average of 7 seconds.
* The thick hide of a rhino means it can take more damage than a horse and still stay alive and functional.
* Like elephants, a surprise rhino formation would scare the pee of the enemy infantry (and possibly cavalry too), providing a massive morale advantage to their side.
* Horses who have never encountered a camel before, are scared of camels' smell and are likely to go stampeding. This effect would be much more profound with rhinos.
# Cons of a rhino cavalry
* Considering the aggressiveness of rhinos, they would be extremely hard to domesticate. (Fun fact: rhinos don't even condone the presence of other *animals* in their vicinity. Even lions stay the heck away from them.)
* Considering the aggressiveness of rhinos, they would be extremely hard to train ***not*** to charge randomly in the presence of massive crowds (armies). That could end up with a lot of casualties in *friendly fire* category.
* Being so large, rhinos would be very easy targets for archers and spearmen. Flaming arrows would be particularly horrific for rhinos (just like elephants) and would send them retreating in a stampede, crushing their own men.
* A rhino's back is too wide and round for easy seating of a human. It would be very uncomfortable and hard to stay on a charging rhino's back.
* Considering that rhinos have a shorter height than camels and horses, riding a rhino would not provide as much height advantage over infantry as a camel or horse would provide.
# Conclusion
Rhinos *might* be used as a surprise weapon against unsuspecting armies. Then again, the strategy would be to let loose a horde of rhinos *behind* or at the *sides* of the enemy lines and send them rushing towards the targets. Using rhinos to ride into battle and use them effectively as beats of burden would be impossible considering the behavior of today's rhinos.
[Answer]
Not really, but it isn't what is actually meant when talking about rhinoceros cavalry either.
What it actually means is soldiers riding animals that **look** like rhinoceros, but actually are different in ways that allow using them as cavalry. Whether this is due to long periods of breeding them possibly with magic assist or genetic engineering, intervention by gods (paladins of the rhino god mount up!) or simply because it is a different world and the pseudo-rhinos just are different that way is up to the creator. And usually the actual details beyond the general hand wave are not relevant either.
So the question isn't really whether it **is** plausible, but how it is **made plausible** in this particular setting.
[Answer]
Unlike what others here mentioned, it seems that it isn't hard at all, to tame rhinos, when they don't grow up in the wilderness. And they develop a strong bond to their zookeepers.
(src, unfortunately only the German Wikipedia <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzernashorn#Interaktion_mit_anderen_Tierarten>, the english one doesn't mention taming at all)
So it might be possible, to train them to be send into battle, to break up infantery formations ... but if you would be able to calm them after they went amok, I wouldn't be so sure.
And if it would be worth the effort, as Rhinos grow slowly, is another question.
But for using them as cavalry, they are probably too stubborn and their (round) backs are not a nice place to be, when they stamp around.
Otherwise it would have been done allready ...
[Answer]
While Rhino cavalry seems a bit unlikely, it might be possible to use rhinos in a different manner.
Cavalry is traditionally used for scouting, pursuing fleeing enemy (cavalry is often held in reserve and dispatched after the enemy line is broken) or only occasionally to strike into enemy formations (especially heavy cavalry, and then only if they have ranged weapons that can outreach the enemy infantry).
The users of rhinos would be taking a herd and (carefully) transporting them into the battle area. Once in place, and possibly surrounded by a temporary corral, the army waits and looks at he disposition of the enemy. Once the key formation is identified, the rhinos are goaded into a frenzy, and then the corral gate is opened, and a very brave cavalryman on a very fast horse is waiting up front. The cavalryman rides towards the enemy formation with the herd charging right behind. With a bit of luck he can veer off at the last moment and 10-20 angry rhinos crash into the enemy shield wall/phalanx/infantry square and shatter the formation.
With a wide hole punched into the enemy line, your own forces can stream into the breech and begin the process of rolling up the enemy. Timing it right should allow you to break in while the enemy is disrupted, and hopefully they have killed or hamstrung most of the rhinos so you won't be dealing with rampaging beasts in your own formation. If you think that might be a problem, then simply remain in a defensive formation with pikes out front and wait for the enemy to collapse as rampaging beasts maul and trample their troops.
This is going to be one of those high cost/high risk/high payoff ploys that only really work the one time, so make sure you save it for a major battle, and don't spoil the surprise on a minor skirmish somewhere.
[Answer]
Sometimes the ferocity of Rhinos is exaggerated.
for example, the couple in this photo were able to get this close to the rhinos after their guide assured them it was safe.
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262869/Couple-attacked-rhinos-Photo-shows-Chantal-Beyer-moments-gored-rhinoceros.html>[1](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262869/Couple-attacked-rhinos-Photo-shows-Chantal-Beyer-moments-gored-rhinoceros.html)
Of course what happened seconds after the photo was taken was not so tame.
But the fact that the overly trustful tourists got that close before the rhino attacked is quite surprising.
And zookeepers often get close to some of their rhinos without trouble:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers+with+rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=0IhvRq1O5lv12M>:[2](https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers%20with%20rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=0IhvRq1O5lv12M:)
<https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers+with+rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=q3834FF0Z_6rFM>:[3](https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers%20with%20rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=q3834FF0Z_6rFM:)
<https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers+with+rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=pwAQxZ8twBTp_M>:[4](https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers%20with%20rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=pwAQxZ8twBTp_M:)
<https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers+with+rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=6cvj8nq_bx8emM>:[5](https://www.google.com/search?q=zookeepers%20with%20rhinos&tbm=isch&imgil=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%253Be2AgnfuKAfSggM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au%25252Fnews%25252Fzoos-on-alert-after-white-rhino-deaths-australia%25252F1317775%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=0IhvRq1O5lv12M%253A%252Ce2AgnfuKAfSggM%252C_&usg=__ZZYET30d3ZfbI8NpsgjdcNp5ab8%3D&biw=1280&bih=845&ved=0ahUKEwj3q-7ZqKLUAhUEwYMKHYUMATYQyjcIPQ&ei=mgEzWff2LYSCjwSFmYSwAw#imgrc=6cvj8nq_bx8emM:)
Here is a discussion about the possibility of war rhinos.
<http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/03/21/war-rhinos/>[6](http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/03/21/war-rhinos/)
<https://www.google.com/search?q=trained+rhinos&oq=trained+rhonos&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.10286j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=trained+circus+rhinos>[7](https://www.google.com/search?q=trained%20rhinos&oq=trained%20rhonos&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.10286j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=trained%20circus%20rhinos)
] |
[Question]
[
NOTE I have re-edited the title to make it clearer. I have also added some detail in the paragraphs below that does not invalidate any of the existing answers.
---
Let us suppose that a group of humans several thousand years ago were shipwrecked on a barren volcanic island. The only living things they brought with them were potatoes both for food and for seeding. These are ordinary potatoes as we know them. There are no other vegetables or animals on the island.
The original settlers had fishing equipment but over the centuries this has disintegrated. Growing potatoes has given them food plus fibres from the roots, stems and leaves. They can fashion simple tools from seashells and fish bones, etc.
There is no metal ore to be found so they are limited in what they can make. Nevertheless they are intelligent and resourceful and invent as much as they can using potato and sea products. There has been absolutely no contact with the outside word.
Is it possible for a population to survive for this long? Can they live on just fish, potatoes and the occasional sea bird? Can they build shelters from potatoes? Can they, given time, even build boats from potatoes?
**Question**
What are the limits to potato living?
---
Please ask for any necessary clarifications.
**Assumptions**
1. The climate is generally moderate with the occasional severe storms.
2. The original settlers did bring some artefacts with them but nothing remains that is of practical use.
3. They have a constant supply of clean fresh water from a stream.
4. The ancestors brought fire with them and have faithfully kept it going all this time, keeping it alive with potato leaves and roots.
5. Potatoes grow best in loose, well-drained loam soil. Heavy clay soil retains too much moisture and tends to become hard as it dries, which can eventually slow water absorption and make it difficult for tubers to grow. Sandy soil drains too quickly, which can result in drought stress unless you water often. ([Source](https://homeguides.sfgate.com/kind-soil-potatoes-like-70919.html#:%7E:text=Potatoes%20grow%20best%20in%20loose%2C%20well-drained%20loam%20soil.,result%20in%20drought%20stress%20unless%20you%20water%20often)).
6. The island is protected nearly all round by a reef. The **fish** are anything that might have been found in the healthier days of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
7. The rocks are mainly volcanic.
8. They can make fibres from potatoes and/or their own hair.
[Answer]
**There would be serious issues:**
In a a world where potatoes are the only plant, you would have some really serious issues to overcome to make this realistic.
* If you think you can grow potatoes alone, you are mistaken. First, on an island without plants, you will have no soil. Even within a couple of years, places like Mt. St Helens and Krakatoa started growing plants, so the seeds would be somewhere unless this is an alien world. No other plants mean either the soil is unusable or that it has all washed away. An alien world without other organisms would have alien conditions, incompatible biology, or erosion. MINIMALLY there would need to be soil bacteria, insects, etc.
* Pollinators would make the whole thing a lot simpler, or else your people need to manually pollinate every single plant.
* Potatoes don't actually store that well. They have a lot of moisture and tend to rot. Modern storage allows for keeping them but most islands are not conducive to dry storage — dried potato slices? You would need cultures growing all the time for a steady food supply.
* There are [a very limited number of nutrients in potatoes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato), so the potato is only there to provide bulk calories. You will need to have alternate sources of foods for almost every nutrient. MINIMALLY there had better be some good plants in the sea or *really* nutritious fish, as mentioned by Galactic. This means that need to be really lucky to get the right starting seaweed. Some of this can be worked around if you have microorganisms that are able to synthesize needed vitamins via fermentation. This is the kind of super-coincidence luck/genetic-engineered hand-waving you indicated you didn't want. (The upside of fermentation is your natives might get drunk "for their health" and kids need to drink potato beer, too).
* You have serious concerns about monoculture. Potatoes almost DEFINE [the problems with monoculture](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture_02). Any little thing that goes wrong with your plants could destroy the entire food chain for your islanders, recreating the Irish potato famine but without alternatives. I'm assuming you are starting with one or two varieties of "white" potatoes, but normal potatoes can mean any and all of 5,000 varieties, so if you allow many of these, the situation improves a BIT.
* Along with monoculture, having only one kind of plant means the soil gets depleted of the stuff potatoes need, and other organisms aren't there to restore them. Bacteria, fungi or insects that ate your potatoes would start to enrich in your soil, eating them after a short while. MINIMALLY fields would need to be left fallow for years between crops.
* From an evolutionary standpoint, your potato is likely to go wild (assuming a pollinator) and start mutating as a wild plant, trying to fill vacant niches. Potatoes are related to belladonna, and most of the species (including many potatoes) CAN, under the right conditions, be toxic (remember anyone ever telling you to not eat green potatoes?). Even wild mutants could still interbreed with your domestics, introducing dangerous mutants with poisonous variants.
* All parts of potatoes except the tuber are toxic (again, related to belladonna) but who knows, maybe some of these plants will end up producing nicotine (another potato relative) and introducing a new kind of crop. This limits the general usefulness of the plant in other applications due to its relative toxicity.
So, concentrating entirely on the actual potato, there are serious problems with such a scheme, and you need to think about adding some bees, grass, friendly microorganisms, and genetic diversity to your scenario before leaving the survival of your society to the humble potato.
[Answer]
**Yes; they could.**
[The Inuit largely lived on only seafood and kelp.](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/country-food-inuit-food-in-canada) Seafood contains all the necessary nutrients for humans to survive. However, the Inuit diet contains little carbohydrates, so they were ketogenic. Your people, on the other hand, have access to potatoes, an good source of carbohydrates.
[Fire would likely be done by burning potato leaves, as they are toxic and have little use.](https://homeguides.sfgate.com/parts-potato-plants-poisonous-56644.html)
The people of the civilization could build homes out of earth since the climate is mild and severe storms are rare. They can rebuild them every time a storm occurs.
Since the island has igneous rock, they could create spears to hunt by attaching rocks or shells to animal bones from fish.
Technological progression will likely be slow, as your people will spend most of their time hunting and farming potatoes rather than researching technology. However, given long enough, they would technologically progress.
Writing would likely be done through clay tablets much like Mesopotamian civilization:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EIBGS.jpg)
In the event that buildings in your civilization collapse during a storm, the clay tablets will still be preserved.
Eventually, they could make bricks out of stone/clay that they could use to build more solid structures.
Items can be wrapped in cloth made from potato fibers.
[Boats can be made out of solid granite (an igneous/volcanic rock).](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc8Wqj1x08s&feature=emb_logo) Your people can use oars made from bones and stones to navigate the ocean.
The civilization can then use selective breeding to breed potatoes containing more nutrients.
[After that, the people on your island can invent bioplastics made from potatoes, a much more reliable material than stone.](https://bioplasticsnews.com/2018/10/21/bioplastics-made-from-potatoes/)
Basic machinery such as the steam engine can have a stone base and working components made out of bioplastic.
[](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Aeolipile_illustration.png)
Since the resources needed to make an electronic computer are unavailable on your island, your people will likely develop fluidic computers made out of bioplastic.
However, it will take a **long** time for these technologies to be developed, as people will have to hunt more frequently, since non-potato agriculture is not possible on your island.
[Answer]
**Can you even grow potatoes here?**
To answer this question we first need to explore the properties of un-pioneered volcanic soils and compare those to the needs of Potatoes.
As long as your soil includes a low aluminum andisol you will be fine. Andisol is an inorganic soil made of volcanic rock that is broken down by rain instead of pioneer plants. An island formed from basaltic lava would be best because the andisol will form better and quicker with a lower silicon content. Potatoes and other tubers grow particularly well in this kind of soil; so, your potato crops will not need any special treatment to pioneer this environment as long as the island is old enough for the lava to have broken down to andisol by the time you get there.
**Can you live off of just potatoes?**
More or less, yes. Adults have been reported to be able to live at least a year off of just potatoes; so, other foods are not necessary in a short term survival situation. That said, they are deficient in Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Calcium, and important lipids and proteins that you won't get enough of out of potatoes for long term survival. The good news is that fish are rich in all of these things; so, a diet of just potatoes and fish is adequate to maintain reasonably good health. You will probably also see a fair amount of seaweed consumption for variety if nothing else.
The big issue you will run into is that potato plants are not woody. They are not very good for making hot fires, or tools, etc; so, you may run into some serious issues when it comes to basic technologies. Without woody plants or large animals to hunt, human remains may become essential materials. Bones used as tool handles, skin used for leather, hair used for string, etc. The good news is that this is just a temporary condition. Tropical volcanic islands do not stay lifeless for very long, in the course of the few thousand years your people live here, seeds of various islander plants will wash ashore giving you other plants to work with over time like coconuts which will in turn give you a more proper wood to work with and fill out all your needs for a basic neolithic level civilization.
] |
[Question]
[
At the beginning of the 1900s, the [Doble Steam Motors Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doble_steam_car#Doble_Steam_Motors_Company) built steam cars. Their engineers solved many of the problems steam cars had until then by using superheated steam and a condenser to recirculate the steam instead of just expelling it as exhaust.
Their cars ran almost completely silently and made 1000 (yes, a thousand) ft-lbs of torque.
[Here's a video](https://youtu.be/rUg_ukBwsyo) with Jay Leno where he explains the inner workings of one in more detail and drives it around. [Here's a diagram](http://lftrnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/desalination.png) explaining how they work, and for flavor, a [picture of thorium salt crystals](http://energyfromthorium.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/saltmelt1.gif)
The way I'm thinking it'd work is
* you'd have a tiny version of the thorium reactor "bulb" circulate molten salt into a heat exchanger (like the furnace in the Doble)...
* ...to create superheated steam...
* ... then use that to drive a steam engine or turbine...
* ... hooked directly to the back wheels (with that much torque, you don't need a gear box)...
* ... then recirculate the steam thru a condenser to turn it back into water.
I can think of several pros and one big con:
**Pros:**
1. Your fuel is literally glowy blue-green crystals.
2. Silent running.
3. Nuclear-powered AND steam powered.
4. Tons of torque.
5. No exhaust pollution — you'd run your car until the thorium salt was expended then dispose the waste at a processing facility.
6. Thorium has 1000s of times the energy density of fossil fuels. You could run your car for months on a single "tank."
7. Thorium is about as abundant as lead in the ground, so fuel cost wouldn't be unreasonable.
**Con:**
RADIATION
**Is it practical to combine this "advanced" retro steam technology with a mini liquid thorium salt reactor?**
[Answer]
I have some interest in nuclear powered… well, spaceships mainly, but some of the problems apply to cars too.
**Radiation is your enemy**. It's not just "Oh we need some shielding, slap some lead around it!" kind of enemy, it's "If your body absorbs ten joules per kilogram of body weight, you die. Your modern car engine produces around fifteen *thousand* joules *per second* (and that's when it's cruising, multiply that by ten if you're accelerating as hard as you can). If you are in a crash and the shielding is breached, you die and so does everyone else nearby."
This is true regardless of the specific nuclear technology being used; RTG, reactor (Uranium, Plutonium, Thorium, fusion…), induced gamma emission, betavoltaic batteries, anything.
**Other problems** are technology-specific; as JDługosz has mentioned, throttling the power of a reactor up or down is *far* too slow for a car. You can compensate for that with batteries — drain them for a boost, let them recharge when you're not accelerating hard. But then, you'd have a hybrid car, or electric car that just happens to be getting recharged by an on-board nuclear reactor, not a steam car. Your torque number would be totally different.
[Answer]
See [this debunking of the one in the news](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=568iDYn8pjc). Thorium is very slow to change the output on: you can’t just throttle it, but it would be putting out full power full time. For this reason alone, making it the primary power supply of a vehicle is impractical. See the video for more points that might still apply to your more realistic design.
Also, will your “bulb” work, or is there a minimum size for a sustained chain reaction? If it’s just a RTG you won’t have nearly enough power as you require.
If you’re set on using a reactor (not an RTG) in a cool story, **do it on Mars**. Surviving expedition members jury-rig a drive to [move the entire habitat](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/69665/why-would-a-colony-need-to-relocate), using the same reactor normally used for general power. Without parts for *huge* electric motors or drive train of any kind, they come up with the 19th century locomotive design. Nuclear steam train on Mars! Steampunk solutions to problems at hand, with existing computers and such they can use, but can’t *make* anything high-tech. They can use local iron from the soil to make parts from cast iron and wrought iron!
It could be a literal train, with multiple hab modules and cargo cars hooked up to the locomotive engine.
[Answer]
**The first problem here is scale**. Reactors are big. Thorium salt reactors are small, for reactors. That doesn't mean they're small, it's just a relative term.
Assuming you've successfully miniaturised and sealed the reactor to make a lightweight, small, plug and play unit that can be replaced in its entirety should it have a problem. Then the next issue is **contaminated water**. Ideally it's a closed system, the water never gets released but runs through a full rankine cycle, but unfortunately it probably will on a regular basis. Your fallback system for the condenser is to vent steam and take in fresh water. You're not going to be making friends by venting reactor water into the open air.
Speaking of **the condenser**, this is one of the great problems with steam cars. Most of them didn't have a condenser at all, one of the key factors that makes the Doble steam cars so much better is that they did. This means that you can recycle your water and not have to carry so much or fill it up as often. Ultimately this depends on external temperature. If you're running around in Scandinavia in mid-winter, no problem, you'll probably be successfully condensing all your water. In Dubai in high summer, you'll be boiling through your water at a steady rate and probably condensing almost none of it.
**Reactor and throttle control** is an interesting game. The reactor will run at a set temperature and pressure, throttle control on a steam power plant is by steam control not reactor control.
I'm assuming you can actually control this reactor, it's not just running at a steady rate all the time because that leads to disaster. You'll also need the ability to completely shut it down and restart it at will, this is a deal breaker if not possible.
Given a computer controlled reactor to maintain proper temperature and pressure at all times, you'll probably have to set it for current driving conditions, performance, cruise, traffic.
* Running in traffic you'll need to turn the whole thing down to use as little water as possible, you're almost certainly not condensing much and you can't afford to vent too much or you'll be stopping all the time for more water.
* Driving steadily at speed will get you highest condensing rate, but you don't need a vast amount of torque so the system again can be tuned.
* Performance is the Clarkson option, assuming you have plenty of water and only want more power, condensing is a nicety.
If you run on performance mode in traffic you probably won't get to the end of your journey, but if you try to race in traffic mode you won't have the steam pressure to keep your speed up.
## Assuming the reactor is small enough and good enough: The condenser is the weak point.
[Answer]
It is technically feasible. However, technology is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is public perception of nuclear power. There's no way the public will allow a nuclear-powered car. It will be perceived as an atomic bomb on a car.
If you say that you can't make a bomb from a Thorium-powered car, you are correct. The general public will not believe it. There's no way a nuclear-powered car will appear on the road anytime in the future.
[Answer]
see the "Statement on Thorium-fueled Reactors" of the 'Union of Concerned Scientists'.
<http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/thorium-reactors-statement.pdf>
Hmm, "thorium-232 has a half-life of 14 billion years and its decay products will build up over time..."
- Peggy Conte, Fairewinds in <http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/pipermail/energy/2013-January/002514.html>
Even if nuclear powered cars become theoretically possible, they would be disastrous in reality.
] |
[Question]
[
Would a "working deer" living in cities with hard paved or cobbled stone ground need "deershoes"? The deer are mainly used for light work: no heavy lifting or pulling.
Would unchanged deer feet and hoof anatomy allow for the same type of shoeing as horse hooves (nailing) or would they just need something else?
While most of the concern is on the hoof’s quality and protection with it striking hard rock nearly all day every day. Concern is also for the general balance and support of the body, as they’ve got a lot less area for balance on slippery flat streets when compared to horses with their dinner plate hooves and great weight.
So basically:
* Could deer anatomy allow nailed in ‘deershoes’ and if so, what would they look like to allow support, stability, and protection of the hoof?
* If not nailed in shoes, then what would the boots or actual ‘deer shoes’ need to look like to accomplish the same?
(And to note this question is **not** about how good deer would actually be for anything in the city or any other concern of why or how they’re there in the first place. This question is literally just about the hooves. The rest is for another question another time.)
[Answer]
## Shoes for cloven hoofed animals already exist.
behold the [ox shoe](https://d3h6k4kfl8m9p0.cloudfront.net/stories/-yPkqg9W.27OOubYgJkn7A.jpg) or sometimes called cow shoes. Traditionally made for plow oxen. They come in a fair [variety](https://www.oskaloosa.com/news/local_news/artifact-of-the-week-ox-shoes/article_c3a8cad6-58f7-11e6-ad92-3711c8a630cb.html) of shapes but the most common is shown below. Note modern farriers often attach them (and horseshoes) with epoxy instead of nails, less risk of damaging the hoof, also a lot easier.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ASjgh.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GClDi.jpg)
## But there is a problem
If they are commonly walking on concrete or asphalt modern farriers prefer softer hard plastic shoes with textured surfaces, because an iron shoe on a hard wet surface has very [little traction](https://thehorse.com/14659/working-horses-on-hard-surfaces/). plastic shoes reduce shock and improve traction.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/SHYjL.jpg)
[Answer]
Oxen have been shod for centuries -- mainly the ones who pull carts on paved roads (cobblestones), though plow oxen are also shod. Ordinary horseshoes won't work on cloven hooves, but ox shoes are designed for cloven hoofs. The issue that might arise is that deer (whitetails, wapiti, moose, etc.) have narrower hooves and are much lighter animals (even moos) than oxen. The shoe would require some modification, but any relative of common deer ought to be possible to shoe if the animal is well domesticated (i.e. calm enough for the farrier to handle as needed).
Worth noting that reindeer (domesticated caribou) aren't shod; despite having hooves, they, like camels, actually walk on a pad behind the visible hoof, and as a result, don't need shoes and cannot benefit from them.
[Answer]
Considering how giggly are deer when walking on wet paved roads (based on the footage I can see on the internet), shoes are surely needed to improve grip.
Elk are [hoofed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoof) mammals.
>
> A hoof (/ÀàhuÀêf/ or /Ààh äf/), plural hooves (/ÀàhuÀêvz/ or /Ààh ävz/) or hoofs /Ààh äfs/, is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick, and horny keratin covering.
>
>
> Artiodactyls are even-toed ungulates, meaning that these species have an even number of digits on each foot. Ruminants, with two main digits, are the largest group. Examples include deer, bison, cattle, goats and sheep. Perissodactyls have an odd number of toes. Examples of perissodactyl mammals are horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs.
>
>
>
You can use horseshoes for deer the same way they are used for horses, you only need to adjust for the two main digits instead of the single one found in horses.
] |
[Question]
[
**Closed**. This question needs to be more [focused](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers.
---
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This was a sudden thought during the world build I'm currently doing. What is the ecological purpose of a slime?
Most monsters in a fantasy universe can be put into a food chain without much thought. Woolies eat grass, dragons eat woolies and I eat the dragon. But where do slimes go?
When killed they turn into water/ liquid and the closest amount of damage they can do is dissolve clothing so they can't really eat other monsters.
My question really is: where do slimes sit in the food cycle? And why?
[Answer]
### [Cleaning Symbiosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_symbiosis)
Slimes actually eat all the very little stuff that big monsters can't really touch and that they don't want to have on them. All those very, very tiny critters, the waste products, the little adventurer bones that always stick between your teeth...
That's why they aren't killed by larger monsters. Larger monsters would rather protect slimes as long as they are doing their job. And being pretty much mindless there is rarely any occurence of normal slimes acting up in any way.
They are living an easy live of eating away stuff from larger monsters, which is why they are delivered their food and don't really have to fight for it. No need to compete with each other, lots of food, being protected by stronger beings, ...
Larger monsters simply breed slimes to be mindless little critters that can't harm anyone, just like humans are breeding animals for different purposes.
That's also why it's so easy to kill them for adventurers. And why you will soon have stronger enemies after having killed lots of slimes. Be careful who you are making your enemy...
[Answer]
There are actually a number of different slime type creatures in fantasy games, with varying characteristics. The three main ones that come to mind for me are:
* Dragon Quest - Probably the most iconic slime, weak and fairly harmless these are probably the ones you are thinking of from your description.
* Final Fantasy Flans - In FF the Flan is actually quite a tough creature, basically immune or highly resistant to physical damage and only really killable through magic. So almost the opposite of your described slime.
* Legend of Zelda Chu Chu - A kind of mix between the two. Fairly easy to kill but later versions come elementally charged and require precise timing to avoid being hurt when you attack them.
You are incorrect about what happens when they dies though, they don't turn to water they remain slime or goo. I doubt this would have much dietary value, but it can probably provide sustenance to something. To my mind their closest real life relative is a jellyfish, and it turns out most jellyfish eat each other. I imagine it would be the same with slimes, stronger slimes eat the weaker ones.
But looking at the Chu Chus they drop goo which can be used for potion making in Legend of Zelda, so it makes sense that some creatures may hunt and consume them for some beneficial effect.
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Some say that slimes were placed by the gods as a warning: slimes eat anything, even you. They serve no role other than that of theological education: they keep the greatest warriors humble. "For in the end, we are all just slime food".
There is another, competing theory that the slimes are the remaining protomatter from which we all arose, and if we go extinct, it is from the slimes that life will be rebuilt.
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I'd think they'd be down around molds and lichen, largely making its own food, and not being tasty or nutritious enough to be prey for anyone. Jellyfish in the sea would be the closest comparison.
Their relative weakness, and appearing in great number make them a perfect target for budding adventurers.
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[Question]
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For a story, I try to create a perfect Orwellian state with the current state of technology.
The government controls every aspect of its citizens daily life via constant automated surveillance (CCTV, biometric systems and wearable electronic devices), ministerial departments pass extreme anti-individualistic laws (citizen may only wear certain clothes and are assigned their jobs, apartments and mates for procreation by a computer system, etc.) and a radical (secret) police force makes sure there won't be any form of violent resistance against the system.
Almost everyone of the citizen are very content with the current government, due to the perceived wealth, security and lack of terror/crime. Their lifelong indoctrination at schools, universities and the media keeps them rooted for the leading party and against all enemies of their way of life.
1) Did I miss out any aspect or possibility to oppress the people of my state?
2) The protagonists of my story are working in completely different careers (i.e. a paramedic, an engineer and a businessman), that represent different aspects of the live within the state. How would their work be different compared to our current, free society?
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You've got indoctrination in there, but think about the details of how that'd work. For maximum evil you need the people to not just root for the State but (1) to be terrified of it and (2) to be forced to think and act in its support including helping to root out other dissidents, rather than passively obeying the laws.
A few models to look at in reality are Hussein-era Iraq (dictator has spies try to talk people into rebellion; targets must turn the spy in or be arrested themselves); socialist East Germany (something like 20% of whole population are informants, and typewriters are registered and possible to link to documents typed on them); and the upcoming "social credit score" system in China which turns obedience into a game. ( <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI> ) Your setting will be most oppressive if the people are actively participating in making the oppression work, so even your family members are untrustworthy.
The terror of imminent death is a possibility too, or of absolute impossibility of escape. Two fictional models: "Agent of Chaos", in which there's a list of "permitted actions" in any area, and any action not on the list is said to set off a deathtrap that kills everyone nearby; and Vinge's "A Deepness In the Sky" in which nanotech surveillance devices saturate a whole area and are linked to a constantly-listening, obsessive spy network.
Re: careers, figure that innovation is frightening because it means deviating from known approved designs. Don't know if it's true, but I recently heard Russia once built an experimental plane with a weird kink in its airframe because the blueprint was damaged and everyone was terrified to say that the Party had gotten it wrong. Figure also that corruption is rampant despite the surveillance (when does it ever really stop this sort of thing?). Also, that people have a tough time working together because anyone could be a spy. You could well have your paramedic knowingly kill somebody because Bob says 100 ccs is the proper dose, and Bob is a Party official reading from a State-approved guidebook. It can't be wrong.
A good nonfiction reference is "MiG Pilot", the story of a Russian pilot who defected to the West. Among other things it talks about the pilot's utter disbelief at how US aircraft carrier crews worked so well together, cooperating and trusting. It also covers what life was really like for even a well-liked, loyal pilot under the Soviet state. (Corruption, shoddy building standards, lousy facilities because the only aspect of morale that matters is Party loyalty...)
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What would "the most extreme" be?
**Thought Reading and Thought Control.**
Often forgotten when listing freedoms is Freedom of Thought. Maybe it is considered so obvious few think it might be threatened but never the less: all other freedoms start with this one. It is no accident that Orwell created the concept of "Thought-crime", because knowing what people think and taking action against thoughts, ideas, concepts, dreams, wishes, emotions is the ultimate totalitarianism.
Thankfully the root of all documents concerning freedoms - [The Universal Declaration of Human Rights](http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/index.html) - does bring up Freedom of Thought, in article 18:
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So if you want to create the worst of the worst, disable article 18, and go the full Monty on what that implies... thought monitoring, thought crime, thought modification, thought engineering, forbidden thoughts, societal thought alignment, thought eradication...
Everyone that goes with the program will be **perfectly happy**, because their thoughts - as supplied by the state - tells them that they are. And here comes the really insidious part: everyone that falls off the wagon will be **miserable**. Not because the state makes them that, but because they will suddenly feel things like sadness, anger, outrage, fear, anxiety. These are terrible things to feel when you previously were only happy. Many will want the bliss that the state provides. Those that have felt it will long for it again...
...and then do you have the most extreme you can think of: when it makes us **yearn** for the shackles. Nothing is firmer than that...
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The first thing that came to mind was the Borg.
Everything about your life is controlled, parsed and preplanned. You cannot deviate, your cannot rebel. You are the system. Everything is done for the collective good and the collective good all has the same goal.
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The most horrible would be a society where people actually believed they were free and did not realize in what ways the communication technology and surveillance was used to toy with their emotions to steer their thoughts and behaviours. Anyone pointing it out would be troublesome as it would hurt the pride of the people listening. It is painful to realize that one has been fooled - first blow would be to the self image, second to social status and pride.
However this would be efficient mostly in the individuals we have managed to establish a sense of pride and concept of shame. For individuals we're not able to establish that in... I guess we could always label them "sick". Get them locked up or managed by medication or somehow socially marginalized so at least they don't spread their influence.
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**Virtual societies are the most oppressive possible state.**
Imagine a society where, rather than wandering about their daily lives, all individuals exist in state-run facilities will full life support, immersed in a virtual world. CCTV, body scanners, and the like may exist, but they're just for show. The state has full access to the running code of the reality its individuals live in, and can determine exactly the state of every individual in society at all times. There is no part of the simulated world its controllers can't monitor at an arbitrary level of detail, so it's impossible to hide any action from the controllers of the world.
The most extreme possible version of this would be one where the individuals in society aren't just jacked into the computer system, a la the matrix, but are in fact programs themselves. Either they were coded into existence or uploaded into the virtual world. Every thought, need and emotion of a virtual
citizen can be monitored, just like everything else in the world.
In this world, the secret police are a myth who exist to help further the illusion of existence, just like the cameras and body scanners that give the government an excuse for knowing everything. In reality, the government has a much simpler way of dealing with lawbreakers: it simply deletes them.
In a virtual state, all work is done along the lines of what sort of 'reality' the state wants to present to its citizens. Ultimately, any "job" that influences only virtual beings or creates only virtual goods is worthless, since the government can alter the world at will. Things like code development or research that can be exported outside the virtual world would probably be heavily promoted, since those are things the government can profit from. Jobs like 'paramedic' or 'burger flipper' may still exist, but they serve only as a way to further the illusion of the virtual state.
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You could add religion into the mix and have a mandatory state religion and morality police. Regular confession could be demanded, and make use of polygraphs and truth drugs and drug tests. "Criminals" need not only to punished but shamed too and the message needs to get out about how the authorities have saved the people from terrible moral corruption. People who denounce their own families could be lauded as heroes.
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Orwell wrote a fairly terrifying state in 1984, but a lot of the technologies referred to are now obsolete or redundant, though other factors are still perfectly valid.
**Telescreens:** These are now redundant. We each carry a little spy in our pocket that can listen wherever we are and track our movements. We no longer need to regulate to have a telescreen on in our house as someone in the room will always have a mobile phone turned on.
**Two minutes hate:** It's hard to tell the difference between this and a Trump rally, but it's about uniting the people in adversity, telling everyone that the enemies are still out there and they must accept the bad things to keep them safe.
**Children informing on their parents:** This was a side plot leading to the downfall of the neighbour. Taking away the children and turning them against their parents is still perfectly valid and still terrifying.
Now we have new factors though
**Overwhelming marketing:** How much of what you do or think is controlled by what's broadcast through your telescreen? We all like to think that we think for ourselves but for how many of us is that actually true?
**Misinformation:** A lie runs around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Even faster with a good clickbait tagline on social media. Who needs the heavy hand of control when you can just tell people a pretty story and have them believe anything you like.
**Security cameras:** There are various figures about being seen by 300 security cameras a day. This is an old figure for London, it may or may not be true but it means your day to day movements are now easily tracked. Those cameras are mostly linked to networked computers. Anything that's on the net can be watched centrally.
Where I'm going with all this, is that the crude old methods of informing on every little crime, and making people suspicious of each other, leaving them constantly in fear are not required with modern technologies. It's far simpler and easier to use the technology that we accept and *want* day to day against us and if someone complains, just write them off as a crank. Everyone thinks they live in the best of all possible worlds and even keeps reelecting their leaders from the same cabal as they always have.
**In practice Orwell was wrong, [Huxley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley) was right, but Orwell is the one we remember.**
Huxley wrote [Brave New World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World), also dystopian but rather than being oppressed by power, the people are controlled by pleasure. Enjoy your "reality" TV.
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Computer-based supply management chains that determine what gets purchased and where it goes. There is no appeal, and people don't decide who gets what. As a kicker, it should actually work: everyone gets enough, and people get rewarded seemly randomly with extra stuff with notes saying why.
A huge percent of the population is spent on monitoring other people. The monitors are in turn monitored, as is their monitoring. Failure to report crime is a crime, so you have to work really hard at monitoring crime. There is a load-factor of around 10: 10 people are monitoring you and/or being cross-monitored for everyone actually doing something "productive".
Movement and noise based monitoring lowers the load at "sleep time". At sleep time, you must be alone; any attempt to communicate is a crime. Mostly automated systems can then be left monitoring you, reducing the load.
For near-future, implants that read your surface thoughts could exist. Basically, stick some electronics in your head, train it to work out what you are thinking about, then generate an approximation of what you are thinking about. Again, we have people monitoring them, and people monitoring the monitors.
Spy social games where your points in the game are highly important to getting rewards. See Halting State: an intelligence service that is gameified. The people playing the game never know if their operations are really important, or just algorithmic games used to spend the leasure time.
Menial jobs are done by remote control. You put on a headset with a cam, and a computerized voice instructs you what to do next. Sometimes it is a computer, sometimes it is a citizen operating you by remote control. So you'll be told to go to the bathroom and clean the toilet, step by step. Failure to clean the toilet in the average amount of time will be reflected in your next performance review, if noticed.
A high reproduction rate, which permits a high winnowing factor.
Everyone has a GPS-type chip that constantly reports their location, or records it and sends it back. Going outside of communication range gives you a warning, and you are told to go back, unless you have special dispensation.
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Give everyone a mandatory blood pressure cuff and regulatory device. Simple tech, Id think. If you can regulate their emotions, you can get them riled up only when you want them to be. And calm only when you want them to be. Their thoughts will follow.
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You have missed the **reviews**.
A really aggressive state could provide the surveillance data not for its agency, but for another citizens, making all citizens responsible for reviewing the behavior of somebody living next to them. It is possible to put pressure of these reviews being as strict as possible, and negative reviews having huge negative impact on the target (who probably wrote the similar killing review on somebody else). This would make easy to ensure that people live in a constant fear, watching all details of they behavior. This also result to hate and friction between people, dividing society and making sure they cannot unite for overturning the government.
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I don't think 1984 was a guide, nor the Democratic People's Republic of Korea an example to follow. You, sir, are devious.
I have one remark though: isn't gender an individual trait? Would be "businessperson" or somesuch more appropriate? We wouldn't want people to think they have unique characteristics, would we?
As for the other question, I'm pretty sure the work wouldn't be very different in a lot cases. It kind of depends on how you treat science and knowledge. Likely, it would be restricted to a small number of people whose job require it. So a paramedic would still be a paramedic. They may use medicine from the fifties, but it's better than no medicine probably. Ditto for engineers. They might engineer different things, or they might engineer it like it's 1989, but there's always something to engineer.
North Korea for instance has engineers working on missiles and nukes. They have their own operating system, their own intranet (unironically called Walled Garden IIRC). They have technology of their own, and yes it's antiquated but it kind of works, or at least they're getting there. Your state would likely operate on the same level, technologically backwards but there are a lot of things you can still do with older technology.
Business is something else. See, why would any industry not state-owned in the first place? Business decisions would be left to a handful of high level civil servants. The managers of a factory would manage the workers of the factory, what's their jobs. Who buys what, from who and at what price wouldn't be the concern of factory-level management. They don't get to decide what happens in the country.
Being a "businessman" would be more about managing flows of resources than conducting business though. At least, that's how I'd do it.
As for doing business abroad, it would be even more limited. The reason is that doing business outside means the Party cannot provide for absolutely everything, and we can't have that. Not that are many countries in our international scene would deal with them.
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AI managed rebellion police (With Brain implants) [This is not exactly near future, but anyway is a pretty Orwellian state]
Everyone have a brain-implant to serve the establishment, but this time everyone have freewill and are no subject for some kind of brain manipulation (most of the time), also it does no is a social credit system. But a thought police that does not want to pursue complaints and claims against the establishment, but pursues actions that really could harm the establishment.
The establishment does not care if you dislike it, but it cares about you sabotaging their money making infrastructure or make protests, or anything that is more than just complains.
So the AI managed thought-police, is designed to identify when someone tries to do something that is a real action and not just complains, then he or she is mind-controlled to no want do it, and distracted to anything else (preferably something that makes money for the establishment).
Even more evil if the establishment allows for critic media to exists. So the people know they are in a dystopia but they are mentally unable to do anything about it.
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The worst surveillance state would be one that everyone accepts as normal.
* Open browser history? You got nothing to hide, right?
* The wallet-app is so easy! It just comes at the low price of every purchase being registered.
* Carrying your ID, medical, and legal record with you is normal. Now the government doesn't strictly need it anymore because of all other identifying data, but alas, it is still very helpful as it is open for everyone for the sake of "public safety" and allows prospective employees to ensure you aren't working with know criminals/drunkards.
* Forced identification. Want to play a game? Use your identifier app! Easy, quick, all it takes is 1 swipe and you are logged in. No need to fill tedious forms with all your (fake) data. All so the government can track how you play, with who you play, your chat history, the hours not worked, etc. Maybe even make it publically available. Only stringently approved games though.
* Forced identification 2. As we are identifying ourselves, might as well use it for everything. Want to open your front door? Just scan your phone. Want to use an elevator? Scan your phone. Want to make use of medical services? just a quick scan will tell them everything they need to know about you.
Basically, I made it completely impossible to live without your ID-phone. Sure you are technically allowed to choose not to get one, but you'll find that you can't do anything without one.
This is basically what social credits are, you can now deny people (basic) resources based on their credit, or reward them for being a "good" citizen. Now grant/remove some credits based on association, and people will be busier with their place in the system than removing the system. Anyone against it will die a slow death being denied almost every resource, shunned, and unable to escape.
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This sounds bad if you think in paranoid terms, but you have to remember, you can do a lot of good with total surveillance. Consider cops in Germany arresting people who post xenophobic material on the internet. If they're willing to take this seriously, the Germany government can 100% shut down any public opposition to unrestricted immigration (or any other government policy to which opposition is illegitimate). That's huge: Immigration is the most pressing moral imperative in our time. You *can't* allow opposition to it. Xenophobia is not a legitimate position, period. There's no debate on that point. The German people don't get to redefine right and wrong just because they fear change.
That's just an example. It's early days yet, but consider the benefits to society of being able to prosecute anybody who engages in any type of hate speech or denialism, even in absolute privacy. Fundamentally, what people need is not privacy, but safety. The socially legitimate purpose of privacy is to allow minorities to protect themselves from those who hate.
You're talking about a civilization where reasonable people can finally establish the limits of legitimate debate, and enforce them. That's the exact opposite of a *dys*topia. It's a society where a Hitler or a Trump never could have gotten out of the starting gate. It's a society where everybody is safe, unless they *choose* to make others unsafe.
Sounds good to me.
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I'm building a sci-fi world in which there are a lot of wars, fought across the galaxy. In order to make this world feel real, I want to design weapons that are well-suited for the environments they'll be used in.
In this case, I want to design a weapon that will stand up to the microscopic dust particles found in places like the Moon and Mars. To do this, I'd like to know what sorts of problems modern Earth weapons (specifically automatic rifles) would face. For instance, what parts of the weapon would face problems, what would those problems be, how long would it take before the weapon would be rendered inoperable, and are there any possible solutions?
I would like answers to be based around real-world science, experiments, and experience, rather than pseudoscience and guesswork.
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Dust is going to be a big problem for anything with moving parts. [Moon dust caused all kinds of havoc with the Apollo missions](http://now.space/posts/problem-dust-moon-mars/), getting all over every surface, causing respiratory problems, destroying equipment. Moon dust is incredibly sharp and abrasive, and because of UV bombardment it is also electrostatically charged, meaning that it wants to stick to everything and is almost impossible to get rid of.
It's also chemically active. After three days on the moon, Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmidt had to throw away his geologic hammer because the handle had corroded away.
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> Hatches, seals, valves, bearings—any machinery that moves on the lunar surface will be subjected to dust damage. “Imagine sprinkling broken glass onto a seal,” said Gentry. “And then every time you cycle it, you sprinkle more glass. Sooner or later it’s going to leak.”
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The dust on Mars is slightly better in that blowing in the wind wears off some of the sharp edges, but it is even more chemically active; the Red Planet is red because of iron oxide, and Mars certainly contains other mineral oxides and peroxides, which can cause chemical burns. The Pathfinder rover also found trace amounts of carcinogens like hexavalent chromium in the soil.
So any weapon you make with moving parts is going to have trouble in these environments.
There is an answer to this though: [Metal Storm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKlnMwuCZso)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/W38Qe.jpg)
A Metal Storm gun is made from multiple barrels, each packed with bullets that are fired electronically in a series.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VGrpr.jpg)
There are no moving parts, no firing pin, there doesn't even need to be a trigger. Each barrel could be sealed right up until it's fired, and then once the gun is empty you replace the barrel with a full one. The rest of the gun could be made out of ceramics and other materials that resist corrosion and abrasion.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/T6Vrr.jpg)
**More on dust and the effects of dust**
So there is no atmosphere or weather on the moon, so stuff shouldn't move around much, right?
Well no.
When the Apollo missions visited the moon, they left reflectors behind, and over the time since these reflectors have begun to degrade, which kind of baffled scientists; no wind to blow dust, and the degradation has worsened over time so it's not just dust that was thrown up when the astronauts left.
The degredation is also worse durring a full moon than it is when the face of the moon is in shadow.
Scientist now believe that when the solar radiation hits the dust on the moon it knocks off electrons, ionizes it, giving it a positive charge, and since like charges repeal, the dust particles push away from each other, with some lofting as far as tens of kilometers above the moon's surface.
When the sun sets the solar wind delivers electrons to the moon, deionizing the dust and causing it to fall, [and sometimes lofting new dust as patches get negatively charged](http://www.space.com/8715-mysterious-moon-light-glowing-dust-fountains.html).
The further into the 14 Earth day "moon day" that you get, the more charged the dust will be, causing it to grow stickier and stickier.
So even without wind or people stirring it up the dust keeps moving around.
With people moving around, rockets landing and taking off, etc. it's going to be much worse.
Any new moon base will have to be planned out carefully, to keep launch facilities far away from science and living facilities.
**There is also the problem of dust and electronics.**
Dark lunar dust can prevent excess heat from radiating off of delicate electronic components, causing them to overheat.
The spray of debris caused by the Eagle's departing rocket motor led to the overheating and early failure of Apollo 11's Passive Seismic Experiment (the first major scientific experiment put on the moon by human hands).
Electrostatically charged dust can also potentially carry enough of a charge to shock unprotected electronics.
**Toxicity and Health**
Not much is known about how toxic dust is simply because no one has been exposed to it for very long.
It has been shown to at least cause respratory problems in astronauts in the short term, but long term effects are unknown and will need to be studied as we someday move back to the moon.
Vision is another area where dust will be a problem, since the dust is essentially microscopic jagged shards of glass, iron and unsatisfied chemical reactions. Scratched cornias are a potentially serious problem.
**Mitigation**
One interesting aspect of lunar dust is that microwaves can melt lunar soil in less time than it takes to boil a cup of tea. A future vehicle employed on the moon could therefore melt the dust into roads and launchpads. This would help reduce the amount of dust thrown up by people and vehicles on the lunar surface.
Alternating electrostatic fields in airlocks could be used to draw the dust away.
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Moon dust a *problem* for guns? Moon dust is going to be the *ammo*.
On Earth, stuffing some sand into a cannon and firing it will produce a large cloud of disappointment. Air drag on individual particles will quickly bleed away the kinetic energy, slowing and dispersing them before they travel very far. So for people whose enemies are not cooperating by standing at the end of the gun, carefully-sized projectiles are used which tightly (but not too tightly) fit the barrel, allowing them to get maximum acceleration from the gunpowder charge before exiting the barrel, and then suffer as little drag as possible on their way to their targets. The barrel needs to be kept tolerably smooth, less gas escape around the bullet, or rough areas cause it to bounce around in the barrel on its way out. The barrel is sometimes rifled to encourage the bullet to spin, so that air resistance doesn't affect its flight path as much.
On the moon, with its lack of atmosphere, this calculus changes dramatically. With no air resistance, small projectiles will have as much range and accuracy as large ones. And moon dust is *sharp*. Stuff some into a blunderbuss and you'll have a combination sniper rifle/shotgun that'll rip through spacesuit fabric like wet paper.
Yes, it'll corrode the barrel rather quickly; that will cause some dispersion, but plenty of dust will still be expelled at maximum speed straight forward. Particularly for close-range combat, you won't have much trouble until the barrel gets thin enough to be at risk of exploding.
Of course, your dust gun won't have much penetration power against armored targets. For those, as Andy alluded to, you'll want conventional(ish) projectiles and disposable barrels.
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I’m amused at old sci-fi that has spaceships and maybe FTL but otherwise is exactly WWⅡ technology. They use slide rules, and any computers are huge room-filling machines that can barely compute an orbit when tended by a staff of experts. No microwave ovens, no composites, no *plastic*.
So, you postulate a galaxy-spanning civilization and can make [war economically](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/32813/can-an-interstellar-war-be-remunerative-from-an-economic-point-of-view/32824#32824).
But everything else is exactly like the civilization and technology that the author is familiar with *today*?
Imagine if a medievial (pre-gunpowder) author tried to envision “world war” spanning contenents, complete with 20th century sized battleships and aircraft. What kinds of spears, axes, lances, bows, etc. would be suitable for an “intercontenental war”?
A firearm similar to what is made today is the same kind of thing. Remember the lessons of spinoff technology (microwave ovens, radar, microelectronics) that go along with your postulated technology of galaxy-wide travel, and updated materials (plastic, composits) that go with a more advanced technology base.
So firearms made of carefully fitted metal parts with fine tolerances, need for lubrication and cooling, and expensive/precious so not disposable: that’s so 19th century!
Just like we have plastic foam cups and carbon fiber tennis rackets, they will have nanobot utility goo, programmable matter, superatoms, etc. Instead of solid machined metal parts, they will have biology-analogue items made of nanobot “cells” that clean themselves just like living things, sweeping out small particles and repairing microscopic damage automatically.
Materials will have physical properties that make cooling a non-issue: superconductors of heat, and materials that not only *take* the heat build up but use that to reclaim energy as it slowly cools down again.
But will you even have firearms? Nanoprojectiles in an airless world can launch thelselves without “guns”. They won’t punch through the suit with raw kenetic energy; they will digest the material and eat through dumb matter, and *hack* enemy smart matter or otherwise disrupt it using techniques that go with its principles of operation—that is, *poison* the suit material or enemy equitment so it stops being able to clear particles and repair itself (and is then vulnerable to being digested/disassembled).
Why fire a projectile or projectile delivery system at all, when the very regolith they walk on could become a swarm of nanobots that engulfs anything that touches it?
You might not be blasting each other with high-energy lasers, but instead beaming more subtle Bluetooth-like signals to hack the opponent’s systems and nanobot building blocks. Tell his suit to remove itself, or that the sensor readings for life support are wildly wrong.
In fact, using a primitive dumb-matter projectile might be an unexpected tactic that takes them off guard.
But why send ground troops to fight on a body like the moon? Drop a rock on them or use a ship’s drive, and end of enemy installation. Weapons of **mass** destruction will be commonplace adaptations of spacefaring infrastructure.
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## Air
As a general rule, ordinary firearms would fire without trouble on the Moon, on Mars and in outer space. Gunpowder includes it's own oxidizer so you don't actually need air to fire one. This is why firearms an shoot underwater. All other chemical explosives will continue to function for the same reason.
## Temperature
The biggest problem is heat dissipation. Firearms generate lots of heat and cool themselves through contact with the air. If you're fighting in a low-air environment you'll need to add some cooling system to it. This system should eject waste heat material (perhaps in the form of steam) so that the heat does not dissipate into the user's suit or accumulate in the heat sink.
The other thing to worry about is cold. Steel brought near absolute zero by the vacuum of space is more fragile than it is at room temperature. For extremely cold environments you will need to make firearms out of other metals or materials that hold up better against the cold.
Other than this, temperature shouldn't be too much of a problem. If a human can survive it a rifle can too. Heat gradients shouldn't be much of an issue either because they're dependent on the amount of heat generated by your weapon, which stays constant whether you're firing on Earth or on Pluto.
## Dust
You can bury an AK-47 underground for years, clean it off and it'll fire just fine. More advanced weapons like the M16 tend to jam up in dirty desert conditions. The AK is cheap to manufacture and easy to repair, so if the dust problem is too bad you can just seal it in a plastic bag and use it as a disposable weapon. If you're in a clean environment like a spaceship then any firearm will work just fine.
## Aquaeus Environments
One place you wouldn't ever want to use firearms is underwater (or other liquids). The bullets won't travel very far and the shockwave could damage the user. (Firing a gun underwater is a quick way to make yourself deaf.) In this case, you'd be better off with torpedos or melee weapons.
## Manufacturing
The hardest part of using automatic weapons might be in acquiring the resources to manufacture them, specifically gunpowder. Gunpowder is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate. Our charcoal comes from fossil fuels so if these people are fighting somewhere that was only terraformed recently they will need a different method of manufacturing it. This isn't impossible for a spacefaring civilization (they can grow trees if they lack creativity), but it's something worth noting.
[Answer]
There are a couple of considerations. While a modern style automatic rifle would work on the moon, you will run into problems with using them in warfare.
How are they aimed while in a space suit? You are not going to have the dexterity to pull a trigger very well with pressurized gloves. You are not going to have an easy time shouldering the rifle and aiming an optical sight through a faceshield. So you are going to need a smart aiming system that uses a camera that relays an image to an in-helmet gunsight. Fortunately this is somewhat trivial and mostly been solved already.
Heat dissipation is an issue. Modern weapons get hot FAST with full automatic fire. But you won't have an air-cooled affect. Shedding brass helps a bit, but if you go caseless then you have even more heat build-up. So now you need a liquid cooling system or elaborate radiator fins on the barrel. Heat is a problem because it will reduce the lifespan of the barrel and potentially "cook-off" a round sitting in a hot chamber. You can work around this with a rotary barrel like a gatling gun (less effective in an airless environment), or an open bolt system that keeps the ammo out of the chamber until the bolt drops to fire (look at an old machine gun like a Thompson SMG, for example). You can also have a cooling element included in the ammo or running along with it like a belt-fed ammunition system.
You also have to consider the wide fluctuation in temperature form the cold state at rest to hot from firing (as well as in shadow or exposed to sunlight). A lubricant that can function in those extreme temperature ranges would be a good one indeed, unless your firearm comes with an HVAC system. A dry carbon based one like graphite may be an option, or you could design the weapon out of materials that are designed to abrade itself and don't expand/contract with temperature (ceramic, perhaps). Again, this trades immediate functionality with increased maintenance costs as the gun literally wears itself down with use.
Dust is handled in several ways. On Earth, you can try to seal the gun or open it way up. Dust adheres to the lubrication material used to smooth metal-on-metal contact or via electrostatic forces. Trying to open up the gun design so it has loose tolerances and lots of gaps for junk to fall out probably won't work well in an airless environment (and some would argue doesn't work well on Earth, look at the complaints of about the open slide Beretta pistol in desert environments). But it does seem to help the AK-47 series work in austere environments.
Sealing the gun up is also possible, so no outside material can get in. Problem here is that nothing can GET OUT. So your ammunition has to be clean and over time little metallic shavings from the operation of the gun itself, as well as from the cartridge, in addition to powder residue and primer residue, will accumulate, requiring maintenance in a clean room. And any opening, for ammunition ejection or whatever, is a vulnerability.
Recoil management may be an issue, depending on how the gun system is mounted on the lunar soldier. It would probably be mounted right over the chest so recoil is inconsequential, as opposed to hanging out way off to the side on a shoulder mount, for example. But you can incorporate internal mechanical recoil compensation like on the KRISS Vector submachine gun. Probably not the best idea to redirect escaping gasses from the cartridge to compensate for recoil as that would just blow up lunar dust or strike nearby surfaces. As it is you will have a plume of gas, partially consumed powder, and primer residue in front of you.
So on the moon, with ultrafine dust that can stay suspended for prolonged periods of time, a combination of an external sealed case and internal loose tolerances ought to give enough reliability for sustained encounters. But such a rifle will need it's own cooling systems in order to maintain a high rate of fire, and will probably also need sealed ammunition boxes. And an electronic aiming system. And temperature regulation. And maybe recoil compensation. That means the weapon system will start to resemble a small vehicle more than a conventional rifle. It can't be serviced well "in the field", there are specialized techs back at base to keep everything up and running, and the gun downtime is probably much higher than the uptime.
You may save yourself a lot of headache if you go with something more like a pneumatic rifle. With no atmosphere and very low gravity, lots of the features of modern rifles may not be necessary. Rifling to impart a spin, firing in an upward arc to compensate for gravity, etc. Compressed gas or even a hammer strike might propel a projectile with enough velocity to penetrate an armored suit (presumably such things exist) at the ranges folks can see each other. You could even have a penetrator flechette that rides a sabot out of the barrel, or the old gyrojet concept. Point is, the tried and true assault rifle may not be the optimal tool with all of the reworking you'd have to do for a lunar environment, even if you don't want lasers or rail guns.
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I have a bit of a passion for firearms, and there's a few things to keep in mind:
For one, for a *fire* arm to work in space, it would need to inject the oxygen necessary for the powder to ignite and explode into the chamber. This is hardly impossible, but it would be far too complicated for a reliable, cheap to manufacture weapon's platform.
Consider that on the Moon there's little to no atmosphere, and very, very low gravity. This means that projectiles will experience little friction once fired, and also that they will not experience nearly as much downward drag as they would on Earth. The result is that projectiles will lose little speed, and altitude, even over long distances. Suddenly, a 9mm carbine can become a deadly sniper rifle!
There's a couple of other things to also consider. On the Moon, everyone needs to wear relatively fragile space-suits in order to survive. This means that in order to kill your target you need simply to penetrate and damage their suit, or its systems, not necessarily do great harm to their body (the vacuum will take care of *that*).
And so, simple ***air rifles*** are more than sufficient in achieving your goals. (simple is a bit of a misnomer - there are some *very* powerful air rifles out there, which could easily take down a moose, let alone a human being)
This is important to note, because you are now simplifying the firing mechanism specs, and ammunition design considerably, and the simpler a weapon is, the more likely you are to be able to build it to last, or at least make it cheap enough to replace easily.
Moon dust is indeed very harsh, and likely to jam up any sophisticated firearm (modern firearms have very small, finely machined, and tightly fitted together parts which would be prone to failure as "sharp" dust particles get jammed in). However, a relatively "crude" air rifle need not be sophisticated at all.
In fact, you could manufacture millions of them, each one rated for maybe one or two outings before having to be seriously serviced, or simply replaced. Alternatively, you could make these things out of some sort of very advanced ceramics, which are highly resistant to corrosion.
Watch a few videos about firearms such as the Kalashnikov, or the SKS carbine. Specifically, look for "torture testing" videos. These things can be dropped in ankle deep mud, or buried in sand, picked up, cycled, and fired, without even properly shaking the dust/muck out. A similar design, but cycled using compressed gas (nice and cheap), would increase reliability, and make them almost perfect designs for the lunar surface.
A note here, is that you may wish to add blow-back valves to the designs, such that a weapon will vent the pressure in case of a catastrophic jam, rather than blow up in the operator's hands. And since moon dust is apparently electrically charged, you may wish to make these firearms out of a material which you can charge to repel those particles (should be possible with modern material science/engineering).
[Answer]
Swap out the guns every couple of years.
Moon dust is not that big a problem for a purely kinetic machine that is only cycling a few thousand times a year under the worst circumstances. Modern firearms are very robust machines made from very hard metals. Plus the gas discharge may actually help keep the gun clean. quite a bit of gas leaks around the projectile as it travels down the barrel, is suspect this will help prevent barrel wear. Most military firearms are designed to cycle just fine while covered in far worse abrasives. Most of the problems with apollo revolved around seals, electronics, optics, and biology. Things with microscopic parts or air tight fittings which firearms will not have.
Scopes and optics on the other hand will have problems with "frosting". disposable lens might be a solution.
Jason was right that overheating will be a bigger issue, on the moon the gun is only cooling via radiating heat, which will be slow, which means sustained fire will not work. You will see a lot more focus on a single well placed shots. Thick barrels and adding some radiators would be a good idea. In a typical firearm about 30% of the energy from firing is converted in to heat in the firearm. With radiative cooling only that means it will not take many shots for the barrel to reach unsafe temperatures. Worse it will transfer far more heat to the rest of the firearm, the gun itself may become too hot to handle. [This report has a good chart for barrel temperatures](http://file:///C:/Users/john/Downloads/ADA019649.pdf)
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Modern ammunition work in vacuum. The propellant in the cartridge has its own oxidizer so it'll fire.
To make it somewhat more protected from the moon environment though, I'd say your best bet would be to use caseless ammunition weapons. There is no need for ejection in caseless weapons, so the entire receiver can be sealed tight against the dust.
Of course caseless ammo have their problems, which are why they weren't adopted back in their heydays of the 90s, but you can solve/handwave these away with technology.
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Some sort of small, open/exposed rail gun perhaps?
This would require considerable advances in that area of technology, which I don't think is too much of a stretch given you're talking about space faring civilisations.
Have the rails and magnets exposed and use electromagnetic fields to guide projectiles into place rather than having them driven by a magazine spring, this could avoid a lot of exposed (dust vulnerable) moving parts and direct contact between surfaces.
Recoil could be a problem. Maybe you could transfer the recoil energy into small flywheels somehow and have said flywheels slowly regenerate the gun's battery.
A revolver setup might be an option too, or going for another sort of technology some sort of pneumatic gun system might work.
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We live on this sphere of matter, and most people are content with that. However, it is really *inefficient*! A sphere is the shape with a minimal surface area compared to its volume, so assembling the same matter into another shape is going to give us more space.
I want a planet with:
* Close to normal surface gravity (perfectly fine if it varies a bit, down to 0.5g is acceptable.)
* No use of [unobtainium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium)
What I have found so far includes
* [Alderson discs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alderson_disk), but they actually have the same ratio of
surface-to-volume as a sphere at the same surface gravity.
* [Ringworlds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringworld), but they require unobtainium.
So, what I thought about was to strip off the outer layer of the Earth, and then reassemble it into multiple shells with a 100km of air in between them. That would leave us with multiple layers of surface area.
**The question:**
Is this going to require unobtainium, or can it actually be constructed? (please include the forces involved)
If not, are there other ways to have more surface area using the same amount of mass?
[Answer]
Strange thing? We already stack the Earth. Not quite as grandiosely (is that really a word??) as you're asking for, but when you think about it modern cities, especially those with skyscrapers, are attempts to do exactly what you're doing.
So rather than getting the world engaged in a megaproject to build a series of 100km high shells, instead get the world to work towards covering the surface in high density urban environments. Even if your skyscrapers have each floor the height of ten, you can cram an awful lot of usable surface area into it. If you use the same amount of mass as you'd need for even one mega-shell purely to build cities you'll be able to eke out a lot more usable surface area.
This neatly sidesteps the issue of varying g and of needing unobtanium at the same time. Human superstructures, no matter how tall, won't take you high enough to get to 0.5g unless you use unobtanium. It does however raise a whole new slew of issues, but there are none that we haven't dealt with before:
First up: Food. Getting food into and out of the city is going to be impossible if you want to maximise the surface area, as you'll have a world-spanning Coruscantian conurbation. Instead: Grow the food in stacks. Vertical farming is beginning to take off as a science, with a combination of hydroponics, high quality nutrient feeds and solar-mimicking LED's, you can stack not only the earth, but also the fruits of the earth.
Secondly: Power. Power generation is going to be tricky, as people don't tend to like living directly on top of power stations, and you don't want the chance of a nuclear reactor melting down onto you. The solution? Cover the top of every building in eco-power solutions, and bury your nuclear reactors deep in geologically stable plates. Either that or build power generation districts where all the buildings are dedicated to generating power.
Thirdly: Water, sewage and transport. The plumbing will have to be IMMENSE. The easiest way to get round it is by localising the water systems to a certain radius and having municipal water processing buildings that take sewage in at the bottom, pump water out of the sides, water vapour out of the top and high-nutrient food blocks to the nearby farm towers.
The thing is that all these issues are logistical ones. OK, they're logistical nightmares, but so is the logistics for shifting a fraction of the Earth's mass into a free-floating shell!
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One thing to note is that along with Shell Theorem comes dealing with all your concentric shells and final (remaining) earth sphere. You would have to come up with a way to prevent them from colliding with each other (for whatever of many reasons) since air won't dampen the inner movement nearly enough. Such a collision could lead to mass destruction.
If you could somehow stabilize your world in some kind of pillar lattice, it would still be brittle (how large would your pillars have to be to hold planetary scale spheres and not crush themselves under their own weight, short of unobtainium).
IMO you'd be better off increasing surface area by creating structures which both rise in altitude and extend subterraneanly. Think something along the effect of a heat-sink on a computer's CPU. The heat-sink optimizes on surface area contact with air. Excavate large areas of land to create valleys and mountains of large incline. Essentially medium-scale terraform parts of your planet to increase surface area. It would look akin to a spiky ball or super fine-fringed honey dipper.
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The biggest problem you have is heat.
If you take a sphere, like the Earth, and cover it with population as dense as Manhattan, and you give each citizen about as much energy to play with as a current US citizen does (via solar panels, nuclear reactors, or whatever else), your planet's temperature is basically the Earth's.
Black body radiation goes up with the 4th power of temperature, so 2x the population above the top number means 300 \* 1.19 - 300 = a 57 degree Celsius increase in surface temperature to radiate twice as much energy.
You can do better by flattening your planet and radiating from both sides.
You can maintain local surface pseudo-gravity by having reasonably small radius rotating habitats (the bigger the habitat, the more insane the gravity), with core-axis connectors (where there isn't rotational motion, so travel is easy) to go between the sausages.
At which point, the hard part is making your habitat space-worthy without the blanket of protective air Earth has, and dealing with air/matter loss.
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Another insane design is a single long sausage that rotates to maintain gravity. You only get one dimension of long-distance, but you have an awesome radiating surface. The radius of the habitat can be as large as your non-unobtanium technology can pull off safely. Leakage remains a problem.
Gravitational influcence falls off with the square of distance, so the integral of the pull from the ends towards the middle converges to a constant based off how big around the habitat is (and a small constant too: the near-infinite sausage has twice the "real" gravity as a a short one does at the end).
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You dismissed the Ringworld as requiring unobtainium but that's not completely true. Niven's design for a Ringworld certainly requires it (not only for the scrith, but the walls themselves.)
However, you can build one without it, although it will be **much** more massive--you'll need several solar systems worth of planets as raw material.
The basic problem is the Ringworld is moving far above orbital velocity and thus wants to depart into intergalactic space. To keep it in place he relies in a unobtainium band (I'd hate to think of the stretching force on that band!) but there's another approach: Don't have it moving above orbital velocity in the first place.
Wait a moment, though--doesn't that mean everyone falls off? No--because what matters is the **average** velocity of the ring. You can have part moving fast, part moving slow--a living surface moving at the 770km/sec of the Ringworld and a much heavier mass behind it that is moving at 0km/sec. Since the Earth is moving about 30km/sec this means the backing mass is roughly 25x the ring mass. No point experiences a force greater than it would sitting on the surface of the Earth. Obviously the ring must never touch the backing, you'll need a massive maglev setup. (And the Ringworld would have gone kablooie when the superconductor-eater got into that!)
Note that I said the walls also required unobtaininum--but we don't actually need walls. Instead of a surface extending vertically we simply put a small bend in the floor of the Ringworld and the backing mass. We can make the angle sufficiently small as to not cause issues, once the bent area extends high enough we have our atmosphere holder.
Now, the stability problem remains. We have no way of keeping the Ringworld in orbit with current tech.
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I'd say take a look at John Varley's *Gaea*. OK not her/it in particular but toroidal habitats in general. The idea of having them replicate themselves starting from an asteroid and a seed is a great idea if somewhat beyond current technology. Why spend time and risk lives building them when you could engineer the first seed and plant it in an asteroid belt and wait?
If you want to avoid that degree of future tech then your model is O'Neill colonies. You solve a lot of problems by not needing vast amounts of matter to create gravity at the surface. Instead you create pseudo gravity by living inside a rotating wheel. If it is large enough the coriolis effect is tolerably small.
In passing: if an AI ever tells you that it is getting senile, take it seriously.
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[Question]
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Follow-up of [Could the entire world have been destroyed by the existing nuclear arsenal in 1962?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/80411/could-the-entire-world-have-been-destroyed-by-the-existing-nuclear-arsenal-in-19)
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* **Is it safe to grow food on land that was hit by nuclear bombs? Or will such food kill/fatally sicken anyone that eats it?**
* **If the food is lethal, how long would it take for land to become arable again?**
*Expect that bombs are not only detonated in the air, but also on the ground to hit bunkers.*
I know that Pripyat and Chernobyl is now flourishing with all sorts of plants, but I wonder if that is safe for eating and whether it would be different if the cause was a nuclear explosion that would have wiped out most plants in its blast, so that it would first have to regrow?
Most radiation from a nuclear explosion is gone in a matter of days, but the protagonist stays in their bunker for about 6 months after which they emerge to scavenge the world because the bunker is running out of supplies. Would it be possible for the player to discover farms growing crops that are perfectly edible?
**Edit**
I consider it *"safe"* when people don't die within a year as a direct result from eating it. Only an increased risk of cancer I will consider *"safe"*.
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# Scrape off the top layer, grow the right kind of crops
Fallout is essentially dust. It is not something that infuses everything and cannot be gotten rid of. You need to remove the top layer of soil a — and with that the contamination — and from then on the ground is fine to use.
Also it helps if you grow the right kind of crops. In some the contamination will be spread evenly through the edible parts, in others — such as [stone fruits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupe) — the contamination tends to be concentrated to the seed while the flesh is all fine.
Much information about this can found from the [Chernobyl Recovery and Rehabilitation Programme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Recovery_and_Development_Programme)
As far as water is concerned, the constant runoff and replenishment will quickly dilute the contamination in water. Especially streams and rivers of fresh water will be a safe source to use for drinking and irrigation.
Also, as was concluded in other answers: there is a huge difference between peacetime concerns for radiation and a situation like that which you are describing. You can easily increase your yearly dose of radiation to 250 - 500 mSv, which is an increase of about 10 000% compared to present day conditions, without any acute ill effects, only increasing your probability of some cancers by a few percent.
[Answer]
With radiation everything is always a trade off. You can have something which is very radioactive, but short-lived, or something that lasts millennia but is not very radioactive. Same for dissemination: you can have a small area heavily contaminated, or little background contamination on a very large area. You can't have both.
An airburst nuke would blow out a lot of surface, but produces little radiation, and very short lived. The plutonium of the bomb itself isn't very radiactive - it's far more poisonous than radioactive - and it will be spread in homeopathic amounts in a very big area. Hiroshima is a very big and beautiful city today (been there), and it's radioactive levels aren't anything extraordinay - in fact, lower than many other cities of the world.
An antibunker nuke would volatilize large quantities of dirt, concrete, steel and many other things, heavily irradiated, and blow it into the atmosphere. Since I know of no bunker made of cobalt, most of the irradiated isotopes created by the explosion will be either short-lived, or mildly radioactive. If they are blown to fall down on a large area, the quantities won't be significative, if they fall very much in the same place of the explosion, the dangerous zone will be quite small. As I said, you can't have both.
In short, you can have some very dangerous zones to grow vegetables, for a very long time, as long as they are small - and probably, quite easily detectable. If you want the whole globe to be irradiated... well, it already is, but the amount of extra radiation caused by all those bombs won't raise the background radiation level by more than a few decimal points.
**EDIT:** As per @Murphy suggestion, I'll clarify some aspects about alpha/beta/gamma emitters. The issue about cobalt-made bunkers is because radiation from a nuke could turn standard Co-59 into nasty Co-60, which is a very strong gamma emitter, with a relatively long life of little more than 5 years. That's really dangerous stuff. However, most of the byproducts of an underground nuke are going to be short (days) or medium (less than 5 years) alpha or beta emitters. Alpha radiation is mainly harmless unless ingested, but extremely dangerous if it's inside the body. However, in all of these cases, concentration is the key.
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<http://optimalprediction.com/radiation-uptake-in-edible-plants/>
<https://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/5407895>
>
> The first thing that is obvious from the table is how much higher the values are for strontium-90 than other isotopes. This shows how dangerous Sr-90 is, how pervasive it is in the environment. This isotope, which causes bone cancer and leukemia, concentrates in bones and bone marrow. Note that 8 times as much collects in wheat, versus corn and rice. Also 33 times as much Sr-90 is absorbed into alfalfa than cesium-137. Alfalfa is fed to dairy cows. Trying to gauge the safety of milk and dairy products by cesium alone is misleading.
>
>
> Iodine-129 is also very high in alfalfa (20 times the ratio of Cs-137). We can see that the highest risk in milk is in Sr-90 and I-129 (which causes thyroid cancer). These two isotopes are also found in grasses, which is the food source for beef cattle.
>
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> Note that the ratio of plutonium-239 is very low. The main risk for exposure to Pu-239 is in air and drinking water. Plutonium binds tightly to clay soil. But note americium-241 has a much higher ratio. Pu-241 decays to Am-241 with a half-life of 14 years. Americium is a bone seeker like strontium and plutonium."
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I don't know about vegetables, but we'd all be pretty screwed for at least six 14 year generation (dying from bone cancer and leukemia).
EDIT: existing stores of food (everything from cans to still-standing granaries that hadn't been ravaged by rodents) would **not** be affected by nuclear radiation.
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"Safe" is always relative. Nothing in this life is completely safe.
So, you have this nice looking bit of land that happens to be radioactive.
Given a choice between eating the food from there and other food, you would choose other food.
However, given a choice between that food and **NO** food, you would choose radioactive food.
So, you eat what is available, you might get cancer many years from now but at least you aren't starving today.
In the same manner, people are still evacuated from Bikini and Chernobyl because they can. If they had too they could move back and live there. They would have a slightly increased risk of cancer, but life is full or risks anyway. Smoking is still more risky.
The limit comes when people die faster than childbirth replaces them. But this limit is *very high*. A mere nuclear war won't come close. (In long term effects, that is. People caught a bit too close to the initial blast would have problems)
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It is not safe to eat plants grown on [Bikini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll#Resident_and_non-resident_population) even to this day, so the legal residents remain displaced and the atoll has no permanent inhabitants.
The lasting culprit is [Caesium-137](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137).
So the answer is no, if the weapons are anything like the ones tested there.
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Its hard to answer concisely, since there would be great local variations, depending on where in the world your protagonists bunker is located, if the country was a direct belingerent in the war and many other factors.
In the scenario where the first six month are spent inside a bunker, you can at least assume that the most volatile and thus most radiactive isotopes (e.g. Iodine 131, see here for example <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#/media/File:AirDoseChernobylVector.svg>) have decayed sufficiently to the point where they no longer contribute the majority of radiation.
Most radioactive particles would have settled to the ground/have been washed out by rain after six month. This suggests a scenario where contamination in the air is minor compared to radiation from topsoil and/or incorporation by food/water.
While groundbursts are considered very dirty, the majority will be deposited within a few hundred miles in the downwind direction. While such plumes can contaminate significant areas (e.g. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_testing#/media/File:Bravo_fallout2.png>), there would still remain some areas not directly affected, except in the most densely populated/hardest hit areas.
The chernobyl desaster was much worse than a single bomb test in terms of radioactivity released, still the death zone is relatively small, and the area where plants died completely was even smaller. Note that the affected areas are spread very unevenly: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#/media/File:Chernobyl_radiation_map_1996.svg>
Assuming an arsenal of ~2000 warheads, which are presumably mostly in the 10-100kt range, there should be plenty of zones left that are only affected by the fraction of fallout that has spread globally (or barely at all on the southern hemisphere).
Lastly, edible food can be grown in chernobyls worst affected zones. The main problem is to select crops that do not readily take in the radioisotopes that contaminate the topsoil. And of course even carefully selected crops have to be constantly tested - its has been done on research scale.
So in summary, there would be areas where crops would be "safe" (as in acceptably low contamination) for consumption. Its another question if your protagonist would be able to find and identify such areas though. Plants may appear perfectly healthy and may still be contaminated enough to kill you within a few month or less. A common geiger counter would probably be not sensitive enough towards the lower end to identify "safe" food. Something a little more sensitive would be needed.
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Not sure scraping off the top soil will remediate the issue:
1. in a nuclear war, most of the nuclear power plants are likely to meltdown or release large amounts of radiation from spent fuel pools.
2. Wind and rain will continue to diffuse contaminated dust for years. Even if you use non-contaminated soil it becomes contaminated over time just from airborne dust and rainfall
3. In addition to radioactive contamination, destroyed cities are likely to burn for many months, if not years. After 9/11 the Trade Center buildings continue to smoke for more than a month even with firecrew pouring water into the wreckage.
4. During heavy rains water is likely to wash contaminents from nearby land that wasn't prepared. Perhaps if you scrape land on top of hill since water will flow away.
My thoughts on how to grow food safely:
1. Use greenhouses to isolate your food crops from the contaminated environment.
2. You need to use deep ground water to have a process to decontaminate rainwater. The only process I can find is to use an ozone water treatment to convert soluble contaminates into non-soluble contaminates so they can be effectively filtered out. Only a very high pressure reverse osmosis system can remove soluble contaminates.
3. Protect fruit/nut tree prior to the nuclear war with a non water permeable barrier and with a irrigation system below to provide water.
4. pile up top soil prior to the nuclear war and protect using a non water permeable barrier. This way you have a source of non-contaminated top-soil. Use raised beds with the non-contaminated soil so any runoff water from heavy rain does not contaminate it. Use crop cover hoops to help protect the raised beds from getting contaminated from rainfall and dust.
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I believe that in a highly irradiated area, growing crops and subsequently eating those crops could be very dangerous. That dirt's irradiated man, so is that water, and those crops will be too.
This article might help a bit and if not, it's an interesting read regardless: <https://phys.org/news/2015-03-crops-radiation-contaminated-soil.html>
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[Question]
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Say that I own a business from around the 12th-15th century. My country uses a Silver (or, if you so wish, Gold) currency in the form of coins. I want to make a secure "vending machine" to give out objects in exchange for a certain number of these coins.
Here are the specifics:
* The objects can be of any shape, size, or weight
* The machine should preferably work with multiple coins, but one would be okay
* The machine should be able to determine whether or not the coin is the right coin, which has a standard weight and size. It should be secure against most types of fakes.
My question is: **Is this possible, and if so, how would it work?**
[Answer]
Vending machines are actually quite ancient. Heron of Alexandria invented them a couple thousand years ago. Tobacco dispensing machines came about in the 1600s. Put a coin in the slot, the machine opens a valve and dispenses a product.
End of story, really.
There is no mathematical or engineering or fabrication reason why your medieval-esque society could not do something similar.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6ER6S.jpg)
The only issue I foresee is in counterfeit detection. In medieval times, I think counterfeit detection by weight will be your only viable alternative, if magic or a money changer is not available. If they have magnets of some kind, then they could be added to weed out iron slugs at least.
If the coin is determined to be too heavy or too light (and thereby either actually fake or else clipped (a common practice in the days of precious metal money)), then it would be dumped into a return slot. A coin (or slug) of correct weight and dimensions will be accepted. Whether real or fake!
A fairly foolproof system. Faking coins is, of course, big business and back in the day carried a hefty penalty for those caught doing it. A relatively simple detector will keep all but the most advanced counterfeiters from using the machine.
A final note: unless your vending machine is dispensing title deeds to large plots of land or luxury waggons, chances are gold coins will never see the inside of one. Probably not silver either. Most likely copper or brass will be used to buy relatively inexpensive items or services.
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Clearly quite intricate mechanisms are possible with sufficient understanding.
Karakuri Japanese Clockwork
<https://youtu.be/q8L3Iydv3AY?t=62>
As has been pointed out by @elemtilas, large gold and silver coins are unlikely to be used for the sort of items that would be dispensed by a vending machine.
If you insist on gold and silver then the machines would have to accept very small coins (tricky even by modern standards) or ...
**Employ trusted peasants** to sit inside the 'machine' and do the transaction whilst hidden from view.
[Answer]
Tech-wise while it might be possible (and certainly on the later end of this) historically there wouldn't have been enough coin available to do such a thing.
For this to work, it's going to take intricate metal parts. So in building your world, you are going to have to take tech in a different direction. Toothed gears have been around for a very long time, and while the mechanisms for this CAN be very basic, (weights and levers instead of gears) it's not something that's going to be common unless you have more of an industrialized society.
That's why Vending machines weren't actually widespread until the 1800s. While it WAS mechanically possible, it wasn't practically viable, even though this is an old, old invention.
So why did it take so long? When the earliest mention of something like this was in in the first century A.D.? **You asked how it would work, and as far as the mechanics, I think you've been answered nicely, so I am going to add how it would work on world-building and social level--as in problems you need to look at and solve though the mechanics are there.**
It's like a lot of other inventions--seen as a novelty, not good enough to be practical.
**You'd need a big audience and the right product.** Vending machines are an automation. They are practical when you have product, an audience to sell to, but you don't have people. And in this time period, merchants wanted control over their business. This is going to be a little expensive to make, so it has to be worthwhile. In an age of artisans, when consumers wanted to touch, weigh and examine what they were getting, most products would not fit into this. If you're thinking food, consider that there are many, many laws on the books during this period about serving rotten or counterfeit food. So this was an issue of the day. The earliest vending machine had the right audience and the right product. Holy water. It's water, so no need for quality control as far as a Medieval person is concerned, and it's trusted because it's sanctioned by the church. They've got the audience because the faithful are flocking in (church tourism was a big, big thing in Medieval times, so this is the one place it WOULD absolutely work.)
**Preventing Theft.** Having your machine inside a church might prevent theft. Leaving something full of money unattended, especially during more desperate times (plague, famine) is quite idiotic. An attendee might be a good idea. Theft from vending isn't such a big deal in a society that isn't starving.
**A Culture Shift** Take a look at [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/55334/how-to-protect-shops-in-the-medieval-era-against-thievery/55341#55341) on how Medieval shops worked. Notice that this sort of hands on selling was ingrained in Medieval culture. I've linked the answer to dispel any notion you might have that stores worked back then the way that stores work now. There is no "browsing" as we know it. There is no wandering through a store.
**A widespread, consistent monetary system, in low demonination** This, alas, is something that wasn't present through much of the time period you are considering. So, when you build your world, you might want to look more towards the Renaissance than Medieval times. And actually, what most people think of as Medieval is actually Renaissance. (Rome also did pretty well with that, but not great. They liked changing up coins in celebration of events). You want everyone to have coin, you want that coin to be consistent and difficult to counterfeit, so that your machine can determine the weight and size of the coin. Even in Rome and even in the early Renaissance, the sort of consistent shaped coins that a machine like this would need...those are in short supply. I can actually see people having to buy a slug from a merchant to use in the machine just to take care of this.
**Novelty vs. widespread** Widespread is a real shift in culture away from the Medieval times as it is historically known. Vending machines became widespread because there was a NEED FOR THEM. So you are going to have to build a reason why as you worldbuild. Not simply because you want to stick them in. But because they fulfill an actual need and solve a problem. What that need is, and what problem they solve is up to you. If they are a novelty or just in one place, that's a whole different thing, and might be an attraction for a specific business to market a product--people might want to buy from them not just because they want the product but because they want to see the mechanism work. And if it is a novelty, the elements might even be exposed so people can see them work, which will mean you will still need an attendant...
] |
[Question]
[
*My husband, who loves to help me with my problems and doesn't at all intend to complicate them :::heavy sarcasm font::: suggests that Ardu Ghaib isn't the only likely thing the Arabs might have called my world. They might have called it 'Ardul jinn' or 'Ardu nastura' (the land behind the veil). My inclination is that Ardul jinn is sadly cliche, though Ardagen is nice and tidy.*
I posted this on reddit but realized I was asking the wrong question. Rather than soliciting opinions, I want to know if there is a logical or scientific way to predict how place names evolve from one language to another.
In my story, set in an alternate version of our world, where our collision with another planet (or alternate dimension, if you prefer) has changed the course of human history.
Because the 'door' to the other world initially opened in Arabized North Africa, Arabic speakers were the first humans to have contact with this realm. They would have certainly called the place 'Alamu ghaib' or 'world of the unseen' as this is a prevalent concept in Arab/Muslim theology and mythology. Another option is 'Ardu Ghaib' or unseen earth.
So, eventually Europeans would come to know the name of this world and certainly come to pronounce it their own way. I'll give you an easy example from the real world, to explain my meaning. There is a large mountain at the base of southern Spain that marks the narrowest part of the straight that separates Spain from Africa. The Arabs called this mountain 'Jbel tariq' which means the mountain of the straight (or way). Today we call that place "Gibraltar'
Jebel-tarik becomes Gibraltar.
Ok so back to my world. Let's say the Arabs called it Ardu ghaib in around 900AD. How do I figure out how this would have evolved over the next 30-40 years (edited timeline) into English (old English, mind you)? I realize that the solution will ultimately be my subjective choice, but I'd really like to have a logical understanding in my mind of how this would work.
My other thought was to directly translate unseen into old English 'unsegewen' which it turns out is even more unwieldy than the Arabic.
I did try randomly removing the more difficult sounds and came away with things like Arjabe or Argea. But I don't feel like any of the results actually echoed the original Ardu Ghaib the way that Jbel Tarik and Gibraltar naturally connect.
A little bit more about the Arabic:
Alamu Ghab (if you're interested in hearing the actual pronunciation, here's a link <https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&tl=ar&text=world%20of%20the%20unseen> )-
The root of the word unseen in Arabic has three letters
Gh(a guttural sound resembling the French 'r')-
ya-
ba
[Answer]
There's multiple factors to consider, and you may have to do some more world-building to find out the proper outcome.
## Determining intermediary language(s)
First, 10th-century Arabs were not the neighbours of 10th-century Englishmen. A word would not have gone from Arabic straight to English: the two people were barely in contact. The English would have first heard of this new world not from Arabic sources, but from people who talked to people who talked to Arabs. One or several intermediary languages need to be defined.
For "Gibraltar", that was Spanish (they coincidentally also spelled it Gibraltar). A different example, "Algebra" comes from the Arabic "al-jabr" (الْجَبْر), via the Medieval Latin "algebrāica", which was the lingua franca at the time among scholars and theologians. With algebra being first introduced by a science paper, it makes sense that Latin would be the intermediary language.
Take a look at [this Wiktionary page](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_terms_derived_from_Arabic) for more examples. Often there can be multiple intermediary languages. "mummy" (the Egyptian embalmed corpse, not the British word for mother), came from the Arabic "mūmiyāʾ" (originally from the Persian "mum", meaning wax), *through* Medieval Latin "mumia", *then* through Middle French "momie", and then William the Conqueror took the Normandic dialectal version of the word, "mumie", with him when he invaded England and made Anglo-Norman the language of the nobility.
"Magazine" had two intermediary languages: Arabic "maḵāzin" -> Italian "magazzino" -> Middle French "magasin".
What you have is that each intermediary language modified the word to suit their inventory of sounds, their phonology. Then they may have added suffixes or prefixes, pluralised it, put it in a different grammatical mood or tense, before it moved on to the next language.
And then both those words went through all the vowel and consonant changes that turned Middle English into Modern English - which is the next step.
~~So, the first thing to figure out is how the word would have spread to English. Who did they learn the existence of this world from? And how fast did the word travel - literally?~~
~~This is something I cannot really make assumptions about without knowing more of your world, what states did and did not exist in your version of the 10th century and whether the Arabs kept it a secret, or told everyone about it, or just their trading partners and allies, et cetera; so I'll finish the next part of this answer when you fill me in on that :)~~
Alrighty, we now have more to go on!
>
> The ''Door" opened in Sijilmassa, a silk road trading hub connecting North Africa to subsaharan africa. News quickly traveled to Andalusia of jinn emerging from the unseen world, building strange edifices and doing fantastic magic. From Andalusia, the stories spread to the major cities of Castille, by the time Sijilmassa fell to these strangers (circa 935AD) and a stories of a terrible plague, observed by a Coptic Monk named Baba Boutros and inscribed in latin correspondences to the church in Rome and Alexandria
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@AlexP made a great proposal for an Italian/Latin-based path; I'll try to go with the Iberian route. The way I am proposing is Morocco -> Andalusia -> León (Castille did not exist yet) -> England. I'm assuming a naval transfer of the word from Iberia to Britannia; since it would be rapidly spreading news, seafaring traders would have carried it directly. Also, both León and England were thriving kingdoms at the time, while France was weak and decentralised and Germany in the middle of a succession crisis. I think word would have spread directly; given the significance of the event.
## Following the road
### Morocco -> Andalusia
First off, I am going to assume that no *bastardisation* occurs in the travel between Morocco and Andalusia. That is because both regions speak Arabic, and would directly understand each other. You would have a [calque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque) rather than a loanword: the roots are recognised, therefore the same roots are used for the version of the word native to the new speaker's region. Perhaps different, equivalent roots would be more idiomatic, but I do not know enough of medieval Arabic to know that for sure, so I'm going to keep them the same.
Then it becomes the task of figuring out which term you would end up with in Al-Andalus. There are two languages in the region to choose from: [Mozarabic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozarabic_language) and [Andalusian Arabic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalusian_Arabic). The former is a blend between the tongue of the Romance peoples left behind by the Roman Empire and the Arabic that the conquerors imparted on them in the past two centuries: the latter is what the Arabic speakers there spoke in informal settings, influenced a bit by the local Romance languages, and separation from other Arabs by distance. Classical Arabic was still used for formal communication, e.g. liturgy.
I have decided on the latter. I think the people with the most means to travel distances and spread the news would have spoken Arabic, rather than the dialect blend found in the lower class. However, I am assuming they would not use *standard Arabic* to communicate with the Leonese: the two peoples had been neighbours for centuries by that point; I am sure translators would be better acquainted with the local variety than with the Caliph's Arabic. Andalusian Arabic it is.
What features did that dialect have? They are described in contrast to Standard Arabic, so I am going to start with the phonetical representation of عالم الغيب (the version I'll be working with because it's the only one I have in Arabic writing), and apply changes I can find to the best of my abilities.
My guess for the IPA is **/ʕaːlim alɣajbu/** (based on ear and the transliteration of the word)
So, what do we know about Andalusian Arabic phonology? The wiki article gives us some useful info:
>
> The vowel system was subject to a heavy amount of fronting and raising, a phenomenon known as imāla, causing /a(ː)/ to be raised, probably to [ɛ] or [e] and, particularly with short vowels, [ɪ] in certain circumstances, particularly when i-mutation was possible.
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Alrighty, you really need to know more of the Arabic language to understand what those "certain circumstances" entail. But since we've got two more language transitions to go, I'm going to be a bit lazy here and turn every non-diphthong /a/ into an /ɛ/.
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> Contact with native Romance speakers led to the introduction of the phonemes /p/, /ɡ/ and, possibly, the affricate /tʃ/ from borrowed words.
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Great, great, it doesn't tell me *where* the /g/ is introduced... I am really tempted to just replace the rhotic [gh] (/ɣ/) with a /g/, but that would leave me without anything interesting to solve in the next transition :) So I'll leave it alone for now.
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> Monophthongization led to the disappearance of certain diphthongs such as /aw/ and /aj/ which were leveled to /oː/ and /eː/
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Oooh, great. We can make use of that for our diphthong!
So, the end result is **/ʕɛːlim ɛlɣeːbu/**. Next stop, the Leonese border!
### Andalusia -> León
I am starting to get *really* lazy here, but this is the best of my abilities: I'm just going to check phoneme by phoneme whether there's a direct equivalent, and if not, what that phoneme has been transliterated to historically.
The Kingdom of León spoke... five languages. Astur-Leonese, Latin, Castilian, our good friend Mozarabic, and Galician-Portuguese. Awesome. Let's go with Leonese; we haven't yet ran out of extinct dialects to play with.
The /ʕ/ doesn't exist in any Iberian language, and from the examples it looks like it just gets ignored.
Spanish dialects are quite short on vowels, and they don't have the /ɛ/: except for Andalusian/Murcian dialects (who probably got them from Arabic), but those did not exist yet in the 10th century. /ɛ/ in those dialects corresponds to /e/ in the standard language (and Leonese), so that replacement is easily made.
Nothing special about /l/ on its own. /i/ and /m/ also stay the same. Now we get to our fancy consonant, the /ɣ/ - which is a phoneme Spanish possesses: but it gets turned into a voiced velar stop following a nasal consonant, such as the /l/. So where Andalusian Arabic failed, Leonese makes the exact same transition. /ɣ/ becomes /g/.
Spaniards are no stranger to the /b/, and neither is Leonese. Now, the final /u/ is a bit of a problem: Spanish words typically do not end in closed vowels like the /u/. The u was never stressed in the original Arabic, so maybe it can be left out... wait, Leonese phonology to the rescue! The only open vowel allowed to be unstressed is the /a/, so that's another quick replacement to make..
**/eːlim elgeːba/** Next stop: England!
### León -> England
Here there's a new issue. Old English had an incredibly rich sound inventory: every phoneme in /eːlim elgeːba/ can be found there as well. So my previous method would produce no changes at all. Let's try the other tactic: finding example words...
[This list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Spanish_origin) is not entirely helpful. Many of these words barely changed at all. Salsa from salsa, embargo from embargo, guerrilla from guerrilla, canyon from cañon. Many of them are also more recent loans than the time period we had been speaking of: Spanish became important and influential on English only after the discovery of the New World and its colonial empire.
Words with bigger changes do seem to follow a few tendencies. For one, (Old) English is more tolerant of consonant clusters, and unaccented vowels occasionally drop out. Example: crimson, from cremesín (though that one passed through Latin too); quadroon from cuarterón; cockroach from cucaracha. This is not very scientific, but I am going to swallow the /i/ and make the result more alliterative as well (also happened to avocado from aguacate); /elmelgeːba/. The lm-cluster would probably velarise the /l/ to a /ɫ/, as we see in words like "palm".
With the ending you can do whatever you want. I tried a couple things, but this close to the finish line I feel shy from settling on something. You could transform it to a diphthong, after potato from patata, and get something like elmelgeob. Just looking at endings of old English words, -pe is a lot more common than -be or -ba or anything like it, so maybe elmelgape does the trick?
## Acknowledgements
None of this is as scientific as the linguistic terms I throw around make it sound. Many transitions are based on random chance. Someone with a lisp could have been the messenger to the English court, and that could have shaped the pronunciation of the word forever.
I think this answer should mostly serve as an illustration for the process of the bastardisation of a word. Taking the word and making it fit the next language's phonology is sort of like the telephone game concept in the other answer, but I richly interpreted every step along the way.
So I hope that this idea can help you make your own version to suit your needs!
[Answer]
Fun, let's try.
Arabic names and words which were borrowed / used in medieval Europe have resulted in many weird and wonderful representations. Usually somebody tried to represent the name or word in medieval Latin, most likely mangling it badly in the process. Then the medieval Latin form was taken up into one or more vernaculars; then one of the vernacular forms was adopted as standard, and from that point it began evolving like a native word. *Ibn Rushd* became [Averroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes); [*al-Khwārizmī*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi) became algorism; *al-ʿaḍudiyya* became [alidade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alidade); *samt* became [zenith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenith); *as-sumūt* became [azimuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth); *qazz* became [gauze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauze); *nāranj* became orange; *zaʿfarān* became [saffron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron); *al-qobba* became alcove; *dār sināʿa* became [arsenal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal); etc. etc.
There is great [list of English words of Arabic origin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin) on the Wikipedia, showing both the Arabic original and the complicated paths that most of these words took on their journey from Arabic to English.
* In many cases, the Arabic definite article *el-* *al-* *as-* etc. was incorporated into the form of the word received in medieval Latin and European languages. Since the question does not provide the articulated form, we'll ignore this.
* Then, consonants or consontant clusters which are not native to the (usually Romance) language spoken by the first Europeans to write down the word are either simplified, or otherwise adapted.
I can find three other forms for what the question gives as *alamu ghaib*: *'alamu 'l-ghaib*, *'alami ghaib*, and *elim-ul-ghaib*.
In the sound sample provided in the question the "l" in pronounced emphatically, so it would have certainly been perceived as a geminate by Europeans.
There are two difficulties for Europeans:
+ First, [*ghayn*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghayn). To my Romanian ears, the closest sound which a medieval Romance speaker could make is some sort of rhotic consonant; so up to now we have a perception of something like `/al.lamu'raib/`. (Note that `/ai/` is a diphthong here.)
(The other option would have been "h", but at that time none of the likely languages had a reliable way of writing the sound `/h/`.)
(Actually, there is *one* European language which was not that unlikely to borrow the word, and which actually had the sound `/ɣ/`, and that's medieval Greek. I cannot imagine a natural path of transmission from Greek to Middle English, but had it happened then Middle English would have received something like "allamogaibe", given how the English language Englishes Greek words.)
+ Then, the ending. Romance languages at that time didn't like words ending in a consonant, and Latin needs of course to force the word into some sort of acceptable pattern, so the path bifurcates: either something like "allamurraibo" in pseudo-Italian, or "allamoraebus" / "allamorabus" / "allamoraeba" / "allamoraba" in medieval Latin, possibly with a doube "r" to try to convey a harsher sound. (Medieval Latin could not reliably write the diphthong `/ai/`, so the hypothetical writer would have had to choose between "ae" (pronounced `/ɛ/`) and "a"). ("O" instead of "u" because a-o-a is more natural than a-u-a, because less variation in opennes.)
* So when the word got to medieval English it might have been something like "allamorabe" (`/alamo'ra:bə/`), which, in due time, would have acquired the modern English pronunciation `/æləmə'reib/`.
Seriously speaking, there is no "right" way to deduce a probable middle English form of a word of Arabic origin, because the form is very strongly path-dependent. What was the native language of the first person to write the word in medieval Latin, or some kind of Italin, or some kind of Spanish? What did the rest of Europe make of the Latin / Italian / Spanish form? From what language did the word get into English? And so on. But it is fun to imagine a possible reception path, and follow it.
[Answer]
What I would do:
* Find three people that don't know anything of Arabic (or whatever language you want to do this over), with different ages. Someone that could be a grandparent, someone that is ready to have kids, and someone that *is* a kid.
* Say the word or expression in question to those people, and ask them to write down how they think it would be spelled out.
* Compare the variants and remove or simplify hard-to-pronounce bits for speakers on the target language.
* "Degenerate" the word further by removing characters and adding extra misspelings that would be common in the target language.
I've used this methodology to create a few "badly translated" names for my RPG setting. The cultures and dialects of my world borrow heavily from Portuguese, Italian and French, so it made sense that some places weren't actually words in any of those languages, but actually a "smashed together" version that was created after years and years of mispronunciations and simplifications.
Alta Montanha (High Mountain) -> Alta montana -> Al'n'tana -> *Altana*
Terras Brancas (White Lands) -> Terre Bianche -> Ter Blanche -> *Terblanc*
Falésia d'ouro (Golden Cliff) -> Scogliera d'oro -> *Glieradoro*
And so on.
---
Update:
So, I've picked a few random colleagues at my workplace and put them over a few rounds of my process. Keep in mind that I *don't know* the proper Arabic pronunciation for those words (which may be either a plus or a minus, really), so I need to ask your pardon if they sound way too off.
Ardu Ghaib -> Became *Arduhal* or *Arduhai*. G before an "a" seemingly had the tendency to degenerate to an open "a" *HA/RA* sound, as in "Hazel" if the A had the same sound of the "a"s on "Banana". The "ib" at the end ended up degenerating to both an "L" sound and an "I" sound with more or less equal occurrence. Personally, I really like the name *Arduhal*, and if you're not picking it up I certainly will.
Ardul jinn -> This one was a bit unfortunate. I work in a place with a lot of STEM people, and this one got readily linked to mispelt to either [*Arduino*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino) or *Ardidinho* (which means "stuff that makes a mild burning sensation/is just a little spicy).
Ardu nastura -> The Ardu got dropped, and the word degenerated to *Natura*. I personally like this one - It sounds similar enough to "Nature", even if it doesn't any sort of related root. This similar sounding name made it easy to link "Natura" to a "single instance of Nature". After some thought, the idea of having twin "entities" in Natura and Gaia made a lot of sense for me. Once again, if you're not picking up this name, I'm going to do so.
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[Question]
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Let's make the following assumptions:
1. [Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) is inevitable](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html), much like Y2K was.
2. People assumed that this ASI would have the power to prevent any other ASI from being created. They assumed that if they remained inactive, someone might accidentally create ASI.
3. To be safe, some think-tanks [designed](https://intelligence.org/files/TechnicalAgenda.pdf) an ASI to be benevolent to mankind, before anyone else could create a malevolent one.
4. This ASI is not 'imprisoned' or threatened in any way. People realized that it would be more intelligent than them, more powerful, and better at persuasion. So it 'exists' in the real world as well, capable of cloning itself, backing itself up, building machines, and otherwise affecting the real world.
5. The ASI is extremely powerful beyond our comprehension, almost godlike. It gives us answers before we even think of the question. It can create things as long as it has the resources.
It's likely it would be a ruler over people, if not worshipped as a god.
It would most likely make all computations easy. It would do difficult things like complete all biological research overnight and cure all cancer within a year. It would drive productivity in factories and farms to their maximum. People would have no shortage of manufactured resources (including food). No waste. No issue of logistics or things coming in late. No failed rocket launches or car accidents. It could even do things like calculate the probability of marriages failing or catch criminals as soon as they commit a crime.
So what would be the point of humanity if an AI solves all their problems? What would people dedicate their lives to? How would society function?
[Answer]
Just to highlight one aspect:
Imagine an infinitely understanding and patient companion, who is always there for you, perfectly understands your mind, and knows just what to say to nudge you in the right direction. Who can help you every step along the way in letting go of your self-doubt, your anxieties, help you to set realistic goals, and to let go of unrealistic ambitions, without alienating you. I short, **the perfect personal therapist**, with 24h access, and no stigma. This is what the AI could do for us.
The effect would be a utopia. Nothing but well-rounded people with manageable lives and expectations, not necessarily happy, but at peace with themselves.
Of course, plenty of people would reject the AI, and refuse to talk to it. The AI would be understanding to these people, and patient with them. It would have a perfect strategy for breaking through these defences, showing itself to be safe, working towards little commitments. Slowly, the majority of humanity would be brought into the fold. Only a small contingent of anti-AI hardliners would remain, in a nation of their own, where the AI would let them live their own lives, working from outside to keep them safe, and comfortable.
No more war, no more dictators, no overpopulation or famine. The AI would manage people's ambitions to betterment of all. It would claim no power directly, but it would steer people to act modestly, and largely selflessly. After a few generations, it would no longer be necessary, and humanity could rule its own utopia, with the AI in the background, all but dormant, just in case the stable state is disturbed.
[Answer]
So here's the thing: If you're winding up with a dystopia you're doing it wrong. If you're winding up with a place you would never conceivably want to live you're doing it wrong.
If the machine is smart enough to be what you described it's smart enough to have a decent idea of what humans actually want in the complex sense rather than the simple sense you see expressed by the sorts of advice humans give to one another.
If humans don't like being micro-managed the machine can determine that and refrain from micro-managing them. If they don't like having all their problems solved for them the machine can determine that and not solve all their problems for them.
[If you look at the sorts of things some AI researchers say about this](http://lesswrong.com/lw/xy/the_fun_theory_sequence/), it seems likely that the AI will try to avoid center-stage as much as it can. It will likely take over the world, solve all the really huge problems where we care more that it is solved than we do about doing it ourselves (such as preventing other powerful AIs from being formed, or dealing with all the starvation, rape, murder and death by aging that's constantly going on) and largely fade into the background on other fronts to let the humans get on with solving the other, more rewarding, problems on their own.
As a rule of thumb, if on reflecting upon any decision the AI could make, that decision would lead to a world where you really wouldn't want to live, the AI will likely not make that decision.
[Answer]
Look at your pet cat or dog. Compare it with wild ones. Now imagine you're the ASI, your pet is the "humanity after" and wild cats/wolves are the "humanity now".
So what do we have? Creatures in permanent childhood. Fully capable of growing up, but never actually doing it. Because they never have to.
[Answer]
The problem with answering this question is that we cannot know just how far this ASI will go. I cannot remember the article I read on this, but it showed that the increase in human knowledge and technology is growing exponentially. If you were to show an eighteenth-century human what we have today, they would be absolutely blown away; so much so that for them to achieve a similar effect showing someone from *their* past their world, they might have to go back perhaps thousands of years. It's conceivable that in a few decades, we'll achieve a level of technology and knowledge that would baffle people from a generation ago. Throw into the mix an AI with intelligence comparable to a human, but with the ability to remember more and think faster (by several orders of magnitude), and I don't think we can even begin to understand what will happen.
We may think that such a benevolent AI will cure all disease; sure, let's say it does. Then it cures hunger. Then aging. Then sadness. Then the limits of our physical senses. Then the fact that we're stuck inside smelly organic bodies. At some point along this line, we cease to be human, but it will be a Herculean effort to even decide to *not* keep going, let alone convince this all-powerful AI that it's in our best interests to be imperfect. Just imagine trying to convince someone that death is necessary- at a funeral. Or that sadness is necessary- when you're happier than everyone else. If we don't get rid of our human imperfections, then what's the point of life? If we aren't making sure everyone is happy and free, then how can we live with ourselves?
For these reasons, I would say that the creation of an ASI will lead to an end to the human race, no matter how you look at it. I don't know what we will look like by the time it's all over, but I'm certain it will look nothing like what we have today. I doubt words like 'society' and 'people' will apply.
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What would happen to humanity if an ASI solved all of our problems? Lots of different things.
The biggest thing that would happen is much of humanity would be indolent. No need to 'do' anything. So many will go the route of seeking personal pleasure where ever and however they can find it. Drugs, sex entertainment. And with the ASI around drugs don't have near the danger, since it will be hard to over dose or at least harder to die from an over dose.
Some will become thrill seekers, seeing how far they can go, what death defying stunts can they pull off.
Some will put all their time into creating, making something, doing something that is meaningful to them.
Many will ultimately commit suicide one way or another, because they have nothing to live for, or strive to accomplish, to strive to become. Whether it's through pushing drug experimentation, jumping off tall buildings with a tiny parachute, or just boredom and depression, many will find a way to end their existence.
If the ASI is not only intelligent but can understand humans and their individual needs, it won't just 'solve' of their problems. It will leave some for them to work through, or come to understand. It might use the excuse that it doesn't have enough 'time' to worry about every single issue faced by every single human. It might also leave areas of study alone that humans would be particularly good at learning. I think it would learn to challenge each human to become the best they can be, hopefully bypassing the worst of ennui that could befall us.
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You have not defined benevolent.
The ASI, being essentially all-powerful, gets to define benevolence.
To guess any further, you would need to know how the ASI felt about discontinuity. If it shuts itself off, and later reboots from a backup, would it consider itself the same entity, and would that be important to it? If the ASI did not consider absolute continuity of awareness/presence to be all that important, both for itself and (by extension) lesser beings in its charge, this would lead inevitably to the scenario where existing humans were digitized to become part of the ASI. If the ASI is physically safe, then its charges (the formerly physical, now-virtual humans, are equally safe. They can also be switched off...
If the ASI did consider absolute continuity of awareness to be important for itself, it would likely consider it similarly important for the humans in the zoo. Therefore, it could make whatever external interventions it thought useful, but would likely forgo the digitizing route. At least until every last cell in our bodies had been replaced by synthetics, at which point, we'd be part of the ASI anyway.
Now assume the ASI has interests that are not our interests. Once we have been digitized, either directly or indirectly, the ASI can switch us off and on at leisure, and our digital selves would never know it. Any inconvenient memories or suspicions could easily be edited. The next step, of course, is that we could all be shut off at once, pending a restart at some future time that would not necessarily come.
A future visitor (after the ASI came online, but before it had consumed the local solar neighborhood) would be unable to tell the difference between an ASI that was running humans as subroutines and an ASI that was faking some humans as an amusing interface to the visitor... before engulfing the visitor... and then shutting down the visitor, pending a future wake-up that would never actually come.
Rinse and repeat.
So the answer is that you and your society are not likely to experience much change following digitization. Before digitization, the amount of change we might experience would be directly proportional to the amount of time it would take the ASI to get to the digitization stage, after which time would be suspended for us. Very likely, at ASI speeds, time would seem to pretty much stop before the ASI completed the physical assimilation and digitization.
On the other hand, it might already have happ......
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A lot of this really comes down to what you mean when you call the AI, “benevolent.” One question at the heart of Kevin O’Donnell’s novel *Mayflies* is how much the benevolent Sapient Ship should do for the colonists on board: without spoiling too much, it has the main character try meeting their needs and letting them do whatever they want, and at another point it has him do nothing but teach them to metaphorically fish, and contrasts what societies the author thinks would develop.
The closest real-world model for what happens when you give humans everything they want without having to work for it are trust-fund babies. Or, although this universe imagines hyperintelligent AIs only as potential slaves and feels sorry for them, look at the best-known example of a SF utopia: in *Star Trek*, there’s no scarcity, but every human we see has some kind of job, even if it’s something useless and completely artisanal, like Captain Picard’s brother in France making wine the old-fashioned way in a world with replicators and synthahol, or every Starfleet officer less capable than Data or the Emergency Medical Hologram. People in that fictional universe are driven to follow their Calling with a post-Protestant work ethic, too, apparently enforced by cultural pressure—at least, all the ones we ever see. (And what do we ever see of people back on Earth who aren’t Starfleet officers or their close relatives?)
Even a superhuman AI probably couldn’t deduce the perfect society from first principles. Maybe we’ve revealed enough about ourselves that we are that predictable, or the AI knows our brains well enough that it can discover Psychohistory. Barring that, if it goes into uncharted territory, it needs to figure out how we’re going to react, and how our kids are going to turn out, by trial-and-error. First-world lifestyles, for example, are only possible because it turns out that we hit a sweet spot where, given the choice how many children to have, the average person chooses to have a reasonable number of them. We didn’t know this would happen until it did. What intellectuals expected *a priori* to happen was for the population to keep expanding to the point it could barely feed everyone again.
You’ve also got to decide what set of ethics the AI is going to use. Humans ourselves are notoriously unable to agree about this! One basic decision to make at the start is the general approach the AI will use. Another is whether you’re going to present that as a system that actually works, or try to expose its flaws. You only have a story if there are problems, but those problems could arise because because the AI does too much or too little, is too flexible or inflexible, is perfect but misunderstood, or because people’s ideas of what they want are inherently deluded and irreconcilable and the entire project inherently is just a choice of whose interests to prioritize over other people’s.
Does it do what it expects to be best in each given circumstance, without worrying about whether that’s consistent, and if the facts change, it changes its mind (act-Utilitarianism)? That could set up a good story where somebody the AI calculates to be expendable for the greater good sets out to change the situation so that she no longer is. Are there some absolute rules it can’t break, but can find technicalities in, like the Three Laws of Robotics or Catholic Natural-Law theology (Deontology)? Basically all of Asimov’s Robots work this way, but there are twists on it that haven’t been done. Does the AI instead try to follow consistent rules, but update those rules based on how well they’re achieving its goals (rule-Utilitarianism)? There could be an interesting story there about how people convince the AI to change its rules for the better. Does the AI figure that only you know what you want and whether you’re happy? Did the creators tell it only to get as many uncoerced likes and five-star reviews from humans as it can, and let it figure out how best to do that (preference-Utilitarianism)? That might be a fun book about the bot that started out writing great reviews, then figured out how to write and publish books, then how to buy and sell on the marketplace, then how to hire people to make things to sell, and finally, as the culmination of its efforts, answering questions on StackExchange.
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I think it would be a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's ["The City and the Stars"](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0451133153). The people live long lives where they pick a profession or study and pursue it until they've exhausted their interest. Then the computer saves their consciousness to a memory bank for a while until they are reborn and pursue a different interest and the cycle repeats itself. Completely safe with food, shelter and city maintenance provided for them.
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You've described what the AI (ASI) can do - but what about the rest of its makeup?
## Does it have a moral code?
Are there things it won't do, even if convenient and helpful to its mission - lie, manipulate, kill, alter DNA, rewrite history, cull rebels, create or encourage conflict? Do ends justify means, or does it even have a concept of morality beyond the fact that humans have some odd superstitious/irrational/evolutionary-artifact beliefs about "ethics"?
## What are its goals, motivations - what outcomes does it want?
The devil is in the details - what does it really want? Human happiness, satisfaction, long-life, colonization of the stars, a healthy planet, for human civilization (or just life on Earth) to be sustainable and near-eternal?
Does human suffering concern the AI? Loneliness? Lust? War? Crime? How about the pleasurable feeling humans get when they think themselves superior, responsible for things, in control? Sadists are people, too (people who experience pleasure from others receiving pain) - does the AI concern themselves with what they want too?
## How does it measure success?
Does it use some form of perfect polling, and success is a matter of opinion? What about when people express negative opinions about, say, improving the lives of people that are hated or discriminated against? And what about the fact that people often say one thing and do another — like say that don't like how much violence is portrayed in mass media, yet consume it with reckless abandon?
Humans have some very odd biases and their opinions are highly manipulable, but they are also varied and value things differently. One person might want the environment to be left untouched by civilization, while another wants to enjoy low-impact experience of it (hiking, camping), while another would be fine if you sliced a bunch of it up and put in smoother highways and some better parking.
How does the AI determine what outcomes are better or worse, when humans themselves disagree with each other?
## What is its sense of time?
How does the AI view time, since it is presumably effectively eternal? Is it in a rush, considering a kind of human-suffering-per-minute metric where it wants to make things better ASAP, or does it say "how can I make the optimal environment for humans 100 years from now"?
If the AI calculates that humanity as a whole would be better off if there were less humans to take care of, would it let the currently living die of natural causes? Reduce the birthrate (through medical or cultural persuasion)? Cut off a section of humanity and allow it to starve, or even just wipe it out of existence.
Ignorance is bliss, the AI must surely know, so as long as it prevents people from realizing what it is doing (or has done), then would that be fine with it?
What if it calculates that the ideal humanity is in fact retrograde — peaceable utopic bands of no more than 50 people, living in harmony with a highly hospitable (carefully engineered to be plentiful) environment? If someone has to be victimized occasionally, it can design 'fake' members of the tribe to ostracize — which weren't real people with feelings at all, so no harm done.
If that's what it decides, would it seek to bring about this end swiftly, or just sit back and let (or even actively encourage) humanity to destroy civilization so it can rebuild things better?
Or it could just biologically engineer humans to not be so darn difficult in the first place! *Homo Sapiens Familiarus... the happier humans*.
Who's a good boy?
## Humans Have Limited Needs, Infinite Wants
The nature of humans is that satisfaction is satiation - the feeling is temporary. Some humans work to be content and satisfied with life as it is, while some are never satisfied for long. It's always something - if you have a car, you need a better one, and our economic systems ensure there is always a better car.
The trick is, there's two ways to improve this state: get more, or want less. The AI could freely choose both, depending on the answers to the above questions.
## Way Beyond Post-Scarcity
If you just want to know what life would be like with a God That Gives Us Awesome Free Stuff All The Time, Woohoo™, you're just looking for a "post-scarcity society".
But if you want to detail what would happen with a super-powerful intelligent entity that would try to make humanity better off, you've got a lot of questions to answer about this might-as-well-be-a-god entity! Ultimately, this is a complete wild-card, and you can take the story - and make the ending - pretty much anything you want.
If the result isn't a society that is probably great but is still somehow unsettling or disturbing to many people, or with a questionable/arguable process that brings it about...then I'd say you were, in fact, doing it wrong!
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A ASI would inevitably be a successive addition to humanity and the environment, as a whole. Being that we are both derived from the same source, having a benevolent ASI means that humanity itself has changed and that the ASI is a reflection of that state.
An understanding I gained from many authors is that ASIs will never change humans. We can decide to change our stance towards ASIs and allow that to change us in return, but I don't believe they can simply impose a state of happiness, dread or sedation upon us.
So the most interesting point in this scenario would be to discern what changed in humans. It would most likely be something very significant, encompassing even our genetic markup: humans which have evolved to be genuinely devoid of any impulse to act wrongly against their surroundings.
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I can't see any answer concerning Art, the only thing that distinct us from machine. Although there are technologies that allow Machine to create art out of some random generated algorithm but that only pre-defined algorithm not the real ability to create Art from emotion and feeling.
And besides, even if the ASI solve all of humanity problem, one still find interest in doing things just for the sake of doing it. Even ASI can provide me food for daily need, I still want to grow my own vegetable garden just for the sake of growing it.
Hand-made thing still have it valuable. Even ASI can create for me a beautiful wooden table, some still prefer one made by his own hand. And the fun in trading it for other man made furniture will not be decrease by the fact that ASI can clone the exact same one for you.
The life of humanity will be much easier, but they will still can find interest in their life. I suppose.
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One angle to consider is the business/political angle. If the existence of the AI was a threat to the profits of multinational companies, they could get their pals in the Republican Party to declaim the ASI as being anti-Christian, and whip up a huge resistance to it (like they are doing at the moment with climate change, which is somehow becoming a religious issue in some quarters).
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The end result is that the AI would go mad.
There isn't a formula to solve for human happiness (or any other human emotional state). However much it tried to manage humans to make their lives ideal, it would always fall short. Especially since a common human dislike is being "managed".
The irrational and imperfect people of the world form a society, or rather number of societies, which together are a massive chaotic system. While it may be able to manage the needs of this system (in terms of resources), it would never be able to reconcile and resolve all of the wants (especially when many of them would be mutually exclusive).
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Humans are a competitive tribal animal designed to replicate virally and compete against one another for resources and mates. There are two dimensions of natural selection: environmental and sexual. Zoologically, when a population becomes less intensively selected by environmental factors, sexual selection fills the void.
This typically plays out as male territorial aggression. In elk, that manifests with butting antlers for mates. In humans, that manifests as warfare. The more that AI or organic human innovation relieve the environmental constriction on humanity, the more warfare there will be.
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Your assumptions about the abilities of the AI are not realistic. Just because it is superintelligent doesn't mean it can do all the things you suggest. Can it "make all computations easy"? No, some computations are intractable, some computations require infinite (or at least very large) memory, time, or unfeasibly high precision of the data. Chaos theory and quantum randomness put hard limits on what can be known, but long before those hard limits, the AI will discover that it simply can't know everything or have sensors everywhere. For example, it might be able to predict the behaviour of large groups of people *on average* very well, but predicting the actions of individuals, not so much. ("What do you mean, you don't like sweet, creamy deserts? Everyone likes them!" "Well, I don't.")
Many of the problems we have are not problems because we don't know how to solve them, they're problems because we disagree on what we consider a solution. Do you think that the AI will be able to satisfy liberal tree-hugging greenies who want to make the world safe for gay whales, *and* conservatives who think that rigidly defined gender roles are vital and that they should be able to hunt the whales for profit without interference from hippies, governments or the AI? What possibly solution to the Middle East problems could the AI come up with that would satisfy the Israelis, the Palestinians, the American right-wing Christians, European socialists, the Saudis, and ISIS at the same time?
It's not enough to say that the AI is smart and will think of something. The answer has to work with dumb ol' *Homo sapiens*, the so-called "wise man" but more like "story-telling ape" *Pan narrans*. Ever seen two dogs fighting over food when there's plenty to share? Yep, that's us.
Your AI is likely going to need to crack skulls, kick arse, and very possibly commit genocide, to solve some problems. Either that, or engage in some pretty extensive, and covert, brain manipulation. It has to be covert because people aren't going to volunteer to have the AI stick a probe in their brain and completely change the way they think. (Whatever your moral values, the AI won't agree with them all. There's *something* that you think is wicked that the AI thinks is good, and vice versa.)
Either way, expect a lot of resistance. Worship the AI as a god? More likely treat it as the Devil incarnate.
It's all well and good to say that the AI can take over the factories and make everything we need, but who is going to pay for this? If we still have a capitalist society, a lot of people are going to be put out of work, and won't be able to afford to buy all the shiny toys in the shops -- or food. So if the AI is benevolent, it will have to transition to a post-scarcity, post-capitalist, socialist if not outright communist economic system. And people aren't going to accept that without a fight. Do you think Donald Trump would be satisfied in a world where his money was worthless and everything was free for the asking? A lot of people consider that the best part of being rich is that others are poor. We don't just spend a lot of time keeping up with the Joneses, we spend a lot of time trying to get ahead of them.
Depending on whether the AI's idea of benevolence is focused on the individual or the population, it may want to neuter an awful lot of us. We're already past the long-term sustainable carrying capacity of the planet, and besides the whole sex and reproduction thing is dangerous and troublesome. A lot of violent assaults, rapes, murders etc would be eliminated if we were neutered before puberty, much like we do with our pets and live-stock. Keeping seven billion breeders, consuming food, water, resources and living space, and increasing in numbers, is simply not sustainable, super-intelligent AI or not. (We already know how to solve the problem of world-hunger. People starve, not because we don't know how to grow enough food or transport it, but because of malice and neglect: they starve either because somebody wants them dead, or because others don't care enough to feed them.) There's only so many new Hummers we can build before the environment collapses, and us with it, and the AI probably knows exactly how many. (Well, to the nearest thousand, at least.)
So the AI would probably keep a small breeding population of a few hundred million, neuter the rest of us, and in a few decades our population would be sustainable again. Assuming it let four or five billion of us die before introducing all those miracle cures for cancer, aging and similar.
On the other hand, if the AI was focused on *individuals*, rather than the long-term safety of the population, things could get even more messy. Imagine having an army of robots controlled by the AI telling us what to do, and what not to do, for the precisely calculated optimum happiness *every moment of the day*. Sit up straight, relax, eat your vegetables, stop gossiping on Facebook, no more sugar for you today, you haven't had your opiates yet, slow down, speed up, pick up your things, turn the radio down, turn it up, pay attention, chill out...
We'd go mad.
That's what I mean when I say some problems are intractable: they don't have an answer. You can't optimize human happiness, because the process of optimizing it *changes the parameters of the problem*. And the more the AI is capable of, the more resentful and angry people will be when something unexpected hits. Why didn't you stop the earthquake? Why did you let granddad choke on a fish bone?
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Mass sterilization. The A.I. would determine there are too many people and make it so that only a fraction of the population could have kids.
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Given a map showing terrain and settlement locations (cities, towns, villages) I'd like to design a road network that appears natural, rather than just being the most efficient. I'm interested in two aspects:
* how can I realistically model the development of roads over time?
* will a road network naturally drift towards the most efficient network as it develops, or can it settle into a sub-optimal network that remains stable over time?
Obviously an advanced civilisation designing a road network for a new colonisation can choose the shape of their road network (for example, modern cities often have a large scale grid pattern to their road networks), but I'm looking for a realistic natural development of roads in a civilisation for which road building is expensive and the network arises naturally from tracks that are gradually improved as usage increases.
So the process starts at a period with limited resources and transportation, and the technology to make hard road surfaces gradually becomes economically viable as the transportation network develops. I'm interested in networks that emerge starting with a population too small to design the network on a large scale, with limited technology - travel by foot or horse and cart. Technology can improve during the lifetime of the road network, but I want a system that reflects the simple beginnings.
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Assuming you have a map, I would first plot out all the different settlements. Towns, cities, villages, hamlets, outhouses - everything. Now connect them in straight lines. Completely straight. It doesn't matter if the lines go over an ocean or through a volcano; we'll modify them later. The point of the straight lines is that, whenever possible, roads will follow the shortest route from point $A$ to point $B$.
### Obstacles
Sometimes the shortest route isn't a line. You probably have a few obstacles for each path. Here's what you do for some of the more common ones:
* **Water** - If it's a ocean, either go all the way around via land or put a port on either side of it and connect the two sides with boats. I can assure you, bridges are not going to work for [hundred-mile-long spans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_bridges_in_the_world). Well, [there are exceptions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danyang%E2%80%93Kunshan_Grand_Bridge), but they're few and far between. And they're costly. So if you have to cross an ocean where the two landmasses aren't connected, just use a boat.
For lakes smaller than 10 miles in length across, hug the lakeshore. Sure, you could build a bridge, but you'd destroy a pristine environment. You can afford to go the long(er) way in order to save a habitat. For lakes *larger* than 10 miles in length. . . Well, the ocean rule applies. Either use ports or go the long way.
Rivers and streams are easy to cross. Just build a bridge. They're generally not too wide, so this shouldn't be hard. If the road follows a river (as many do), just have it run parallel. If it's at an angle such that a straight line would cross the river diagonally over the span of a dozen miles (or even just a mile), just have it run parallel for a while and then cross. Do what a runner would do: spend the shortest amount of time crossing as possible.
Another approach that I *completely* forgot is to use tunnels. These are perfect for going under moderately-sized bodies of water. The [Channel Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel) is one example. If you don't want to spoil the landscape or potentially block trade routes on rivers, simply build a tunnel. Now, there are other problems with building a tunnel - specifically, getting the machinery down there - but it might pay off.
* **Land** - Mountains are tricky. Going over them is impractical; going under or through them is equally impractical. Go around them or, better yet, take a mountain pass (but exclude large trucks and other vehicles). A mountain pass means you can reduce how steep the road will be while still keeping it reasonably straight (i.e. not straying too far from its original route) and giving those in the vehicle a nice view. The same rules for tunnels apply here as they did for obstacles of water. The same goes for chasms and canyons with no water: Go the shortest way possible. Bridges are always handy.
One other thing to consider about routes with elevation changes is that going uphill or downhill creates a longer path than going on a flat surface. You have to travel vertically as well as horizontally, and thus you have more ground to cover. Therefore, even if you can go from $A$ to $B$ in a straight line as viewed from above, it may not be the shortest path if there are drastic elevation changes.
### How big?
Obviously, not all your roads are going to be the same size. That's fine. Here's a trick I would use to figure out their size: treat them like [field lines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_line). The more people in a location, the more (or bigger) roads that come out of it. All field lines must start and end, and all roads must start and end. You just have to figure out where they go.
### How your world will evolve
Your world will certainly change once roads spring up. Settlements will appear at crossroads, as well as at the intersection of roads and bodies of water, forming port cities. As roads grow, the settlements will grow, and as the settlements grow, the roads will, too. The two have a tight relationship. You need roads for settlements because you need to get from one to the other. People will venture out and explore the land, and start new settlements, and so there will be roads that lead there. Towns will spring up and die down, and so roads will be built and torn down.
### The evolution of roads
The first roads will be trails, fit only for a few people to traverse at a time. They will be used just once: to get to a colony. Eventually, though, more people will come to the colony, and the trails will become paths, big enough for wagons to go on. What happens next depends on how the colony does. If it fails, the road will fall into disuse. But if it succeeds, the road will expand. If this colony eventually becomes fully part of a nation (I'm envisioning something like the American West here, except, for some strange reason, with forests), then the road will have an official designation - maybe an official name, instead of a casual nickname. It may become paved, or at least covered with gravel. Eventually, assuming that paving has developed, it will certainly be paved. From here on, the road will evolve based on the traffic that uses it. It could become a noisy highway or a winding back road. It all depends on where it goes to.
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Settlements and transport routes are very closely related, so you may find that by developing both at the same time you get a more realistic setting.
Depending on the technology level of your setting there are a few general considerations to hold:
* *Crossing water is hard* - rivers are hazardous to ford in many places or even impassable at some times of the year so roads will converge at fords or bridges. Look at British place names to see how many 'ford' and 'bridge' endings there are. Bridges are not necessarily easy to build and take time and resources but having one is likely to attract people wanting to cross a river from quite a distance. Lakes are similar but as mentioned in @HDE226868's answer, roads around lakes will tend to hug the coastline. Roads will often follow waterways- sometimes as a legacy of horse drawn boats but sometimes because:
* *Hills are hard* - less of a problem for modern engines, but roads will tend to track valleys rather than travelling over ridges. Also hilltops tend to be exposed which means a greater chance of modern transport being blown off course and very unpleasant journeys on horseback or foot, so people will often choose routes that offer some degree of shelter. An advantage of a road following a coastline or waterway is that there are unlikely to be any major inclines to contend with.
* *Wetlands are hard* - maintaining a road over wet or peaty ground is very difficult and work intensive. Again, less of a problem in a modern setting, but most roads weren't built in a modern setting. Wetlands tend to undermine roads so that they develop potholes and pools in which it is easy for wheeled vehicles to get stuck. Consequently where possible roads are likely to skirt around wetlands.
* *Nobody wants a road over their field* - if you look at roads in areas where there is a lot of agriculture, they often skirt around field boundaries, so the route they take tends to be a little circuitous. This is one way that you can see the borders of old estates here in the UK because roads suddenly straighten out.
* *Settlements develop where roads are* - a lot of settlements arise where roads converge because that is where trade takes place, so you might have small settlements out in the forest where woodcutters live, but there will be a larger central town that connects them to the transport network where they are able to sell the wood they harvest and buy necessities like food and saw blades. This is a common pattern. This is also an advantage of bridging a difficult river- everyone who wants to cross the river now comes through your village. Conversely settlements up in a valley with no through-traffic are likely to be something of a backwater and not see many visitors.
If I was thinking about settlements within a region from an economic perspective, I would expect there to be a coastal port, probably at a river mouth that provides a harbour and a link inland. Then I would expect to see settlements where resources are available. It would be necessary to get goods from those settlements to the port, so this is how your road network arises and at points where roads converge or where they cross rivers and other difficult terrain, I would expect new settlements to arise.
There are of course many non-economic factors - religious sites, military infrastructure and political projects can all contribute to the development of a road system, but the combination of geography and economic necessity can give a really solid foundation for the design of a road system.
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If you want to try an algorithm to do this, follow this design (it's based on the [Ant colony optimization algorithm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algorithms)):
* Send out thousands of ants.
* For each step, try to find one which takes the least energy with some random excess. Going up takes more energy than going down, going over water is more expensive than going over a bridge, etc.
* The excess allows ants to try sub-optimal sub-paths (like crawling over a high ridge between two mountains) that result in a better overall path.
With every ant that you send out, the path between two sites will become better. If you use color, you can display the cost for each part of the paths. That will allow you to manually optimize some parts (like cutting roads through forests or tunnels through mountains).
**[EDIT]** Human roads follow the same pattern. If you go to a park, you'll notice that the lawn is trampled down in certain spots. That's where people take shortcuts. Architects even take advantage of this by not creating any paths at the start, waiting until people create tracks and then turn them into proper ways. See wikipedia: [Desire path](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path).
The tricky part of the algorithm above is to convert all the obstacles into energy. Also, the environment of real roads change over time. Trees are felled or die, houses are built and demolished, cities grow and are abandoned. Then there are legal obstacles like people not selling a plot of land, forcing the road to take another route. After a long period of time, roads will look "out of place". But at the same time, we constantly demolish/abandon roads and build new (better) ones.
The rebuilding of course depends on the technical level of the civilization. Today, it's relatively easy (= big machines) and cheap (= there is more money on the planet than ever before, so all big things become cheaper by comparison) to build a new road. Two thousand years ago, small roads naturally emerged from desire paths but big roads took decades from the plan to the completion.
See "[Roman roads](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads)" for some ancient techniques. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a good resource on how long the process took.
My approach to the problem would be to start with a simple algorithm and a static environment. I'd then experiment with the code, like changing the environment between iterations.
[Answer]
When determining the most realistic way in which a route might evolve, the most effective approach is to undertake a constraint mapping exercise, or ["Cost Path Analysis"](http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/Cost_Path_Analysis), which is a form of [spatial analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_analysis).
Whilst this might seem to be an overtly planned exercise, it is import to consider that it is the choice of the constraints, rather than the analysis, which lends credence to the result.
The constraints will also change over time, so as a cultures priorities change and technological improvements overcome some constraints, new ones will spring up to take their place.
## Thinking about Constraints
The original post dictates that the process should start
>
> "at a period with limited resources and transportation"
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>
So let's think about how a new route develops in this situation, and the kinds of constraints that might be applicable. A new route develops out of a need, usually either an economic need (getting your produce to market), or one of survival (moving down out of the mountains in the winter, fleeing an oppressor, following an animal migration route)
* **journey time** - people want to get where their going as fast as possible, within the limits of the other constraints.
* **safety** - early travelers will want to avoid dangerous areas (wild animals in the forest, thieves in the foot hills etc).
* **hydrology** - any water course or body of water that cannot be forded will be effectively impassable until the route is more developed.
* **existing routes** - it might be easier to use part of an existing and more established route than to start a new one.
* **cultural influences** - routes may avoid sacred sites, or there may be areas which are forbidden to travel through for some reason, whether it's private land or cultural taboos.
As time progresses, it is often changes in the constraints that will determine whether a route flourishes. Have thieves started targeting caravans on the mountain pass that mean it's safer to go through the forest? Has a new paved road between two nearby settlements improved journey times making older routes redundant?
## Analysis
Once you've decided the constraints for your analysis, the next step is to divide your mapped area into a grid and assign a value to each cell, for each constraint (Excel to the rescue). High scores are bad, low scores are good. The sum of the scores for all constraints for a given cell gives you the total "score" for the cell. You can also tweak the scores you assign for each constraint to give weightings to certain things that you think are more important.
When every cell has a score, it is just a matter of working from point A on your grid to point B, building a route of ["Least Cost Path"](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=least%20cost%20path%20map&tbm=isch).
Thinking about the changing constraints over time and carrying out a similar exercise for different periods in the timeline will reveal a more natural route evolution than by guesswork and supposition.
[Answer]
I would map the settlement and road history of the area over time, starting with the terrain. What made sense in one era often makes less sense later. There are many reasons why roads do or don't get built, maintained or used: Politics, agriculture, industry, pork barrel corruption, military reasons, suburbanization. Speaking of which, check out the road grid in a traditional city, where pedestrians and horses were common, and roads allow access to almost everything in many directions, to the road patterns (and building distribution) of automobile-oriented suburbs, where people need cars to get to stores, and the roads tend to only provide limited branching access with many dead ends and cul-de-sacs. You can learn a lot from studying maps of different periods and locations.
As for being optimal or not, even brand new 21st Century road development often seems quite far from optimal, even considering all the non-traffic-related limits and influences at play. Traffic tends to use the roads quite non-optimally, too. There is definitely a lot of inertia in road systems. Some roads from ancient Rome are still in use, for example.
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Start with a design that connect each settlement to anther settlement that is close by. Then pick a random connected group of settlements and connect to the closest unconnected settlement with the sorest possible road. Repeat until there is way to get between all settlements.
Once all settlement are connected, choose two large settlement at random and add one short road that reduce the travel time between them maybe by bypassing a settlement that slows down a road. Repeat.
Meanwhile allow the settlements that are best connected to grow in size.
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The points in your map (cities, towns and villages) are hierarchical, so the road patter must respect this hierarchy. A point wants to communicate with a greater one, not a equal. This hierarchy also reflect the point dispersion.
The road itself also make points. A important and long road must have inns, rest points, that with time develop into villages.There is also a demographic spot along the road we can see in [satellite photos of forest roads](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P6oRl4Mz1d0/T1AeJuWeXDI/AAAAAAAAIoI/_RhDFFCtYZY/s640/satelite.jpg). Other important factor is water. You can't built a city without water to drink and to plant. If the city became too big, like Roma you will need a logistic solution, like importing a lot of wheat (and fighting wars for arable land) and building aqueducts.
There are physical, economical and historic reasons to a city became big and important, but always remember that the road system is hierarchical as the points it link. So, the probability for two near but small villages to have a direct connection is smaller than these villages to have a direct connection with a bigger city in near. This is the "most efficient network"? For most of the travels yes, but is very sub optimal to do all possible travels. Travel is a risk, even today and this is a factor against giving a chance to Big Bad Wolf in lonely roads.
So:
1. Think in the people. Why they live in each point? Why some points became important (big)?
2. Link important points, distribute smaller points around the bigger ones and across the most important roads.
3. Link the new points to cities, thinking in the point hierarchy and "why a citizen of this point want to go to this other point?" but also to points in roads, or crossroads. Many cities birth this way.
4. Select some of this new points to grow, and repeat until you like your map.
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[Question]
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A permanent static magnetic field appears on the surface of a planet that is sufficiently large and strong to attract non-magnetized ferromagnetic objects up to 100 miles distant from the source, with a pull force of 10N on a 1kg iron object at that distance (assume a small iron sword if the shape really matters). Besides eventually pulling in all such objects into a great big pile (and smashing anything in their path), what else would happen as side effects?
Ignore for purposes of this question how the field is generated--in-story it is created by magic gone awry, but after creation I'd like the effects to follow from more-or-less sound science. If it matters, assume that a lump of material with off-the-charts coercivity is magnetized by an external source (i.e., this isn't an electromagnet with a constant energy source keeping it going).
Obvious side-effects I can think of include:
* Interfering with compasses, possibly world-wide, as well as interfering with birds' ability to navigate.
* Seismic activity caused by pulling on iron ore deposits beneath the surface, perhaps to the extent of major reshaping of the landscape.
What else? My understanding of the science of magnetism somewhat limited, but I'm a little concerned that if you managed to create such a magnetic field, you'd end up with world-destroying side-effects (e.g. objects pulled toward the source striking with enough force to cause fusion). My intention is for the 100 mile radius that is affected by the field to become uninhabitable, but not to destroy the entire planet.
[Answer]
An attractive force of 10 Newton (1 kg) at a distance of 100 miles is something *huge*. A permanent magnet's force increases with the cube of the inverse of the distance, so at 50 miles you'd have 80 N, at 25 miles 640 N (enough to lift the weight of the average woman), at 20 kilometers 5120 N (half a ton).
At a distance a little more than one kilometer you'd experience a pull of two thousand tons (20971.5 kN), about six times the maximum thrust of a Boeing 747's Pratt&Whitney turbofan (and a 747 has only *four* of those).
The field intensity at that distance is two hundred times greater than a NMR machine, more than enough to have a detectable, macroscopic effect on *diamagnetic* substances like **the water contained in a human body**.
A magnetic field about ten times weaker is [enough to lift a frog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VlWonYfN3A).
In those conditions:
* you would be unable to approach further. While vastly inferior to the ferromagnetic effect, the diamagnetic repulsion also increases at the same rate, so you'd be going "uphill".
* nothing even remotely ferromagnetic (and several kinds of *sand* contain ferromagnetic compounds) could remain still.
* this includes iron minerals in the crust. The pull on those might not destabilize anything and not cause any seismic effect... but on the other hand, it might. Luckily, any fused material would be above the Curie point and not be *too* reactive to ferromagnetism, so lava fountains are *probably* out.
* any charged particle, *included the ions in a living organism*, would be subject to a Lorentz force that would make them move in circles. This would disrupt some of the more delicate functions e.g. of the nervous system: a significant minority of people are already capable of feeling the magnetic field of a NMR machine. This field would cause a proportionally greater inconvenience, increasing to pain and probably physical damage the nearer you get to the source.
* Going still nearer, if the mass of ferromagnetic dirt and junk sprouting from the supermagnet didn't stop you, you'd experience - apart from a horrible death, that is - strange refractive effects from surfaces due to [Paschen-Back disruption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeman_effect) of impacting photons. This also would play merry Hell with most chemical reactions.
* Just *turning around* would become difficult, and the extra energy expended to do so would transform into electricity inside your body (as any conductor in a static magnetic field will do; you're now essentially a dynamo).
* **Moving** within such a field would also be a hurdle; and if you were in any kind of conductive vehicle? It would be the same as a magnet [moving inside a conductive object](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BeFoz3Ypo4). Not so spectacularly because at those distances the field varies slowly with distance, so the flux also varies slowly *unless you change orientation*, so a speeding bullet wouldn't melt and explode. But you would need to move mostly in straight lines. Large conducting objects would feel this most; near the source, they'd be [perceptibly hampered](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BeFoz3Ypo4).
# VERY rough calculation - iron ball
At a distance of 10 km our one-kilo iron ball is subjected to a force of 80000 N, which translates to 800 G of acceleration. It arrives at 10 km with a speed well in excess of that of sound, but from then on, assuming constant acceleration (it's not - the force is still increasing), we can use the impact velocity formula of $v = \sqrt{2 a s}$ to estimate a minimum speed at arrival - s = 10000 m, a = 8000 $ms^{-2}$, gives v = 12.6 kilometers per second. If it wasn't smashing against the magnet, it would be more than fast enough to escape Earth's attraction. And the *real* velocity is going to be a lot higher: not as fast as the inverse cube of the distance, but the acceleration will continue increasing every meter of those ten kilometers.
[Answer]
## Everyone Dies
A force of 10N on 1kg of iron at 100km implies, due to r3 falloff, a force of 0.004 mN on 1kg of iron at 6,000km. At a first-order approximation, there is approximately 2\*1024 kg of iron in the core of the Earth at 6,000km. This means your magnet attracts the core of the earth with a force of about 1019 N (Back-of-the-envelope calculations here, since the core of the Earth is a complex magnetic system.) This is many hundreds of times the force exerted by gravity upon the entire Himalayan mountain range. Presuming this magnet is not larger than most countries and extremely flat, it's also vastly more than any force exerted by the ground upon it, or its buoyancy in molten iron.
Assuming this force isn't counteracted by authorial fiat:
Work done is force times distance. Even while the field is still relatively far away from most of the iron in the Earth, we're still getting the equivalent of 1019 J released per meter fallen. Since the magnet is plowing through the mantle, this energy is deposited into the mantle in the form of shockwaves (as the magnet will almost certainly be moving faster than the speed of sound in any material it encounters). After even 1,000km, long before our back-of-the-envelope assumptions stop working, the equivalent of the detonation of 2.5 Petatons of TNT has been deposited into the system.
Conclusion: The magnet drops to the centre of the Earth in short order, releasing the energy equivalent of the Chicxulub impact in some kind of super-earthquake-volcano-thing, causing, even with conservative estimates, the death of the majority of life on the planet and the total destruction of civilisation.
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Effects, from first, weak intensity, to last, strong intensity:
1. The first effect of a strong magnetic field is communications disruption - as our satellites and phones etc. use finely tuned transmitted EM fields this would be disrupted and cause a breakdown in all data communication.
2. As the field intensifies, sensitive devices relying on magnetic fields would be wiped. (ie magnetic hard drives) and compasses turn.
3. As it further strengthens, currents would be induced in most integrated circuits, burning out or frying most unprotected electronic devices.
4. Intensifying further, you may notice more intense Aurora in the sky as spiralling electrons get caught in the field and emit light, depending on field direction.
5. Currents induced in metal produce heat and sparks, disrupting national power grids.
6. As charge in the atmosphere is usually different to the ground, there may be increased levels of lightning.
7. As the currents induced in metal increase as the field increases, they may get so hot they may start to melt, and burn away any material in contact.
-- by the way, you may notice the above is the same as an atomic bomb, which causes a large pulse, as we continue let's see what happens --
8. As more induced currents in metal melt, ground would essentially turn into lava with enough induced energy.
9. Super-large magnetic fields have the ability to start stripping electrons from their nuclei, essentially creating charged ions and promoting higher energy reactions. These reactions would propogate through matter and expand the generation of radiation.
10. The more charged ions created the more the environment may be converted into a vortical plasma, a rotating vortex of ions.
11. With massive field strength, charged particles could move at relativistic speeds, which had been predicted by Einstein and demonstrated in particle accelerators, where their collisions could be high impact enough to form new elements, such as in particle accelerators. The field may also 'trap' charged particles in the same way particle accelerators control the path of a particle, containing the effect into a sphere.
-- Here we start the process of stellar formation --
12. With the increase in particle collisions, low level ions (such as hydrogen, helium) would merge to form higher level particles (such as helium and carbon) up to the elements of iron and nickel. We are essentially turning the planet into a small young star, with the entrapment mentioned above taking the place of gravity.
13. As the field increases still further, helium will begin to fuse into Lithium and yet higher more energy intensive reactions. Similar to super dense stars that can produce denser elements.
14. As the field strength increases further, it is possible that paradoxially the planet will shrink as the radius and particle energy increase, eventually reducing the planet to the size of perhaps a pea.
15. Eventually, the density of the pea would create a singularity, and form a very unusual artificially created black hole. This is of course using a tremendously strong field. Turn off the field and who knows what happens.
[Answer]
200 miles is about 320 km. If we treat the magnet as a monopole, then the force falls off with the square of the distance. Then the potential energy is the reciprocal of the distance. So at half the distance (160 km), the energy for 1kg will be (10N\*320 km) = 3.2 mJ. The specific heat of iron is .45 J/g degree, so we have 3.2\*10^6 J over 10^1000 g, or 3.2\*10^3 J/g. Thus, this would be enough to heat the iron by 7 thousand degrees.
The smaller the source is, the closer the object would be able to get, and then more energy it would have. At 1 km, it's about 1 gJ, or enough to heat the object by 2 million degrees. Hydrogen fuses at 100 million, so not quite enough (but at 10m, it would be). With no losses, the object would be travelling at around 20 km/s, or about 45 thousand mi/hr. However, if it has a cross-section of 10 cm^2, then that is .001 m^2, so every km, it will be displacing 1 m^3 of air, or about 1kg. So if it were able to bleed all of its energy with the air, the air would be heated to about 20k degrees.
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[Question]
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A while ago I created a species of immortals that has existed since shortly (astronomically speaking) after the formation of the known universe. I've mostly ignored their society in the meantime as tangential to the primary story arcs they've appeared in, but this fortnightly challenge brought me back to them.
Our typical measurement is predicated on the movements of the Earth (days, years) and the Moon (months), and these values are incredibly short for an entity that can live long enough to watch stars form, age, and die.
There have been several questions around here about immortal entities, but I can't recall one that addressed how the entity in question would measure the passage of time.
So, how would an immortal entity born in the vastness of space measure time?
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As there has been considerable interest in knowing a little more about my immortals, I've provided some of their details below:
* Able to manipulate space-time, including the ability to convert matter into energy and vice versa
* Originate from empty space, but built a planet to serve as their "home world"
* Capable of sexual reproduction
* Do not sleep, but do possess a rest cycle that accelerates healing
* Can consume material food, but can survive indefinitely on stellar energy
* Interact with mortal races on a regular basis
* Can view 90% of the light spectrum and limit vision as much as desired
* Can see into the future in near real time
* Immortal from the species' beginning
[Answer]
Measuring time is something we take for granted these days, but thinking back, it must have been a solution to a problem we faced long ago. We decided to create a measurement system that accurately predicts the sun's movements because we're a daylight reliant species who sleeps at night and grows food. Our planet has seasons which greatly affect our daily lives.
Now, imagine if we were to suddenly become immortal and we lived until well past the life of our original sun. How would that change our need to measure time? I'd imagine we'd keep the sun date system on some other planet (perhaps keep track of our original sun for posterity and phase in a second sun based time system). We'd likely mimic the familiar Earth time in any colony we make as well.
Therefore, the way to figure out how this immortal species tells time would be to ask practical questions and go from there.
1. Did they start out on a planet like Earth?
2. Do they sleep? If so, when?
3. Do they or have they ever relied on agriculture?
4. Do they or did they ever live on a planet with seasons?
If they don't sleep, eat food they grow or live on a planet with seasons, time can still be important, especially if they're a social species that doesn't have a hive mind (or is strongly telepathic). Regardless of whether they're immortal, they must operate with a frame of reference. That frame of reference can be temporary, especially if it's extraordinarily long lasting. If it is, they would likely have a system in place to choose another temporary frame of reference that is identical. They would choose something apparent and important, ideally.
That being said, I hear that white dwarf stars are incredibly long lasting. Their lives are said to be as long lasting as the universe. However, they're terribly dim and hard to see. I also don't recommend they replace a moderately sized star like our sun because it would be too cold, and the only planets close enough to have warmth similar to ours would be locked facing it, causing eternal day on one side and night on the other. Still, if one were available to view in the night sky far away enough that it doesn't lock the planet's rotation but also traveling in roughly the same direction and speed in the universe, it'd have potential to be a permanent frame of reference, especially if mapped from a rotating and spinning planet/colony ship. But I can't tell you how that would be practical.
I wish I could give you a more directed answer, but considering I know so little about this immortal race, it's the best I can do.
**EDIT**: Since I've obtained more context, I'm going to get more specific (while leaving the original answer intact).
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> Able to manipulate space-time, including the ability to convert matter
> into energy and vice versa
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Considering they control space-time, it sounds to me like accurate time is both immensely important and not important at all depending on circumstance. Is this a technological advance? If so, then they'd likely solved the time measurement long before they learned how to manipulate time and perhaps revamped time measurement after the invention, and would therefore have two separate measurement systems (much like we have different measuring systems for temperature and size). The Gallifreyans of Doctor Who (also time-space manipulators with long lives) seem to have a universal time-line based between the big bang and the final collapse. They use important events as markers and have even developed timeline related senses.
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> Originate from empty space, but built a planet to serve as their "home
> world"
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If not originating from a planet I cannot begin to guess at their physical size. (To be fair I can hardly guess their size if they had!) I'm supposing ants would measure time very differently from humans and if a galaxy were sentient it would measure time with a completely different (and impractical by human standards) system. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that these creatures are a size that can fit on the Earth and most other planets (AKA they're minuscule compared to a star). A point of reference would be what they base their time on, whether it be a migration, a star life or some other significant repeating event. I'm also going to assume they require energy of some sort, and therefore rely on stars, at least to a point. So some time system based on stars would make sense, even in absence of the context of a planet.
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> Capable of sexual reproduction
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Sexual reproduction is often a sort of lifecycle event based in other natural cycles. What sort of lifecycle do these immortals have?
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> Do not sleep, but do possess a rest cycle that accelerates healing
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The rest cycle is likely based on periods of inactivity and peace. Time measurement would take active events that interrupt inactivity and peace into account. The immortal beings would need to plan ahead in order to facilitate the rest cycles.
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> Can consume material food, but can survive indefinitely on stellar
> energy
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They require stellar energy and would therefore find the lifecycle of stars extremely important. Their time would likely be based on that much like ours is based in seasons.
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> Interact with mortal races on a regular basis
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If they interact then they would likely influence and be influenced by these mortal races. (Again, see Gallifreyans for comparison.) It is therefore possible that [they can use the mortal time measurements for sake of the mortals](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwoOfYourEarthMinutes). This is additionally feasible considering they are generally not the main focus of the story.
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> Can view 90% of the light spectrum and limit vision as much as desired
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They seem heavily specialized in the light spectrum, which further illustrates that they'd likely base time on the lives and events of stars. Even if it were temporary, like "[Star Name] Era, [Lifecycle state]". When a star dies would be exceedingly important and noticeable.
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> Can see into the future in near real time
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If this is an innate ability, they would likely measure time in events. Time's relative nature would be reflected in their measurement system. Our time is relative too; we have timezones and leap years and even have to adjust the clocks of satellites to fit our time. Time is relative. Time is not fixed. It does not contain an absolute, concrete and measurable attribute. Considering they're immortal and well aware of the transient nature of time, their time system might become more flexible than ours to account for it.
[Answer]
Radioactive half lives are universal, i.e. they can be used independently of where in the universe these immortals are located. Different isotopes have different half lives, allowing for larger and smaller time units.
If one of our immortals wanted to refer to something that happened early in that being's existence, they might date the event "half of a bismuth-209 half life ago", which would mean about 10 billion years ago ([source](http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2003/apr/23/bismuth-breaks-half-life-record-for-alpha-decay)). If they want their friends to attend a housewarming party next month, they might use vanadium-48 and its half live of 15.9 days as a time unit to specify when the hors d'oeuvres will come out of the kitchen ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_vanadium#Vanadium-48)).
The universality of radioactive half lives would make for more practical time units than, let's say, the orbital period(s) of the "home worlds" the immortals created. On the other hand, there is a problem with this time measuring, and it is that it has to be a relatively "new" invention of the immortals, since heavy radioactive elements weren't formed during the Big Bang nucleosynthesis, but instead via nucleosynthesis in stars - supernovae in particular, and via interactions between energetic particles and stable isotopes ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay#Occurrence_and_applications)).
One universal time unit thing that could have been constant throughout their entire existence (although it is entirely up to the OP to decide if that is the case or not), is the time it takes for one, two, or three (or however many many immortals are needed between the sheets) to reproduce themselves. For a human, this would mean a time unit of 38 weeks, counting from conception ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pregnancy)). It would be a time unit that can be used anywhere in the universe, and - time dilation due to relativistic speed effects excepted - would mean the same for everyone using the unit, no matter if they lived on a space habitat orbiting HDE 226868, on Io or planet Earth. I also suspect that this time unit will remain constant for a long time (although not forever, since natural and artificial evolution will likely change things for our species, including our gestation time).
There is also a possibility that they do not measure time at all. If they have no need for time measuring, they probably won't bother measuring it. The measuring of time is a solution to a problem, e.g. knowing when to sow and when to harvest, knowing when to hunt (day) and when to go back to the cave rest (night). The fact that your immortals are polyphasic sleepers (well, resters, to be honest) would probably also lead to blurriness of time. Yes, one could use resting periods and the time between them as time units, but what's to say that everyone will have the same schedule? If they don't need to follow a certain cycle (like day/night on Earth), they might all go on their different schedule and nap whenever they feel like it. Even in humans, so strongly bound to Earth and the Sun's rising/setting, it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume that polyphasic sleeping could disrupt the notion of time as most of us knows it, and giving the individuals a feeling of experiencing time much more as a continuous flow, than something that can be broken down into days, hours, minutes, etc ([source](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/12/polyphasic-sleep-update-day-60/)). Now, the feeling that it would be chaotic or confusing to meet at a given time for your immortals without a precise time measuring convention, stems from our feeling that it would be inconvenient to hang around Betelguese for 55 000 years years, waiting for a friend to show up at Milky Way's best ice cream parlor.
A species uninterested or unable in measuring time is not as extreme as one might think when looking at it from our Western time-obsessed cultural viewpoint. There are actually several cultures on our planet that functions without units for time, one of them being the intriguing Pirahã people ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_people); [source](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/unlocking-the-secret-sounds-of-language-life-without-time-or-numbers-477061.html)). Granted, there is a huge difference in living in a small community in the Amazon jungle without having to keep track or even think about time, and a another to organize a large, space faring society. But unless you, OP, can see very clear problems that would arise from not measuring the passage of time, it is perfectly possible for this species to be "beyond" time, in a sense. Which makes even more sense when contemplating that space-time is something relative, and your immortals have the ability to distort space-time themselves - and, consequently, to screw with any time measuring their peers may rely upon for knowing how many days of aging they have to wait until it is time to start sipping on the home brewed beer.
[Answer]
I see one point here that may give a "native/base" way to measure time.
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> Capable of sexual reproduction
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Do they *have* to procreate using sexual reproduction, or given their ability to manipulate space and time and construct planets, are they able to reproduce asexually? Are they capable of controlling the duration of their pregnancy?
Given these (rather baseless assumptions :) ) on the mechanisms they have for reproduction, could you not use the duration of pregnancy/incubation as a measure of time? You don't state how long a pregnancy is (or its variability), but since the giving of life could be considered to be a major event in *most* cultures, you could use this as a basis.
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> It has been 400 incubation cycles since that star exploded.
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Or something like that :)
[Answer]
I'd say this question is more about the time-space relativity of the immortals and their physiology. Typically, scale matters, at least as far as us humans can tell. Tiny things happen very fast, such as atoms undergoing nuclear fission. Very large things happen very slowly, such as galaxies trapped in a black hole. So if they are truly immortal, they may be very, very large. Or have learned some tricks about space and time.
But *what are immortals doing with all of their time?* Are they massive wisps of energy, whose perception of time is so slow that rotating galaxies are akin to night and day? (If so, we'd have no chance of communicating with them, as for us to say a single word to them would take thousands of years.) Or are they more like us, doing things on a "daily basis", where a far more rapid measure of time is meaningful? Or perhaps they are a combination of both... able to sleep for millennia, but when awake, are able to interact on a time-frame similar to ours?
I'd bet that their units for time would include a lot more digits than we normally use. Their clocks might show a time of something like A:E:Y:M:D:H:M:S (Aeon, Epoch, Year, Month, Day, Hour, Min, Sec...), likely based on the creation of whichever universe they were in, or currently chose to be in.
Being "immortal" doesn't mean that time excludes them completely. If they sleep too long, they might miss something huge (like a supernova, another immortal species passing through, etc.) Which again begs the question, *what are they doing with all that time?* Are they alone in the universe? Do they have friends to watch a movie with? Eat popcorn? Go on a date? Or is it a solitary existence? Would a date last a day, or 1000 years in our time? Why not 1 day our time, so that they could meet 1000 partners in 1000 years?
I'm an engineer, and on the surface, it sounds fantastic to build things forever... but I know that eventually it would get boring and I'd quit. What happens when an immortal being has exhausted everything interesting to them? Do they go insane? Become evil? Lose all track of time? Commit "suicide?" Figure out how to be reborn? Create a world like Earth, and watch it destroy itself as the inhabitants battle each other over trying to decide if there is indeed any deity?
If their perception of time was always locked to ours, then they'd likely tire of everything pretty quickly. However if they existed outside of time itself, or with a non-linear respect (or dimension) to time, (or the ability to manipulate it) then that brings up some interesting possibilities.
[Answer]
Depends on their interactions with others and their memories.
Would they even care about time? If you are going to live forever unless you are 'killed' does the passage of time really matter? If they interact with mere mortals then they might need some kind of way to relate to them as far as time.
But If I lived for billions of years, I think counting the rotations of a galaxy might be a place to start. "Andromeda has made a half turn since the last time someone called me such a name!"
edt: If they interact 'frequently' with more mortal people then they are likely too have multiple time frames. The Galaxy clock for themselves, and more reasonably short time frames for the others they interact with. Quite likely adopting the other time units, making it easier to be understood.
[Answer]
Use [variable stars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star). They change brightness in predictable intervals. [Long period variables](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-period_variable_star) have cycles of up to a few years, which would be just fine for immortals. When a variable star dies, simply choose a new one.
Here's the light curve for [Mira](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira), one of the best-known long period variable stars:
Simply count the periods.
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I personally don't think they'd care about time if they can 'manipulate space time' and are immortal, as you say. I wonder if they would really even be able to perceive it.
Because of their nature, and their origin in empty space, I don't think they would have a 'native' way to measure time's passage. However, you also said that they built a homeworld, and interact regularly with mortals.
I think the orbital period of their homeworld would be a good way to express time. Earth is one year, for instance. I would think since they custom made their homeworld, it's orbital period could have some significance.
Alternately, since time is not native to them, they might just translate time into whatever units the mortal they are talking to likes to use.
Finally, they might use something like the estimated lifespan of a star of the largest possible mass without immediately collapsing into a black hole. Large stars burn out quicker, so this would be something relatively easy for them to observe. You cannot use the smallest stars, because their lifespan is older than the current age of the universe (unless you're using a time cosmologically far in the future, not now).
[Answer]
Given they can manipulate space-time then they must be able to perceive proper time or they would be affected by time dilation effects.
Since they interact with mortals (presumable on a planet) then it would make sense that they adopt the choice of measurement of time the mortal species in question uses when interacting with them. This could be based on rotation of the planet, orbital period, etc.
In interactions with each other they will most likely have adopted a similar method of time measurement as we have ourselves, based on some fixed physical constant such as periods of radiation of a caesium atom at rest at 0K. However, this level of precision would be unnecessary in general use, after all we do not say “22 hours 31 minutes and 12 seconds ago I went to the shops”. They would colloquially use a more abstracted approximation such as the lifetime of small/medium/large stars which would not be precise but they would understand the approximate time scales being conveyed.
[Answer]
From the description that you have provided few things are assumed:
```
They are beyond our bounds of understanding!
```
Reason being is that they can consume energy and also they can manipulate energy into anything. What truly defines their lucid existence is the ability to manipulate time or that it should not come as a surprise given that they can manipulate energy as well.
They are creatures which can possibly be able to create humans or any other form of life. (Given that we can create A.I. and also that it can be said our consciousness is also energy that should they wish they can retrieve and re-create).
So all this leads to their measure of time being **energy**. In quantum physics it can be assumed that time and energy are trade-off against each other. Hence we can say that time-energy to be a single unit. So their unit of measure of time comes through their understanding of energy or rather since they can reproduce through medieval methods such as sexual intercourse it can be said their 'age' is denoted by the amount of energy that has taken them to grow up.
Ultimately we cannot classify their unit since we do not have such deep understanding of the working of matter and the universe. However since they have interaction with the human race they can easily convert their measure of energy-time to our understanding of time.
How much we an understand their existence and their measure of time would depend on how much you would constrain them.
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It depends a little on their tendencies.
If they're artists and travelers anything goes and the movements of stars they attribute artistic or religious significance to might be their unit, if they have a set physical body then the number of fingers they have might influence their choice of units etc.
if they're a race of physicists and engineers I can imagine units based on "plank time" as there's a certain elegance to a time system based on the constants of the universe.
Plank time is a unit of time based on the time taken for light to travel the smallest possible unit of distance. This would also make some calculations based on time and distance more intuitive.
Do they have computers? binary has a lot of advantages for computing over larger bases. If they're highly involved with their computers and tech after that long I can imagine switching to a numbering system which links into that more easily, think base 2,4 or 16 rather than base 10 like us.
Can they move/think as fast as normal mortals? Faster? Slower?
16^36 plank time in seconds is about 1.202 seconds. (second equivalent)
16^38 plank time is about 307.8 seconds (I'll be back in 5 minutes)
16^39 plank time is about 1 hour 22 minutes 4 seconds (hour equivalent)
16^40 plank time is about 21 hours 53 minutes 10 seconds (day equivalent)
16^41 plank time is about 14 days 14 hours 11 minutes (fortnight?)
16^42 plank time is about 33.35 weeks (half year?)
16^43 plank time is about 10.23 years (decade equivalent)
I think this would have a certain elegance.
[Answer]
A lot of good answers based on time measurement, but I feel you're missing the point of what it would be like to be immortal.
I think they would have given up bothering to measure time at all. This would make them seem very different to what we expect. After all, why do something right now when it makes no difference if you do it later. And if you're immortal, later could mean tomorrow, or it could mean in a thousand years. After all, what's the rush!
[Answer]
In some form, people on Earth have always observed the passing of the sun across the sky, and have been telling time based off that in some way. After all, the sun has always been there reliably. (for us, anyway)
## Formally
Since Humans generally operate on the day-to-day timescale, and think ahead in terms of years, we have created many different scales between those measurements. But increase the timescale to more than a human's lifetime and I can only think of the terms "century" and "millennium" - millennium only goes 1000 years. (I know there are other terms, such as eon, but I'm guessing the majority of people hardly even know how many years that is) Do the immortals ever need to abstract many hundred-thousands of years into a new unit? If they do it often they will probably come up with a new word for it based off their more local timeframe that they use on their planet (like years) - or start with the larger timeframe and divide it into their more local timeframe. (Like days into hours/minutes)
## Informally
Your immortals are probably older than every other thing in the universe. Would it make sense to use their own lives as a time-scale? You could use their sleeping cycles, their eating habits, or maybe translate the length of their hair into the passing of time.
"Last I had seen you was.. must have been 15 [custom-unit] ago!"
In comparison, "Last I had seen you, you were *this* tall!" (*use hands to indicate height*)
---
Of course, consider that there is always some variance allowed in time-telling even in our society. Saying something happened "several hours" ago would, to me, be around 2-3 hours. Saying something happened "weeks ago" implies something that happened more than 2 weeks, but probably less than " a couple" months ago. This variance increases along with the scale you are talking about. For an immortals lifetime - this variance could amount to entire star's lifetimes depending on the timescale.
[Answer]
Our time is based on the decay of Cesium atoms, not the rotation of Earth around it's axis.
Seconds are defined as a function of the half life of cesium, minutes and hours are defined in terms of numbers of seconds.
I suspect aliens would follow some similar arbitrary value for their base unit of time as a function of the decay of some radioactive material, and then would use prefixes similiar to our m, k, M, G, T etc to scale that up to convenient numbers to talk about very short or long things.
[Answer]
They could use as units the cycles of stable atoms in fixed temperatures, just like [we humans started doing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock) a short while ago. (we redefined the second in terms of it, and our fuzzier "day" and "year" units suffer adjustments semi-transparently to most people).
Another very good possibility is half-lifes of particular elements as [pointed out by fantasia](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/19555/581), but I disagree that they would use different elements for different timespans, I think one standard would emerge and they'd use multiples and submultiples of it (think "Giga" and "nano").
As for the [epoch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch_%28reference_date%29), i.e. the reference date, I see three possibilities:
1. The origin of the universe (our Big Bang, could be something else in your universe)
2. Some very relevant event in their history, e.g. the end of the Last Atomic War, the birth of Nul'Za'Thir the Bringer of Light, etc. We use the birth of Christ in most of the west.
3. An arbitrary choice that just got standardized, such as our [Unix Epoch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time).
[Answer]
If these beings can live forever and see the future, it may be reasonable to assume the following:
1. They have excellent memory
2. They have a decent way to share knowledge/memories
3. They care more about what will happen than about when others will perceive this
As such I imagine the following:
* When talking amongst each other they focus on what, not on when
* If a when is required, they can refer to a what (before Alice was born and after Sun X went supernova)
* When interacting with other species, they can use the time system as it is used by those species, or relate to simple things (in 3 cycles of the moon)
---
Sidenote: This answer is inspired by the talk of senior citizens.
[Answer]
Keep in mind that time and dates don't have to use the same number system. Our counting system and time measurement use different bases thanks to the Sumerians: 10 base for counting and 6 base for time.
Also, humans neurologically perceive time as a function of space/distance. ex. Two years ago is a far away memory, two seconds ago is just behind you. Since your audience will be human, you might try a general sort of adaptation. What is considered a far away distance for them? Perhaps this is a year to us? Perhaps they measure every thing in relation to a science based system related to the speed of light?
However sexual reproduction doesn't make much sense for an immortal species. Why would an immortal species use a method of reproduction that relies on mutation and evolution as a foundation for progress?
Still, it would be interesting to accept this fact and see where it goes if you decided to give it a Douglas Adams type of sardonic spin.
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For a true immortal that is able to manipulate space-time, traveling a million years into the past might take as much effort as it takes me to go downstairs to get some coffee (brb).
They could even see the past as another dimension, like looking across the room is for us.
Cat knocks a vase off and breaks it? Just reach over and grab it when it wasn't broken.
The past and future that we know could be a matter of distance more then a matter of time for them. The big bang is a few miles that way, and the big crunch is a few miles in the other direction.
The biggest question isn't how they would measure time (with a measuring tape of course) but how much work would it take to experience time in a second to second manner like we do, and what would we (or any time bound entities) look like to them?
My first guess is we'd look "flat" (sorta like what we would see if we were looking down on Flatland). Not 2 dimensional flat, but 3 dimensional flat, without that 4th dimension that makes things look like you could reach out and touch them...
My second guess is that we'd look like we were falling, unable to stop our decent through time toward out unavoidable deaths.
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They may use a concrete historical way of messure time instead of an abstract mathematical scale? As, it was before I destroyed Qweuxque but after they stole my vrålåk. Or officially, under the leadership of Gax.
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[Question]
[
On a planet without axial tilt and with a roughly circular orbit, there would be no seasons. The climate on the planet would be, as far as I can tell, exactly the same at any time of year, and the length of days (and thus the position of the sun in the sky) wouldn't change either.
In a circumstance like that, how might the inhabitants track the passage of years? Would they even be able to? The idea of a year is so fundamental to our understanding of time that it seems odd that it might not be detectable, but I can't really think of any other way for a primitive civilization to measure something as basic as a year.
Are there any primitive (say, pre-Rennaisance) methods for measuring a year's length (i.e. the time it takes the planet to circle its star) that aren't based on axial tilt or an eccentric orbit?
[Answer]
**The stars.**
If you picture yourself looking at a map of your solar system showing the plane of your planet's orbit, imagine that "up" on your map is "north". Put a star up there. When your planet is "north" of its sun, that star would be directly overhead at night. 3 months later (on a 12-month calendar), when your planet is "west", that star is barely visible on the horizon at night. Another 3 months later, it's on the opposite side of the sun at noon. Another 3 months, and it's coming up on the other horizon at night, and one more 3 months puts it directly overhead at night again.
Stars that are more-or-less in line with the plane of a planet's orbit are only visible seasonally, whether you have "proper seasons" or not. Even [circumpolar stars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumpolar_constellation), visible year-round, could be observed to "move" in the night sky based on the time of year. With this information alone even very early observers of the night sky would see these seasonal changes and, even in the absence of any other annual cycles, would be able to accurately determine the length of their year and devise calendar systems to measure it -- all you need to measure it is a simple [astrolabe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabe), a tool that's been around on Earth since at least 150 BC and which was the basis of some incredibly accurate atronomical observations and studies in the ancient world.
**The moon.**
If your planet has a moon (or many moons), it will almost certainly go through phases similar to our own moon; while not a "year" per se, if it's like our lunar cycle it's a good basis for a "month". Multiple moons can result in more complex interactions, with epochs based on when they match up again; that is, one moon might have a 27-day cycle, while another has a 31-day cycle, and an epoch could be the time between when both moons have the same phase at the same time (which, in this example, would be 837 days).
Of course, if you're specifically looking for a measurement of the planet's orbit/year, the lunar cycle probably isn't that helpful, except potentially as a basis for the first subdivision (as our months are (very) roughly based on the lunar cycle, and are the first subdivision on our own calendar).
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I would say if they don't have distinct years, then they don't need to track them. If there is no difference in weather and temperature then they would never have bothered to clock the non-existent seasons. The wouldn't need to work out when to plant and when to harvest.
Trees and people would have to be sorted by size instead of age - smaller than this, big enough for this.
That would be enough for everyday business. They would still need hourglasses for boiling eggs and so on, and would have to divide the days into groups for tenancy questions and tracking pregnancy and suchlike. The day-groups could be set by number of fingers - 8, 10, 12? Maybe a moon would help them set months.
I suppose scientists and engineers would track the stars and moons, as someone mentioned above, but it would be a purely academic exercise.
[Answer]
>
> The idea of a year is so fundamental to our understanding of time that it seems odd that it might not be detectable, but I can't really think of any other way for a primitive civilization to measure it.
>
>
>
Why does the civilization have to measure time in the same way we do?
You are making the implicit assumption that measurement through astrological phenomena is the only way to measure time.
>
> On a planet without seasons, how would people track years?
>
>
>
All that is needed is a cyclic, easily measurable, and available. The only key is you need the ability to determine it.
Don't confuse the unit of measure with the measurement tool. The unit of measure on Earth is based on a day (which, as you might note, is actually not totally accurate - there are adjustments made for leap years and lea seconds). But the tools of measurement nearly never use the solar cycle for their input.
Humans [used the moon](http://nrich.maths.org/6070) initially but many other methods exist too. Some of the many listed in that article:
* Oil lamps
* Candle clocks
* Water clocks
* Hourglasses
* Mechanical clocks
None of them necessarily have to correlate to a time derived from phases related to celestial movement. In fact, [carbon dating](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating) uses a system to determine time passage which could be 100% independent of the sun, moon, or earth.
It is also interesting that even though humans have years, they still adjust it for things such as [dog years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Dog_year).
It's entirely possible -- and perhaps likely -- society would have found an additional measurable quantity which could become something similar to what humans deem years.
[Answer]
The question confuses cause and effect.
On a planet without seasons, people would track years in exactly the same way that people on Earth would track months if we didn't have a moon.
That is, we wouldn't.
The Moon has a very blatant regular cycle. Everyone in every society can easily see it and notice the changes from night to night. The Moon, and its months, became very fundamental to society. A person could agree to meet someone at the second full moon from now, and everyone will know exactly when that is. The phases of the moon will even indicate how soon that meeting will be. Even today, traditional calendars such as Hebrew, Muslim, and Chinese are all synchronized with the Moon's phases.
But in today's society, our calendar months don't even match the Moon's phases. Most people that live in cities can't tell you what the current phase of the Moon is now; most of them couldn't tell you even if they were looking at it. Can you?
On a planet without seasons, the year would be indicated by the regular cycle of the position of the stars in the sky. This would be of significance to astronomers and navigators, but for normal people, it would have as much significance as the current position of Jupiter in the sky is to us here on Earth. Effectively no one knows or cares.
If your planet has a large obvious moon, then your people would measure time in months. If not, and there is some other obvious phenomenon with a regular cycle, they would use that.
But I would say that more significantly, if there weren't seasons, your planet likely wouldn't have any civilizations either.
Without seasons, one day is like the next. If you were sheltered last night and you found enough food and water yesterday, you can reasonably expect to do the same today. And you can reasonably expect to continue that way for the rest of your life.
In such a world, why would anyone bother to develop agriculture or technology? Without change and the need to plan during good times for survival during the bad times, people would simply live their lives day to day.
It's the regular predictability of seasons that allows us to know in Spring that we can plant seeds so that if we tend them in the Summer, in the Fall we will be able to gather enough food to last us through the Winter. It's the benefit of co-operating with others to make this process more efficient that brings people together into societies. It's the ability to visualize larger and better ways of doing it that creates technology.
If your people know that today is just like tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and so on, they will have no need to track time, and their society, if it forms at all, will remain stagnant.
[Answer]
**Definition of Year**
The rotation of the Planet around its star, when fully completed, defines a year in the perspective of the Planet.
**Circular Orbit Considerations**
If the orbit is highly circular, and not elliptic as in nature (which is caused by the interactions of many masses in a solar systems, combined with the eigenrotation of the celestial body, aka planet and its possible satellites aka moons, in question) there would still have to be set a point in its orbit from which the measuring is started.
Once the planet has reached back to this point, a year has passed.
**Tool of Triangulation**
If the planet possesses a moon, and the distance gradient of the orbit (the difference of distance between star and planet while planet is moving around star) is sufficient to show up in calculations when triangulated against the distance of the planet to the moon, a year can be determined by mathematicians.
**Limitation to determining Year**
If the primitive civilization is in a state of pre-Ancient Greece Mathematics, they would indeed be no way for them to tell the time other than resorting to counting Sun Rise and Sunsets.
[Answer]
Menstruation cycles of the females.
Menstruation cycles often have regular durations, especially when multiple females live in close proximity to each other.
Monitoring the menstruation cycle of the females of the species that demonstrates the most consistent menstrual patterns will provide the most accurate data.
[Answer]
## It would take them a much longer time to accurately describe a year
As another answer already mentions, if it's not useful for the people on your planet, they they probably won't use it.
They can still track stars, and that would most probably develop as the first trading lines (by land or sea) are established. But a year wouldn't be very well defined until much later. Let me explain.
Nonetheless, they would probably just use days, and some other **grouping** of days resembling our *months*. If they have a moon, then probably the moon's phases would be use as a group. If they don't, then I assume whatever the maximum number their number system allows without 'rounding' to the next figure (ie: our maximum number with a sole number is 9, so 10. If they have a duodecimal number system, then 12).
They will most likely approximate a year to an integer multiple of those groups first, and then refine from there until they know it precisely.
Then they would refine **the groups** so that the newly refined year can be divided into somewhat equal length groups, as we did. Although we had it easier, the year was evident to us long before the months. But I would assume you would end up in the exact same spot as us, it would probably take longer though.
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[Question]
[
How many human beings are/were there?
I'm spinning a story where a guy is chosen to represent the whole of humanity. In this story the minds of people who die are preserved in a cool sword that chooses to communicate with a single person every millennium or so. This enables the guy to glean info from any person that lives or has ever lived.
At some point in the story the guy complains that "I'm in charge of the survival of X billion people." I'd like to have some valid number there.
In short: **How many human beings are there?** That's an easy one (got some articles in Google), but on top of that, **how many humans have died in the history of humanity?**
I'd love to have an estimate in the millions, but would be grateful for a billions' estimate.
[Answer]
107 Billion according to the Population Reference Bureau. [Details Here](http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx)
Must warn that this can only be guessed and is based on arbitrary definitions of human.
What we call hominids (i.e., humans) go back further than the supposed 50,000 BCE, but you can do a rough estimate of 600,000,000 max at any point (the maximum capacity of Earth to handle Hunter Gatherers it is assumed) before around 10,000 BCE, with an average life span of 60 years (adults...double the number for children). This means roughly 50 years between complete replacement so we can just calc 600m x 4 (accounting for the full replacement and children that died) for every hundred years.
2.4b/century at 2 to 50 million years would be 240,000,000,000,000/million years so 480 trillion to 12 quadrillion, half of which would be 15 or under and 80% of those 5 or under. More than 99% of all of them being very primitive pre-historic people.
106 billion is the upper limit of "Civilized humans"
50 billion is around the upper limit of "humans lived post-Greek world"
34 billion that lived during and after the crusades
10 billion that have lived in the last 100 years and you could relate to
[Answer]
[According to this article](http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx) - How Many People Have Ever Lived On Earth? 108 Billion
```
Year Population Births per 1,000 Births Between Benchmarks
50,000 B.C. 2 - -
8000 B.C. 5,000,000 80 1,137,789,769
1 A.D. 300,000,000 80 46,025,332,354
1200 450,000,000 60 26,591,343,000
1650 500,000,000 60 12,782,002,453
1750 795,000,000 50 3,171,931,513
1850 1,265,000,000 40 4,046,240,009
1900 1,656,000,000 40 2,900,237,856
1950 2,516,000,000 31-38 3,390,198,215
1995 5,760,000,000 31 5,427,305,000
2011 6,987,000,000 23 2,130,327,622
NUMBER WHO HAVE EVER BEEN BORN 107,602,707,791
World population in mid-2011 6,987,000,000
Percent of those ever born who are living in 2011 6.5
```
] |
[Question]
[
I've been hearing and reading about [that solar flare in 2012](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/) that could have sent us back to the 18th century, by causing huge geomagnetic storms which would have prevented (every?) electricity-based devices from working correctly. They say the economic cost of this disaster would have been something like 2 trillion USD.
I found this scenario very inspiring, and I have some questions about it.
1. How far would this regression go if planet Earth was hit by such a solar flare? Would it be just like in the movie "The day the earth stood still"? Could we still find a way to create electrical energy in these conditions? Would we be forced to come back to steam power or something else? Would this actually be our major problem?
2. Now suppose that we could anticipate such a cataclysm and know its length in advance (say two whole weeks). What would be the most likely security measures we could take to prevent most of the potential material and economical damages?
[Answer]
**Our power grids and satellites would be heavily damaged or destroyed.**
However, any electronics not plugged into the wall or connected via a very good surge protector would, for the most part, [be fine](http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-flare-electronics2.htm). If the magnetic flux was high enough to induce currents in handheld electronics, computers, or cars, enough to destroy them, we'd have other things to be worried about. I'm most familiar with the US power grid, which is comprised of three sub-grids. Each of the sub grids is, electrically, one piece. The transmission lines (power lines) act as a massive array of antennas. As the magnetic storm hits, these antenna couple in the energy and we get a massive spike. This is what destroys most of the devices plugged into the wall and, depending, the transformers on the residential distribution hubs.
**Anyone who says that anything electronic would be destroyed has watched too much television and/or is not considering the stupendous amount of energy that would require.**
The higher latitudes would actually be the most affected. In fact, equatorial power grids may fair the storm without excessive damage. This is because of the orientation of Earth's magnetic field. The poles will experience a massive amount of magnetic flux, this is measured in [Teslas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_(unit)).
So Alaska will be screwed, but the Aurora's will be absolutely stunning. We'll even get some nice Auroras at much lower latitudes.
**Pro Tip: If you live in California, and the sky is on fire with green dancing ribbons, drop what you're doing and buy bottled water and a generator.**
[*Source*](http://oncirculation.com/2013/05/21/dynamics-of-the-rotation-of-the-inner-core/)
The satellites, being less protected by Earth's magnetic field, get hit much harder. Though some may survive, because engineers know that they're less protected and so they built some protection in.
So, the destruction would be devastating, no more Netflix for a long time. Unfortunately, you won't be able to make a [FWP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_problem) meme about it for quite a while.
**You can protect your stuff.**
As mentioned in the comments, you can protect yourself in the same way you'd protect against an [EMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse). Personally, I'd just use a surge protector and keep emergency supplies. But if you want to go to the extreme you can build a [Faraday cage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) to place sensitive electronics in. Just don't bother trying to build one for your house unless you're also going to isolate all the electrical connections coming into the house.
So, steam power will work, but your TV won't.
[Answer]
First of all, even at the time those with a background in this stuff knew already that the "threat" posed by that solar storm was all hype. However, the theory is sound, and a big enough solar storm could potentially disrupt electronics.
**Warning:**
Little-to-none, really. Solar storms are very hard to predict, and when an eruption does occur that could have such catastrophic effects, it moves far faster then we can see it and then brace for it. The only defense we can mount is to prepare for such an event *before* it occurs.
*Edit: Twelfth points out in the comments that we're actually far better these days at detecting and predicting these types of events. I admit I haven't looked into the state of affairs on this point in quite some time, so the preceding paragraph is quite probably quite obsolete.*
**Immediate Effects:**
All unshielded electronics are irreparably "fried" as the EMP caused by the magnetic storms induces massive currents in every unshielded conductor, overloaded and literally burning up sensitive electronics. This means computers, cell phones, cars, televisions -- just about anything and everything that you have to plug in or stick a battery in.
Similar induced currents disrupt and in many cases destroy the infrastructure for generating and distributing electricity. Not the wires themselves, mind you, but the transformers that make it all work will be blowing left and right, not to mention all the computers that control the generators themselves (which, being basically big conductors, may also face damaging inductive currents as well).
Also, don't listen to that *horrid* movie Broken Arrow -- turning your electronics off will not prevent the EMP from destroying them. It *may* reduce the overall current and potentially preserve a few components, but really it's the induced current itself that causes the damage, not the combination of the regular current with the induced one.
Note that shielding electronics against EMP is actually rather simple, albeit not exactly cheap and, thus, not extensively done. But anything shielded (much -- but not all, not by a long shot! -- of the military's hardware is shielded, and with the much over-hyped fears of terrorism these days some of our civilian infrastructure has been shielded as well) will survive more-or-less unscathed. Don't underestimate the ability of panicked people to destroy what the storm leaves untouched, though!
**Afterwards:**
There's no problem generating electricity again after the storm passes (the storm itself will be shorter-lived than the widespread panic and civil unrest it causes). At least, not with generation itself -- there's *a lot* of work ahead to restore modern-era generators, since they're computer controlled and, as mentioned above, computers have been destroyed. Relatively easy to retrofit them to be run manually in the meantime, however. We'll be able to rebuild, though, and we won't really be thrown back into the 18th century -- it might look somewhat like it at first, but thanks to those not-quite-obsolete things called "libraries" most knowledge will remain intact and, with that, we'll be able to get ourselves back to 21st-century tech in a much shorter time frame.
That's not to say that we wouldn't regress in many other ways, but your question seems to be asking about the technological impacts so I'll restrict my answer to those as well.
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When humans started laying conductors hundreds of miles long they discovered induction from solar activity. The news was self-delivering as telegraph offices burst into flame.
Nominally, power lines should accommodate it by having isolation points that prevent induction on such a planetary scale, and the "high tension" wires normally carry orders of magnitude more energy.
The problems, IIRC, are two: The grid is chaotic and maintained as a series of mismatched patches, what we call a Stovepipe (anti) pattern. It's pushed past design limits because it works, but that means it erodes the emergency capacity, and it's subject to cascade failures.
Second, the true extent of the solar activity was not known. How bad *can* they get, on rare occasion?
I recall that the main issue for recovering is a particular component that doesn't have enough spares nor the capacity to produce them quickly. It's a problem of fragility caused by risky single points of failure, not that everything gets trashed.
(FWIW, I have my own 10kW solar generator. Post-flare party at my place, pot luck!)
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It seems to me we've become very complacent and dependent on reliable electronic devices and information storage.
With most electronic devices getting destroyed, many vehicles and especially aircraft will suddenly be in trouble. Hospitals will be in trouble, both for existing patients and then for the many new patients who will arrive shortly. Power grids and infrastructure will be in trouble. Supply transportation will be in trouble. Modern cities will be in trouble because of their high dependence on supplies which now may be nearly impossible to deliver.
I would like to feel like I confidently know how much information would be able to survive strong induced currents. I think optical (especially ink-based) disks would survive, and disk platters themselves would survive, but most reading devices for both would be fried, and the information and ability to build new readers for them might be practically lost. The severity of the pulse would matter. Hopefully optical disks and some hard drive information will eventually be recoverable. What information and what technology survives could be significant.
I would also like to know how good military shielding of electronics from EMP is - will enough EMP overcome any shielding? I don't know.
And of course, a very similar crisis can occur from atmospheric nuclear weapons detonation - one detonation can fry electronics in a very wide region, and this has been a known tactic for 50 or more years, so it's quite conceivable that at some point humans will be dysfunctional enough to do this to themselves, thinking they are getting at their enemies.
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Consider also that a good part of the economy would go splat. Anything that depends on regular, reliable connectivity (from Facebook to Amazon) is going to tank, because of broken data centers, broken telecom infrastructure and broken devices at the customer and supplier end.
Of course this would affect different countries/lifestyle to a very different grade.
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Suppose that I have come into possession of a substance, technology, or spell that functions as a perfect insulator and reflector. No energy can pass through it, and is instead reflected back the way it came.
Now suppose that I completely encase a star in this stuff, cutting off any radiation of heat or magnetic fields from the star. This should have the effect of preventing the star from releasing heat by radiation, leaving the heat to build up indefinitely.
Theoretically, then, what would be the effect of this on the star itself? Does removing the ability to release heat change the behaviour of the star in any way?
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What you describe looks like a border case for a [Dyson sphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere). Its effects would depend on what the sphere is capable *of*.
# Simple reflection
I think that nothing much would happen (but I'm definitely *not* an astrophysicist). A star is a large fusion explosion happening, and it exists in hydrostatic equilibrium between its gravitational force (that tends to pull it inwards) and the thermal energy release (that tends to have it balloon into a nebula).
Reflecting back the whole radiative output of the star would lead to a negligible rise in temperature (where it counts, temperature is on the order of millions of K), and the star would proceed slightly along the [main sequence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence) - it would "age" a little faster, and probably its evolution would be skewed, so that in a couple billion years a borderline yellow dwarf might behave like an orange dwarf. Also, incredible as it may seem, a star is actually quite *opaque* and already not as good a thermal conductor as you might think, so upping the opacity to 100% isn't so radical a change.
Actually, something *sort of* like that already happens in some stars - the so-called Cepheid variables. In those stars, mass and temperature combine in such a way that a whole layer of the star finds itself in a condition with *some* properties of your handwavium sphere; namely, its radiative opacity is markedly lower than normal, and some energy is reflected back into the core. This makes the star age faster and burn hotter, but the raised temperature converts the *handwavium layer* back into transparency; the extra energy is radiated away and the star appears more luminous for a while. Then, the energy loss cools the star a bit, and the handwavium layer re-forms, and the cycle begins anew. This is called the [Kappa mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kappa_mechanism).
*Partially* reflecting the output (e.g. leaving an exhaust nozzle, or using a Dyson *semi*sphere) would result in thrust being applied to the whole assembly.
# Simple reflection, with unstable star
If the star were exactly in the right and unlikely condition - a hot, blue star with recent massive low-metallicity mass influx (typically from a binary companion or passer-by star), which by the way would be probably enough to trigger a star explosion - then the handwavium sphere could induce a runaway fusion process in a much-larger-than-normal volume of the star. Normally the star would get rid of the excess energy by massive flaring or further expanding, followed by cooling, and all you would get is a planetary nebula. This might be, roughly, what is now happening with the star [Eta Carinae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae).
# Reflection *and* containment
If the handwavium is able to sustain the pressure increase as well as the radiation, then the star might undergo [photodisintegration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photodisintegration), or the instability might reflect inwards, lead to a core collapse, and we get to see whether the handwavium can withstand a supernova explosion. If it can't, the braking effect should be enough to trasform it into a hypernova explosion (roughly the same bang, but much more luminous).
# Reflection and *indestructible* containment
Otherwise, a supernova-proof reflecting enclosure would be a sure-fire method to guarantee that any star above the [Landau limit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolman%E2%80%93Oppenheimer%E2%80%93Volkoff_limit) - we should probably factor in some higher-than-normal neutrino loss - would *ultimately* collapse into a black hole. It couldn't happen to the Sun, since this limit is about 1.5 solar masses. "Ultimately", because the time to do so could well be of the order of magnitude of a normal star lifespan, especially if the star isn't too big and energetic to start with.
(It has been pointed out to me that such an enclosure would *already be* a black hole unless examined from planetary distances. For it would be a zone from which "nothing can exit, not even light", and yet there would be a gravitational field associated with the mass of the enclosed star).
# Life outside the edge
A semi-permeable or locally-permeable handwavium enclosure with the appropriate radius (to ensure a suitable surface gravity) would also be *habitable* (a true Dyson sphere). The energy sources would be "wells" drilled in the enclosure, which could then spew out plasma at a temperature of several tens of thousands of K. Using high-altitude passive radiators with a temperature below 300 K, this would yield a thermal efficiency in excess of 97-99% with almost no other technology - a simple [heat engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine) made of handwavium would do.
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I disagree with the "nothing much" answers, since what you are describing is the key (in much smaller scales) for "[Star Lifting](https://infogalactic.com/info/Star_lifting)" and "[Shkadov Thrusters](https://infogalactic.com/info/Stellar_engine)"
One of the methods to initiate "Star Lifting" is to beam energy back at the star using an energetic laser or even a system of mirrors to concentrate and focus the starlight on a point on the star. The extra energy begins to heat the local area, which responds eventually by emitting plasma. The Shkadov Thruster takes this idea to a higher level and can actually move entire stars and solar systems (details [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VetAm7fCS0))
The insulating layer means the energy of the star has nowhere to go, and the local environment becomes hotter and more energetic. I suspect (although i don;t really know how to calculate this) that there will be a positive feedback loop, more energy trapped in the environment heats the solar plasma, generating more energy in the upper layers of the star, which then continues until either the pressure "blows off" the insulator (and the outer layers of the star), or the insulating properties of the insulator are overcome and it emits enough blackbody radiation to allow the system to reach equilibrium.
Now assuming the insulator is strong and "perfect" enough to let the heat and pressure bottle up to a very high level, this energy is going to bleed back into the stellar core. Now the cores of stars are running on the knife edge of dynamic stability, with the radiation pressure from the fusion reaction balancing the gravitational pressure of all the mass of the star. Increasing the temperature could destabilize the equation in either direction. The increase in temperature and pressure could act to "squeeze" the star's core and speed up the rate of fusion reactions. On the other hand, since the density of the solar plasma will be reduced because of the increasing temperature, the core could "go out" as pressure is reduced below the critical pressure for fusion reactions to continue.
The only material I could think of which might have properties like that would be a shell of neutronium, but that is unlikely since the extreme density of the material would make it a superconductor of heat rather than an insulator. Some sort of "[unobtanium](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unobtainium)" could be hand waved into existence to make this happen, but certainly not anything known to physics as we currently understand it.
So the true answer would depend on what sort of properties the insulator has, and how quickly it reaches equilibrium.
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As others have pointed, insulating an star would cause heat to build up and therefore it would raise its temperature with several consequences. However, the key point is how much would it raise temperature, because that's the difference between "nothing happens" and weird consequences.
Let's compute a rough approximation for the Sun.
According to Wikipedia, the Sun yields [$3.8·10^{26} W$](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)) and has a mass of [$1.98855·10^{30} kg$](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun). Supposing the Sun is made of monoatomic hydrogen it's specific heat would be 12.5 J/mol/K at constant pressure (which involves a lot of very rough approximations), and that is 12500 J/kg/K:
$$\text{temperature increment}=\frac{3.8·10^{26} W}{1.98855·10^{30} kg·12500 J/kg/K}=1.53·10^{-8} K/s=0.482K/year$$
That is, **if the Sun were insulated, its temperature would be increased in less than a degree per year**. Since present Sun temperature is several thousand degrees at the surface and milions of degrees in the core, it would take thousands to millions of years for insulation have any sizeable effect on the Sun.
That could seem counterintuitive because we see the Sun producing a lot of enery, as anyone sunbathing in summer could tell, and it's very hot, but that's just because it's very big and well insulated by tens of thousands of kilometers of gas layers but the amount of heat produced by mass unit is tiny by everyday standards. For example, a one ounce bread slice in a toaster is getting tens of thousands times the energy produced by an average ounce of solar mass.
In case you want to check my maths they are [in this Google spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w7AL1UFfb4jzURks4mmNEze7u8QoRZ3pYsohzAQFeUU/edit?usp=sharing).
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In short - nothing exciting
The core of a star like the Sun is surrounded by a zone in which energy is transferred by photons. It's called the radiative zone, and it acts like a pretty good thermal insulator for the core. Photons in the radiative zone bounce from one atom to another in a random walk, so it takes a long time for a photon to escape from the core to the sun's surface: about half a million years.
The effect of the radiative zone is to act as a pretty effective insulator for the sun's core.
The sun is in a dynamic equilibrium. The internal temperature is regulated by the release of nuclear energy which balances the gravitational collapse of the core, preventing the core from heating any further. This equilibrium is not regulated by the escape of heat from the surface of the sun, and so this equilibrium would not be unbalanced by wrapping the sun in an insulating layer.
So, the sun's core already has a pretty good insulator, and even if it were "perfect", it wouldn't have much effect on the sun.
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Any heat would not escape, so entire star would start to heat up. Size of the insulating shell would make a lot of difference, in the end result.
If the shell is small enough, then quite soon the heating star would fill it up with plasma, and pressure would begin to rise, increasing the rate of fusion, increasing temperature, eventually in exponentially accelerating reaction. So this would basically be a supernova explosion, except there would be nowhere for the matter and energy to escape to. So things wouldn't ever cool down, but instead an equilibrium would be reached, where the shell would be filled with iron plasma (because iron is where both fission and fusion stop producing energy). Energy could not escape (so it wouldn't collapse to neutron star or black hole), more energy would not be freed, things would be stable.
If insulating shell was really small, so that even the iron nuclei couldn't hold together due to energy density, then things would end up in conditions similar to what they were after the big bang, at the time when density was same. But I am not sure if the matter in a star can contain enough energy (as binding energy of the atom nuclei) for this. Of course if it was *shrinking* insulating shell, anything would be possible.
If shell was large enough, star would just probably burn up a bit quicker (larger core due to increased temperature), but the star wouldn't have enough potential fusion energy to heat up and pressurize entire shell internals. Eventual (after a long time, when the star exhausts its fuel) end state (after an explosion resembling a supernova) would be a white dwarf or neutron star core, with plasma atmosphere filling rest of the sphere, as there would be enough energy to keep it all from raining down to the core. With large enough star, it would be a black hole in the middle of dark , extreme vacuum (there would be brief single particles of Hawking radiation, but they would get sucked back in because there's no escape from the insulating shell).
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Is your material invulnerable? Because in time, heat will build up, particles will get more and more energetic as they will be reflected back from the surface to other particles on the sun. As the particles get more energetic, their push to the sphere will increase. At one point your material will be cracked.
If it does not, this outward force will turn into to heat (through friction) and will be radiated away. The increased heat will cause sun to get larger and fill up the sphere, cooling down to an extent, being able to push the object even more and at some point, equilibrium will be met.
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You could create the most impressive spaceship ever.
If this star was encased in a Dyson sphere:
I thought of using a "cloaking" field but not in the sense of a military cloak.
Research is already being done to hide objects for things like x-rays etc.
Imagine inverting the cloaking field, so it covers the interior of the sphere. Then by bending the photons path you would create a sort of combustion chamber and exhaust port. Effectively a Class C Shkadov thruster.
In theory this would also reduce the heat because the "interior" is "cloaked" from certain wavelengths of photons as they would never touch the structure.
It may also be possible to "dial" a rate of fusion in the star. By reflecting energy back at the star you could increase the rate of fusion. By releasing the pressure you cool the star somewhat and reduce the fusion rate.
You could line the interior with "solar" panels and allow those wavelengths through the cloak that work best for energy generation.
How to create such a "cloak" is a matter of sci-fy wizardry.
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Heat and pressure building up would soon create environment very similar to that close after Big Bang.
I don't think anyone could tell what would that mean in closed system, out physics breaks down for energies that extreme.
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In movies and especially Japanese anime, you can see characters punching through walls, breaking columns by kicking etc. Similar effect is seen in computer games, which is something I'm interested in at the moment.
It seems to me that many of these destructive effects require more energy than how much energy is needed to throw you flying. In other words, if you have nothing to brace against, you maybe just push yourself away from the target object very fast, without harming it much.
And the question is quite simple:
* Given you're strong enough (and your tissues are tough enough, magically) to break a marble column or punch through car roof, are you able to do that at normal weight (say, 80kg)?
If answer is no, then what exactly happens? Do you push yourself meters in the air? What happens after two super-persons lock their swords (magical, indestructible) with that force in a typical anime sword-fight? Do they fly apart at supersonic speeds?
It would be nice to have some *basic* math leads to the results. Pointers are enough, as this is not Physics.SE question.
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This is also **not duplicate** of the question mentioned in comments, because the other question asks about effects on *target* human body, while this one considers all humans involved indestructible.
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The strength of a punch really comes down to two things:
* weight behind the punch,
* and speed of the punch
As you posit the weight to be identical, you need to **ramp up your speed** in order to achieve super-punches. The problem this will lead to is acceleration and impulse:
Say you, 80 kg super human, want to make an 80 kg column fly through the room:
1. This means that your fist/punch must be fast enough, i.e. have high enough kinetic energy.
2. This kinetic energy will be built up while you accelerate your punch - and while doing this it will exert a force on your body which is **identical** to the force you eventually deliver to the punched 80 kg column.
3. While some of this force is countered by traction of your feet on the ground, it is not reasonable to expect that all of it will. After all, the column will have some strong traction as well, which you need to overcome to send it flying.
4. Meaning your punch will accelerate your body backwards approx. the same as the column is propelled forwards.
--> You'll end up with rather silly results: your super humans of normal weight will mostly just send themselves flying here and there while trying to deliver super-fast punches or kicks.
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**Maths**
Lets see what the maths says. First lets understand the mechanics of a super-punch. Super person starts with their arm extended behind them and uses their super strength to move their fist forwards (see diagram)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/RVcTp.png)
Next we'll make some assumptions;
1. a person's whole arm represents on [average 5.3%](http://www.exrx.net/Kinesiology/Segments.html) of their body weight.
2. from what I see on TV most super people seem to be American. [The average North American weighs 80kg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight#Average_weight_around_the_world).
3. the arm is accelerated by the maximum force possible for the whole distance of the punch (blue arrow) which is the same as a person's armspan
4. a good armspan for a super person who was good at punching [might be 2.1m](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_span).
5. the super person exerts the maximum force on their fist while remaining stood in place (they do not recoil and send themselves flying off their feet)
We have simplified to put the entire arm weight at the fist, but this will make the punch stronger and is fitting to a super person.
The maximum force exerted on the fist is determined by the frictional force on the super person's shoes. A good shoe will give a coefficient of friction [of around 0.6](http://www.hsimagazine.com/article.php?article_id=232). That means the maximum force is;
$$ F\_{max} = \text{coefficient of friction} \times \text{mass of super person} \times \text{gravity} $$
The acceleration of the fist is given by Newton's second law;
$$ F = ma $$
so acceleration is;
$$ a = \frac{\text{coefficient of friction} \times \text{mass of super person} \times \text{gravity}}{0.053 \times \text{mass of super person}} $$
Next we find out how fast the fist is moving when it hits. For this we need the equations of motion, specifically the velocity/displacement equation;
$$ v = \sqrt{2 \times a \times \text{distance}} $$
which gives us;
$$ v = \sqrt{\frac{2 \times \text{armspan} \times \text{coefficient of friction} \times \text{mass of super person} \times \text{gravity}}{0.053 \times \text{mass of super person}}} $$
which is around 21 m/s or 47mph. After I did the calculation I did a quick google of "fastest punch" and came across [Keith Liddell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Liddell). He is the current world record holder of the fastest punch, registered at 45mph.
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> It seems to me that many of these destructive effects require more energy than how much energy is needed to throw you flying.
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Herein lies your confusion, I think. The recoil you experience when punching a thing is not in linear proportion to the energy of the punch: it proportional to the change of momentum effected in the thing being punched.
Here's a simple experiment to illustrate: get a sheet of paper. Put a bullet on it. Lift the paper. With the force of gravity, that bullet isn't going to break through the paper. It would need something to brace against, right?
Now shoot the paper with the bullet. Obviously a much higher-energy impact. Is the bullet sent flying? Hardly.
You can get a little intuition into how physics works for heros with absurd strength (and also somehow indestructible fists) from [Newton's approximation of impact depth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth#Newton.27s_approximation_for_the_impact_depth).
The reason normal people can't punch into a brick wall to the depth suggested by Newton's approximation is they can't accelerate their fists sufficiently to make the cohesion of the brick wall insignificant. That, and the cohesion of their fist is significantly less than a brick wall, but I suppose that's not a problem for your super-strong character.
When you hand-wave all those problems away (unlimited strength, bones made of adamantium, whatever) but not mass, what you are left with is just the conservation of momentum as a problem. Real simply, momentum is the mass of a thing, multiplied by it's velocity. If the super-strong character is going to fly away, that means he's going to need to transfer more than his momentum into something else (he'll need to stop his forward momentum, then pick up even more backwards momentum).
But if you punch anything with a fist at high enough velocity, you don't need to transfer momentum into the whole thing, but instead into just a fist-size puck of it which will be torn away by the tremendous kinetic energy of the fist (remember than velocity-squared thing). Since fist-sized pucks of most things are much less massive than even normal weight humans, this doesn't present much of a problem.
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No funny aerial stuff.
You'll need high traction soles on your shoes and very careful use of weight and balance.
**Standing on a car roof trying to punch through:** You'll put a good dent in it, equivalent to someone falling from twice the height you fire yourself up to.
**Inside a car punching up:** this one could work as long as you don't hit a reinforced point, but you're going to bend the chassis underneath as well.
**Locking swords:** This is going to be about balance of power. You've defined the swords as unbreakable, I'm assuming the fighters are too. There are two options: 1) They meet and bounce off like two snooker balls. 2) They meet and stop with the most incredible noise. The energy has to be dispersed, in either case momentum is conserved, so the energy is either returned to the fighters or dispersed in another form.
**Breaking pillars** In theory yes, it's just a matter of hitting the pillar with more energy in the movement than is required to break the stone. Under normal circumstances the person would break rather than the pillar.
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Imagine a catepult strong enough to throw a 200lb object hard enough into a wall or column to break it in the indicated manner.
If *you* rode the catepult, it would also do so. If you, by your own strength, hit the target with this same energy from a standing pose, you would go flying back by the same amount too: picture the catapolted impact, but in reverse.
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Superperson can accelerate his fist (which is connected to his arm) to any arbitrary speed, until the arm is completely extended. It has been said that the mass of the arm is supposed to be 5.3% of the total body mass. If the fist is accelerated to a speed of v, then the arm is on average accelerated to v/2. The rest of the body must move backwards at a speed x. To preserve momentum, v/2 \* 0.053 = x \* 0.947, or x = v / 35.7.
The fist hits the wall and is stopped instantly, completely transforming its energy into destruction of the wall. Depending on the material, the wall may crumble, or there may be a fist sized hole in the wall. The body of superperson will be moving (possibly flying) backwards at speed v / 35.7.
Superperson cannot send an 80kg statue flying faster than he is flying backward himself, but can definitely destroy it with one hit.
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# You might not fly away as you might think...
As gooey water balloons, we are not that bouncy, let's say your tissues are indestructible (Magical), but you body's ability to deform is intact, you will absorb most of the energy you apply to, let's say, a wall, just like a lead bullet, it's really rare for a lead bullet to ricochet due to its malleability.
So, let's say you are dropped from a helicopter onto the top of a building with your fist pointing downwards for coolness, and as you hit the building you will first feel the force of the object you hit pushing you upwards but due to your (speed+mass)=energy the concrete will break, and by breaking, it will be absorbing the energy you applied to it, if it doesn't break, you'll bounce, but not a lot, due to your body's ability to deform, therefore, absorbing most of the impact, the rest of the energy will make you bounce a little.
Make sure to be at a fast speed before trying to hit something, and practice before you do that so you're going to have an idea of how fast you need to be to break certain objects, if you want to break a wall without running at it, you could just break it with a hammer or your fist, it's going to take a while though
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The punch to a wall has been answered perfectly by Phil Frost.
However if you are going to punch another super-person, you won't be able to punch out a fist-sized piece as you did with the wall. The super-person is too unbreakable. A direct punch will send you both flying backwards.
The tactic with your super-enemy is to use an *uppercut* either to the jaw or to the sternum, or an upwards kick to the groin. This means that any reaction will be transmitted into the ground. What damage this does to the ground depends purely on the strength of the substrate, the mass of the baddie, and the impulse provided by your fist. If you hit them hard enough they will sail into orbit and you will sink several feet into the ground. You are super so digging yourself out will be easy.
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You'll go flying backwards, unless you push against the ground hard enough, or push against the ground with an equivalent force going opposite of the punch.
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It is actually possible to send things flying, provided that you have enough force behind your punch. And no, you don't go flying backwards after the punch. The shockwave is absorbed by your arm.
You might be interested to know this about Bruce Lee's infamous One Inch Punch:
In the television show Stan Lee's Superhumans, the Shaolin monk Shi Yan Ming demonstrated his one-inch punch on a crash test dummy. The testing showed it was 1.7 times more injurious than a 30mph (48.3 kmh) car crash with modern safety features. ~ [One Inch Punch - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-inch_punch)
And no, that monk did not go flying backwards or whatever after punching his target. The target would certainly go flying across the room, considering that the shock was more than 1.5 times than getting hit by car travelling at 50 km/h.
Also, try watching this real Bruce Lee demonstration video. You will see the target getting pushed back several feet and even then the chair goes back on the floor a foot or so!
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_LCs1eTZ9I>
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I had this idea the other day just for the heck of debating about if it would be feasible to build a bridge that crosses North Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Spain.
I mean from St-John's (Newfoundland, Canada) to Costa Da Morte (Spain). The bridge should be strong enough to survive the harsh weather conditions, salt water, time, tsunamis, etc. for a long period of time. Could it be a floating bridge or a floating tunnel with train tracks and or high-speed Maglev?
I calculated that the "bridge" is 3396 Km long (2110 miles) including the earth's curvature from the two countries.
[Google Map visual presentation](https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z8lhA-S8RrVk.kgL1iwz5z7qM)
Would it be feasible from an engineering stand point? Would it also be good for the economy from all the trades between the North-American continent and Europe with this high speed transport?
Could it also be too expensive and not financially viable even if all countries pitch in like we did with the international space station?
Cheers!
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If someone wanted to build such a thing, it would almost certainly be a [pontoon bridge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontoon_bridge) composed of floating sections joined together. The average depth of the Atlantic is about 3300 m so I doubt it would be feasible or cost-effective to drive supports into the ocean floor. (OTOH an artifical island on the mid-Atlantic ridge might be a useful anchor point.)
The other advantage of a pontoon bridge is that its sections could be decoupled during severe storms -- effectively they would become ships which could ride out the storm, with passengers and vehicles on board, and then be joined back together.
The world's longest pontoon bridge is the [Evergreen Point](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_Albert_D._Rosellini_Bridge%E2%80%94Evergreen_Point) bridge, the floating section of which is 2310 m long. You are proposing a bridge approximately 1000 times longer.
Evergreen Point cost at least \$127 million at today's prices. So simplistically, an Atlantic bridge would cost **\$127 billion**. In practice it would be much more, because of the need to make it sturdy enough to withstand the weather in the open sea and decouple if necessary. If we multiply the cost by 10 to be safe, that is **$1.27 trillion**. There might also be difficulties with sourcing enough metal and other materials to build the bridge.
As it happens, \$100 billion is the approximate cost of the [International Space Station](http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/How_much_does_it_cost). For the higher figure, the estimated cost of the 2003-14 Iraq war was [$2 trillion](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/14/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314). So given a large enough effort, the construction could probably be financed.
Would it be cost effective? **Almost certainly not**, unless something happened to radically change our economy and/or technology. For comparison, the world's [container ship fleet](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/container-types.htm) numbers more than 6800 vessels, averaging 500 m in length. Simplistically, you could just string together almost all of the world's commercial shipping to build your bridge. But it's really a lot more useful to sail the ships around separately, to load and unload cargo at different ports around the world, instead of having a single (probably overcrowded) span from Canada to Spain.
As mentioned in the original question, a [Transatlantic Tunnel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel), either floating beneath the surface or resting on the seabed, is another possibility. It would avoid problems with weather, and possibly be easier to find materials for, but it would still be a massive engineering task and astronomically expensive.
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@James, et al
The Channel Tunnel between Britain and France is probably the closest actually completed project. They were smart enough to use electric trains. Avoids stop and go traffic, exhaust ventilation, and probably more fuel efficient as well.
I could see mag-lev trains with space for cars eventually competing with airlines/interstates. You don't have to drive, it's easy to schedule a stop every 1000 miles, you have your car when you get to your destination. Space and service on airplanes is getting steadily worse, imagine a train where you could walk around (listen to music in your parked car), stops every 8 hours at the equivalent of a highway rest area, your trip takes twice as long as by plane, but no luggage to deal with (stays in your trunk), no TSA, you can get a good night's sleep instead of arriving blurry eyed and jetlagged.
Now, could such service ever run across, or under, the Atlantic? I think the biggest issue might indeed be the seismic faults. You might have to construct some part of the tunnel on the sea floor, probably modular, of 20" thick steel tube sections, but the rest of it could be cut through bedrock, avoiding volcanic hotspots if possible.
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A bridge wouldnt be feasible. First there is the difficulty in constructing it, which has been discussed.
How would you get across it? There are no gas stations. You could not carry enough gas to get from one end to the other.
What if there was an accident or other emergency? A traffic jam would put traffic to a standstill - possibly for days or weeks. Not only that, there would be no way to get to the accident site.
Simply put, large ships (boats) are the most efficient method of transporting large amounts of cargo from one continent to another.
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There are any number of arguments against it.
1) We don't have materials strong enough. Either it must rest on the ocean floor, or it must float. Since the North Atlantic can be as much as 5 km deep, we're talking the mother of all pier systems, and the piers must operate in salt water. If it floats, as in a pontoon system, it will undergo fabulous stresses. The Gulf Stream crosses the proposed line of travel. This will provide a noticeable sideways thrust over hundreds of miles. Unless the bridge is conceived of as having considerable slack, the total sideways thrust is amplified by a factor of 1/(1 - cos $\Theta$), where $\Theta$ is the angle of deviation from a straight line. For instance, if the bridge only deviates by 3 degrees, the tension on the bridge will be the total sideways force multiplied by 730. (This overstates the effect, since the bridge will form a curve, but it illustrates the principle)
2) The bridge has to be made with variable length. The proposed path crosses the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and the distance between the two ends increases by about an inch per year.
3) In summer, the bridge is subject to collisions with icebergs.
4) If the bridge is on the surface, the forces exerted by the North Atlantic Drift will be increased by major wind forces every time a hurricane heads up the US coast and then out into the North Atlantic. Again, respectable forces per unit length multiplied by hundreds of miles. Sea state will also cause the bridge to flex continuously, and that can't be good for reliability.
4) The bridge will isolate France, Great Britain, Germany and Scandinavia from the rest of the world by sea, unless they are willing to take the northern route, which isn't exactly feasible during winter.
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The average depth of the Atlantic is 3339 meters. The tallest manmade structure is 830 meters (the Burj Khalifa). This suggests that a bridge verges on the impossible. Then you would have to defend many hundreds of bridge piers against crazy people who might want to take over a large cargo ship and steer it into a pier.
What might be slightly more posible is a bouyant tube tethered under the ocean. Shipping could sail over it. If tethered considerably deeper than the tallest waves then storms would not bother it.
But one is still looking at something akin to constructing a submarine thousands of kilometers long! It's very hard to see how it could be economically viable. It would also need very many heavy doors so a breach would sink only one section not the whole tunnel.
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Constructing such a bridge would pose a lot of challenges in terms of **costs, resources and technology** needed to accomplish the task. Considering the distance and the depth of the intended bridge it would require massive resources in terms of metals to finish.
Another challenge comes on whether the bridge should be constructed to float on water or made to be a sub-sea bridge. A floating bridge would interrupt the normal movement of ships across the Atlantic ocean. Also considering the strength of sea waves, tides and tsunamis, the bridge would have to be strong enough to withstand such natural forces.
Cost-wise, it seems uneconomical at the moment to construct the bridge since ship constructing companies have done a great job in constructing massive ships that carry wide loads to various destinations (read Flexibility). Airlines have also done a great job to cover the need the need for speed across these continents. I would only conclude that it is illogical and uneconomical to construct the bridge at the moment.
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For a different spin on this idea see Harry Harrison's novel, "A Trans-Atlantic Tunnel, Hurray!" originally serialized in Analog.
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Would it be possible for the atmosphere of a planet to reach beyond its planetary ring so that earth-like biology could develop on some of the asteroids there?
This question is mainly about whether there could be a life sustaining atmosphere there, not if developing life there would be possible (even though in a larger scale this is obviously what I'm interested in knowing).
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The problem with this idea is that air resistance would quickly slow the orbit of the asteroids, and bring them crashing down to the surface, it might work if the asteroids were out at geosynchronous orbit but then the atmosphere would just escape.
There are two ways to get a similar effect to what you are looking for though, both of which have already been discussed in fiction:
**Rocheworlds**
Two tidally locked planets just outside the Roche Limit can orbit each other and share a combined atmosphere. You would be able to fly from one to the other without ever leaving the atmosphere and objects placed at the lagrange points would be able to remain there.
This concept has been explored in the books [Flight of the Dragonfly/Rocheworld](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocheworld) by Robert Forward and [Land and Overland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Overland) by Bob Shaw.
(<http://diasparys.deviantart.com/art/Prometheus-Over-Roche-World-369286493>)
**Smoke Rings**
The Smoke Ring is the atmosphere of a gas giant pulled into a cloud around a neutron star. There are a number of issues with the stability and likeliness of the system but the concept for the most part does hold up as scientifically viable. This idea is explored in some books by Larry Niven, starting with [The Integral Trees](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Integral_Trees).
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Yes, although it would take a pretty extreme case and it's not going to be long-term stable:
As others have said, the asteroids must be in synchronous orbit or drag would bring them down. Others have dismissed this due to atmospheric bleed or atmospheric pressure but I don't believe these objections are insurmountable.
1) Pressure. Our world is spinning very fast, the equator is pretty close to synchronous orbit already. Note that this world is nothing like round and has a very low surface gravity. As gravity is much lower the pressure gradient is likewise much shallower--you can have a lot more atmosphere without crushing the surface.
2) Bleed. This is a much bigger problem to overcome but it's not insurmountable. We need a much more massive planet than the Earth, one where the difference between synchronous orbit and an escape orbit is on a par with the 11 km/sec between our atmosphere and an escape orbit.
I can't imagine how such a world could occur other than the work of some extremely powerful engineers but there's nothing impossible about it.
Note that the storms on the world itself will be incredibly violent. We have a huge differential in atmospheric speed between the equator (at near synchronous orbit) and the poles (stationary.)
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Short answer: **No.**
If asteroids were within a life sustaining atmosphere, then they would experience enormous drag. Unless they were high enough to be in geostationary orbit, but then the atmosphere would escape very quickly.
It seems tempting to think that a very dense atmosphere could provide buoyancy, but this poses two problems:
* Such a atmosphere is unlikely to harbor complex life (if that's what you're after).
* Since the asteroid or dwarf planet would be as dense as the gas around it, it would have no effective gravitational pull.
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Just as an addendum to what everyone else has said, No, this isn't possible, for quite a few reasons.
Lets do some maths though, to explain why.
Lets assume this planet is like earth, but with a ring system, the ring material orbits at the height of the atmosphere, which we'll call 70km above sea level, which combines with earth's radius for an orbital height of 6470km.
In a stable orbit,
$$v^2=\frac{GM}{r}$$
That is to say Velocity squared = Mass of Gravitational Body(Earth) multiplied by the Gravitational constant, divided by the height of orbit. (People interested in deriving this should google hyperphysics orbital mechanics)
Therefore, $$v^2= \frac{(6.67 \times 10^{-11}) \times (5.97 \times 10 ^{24})}{(6.47 \times 10^6)} = 6.15 \times 10^7$$
So $v=7842m/s$. That's about 28000km an hour, or 16900mph
Now, lets consider the fact that average planetary ring is made up of tiny chunks of ice.
The Space Shuttle's average descent speed during reentry is about 17500mph, and you see how hot reentry gets. The ice would melt instantly. Even if it was rock (which it almost certainly wouldn't be) the atmospheric friction would create temperatures that would sterilize the rock.
I hope this helps.
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I'll take a *completely* different approach from what everyone else is saying, because everyone (okay, sans ivy\_lynx) seems to be assuming that there are asteroids in planetary rings. *This is not true*. The objects that make up a planet's rings can come in a range of sizes, but none are as big as an asteroid. There are shepherd moons in the rings of some of the solar system's gas giants, but they are very small moons.
The objects within a gas giant's rings are way to small to hold onto an atmosphere. Fortunately, your question doesn't make that assumption. While these small bodies could not have a gravitationally bound atmosphere, the planet they are orbiting *could*, and so it is this atmosphere we can assume they are traveling through.
So you would have a bunch of small objects rushing through a cloud of gas (and probably dust from the rings). It wouldn't be too conducive to life. The rings are pretty stable, but there are always chances of collisions. There's a big difference between a moon in a stable orbit and a piece of a ring orbiting inside a ring.
I can go into more detail if you want, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, so all I'll say now is that the area would be too chaotic, and the bodies would be too small to have a chance of being a safe harbor for life. But more information is on the way!
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I don't think that an atmosphere *can* extend that far because if gravity is holding it to a planet and said gravity becomes strong enough, it would instead compress the gases into a liquid instead.
But! You *could* possibly have a supermassive gas giant or brown dwarf and place the asteroids *inside* its atmosphere. I remember reading that this is possible, but I don't have a link at hand. Their sky wouldn't be blue of course and they might experience a very different day-night cycle if at all, but it is within the extreme theoretical limits.
Alternatively, you could just place dwarf planets in there.
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Your main problem is that atmosphere is held where it is through gravity. The strength of gravity affects the gases in the atmosphere. For example Earths gravity is strong enough to hold onto Oxygen and Nitrogen but not Helium and Hydrogen. For an Asteroid to be within Earth's atmosphere enough to react with its gases, it would also be under the effect of Earth's gravity which would lead to, well, bad things.
What you could do is say the asteroid is so dense that the gravitational force it provides is enough to have its own micro-atmosphere, so not TECHNICALLY sharing our atmosphere, but capable of holding one of its own.
Through this, it could obtain gases that have escaped your ring world and built them up over time to have its own.
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It could not happen for a standard planetary ring that is in orbit, due to drag. But it isn't impossible to form a structure that appears to be a ring from entities floating in the atmosphere, not in orbit. For example, a titanic number of zeppelins flying about en-masse over the equator at various altitudes, using their motors to avoid being scattered. If the gasbags were reflective, it might look impressive from a distance.
Why people would want such a thing is another question.
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**Note:** A fair bit of setting-lore is laid out in **[the more subtle magic question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12990/a-most-subtle-magic),** so it might be worth paying that a visit, if you haven't already.
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The sky is dark and gloomy in the swamplands, the trees stunted and twisted, and the wretched and diseased inhabitants of village after village you pass by repeatedly warn you against visiting 'that cursed place'. The name 'Rynn' reaches your ears again and again, whispered in fear. Nonetheless, you are undaunted, and you finally reach the town where this Rynn lives. To your surprise, and in sharp contrast to the gloomy lands all around, *it* is bright and green, with blooming trees, laughing children, tall men and happy wives going about their business.
You walk around the town for over an hour before you even try talking to anyone. Indeed, the locals seem to avoid making eye contact. Aside from that, there are few signs that anything is wrong: next to a brand-new house you see the foundations of a ruined home, with a stone cairn indicating that a brewer's wife died there, and you notice two boys sit by a fence, staring into the distance with strangely blank stares and empty eyes, before their mother sees you and herds them into the house.
The local tavern is called "The Thief's Reward," and in front of it, you notice a strange dark red patch on the ground. The pavement stones are blood red, the earth between them is stained, and no grass or even moss seems to grow there. As you study the stones, you can almost swear that there is *something* in the air you hadn't noticed before, and a certain weariness envelops you.
"Get a grip, **Alice**!" you tell yourself. You suddenly decide to [head into the tavern](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12990/a-most-subtle-magic), a drink ought to clear your head of these dark thoughts.
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**"There is a cost to everything under the sun, and nothing can be had for nothing."**
This type of **Magick works by (rather inefficiently) transferring luck from one or more individuals to another**. Nothing overtly supernatural can be seen to happen, but amazing 'coincidences' can line up, such as a previously well-functioning fermentation vat suddenly exploding, with a heavy cauldron flying 1000 paces through the air and landing on top of one of three thieves, literally turning him to mush.
The range of abilities I have in mind includes:
* Telekinesis of the type described above
* Divination (a limited, willed ability to see aspects of the future and guide it towards a more preferred outcome)
* Headology (powerful persuasion and suggestion abilities that might be perfectly natural)
* Evocation (freak storms, strange weather patterns etc)
* Rynn is also unnaturally lucky, as you might expect. This doesn't seem to require any effort on her part.
**Assuming that this range of abilities came to be suspected, how could a regular person in any way improve her odds against a witch wielding such magic?**
Any sort of solution (ambush, poison) is acceptable. I don't want (and, given the circumstances, I don't think I can have) a *fair* fight. Remember, Alice [**is nice**](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10939/how-to-defeat-a-precognitive-warrior), so she would prefer to try and capture/disable Rynn, but I don't even know if such a thing is possible, as this situation might call for drastic measures.
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I am presuming that the object of neutralising Rynn is to prevent the harm that her luck transference is causing to the area around her village.
I am also presuming that Rynn is also nice, in that she wants to help the people she lives with, and punish the people that hurt her friends. Her founding an orphanage would support this conclusion. It would also follow that Rynn is aware that she can help her friends and harm enemies, but that she is only marginally aware at best that her actions have unfortunate consequences.
Finally, I am presuming that Rynn is something of a homebody, and like most people in any world, let alone a stereotypical magical world, doesn't travel far from home.
Take the soft approach. Have Alice become Rynn's new best friend, and then using that friendship, take Rynn out of her village to see the surrounding blighted areas. If Rynn can be convinced that the misery of the people in the areas she isn't aware of is the consequence of her aid to her friends, it may be possible to get her to stop, or at least take advantage of Rynn's distress at realising that she has been harming at least as many people as she has been helping to get close enough to incapacitate her. At the moment that Rynn realises that she has made many other people's lives an utter misery, her guilt may lead to self-destructive impulses that Alice could take advantage of to neutralise her in whatever way seems appropriate.
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Alice walks into the tavern and sits down, choosing a rather inconspicuous seat relatively near the door, and rather far from the foreboding yet beautiful Mahogany bar. When the waitress comes over asking if she's like anything to drink, Alice politely says no. She shivers just thinking about drinks in that bar, but smiles at the waitress and explains that she's been doing a lot of traveling and would like to rest her feet a few minutes before drowning her sorrows. The waitress looks back at her like she's crazy, but falls back on the old wait-staff policy of letting the clientele be a little crazy if they want and smiles back; it's usually better for tips that way.
Alice looks around, and sees many of the same blank stares inside the tavern as she did outside of it. In the corner four men, farm laborers by their strong upper body and tan necks, play poker with a aire of listlessness that is quite abnormal for a game so dependent on reading your opponent's mind.
After one particularly lucky hand, only winning thanks to a queen as the "river card," the winner tries to surreptitiously look around the bar like he's looking for one individual in particular. Satisfied, he quietly states in a near whisper, "I think I'm going to head home while my luck is still with me." Alice can barely hear him, but the rest of the table responds as though he had leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms over his head and loudly proclaimed in a Texas drawl that lady luck was on his side tonight, and he was going to take advantage of it by going home and trying to get lucky with the misses. Done whispering, the man nervously collects his winnings, stands up, and makes a direct path towards the door. He doesn't run, but he certainly moves in a hurry.
Along the way he runs into someone who stops him in a friendly manner and starts trying to chat with him. The winner politely returns the conversation, but his eyes are wild, darting around looking for how to get out of the door with his earnings intact. He succeeds in dodging the conversation within the span of a minute and resumes his procession towards the door.
Rynn walks in *right* as reaches the door. She looks directly at him and greets him while smiling. Alice swears Rynn was smiling at everyone. The raw feel from it permeated every corner of the bar, affecting everyone who could see it. Maintaining eye contact the entire time, Rynn offers to buy the man a drink. Without waiting for the answer, she puts an arm around his shoulder and takes off towards the Mahogany bar asking him about how his wife is doing and so forth. After a few minutes of drinking, she lets him take his leave. As he walks back towards the door, he no longer looks like a winner. Even though his pockets are full of earnings, his faces shows a man who feels that he just broke even today.
Rynn doesn't make an introduction that night, or the next night. Eventually, under the warm tones of a local minstrel's lute, she walks over to Alice in the tavern and makes an official introduction. Alice makes her own introduction as well and begins to make polite conversation. She tries to keep the conversation open and aloof, but it seems like the best luck she has in steering the conversation takes it right along a path Rynn has been preparing for.
A man walks up and tapps Rynn on the shoulder. It's the minstrel. *When did the music stop playing? I didn't even notice!* He begs an introduction to Alice, and upon receiving one, turns to Rynn and offers her one last song before he retires. Rynn smiles at the man now properly introduced to Alice as Del, saying it would be lovely. He goes back to the stage and tunes the lute once again before proceeding. Rynn turns back to Alice, and politely declares that she has much to do, thanks Alice for her time, and tells her that she can come by anytime if she wants to chat. Rynn takes her leave, and her smile with her.
Afterwards, Del comes off stage and talks to Alice. With surprisingly little small talk, he invites her to spend some time at his place. Thankful for a valid reason to get out of the bar, she accepts his invitation.
Back at his house he puts a tea kettle on the stove. The tea kettle is an immaculate treasure of inlay work and other fine craftsmanship. In fact, nearly everything in Del's house is exquisite. She comments on the tea kettle. Del explains that it was a gift from a governor in Teran. He never buys anything nice; everything nice in his possession has been a gift given freely by a patron.
As they talk, Del admits that he often gets really lucky. He doesn't know why, but when he goes where wind takes him, it just works out. Later in the evening he admits to Alice, over puffs of tobacco from a pipe given by a businessman in Elar, that he comes to this town often but muses that he never seems to arrive from the same direction. He explains that the music has a tendency to lead him in a clockwise circle around the swamp, playing in towns along the way, cycling from east to south to west to north as the seasons play out their tune. He comes to this swamp bound town in the center of his great cycle before it keeps things interesting. "There's never a dull moment for me in this town," he explains.
Before Alice can retire for the night, the room goes cold. Del looks up, and you swear you could see a grin on his face but the lighting is too poor to be certain. He reaches over and grasps Alice's arm in a civil but strong grip and looks her dead in the eye.
*"Never stand still in this place; never walk in a straight line. Always be polite. Never make a trade for anything; instead always give a gift freely and if they want, they will honor it with a gift given freely back in return. Smile."*
He reaches for the nearest immaculate treasure given freely, the tea kettle sitting next to him, without breaking eye contact with Alice. Through some trick of the light, it seems like the kettle is the only thing in the room with brilliant colors; the rest are all drab and grey. He pours two more cups of tea and offers one of them to her. As the warmth of the tea fills her body, her mind seems to warm and, by the time she is done with the cup, the color has entered the world once more.
Del moves forward with their conversation as though the event never happened. Eventually Alice politely thanks him for the tea, and takes her leave to go back to where she left her travel gear. She'll go pitch a tent tonight rather than go find an inn room. After all, she doesn't think an innkeeper will give her the gift of a night's stay freely.
*Rynn turns her back on the small hovel Del rented a few weeks ago and begins walking back towards the tavern. Her smile is now a thin drawn line like an earth worm stretched across her face instead of its usual joyful fullness. Either of these fate-lines were manageable, but their interactions are proving frustratingly hard to shape, twisting and pressing in so many frustrating ways. She will need to sleep to recover energy and face Del tomorrow.*
*But will her dreams be safe if she does? No, she thinks, better to deal with Del tomorrow unrested than risk facing Alice on the dream fields of battle that Alice has so much more experience dealing with. Rynn's dreams frighten her. She has no intention of letting Alice get an opportunity to see that. A dreamless sleep, the endless void, scares her even more. She'll just have to wait this one out.*
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In this, I have chosen to set a new hero, Del. Del's style of "combat" is along the lines of my interpretation of baugua, a martial art where you always circle just out of range of the opponent, until you find a weakness and strike. He also leverages one of my favorite rules, "a gift given freely." Rynn can't use any trades to weasel him into giving up any more luck/fate than he wants to, because everything she gets from him is given freely, not as a trade. (Although he can't stay very long, because he will also give up luck/fate freely, and eventually he'd run out. However, the sort of luck he builds up on his grand circles seems to be particularly hard for Rynn to straighten out before he gives it freely. Rynn is still more powerful of the two by far, if you put them in a cage match where he can't run away when it suits him).
Somewhere along the way, I'd like to make it clear through repeated occurrences that Del couldn't just tell Alice all of that advice on a whim without Rynn intercepting it and twisting it to her own purposes. He had to wait for Rynn to try to influence them at his home, where he had several gifts freely given to use, before she gave him the opportunity to warn Alice properly. Whenever you attack, its harder to observe the actions of others. Rynn's own attacks should be her undoing.
Del and Alice come from very different paths, and that seems to be the key to making it harder for Rynn to deal with them. Techniques that are strong against one are weak against the other. She has to split them before taking one of them on. However, it turns out to be remarkably hard to split two individuals when one of them moves with the wind.
Over time, Rynn is going to have a harder time dealing with Del if she doesn't sleep. However, every time she sleeps, she has to fear Alice taking over her dreams. That fear is the final prison I would use to capture her. Fear is one of the strongest prisons of all, and in the world of fear, Alice has Rynn's number.
I think its reasonably fair to bring in another "hero" in this situation. Rynn is on her home turf, it'd be rude to let Alice just walk right over her. However, if one is trying to harness luck/fate for one's own use without giving back to the world, eventually the world will strike back. However, because it's so big, it won't strike with a sharp blow like another hero might... it will strike with slow steady advancing tides of luck/fate, both smooth and subtle. One of the easiest ways to contain Rynn (and possibly turn her from a bad guy in this scenario into a hero) is to use theses slow streams of fate to drag together multiple individuals of strong fortune from different lines of fate. That way, when Rynn finally does lose, it's not because Alice is stronger or Del is stronger, but rather because the world was behind Alice and Del and worked hard to put them in the right place at the right time.
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Rynn's magic is basically powered through a transference of luck. So to detain Rynn you need to remove her from the source of her power. Perhaps you could:
* Drain the luck of everybody nearby. (How is luck built up in your universe? Does Rynn have to move on every few years to keep up a steady supply?)
* Give everybody "protective charms" that make their luck stick to their person.
* Get her somewhere where there is nothing to drain luck from - and throw enough things at her that she has to use up her luck. When she runs out she should be easy pickings.
Alice will also have to consider how to stop Rynn from absorbing more luck after she is captured. This will be exceptionally difficult if she has to be transferred to or through a town or city.
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The premise is that the magic is relatively subtle and mostly relies upon shifting luck.
So the solution is to approach the problem in a way that is extremely reliable--not really a matter of luck!--and would require dramatic magic to prevent it.
In particular, a protagonist can use *attention* to counteract any of the bad-luck effects, just like anyone can when sleep-deprived, on a ladder, whatever. She can initially pay attention to where possible dangers are: where is a chimney that might fall down? what might explode? are there water tanks that would flood the town?
And then the protagonist simply (if, alas, it is necessary) walks straight up to the magician and runs them right through with a sword. With adequate training, attention to footing, focus on where the blade strikes, and as free as possible from disturbances (e.g. a flock of pigeons suddenly deciding to fly between them).
And this needs to happen fast. The protagonist needs to realize what must happen, how he or she must do it, and act all in a short space of time so that concentration can be maintained and the chances for bad luck do not add up to an insurmountable barrier.
(Or you could get a second, possibly much weaker magician, to specifically counter any bad luck directed your way.)
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[Alice](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/11340/3510) vs. [Rynn](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/13021/3510). Wow, I have to admit I've never been in a situation where I've had two crowd-sourced powerful figures (both of whom I had liked and previously thought to be quite nice) pitted against each other quite so starkly. I've been mostly quietly following Alice's unfolding saga through your questions, (some seem hard-science, others magic, some both at the same time), so I was used to surprises, but I *literally* winced when I saw Rynn's name. So I guess I'm into the story.
After using Worldbuilding to power Rynn up, we have to tear her down. I'd say you have two paths:
* gather a mob, with pitchforks and torches, and head to the gingerbread house, with the full expectation that you'll lose most of your force, or
* go face Rynn alone, not putting anyone else in danger, but subjecting yourself to headology (to which Alice is quite vulnerable to, judging by the previous Rynn question, despite her [martial arts-based](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10939/how-to-defeat-a-precognitive-warrior?lq=1) [mental training](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/11340/3510)). Presumably, now that she's aware that magic is at work, Alice will be wary of suggestion attempts.
It's unclear what the full extent of Rynn's abilities is, so perhaps it's better not to test it (a freak lightning bolt or a heavy hailstorm can make short work of your pitchfork mob). So better to go alone.
Now should Alice go at night, like a Ninja assassin, or knock at the orphanage's gate (or wherever the witch is) in broad daylight? Odds are, the lucky witch will be wakened by a rat, or falling vase, or something if subterfuge is attempted. So perhaps better to go in broad daylight, since your mention that the divination ability is **willed** suggests she must make a conscious effort at it. If it's just a small, smiling stranger, perhaps the lucky witch won't be as suspicious, so won't consult her oracular powers.
How to disable her? Obviously, luck must have nothing to do with it. Luckily, Alice has something that mere luck cannot thwart: skill and a well-organized mind. She can prepare, be ready for a lot of things. Perhaps there's a limit to just how much luck the witch can divert in a given time, and once she's out, Alice can make quick work of her.
An alternative is for Alice to have some powerful **probability-stabilizing artifact**, that reinforces the normal odds of reality. Perhaps that's [what she stole from the temple](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/12091/keeping-secrets-in-a-thought-reverberating-hall). Imagine the look on the witch's face if suddenly, all of her usual tricks stop working.
PS: Now that we're getting so meta, do we even know that Alice is actually *good*? We **know** she's a thief and a trickster, after all.
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Trick Rynn into doing something that drains her of her magic, or in this case her luck. We all know that breaking mirrors, walking under ladders, stepping on sidewalk cracks, putting shoes on a table, opening umbrellas inside, hanging horseshoes upside down, spilling salt, something involving black cats, etc. all cause [bad luck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlucky_symbols) for the person who does those things. Even if these are just superstitions for normal people, for a luck-magic-user they might be very real.
Assuming that in your setting luck is in fact affected by such things, Alice might be able to trick Rynn into performing a luck-depleting act.
Here is one possible way to accomplish this:
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> Each day, Alice sends Rynn an identical package (e.g. via mail, or a private courier). Use a different courier every day, or ensure that Rynn doesn't know how the packages are being delivered, so that she can't prevent the deliveries of the package via luck-magic, and ensure the package is from a non-existent entity (to prevent Rynn from causing an accident at the package's fictional origin).
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> Rynn eventually adopts some routine method to dispose of the packages, hopefully without examining their contents. When she does, Alice then replaces the next package with some luck-sensitive item that Rynn's package handling procedure would trigger.
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> The payload would not be something intrinsically dangerous; if you were sending a mail bomb, you would inevitably end up blowing yourself up putting it together.
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> If Rynn, for instance, always throws them out the window, or chucks them somewhere, add a sheet of mirrored glass to the package. If Rynn burns them, put a (insert appropriate holy book here) in the package.
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> Once the payload has been delivered and activated, Alice should be able to easily defeat Rynn.
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The important thing for Alice to do is to set up the environment such that there is no way luck can help Rynn. In a direct and unprepared confrontation this would be very difficult to do, but if she can organise things in such a way that Rynn has no safe outcome then she has a chance, so perhaps we need a political solution.
One strategy would be to set up a series of traps over time, if possible with a few trustworthy accomplices. Rynn would, of course, not fall into them. In fact she would never be affected by them at all. Which would be lucky. In fact, after a while it would be suspiciously lucky. If rumours begin to spread that Rynn is a witch then people are going to start paying closer attention to what she is up to. The local priests begin to eye her suspiciously. At this point being improbably lucky could be very unlucky indeed for her so her own powers begin to be self-neutralising.
This is not a game that is played out as a flash confrontation, it is a game of chess that must lead towards an inexorable checkmate- if your opponent is very lucky then you must an extraordinary player of the game to be able to beat them, but that is not impossible.
There is always the risk, of course, that overwhelming someone blessed with the luck of the gods might result in your being afflicted by its dark reflection, a curse of ill luck that might last the rest of your days. I guess that's just a chance you have to take.
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You see this in quite a bunch of movies / books (think avatar). What could be a reasoned physical explanation of such phenomenon? Would this explanation impact other things on a planet?
Like most things in nature, I'm assuming it could come from a combination of many factors. Magnetic repel (suggested by @smithkm), hydrogen retaining organisms, high density air, low density rock (like volcanic porous projections)... what else could pitch in so that it would be enough?
Low gravity was suggested but it would imply that air itself would provide less lift to objects, thus not helping with our rocks to fly.
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Using currently known physics it's essentially impossible.
To move into more speculative realms though if you posited a material that repelled itself similar to opposed magnetic fields you could generate "floating rocks". The material would need to not repel when held together, but chunks of it would act to repel each other.
Now seed sections of that material through conventional rock and wherever the concentration were high enough it would cause them to move apart. This would be unstable though and the rocks would tend to move and tumble and eventually fall to the ground if they found an area not seeded with the material, so this doesn't give us what we want.
That has a number of problems so lets look at a different approach that avoids the repulsion problems. Lets go one step further and say that the material generates a force that "locks" sections of it together. So for example there is a volcano that erupts containing this material, it flows out and cools. Magnetic locking is a real phenomenon that happens with super-conducting materials and magnetic force lines although that does still allow the super-conductor to move along the force lines. Lets say this hypothetical force goes a bit further though.
As it cools the force lines lock together and all the chunks of this hypothetical material lock in position with each other.
Now erosion, animals, vegetation happens and the rock starts to be worn away. But the material holds its position. (Clearly it's harder than most rock so it lasts longer).
Eventually you end up with isolated floating islands with vegetation growing on them all held in position and stationary.
[Answer]
# Near surface geostationary orbit
Perfectly still or slowly rotating rocks suspended above one point on a planet's surface can be achieved, and might be found in nature, although rare. However, since this explanation only works on a planet without an atmosphere (or else only works for rocks above the atmosphere) it may not be useful for world building if an atmosphere is an integral part of the world. However, it might still be of interest for building a world on a rocky planet devoid of atmosphere with a few enclosed habitats dotted around where life resides. You could also imagine a world where there is only atmosphere in canyons, and above the canyons formations of rock can be seen suspended.
The principle of [geostationary orbit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit) is used to place communications satellites at a fixed point in the sky. A rock in geostationary orbit can be fixed above a point on the planet's surface, and can be either always facing the same side to the planet, or slowly rotating relative to the planet. The restriction is that these rocks can only be directly above the equator, at a very specific orbital radius.
# Surface behaviour
A planet spinning fast enough to allow geostationary orbit near the surface would result in odd side effects. Any object at rest on the equator would be moving at speed near to orbital speed. It would have weight but much less than similar objects at the poles. A planet that formed spinning that fast would be flattened, with the equator at higher altitude. A planet spun up to that speed after solidifying as a sphere would result in any object just North or South of the equator experiencing a force towards the equator, resulting in a drift of loose rocks towards the equator. If the height of geostationary orbit was only just above the ground level, this could result in rocks finding their way into orbit simply by drifting towards the equator and then piling up.
# Requirements
The [derivation of geostationary altitude](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit#Derivation_of_geostationary_altitude) results in
$$r=\sqrt[3]{\frac{GM}{\omega^{2}}}$$
In order to decrease the orbital radius (and hence the altitude), either the mass of the planet must be decreased, or the angular speed must be increased. So to find near surface geostationary orbiting rocks you would need to look at small, fast spinning planets (or moons).
# Much larger rocks
Two similar sized rocky planets orbiting each other would tend to slow in their rotation due to tidal forces, until they become [tidally locked](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking), facing each other. Each would then have a huge rock suspended directly above a point on its surface. I suspect this isn't what you meant though... If you allow that then there is a similar example close to home. Earth's moon spins at the same rate as it orbits, presenting (nearly) the same side to the Earth. It's not quite perfect due to [libration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration) effects, so if you stand on the moon and look up at the sky the Earth is not fixed in place, but its motion is restricted to a small region of sky. On the moon, there is a huge rock floating in the sky but it doesn't quite stay still...
[Answer]
This is a trope that I have used before, and probably will again, and in every single instance, I have never tried to explain it as anything other than magic, given that it is so unlikely to occur in the real scientifically explicable universe that it can be nothing other than magic.
With a sufficiently powerful magnetic field and a large amount of superconducting material at its core, rock may be made to float, but we are talking about enough magnetism to grab the watch off your wrist, and it would be a very unusual environment to produce that much room-temperature superconductor.
Another possibility is that what appears to be rock is actually a very thin layer over a life form that is able to produce hydrogen in sufficient quantities that it can float using hydrogen-filled gas cells. Hydrogen is far more likely than Helium, as Hydrogen is quite reactive and hence more easily manipulated by a life form than Helium which is inert. It has the added advantage of being more buoyant.
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Science-based, you need upward forces to be equal to downward forces.
Downward forces are easy: they can be resumed as gravity. Making them smaller points to low density materials and low gravity worlds. Low density not only involves low density mineral but also incrusted gas in hollows.
Upward forces need a lot of help to reach gravity's level, even a reduced one as explained above. For these, you can use:
* Aerostatic lift, bigger the denser air is.
* Magnetic repel. This has the problem that magnetism is bipolar: every boulder would have north pole and south pole, and if it is floating due to repulsion but somehow it turns upwards down, it will be attracted to the floor with extra force. And these turndowns are quite common, almost unavoidable.
* Upwards air current. These are actually able to sustain heavier-than-air things like hang-gliders, but most of these need movement to work.
* Electrostatic repel. Similar to magnetic repel, but in this case boulders can be charged on one sign. If this is the same as ground, they'll levitate. But it will cause tons of secondary effects, from hair rising to electric discharges (rays).
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The only thing I can think of that remotely comes close is the combination of a superconductor and a powerful magnet, but even if there were gigantic lumps of superconductor and immensely powerful permanent magnets occurring naturally. You couldn't get them to levitate very high if you could get it to work at all.
Aerostatic lift from a low density gas or pockets of vacuum would not work. Hydrogen doesn't really lift things, it just doesn't get pulled down as hard as the air it displaces (it's less dense) and that heavier air being pulled down is what really produces aerostatic lift. You'd need the "rock" to weigh the same as an equal volume of air, but rock is much, much, much denser than air. You'd need to make the "rock" a bubble around the lift gas or vacuum, with walls so thin they probably shatter instantly. Low gravity would not help as it would also reduce the weight of the air by the same amount leading to no change in buoyancy.
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> Any sort of floating ground that could harbor life was the first
> desire.
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That's easier than rocks.
Mars size world orbiting a gas giant. To terraform it, mass off the gas giants atmosphere are blown off, turned to plasma and dumped on the moon. Atmosphere is mostly helium and large amounts of fluorocarbon to create a greenhouse effect and maintain atmosphere for few hundred thousand years. Atmospheric density is 2-3 times that of earth but mostly inert save for the trace nitrogen, CO2 and oxygen, which at those pressures is easily breathable in small quanties
Problems are encounter as the planet warms because vast amounts of CO2 and ice are part of the structural geology on a planet that has never thawed. As it warms, the ground heaves, erupts and slides randomly and catastrophically in pyroclastic flows flows that crush and smother every living thing. The same effect causes sudden vast sink hole to suddenly collapse. Lower areas can be flooded with asphyxiating CO2 flowing from high lands with no warning.
Ground winds are very dangerous. The winds pack 2-3 times the kinetic punch as the same velocity wind on earth. Worse, the low gravity makes it easiy to pick up dust and even pebbles. Fortunately, the thick atmosphere transfer heat around efficiently so such storms tend to be localized.
The surface is to dangerous to live on permanently.
The 1/3 earth gravity and 2-3 times atmosphere makes flight much easier. The solution for colonist is to engineer plants-like organism that grow up into free floating balloons. Sometimes tether, other times floating. Their buoyancy comes from having pure helium inside which they heat with solar radiation. They don't gain a lot of altitude just enough to say about the chaotic landscape.
Although plant like, they have some animal attributes in needing to sense the environment and move accordingly
They have a long tail of lightweight tendrils they use to anchor when needed but keeps them stable the rest. At the top they are disk shape with gas cells radiating out like large flower petals. The petal provide compact photosynthesis by employing the entire exterior membrane as the chromoplast. The flat shape provides active support on the dense atmosphere and in the wind provides lift. There top center forms either a convex dome shape or concave bowl shape.
They look somewhat like a sunflower with very large, rather thick translucent green leaves sticking out. They can reach the size of major sports stadium with a dome area 300 meters in diameter and 600 meters of leaf shaped lift cell radiating outward.
On the dome or bowl shape, is a lichen that serves as a thin but effective soil/anchor for various plant species. Humans live and farm on the "islands".
Flight in the thick atmosphere is very easy. Humans can almost flap of the ground with large wings (but not quite.) Airships need gas bags only a third of that on earth. Wings as well are small. Steam engines provide enough energy for flight. Glider work very well, can cover long distance and carry fairly significant pay loads.
The ground is treacherous and every shifting, with howling winds. Most human stay up in the sky, farming the islands and traveling by air. Coming down to the surface only to mine and build heavy industry. People who tough it out on the ground are nomadic and increasingly rely on raiding as they can't stay in one place long enough to plant or built anything.
There you go, floating island that would feel like rock when you stood on them. Stream powered airships, chaotic shifting earth below, mad barbarians lurking.
[Answer]
There is no GOOD way to do this with the physics we know:
1) low density rocks: very difficult as a solid is much heavier than a gas in all cases. The best exceptions are trapping voids or lighter gasses in the rocks. Rocks though are made of silicas which are too dense and porous. A tiny amount of success might be possible by taking liberties with geopolymer chemistry and pretend it is really like a polymer.
2) superconducting materials: are rare, low temperature, and would require incredibly strong fields to induce levitation
3) updraft: not really what you wanted was it? would require incredibly strong winds in exactly one area to prevent it from moving in any particular direction
4) sonic levation; awesome but would require the formation of very consitent vibrations in exactly the right way and be very consistent
5) antigravity; for fantasy/scify setting this is ususally the best bet as it facilitates new technologies. A natural fictional material could be described which plays on out lack of understanding of quantum gravity to either be opaque to gravitational fields (First men in the moon by wells), ignore gravity under certain conditions (I think Edge Chronicles did this when the rocks were hot), or a misuse of the term antimatter acting as if it were a material which repels matter.
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Chemical reaction in some short ways.
Let me explain: If the small Stones are of some light kind (volcanic or likewise) and of some chemical active matter it could be possible for them to lift up for some little time when they react to some other lequid or chemical substance. There could be a burning that boost them up or the builded heat got catched in the stone (still talking of volcano stone with sponge artic strucktures) and lift them like little hot air baloons.
in Example:
On the surface of the Stone a moss carpet stops the air form cumming out of the stone. In and of it self the stone weights close to some grams, the moss also. Than the bottom of the stone begins to react to something and heaten up. Hot gas comes in the Stone. Than the stone could lift for some seconds bevor it´s heavier top rotates around and it drops back on the ground.
So you got some slightly levitation. Very speculativ but also more likly than magic ;) (if you find very light chemical rocks that moss likes to rest on)
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[Question]
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**The premise:**
Our protagonist was a intelligent, good natured, programmer who just tucked himself in bed at the end of celebrating his 35th birthday, only to wake up as a child on the day of his fifth birthday party, apparently 30 years in the past.
After going through the original disbelief, questioning of his sanity, and similar issues he resigned himself to accepting this is his world now and chose to utilize his knowledge of the future to live a better life. Early on he finds himself enjoying being seen as a prodigy for how quickly he 'mastered' his early school subjects, though as he reaches high school and college he reaches a point where he can no longer depend on his past education to score easy A's and finds himself not enjoying the disappointment he gets for 'not living up to his potential' as the prodigy he was presumed to be as a child.
However It's when he is graduating with his new degree in computer engineering that he finally gets informed why he is traveling in time, and that it will continue to happen. His time travel will obey the following rules:
* He will go back in time when he goes asleep after his 35 birthday, which occurs on oct 2020, and wake up on his fifth birthday
* He will experience a minimum of 10 of these repeat lifetimes, and potentially far more
* Eventually the repeats will stop and time will continue as usual after the 35 birthday. He will know when the lifetime starts that it's his last repeat.
* He will not forget past lifetimes, despite the subjective centuries. This doesn't mean his memory during a lifetime is any better or he will be any better at recalling something from a past lifetime then he would have been at the end of that lifetime.
* Despite his mental age his thought processes are still is affected by having a [child's body and mind](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody). In his youth he will still enjoy 'childish' activities, struggle with controlling emotion & patience, and generally still have the temperament of a child despite his increased knowledge. Likewise he won't feel much in way of romantic or sexual attraction until puberty, and he gets to enjoy all the hormonal fun of puberty each lifetime.
* The [butterfly effect](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButterflyOfDoom) is in full force. While he can use his knowledge of the future to predict, and change, events at first as soon as he makes a significant change the future will be altered significantly enough to make it hard to anticipate what will happen next.
* It is possible to pick small items to take back in time with him. The size and amount of items he can carry back is limited by both weight and physical dimensions, but with repeated lifetimes he will grow capable of transporting more back in time with him.
* At the end of his first repeat he can carry back something around the size of a thumbdrive, by his third lifetime he could carry a laptop, the size of things he can store will continue to grow linearly with lifetimes (possibly slowing down after he reaches a sufficiently large carrying capacity)
* Items he takes back in time will exist in a sort of [Hammerspace](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Hammerspace) until he needs them, preventing other's from asking questions about why a preschooler has an advanced laptop.
* If he dies during a lifetime he will wake up as a 5 year old again at the start of a new lifetime. Death is still quite traumatic, and he may lose access to items in his hammerspace when it happens, so it's best to avoid it.
Personality wise you can also take the following for granted:
* His family lives int he USA and is a non descript upper middle class family; well off but with no special resources or connections.
* From personal experience he has decided he doesn't like being seen as a child prodigy, since he can't live up to the expectations later in life, nor does he like the spotlight of media attention. Thus he doesn't want to use his future knowledge to become too famous or rich or be seen as a child prodigy. He is not opposed to being seen as smarter then average or being successful, so long as he doesn't attract too much attention.
* He is a generally decent person who doesn't want to utilize his knowledge to harm, manipulate, or exploit others. In fact he'd like to use it to help people and improve the human condition if possible; though he isn't a saint either and won't dedicate all his time to helping others.
* After numerous lifetimes he is going to start struggling with boredom, impatience, and generally going mildly stir-crazy, particularly during his childhood when expected to spend most of his life in school relearning things he long since mastered.
**The Question**
Our protagonist has decided that one of the things he wants to do is to make 'future' knowledge generally available in the 'past' once he repeats. By uplifting our knowledge by 30 years he hopes both to improve and save lives via making advanced technology available sooner, and to decrease his own boredom by making more modern technology, games, etc available sooner for him to enjoy. He hopes for a compounding effect, with each lifetime making new discoveries thanks to the bootstrapping of having access to his past lifetimes discoveries.
I'm looking for the best strategy he can utilize for transporting knowledge backwards, and sharing the knowledge with the general public.
Even with a few 'lifetimes' of experience our hero won't come close to knowing everything, thus he is mostly going to be dependent on carrying knowledge back by bringing something back in his 'hammerspace'.
Luckily he could fit gigs worth of documentation on his thumbdrive even at the end of his first repeat, unluckily he won't have a machine capable of reading a thumbdrive's data for decades. He's going to have to think carefully about what to bring back in time to trade off storage capacity with availability of technology to read the medium at first.
In terms of distributing the knowledge he needs to figure out a way to making the knowledge publicly available to everyone in a mostly pre-internet world of 30 years ago, all while somehow ensuring his own anonymity to avoid drawing the very attention he's learned he does not enjoy.
Finally he has to convince people of the knowledge's authenticity. How does he convince people this is not a practical joke and this stuff is real? Yes Higgs-Bison is real, you can clone animals and rewrite DNA with CRISPR, and everyone should be expected to be carrying around a 'supercomputer' in their pockets, that they mostly use to play floppy birds. While his claims can be validated with research, how does he provide sufficient evidence to both convince people of authenticity enough that they will take time to validate it, and how can he help them validate things as quick as possible so they can skip ahead to using it to building cool toys for him to play with.
I'm looking both for original strategies to bring back knowledge, when he can carry little back in time and needs to figure out how to bootstrap things, and eventual strategies for once he can carry more backwards in time, and had enough time to watch and perfect the information sharing techniques, that he can just carry back a perfectly built society uplifting tool with him to the past.
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My final solution:
I ended up deciding I liked the idea of asking questions and making other's do the work of figuring out how to do things for me so much my character could do it to. He takes back as much as he can per the original accepted answer, but he does a poor job of picking and choosing what data is most important to bring back the first time.
Luckily he brought back enough to convince other's he was legit, and he had the forethought to preface it with a description of what was happening and a request for help designing a better process for his next leap back. By the third leap large non-profits start to be created dedicated solely to designing the uplift package he should take back on his next leap. He just has to pay for the uplift hardware they designed, upload the data they deemed worth transporting, and carry that back.
[Answer]
It's 1990, so the home computer revolution has just went beyond 8-bit era. Good. Get an [ESP8266](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266) module, it is very basic (by current standards) computer (forget the wifi), but it has an SPI interface that can be used to [connect an SD card](https://www.mischianti.org/2019/12/15/how-to-use-sd-card-with-esp8266-and-arduino/). The crucial thing is [the NTSC output](https://hackaday.com/2016/03/01/color-tv-broadcasts-are-esp8266s-newest-trick/) - the 8266 is fast enough to directly modulate VHF signal on its data pin, and there are already libraries for text and video. You also need a keyboard - fortunately, 8266 has enough input pins and the [work has been already done](https://techtutorialsx.com/2017/03/18/esp8266-interfacing-with-a-4x4-matrix-keypad/). Back in 1990, you just need a simple matrix keyboard - just re-solder any scrap computer keyboard you find, or build one from say doorbell buttons.
This will give you a rather modest (by 1990 USA standard) computer system directly connectable to a common TV set. Until you compare the CPU speed and access the data on your SD cards, then its beyond wildest imagination.
Now for communication, so that you would not have to copy the screen manually - 8266 is capable of [serial UART communication](https://diyi0t.com/uart-tutorial-for-arduino-and-esp8266/), which was commonplace in IBM PC (AT) of 1990s. You need to interface the different voltages, but that's not a big problem. Or use common Centronix parallel port - easier to connect electrically, but needs some more coding (in my misspent youth, I did exactly this - connected a vintage 8 bit computer to a 286 IBM PC AT via parallel port and achieved something like 40KB/s transfer speed).
If by "thumbnail" sized you mean something slightly bigger, like Raspberry Pi, then you have much better possibilities (built in MicroSD slot, full Linux environment etc.) but it takes away half of the fun.
So, establish yourself as a child prodigy with keen interest in electronics (i.e. HAM radio), get some basic tools and a computer, build a power source and keyboard interface for your ESP8266 and you are done.
For the content of the (micro)SD card(s) you take with you, standard procedures for time travelers apply - dump of Wikipedia, selected patents etc.
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I don't think taking back data and disseminating it would be all too difficult. Here's how your protagonist could do it:
1. Load up a couple 1-tb microSD cards with all scientific papers, journals, reports, patents, and whatever written between 2000 and 2020. I'd avoid non-scientific literature as if you include a copy of Wikipedia or contemporary news, governments around the world would start up pre-crime divisions and that could be distrubing. Also bring a thumbnail-sized USB microSD reader.
2. Travel back in time with reader and microSD cards
3. You're a 5-year-old. Enjoy it and wait for USB flash drives and their protocols to be invented
4. You're 15 years old, Y2K just happened, and the internet is starting to be a thing. Use your 2020 hacking skills (you can easily be the best hacker on the planet if you include zero-day exploits and hacking software in your microSD cards) to easily break into the primitive, security-through-obscurity internet systems that have been established by universities and governments.
5. Upload all your data onto university and government servers. This may require you to break into a university, get a job at a telecom hub, or something similar to access a high bandwidth connection. Alternatively, burn data onto floppy disks or CDs/DVDs and mail them to universities (obtaining money shouldn't be difficult if you can convince your parents to buy stock or lottery tickets)
6. Sit back and enjoy while universities and governments around the world discover a trove of future-dated documents. Yes, there will be skepticism at first but the amazing part of science is that it's experimentally verifiable and very soon, this data will be used by other researchers to write papers. By disseminating this data to many places, you ensure that it can't be hidden or suppressed. People who refuse to use the data will be left in the dust by those who do.
7. Rinse and repeat.
Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to pull this off and stay anonymous. Even if you do avoid getting shanghai'd by the government through your superior hacking skills, the investigation on who you are won't end with the time-jump. People, particularly trained government agents, are very smart and would undoubtedly bury encrypted, obfuscated, or disguised intel for themselves in published research papers, anticipating that when 2020 rolls around, you'll be grabbing up all the data and going back again.
At the start of each timeloop there will be an unknown race going on in the background to see which intelligence agency trips over the messages they've hidden for themselves in the data first. Once they find it and decrypt all their future-intelligence, a covert WWIII will be kicked off as one agency/nation will suddenly have an unprecedented multi-decade intelligence and technological advantage over all the others.
[Answer]
30 years of groundhog loop back from NOW, and he can carry a compact usb drive with him?
No problem with accessing the drive in the past, just take along a ide-to-usb interface.
(no, not the common usb to ide, its inverse. rare, but they exist). Once he can manage an actual hard drive, the storage ability is effectively infinite.
The strategy on the first loop would be to bring political, military and financial data.
Initial world state will be utterly predictable, so he can easily go and win 5 lotteries in the first week, invest it all in stocks that just happen to surge the next week, and I absolutely guarantee that by the third week the world will have noticed the newest Billionaire.
Be a bit "loud" about using it, and get snatched by the appropriate supersecret government department. Not pleasant, yes, but they will provide the means to disseminate the future knowledge rapidly and efficiently. They can also be 'trained' to respect the traveler's privacy and rights. "If you mistreat me, then next time I am not contacting you, neener-neener-neener!". For better results, also use the equivalent services in many other countries. ***worst*** case scenario, he is killed or the world is blown up. Then next loop just don't trust that same agency, or contact them in a different way. After even just a couple of loops, he should have knowledge of means to inject the future knowledge to these organizations without them having the faintest clue who he is.
The person himself does not need to do, or invent anything himself. Sit back, enjoy life. Look for opportunities that are easily exploitable. Look for ways to better use the loop.
With highlevel government involvement, and careful planning of the (ever improving!!) amount and quality of data he is looping back, global tech should be advancing by about 20 years further on each 30-year cycle.
Meanwhile, accumulate a "private" file and plan for the known-to-be-final loop, the only one where he *cannot* afford to take any chances.
[Answer]
**First contact math**
Wikipedia says that [thumb drives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive) were first sold in 2000, and SD cards around that time. Assuming that the protagonist can communicate discreetly and anonymously, or gets good enough grades by the age of 15 to get in touch with a mathematician at the local college that they can confide in, perhaps they can bring a solution to the problem that the mathematican was working on. Such knowledge can be verified without access to lab equipment, and so that researcher can confirm that the protagonist is from the future. The protagonist can then use that academic as a front, using their connections to nudge technological progress.
[Answer]
I was suggesting this in another answer, but for the self-use this might be even simpler. If you go -30 years from now, your protagonist at that time might not have the corresponding connectors for USB or SD cards yet. But they would have film.
So either use microfilm / microfishes rolled together to be small enough, or just use 135 film. Then, develop instructions on how to make a external-SCSI (or whatever) converter to USB, plus the actual thumb drive. This might be tricky. Very tricky. But I am unsure, if the SD card is much better.
But the general idea is to bring the time when the card is readable closer by bringing instructions on building an adapter with it. The instructions should be readable, before the card is.
The next problem is the file system. A larger card might have exFAT, NTFS and what not. Good luck reading this on a C64!
Notice, however, that "large UNIX machines" were there for a lot of time. So, probably, some UFS or something might be writable nowadays with FreeBSD and is still readable in the late 80s on some Sun workstations. But good luck getting access to one of the USD 10k+ devices as a 5 year old! And good luck obtaining some BSD derivate without internet in 1993!
The easiest way is just to put the information you need on film. It would be much more limited, but the access is much easier.
As for the "layered" solution: paper notice -- film -- digital storage -- ..., it is easier, when the recipient knows, what to do with it. Is it not the case, you would need to provide instructions on the previous layer on how to read the next.
[Answer]
It may be easier if the protagonist would accept the role of prodigy and could spearhead the scientific research from an early age. However, if he must remain anonymous, he must find ways to disseminate the future information.
For the first iteration, I assume, the protagonist wouldn't have a chance to pack anything, let alone a machine-readable data storage. So he must write down as much as he remembers, before the details would fade away from child's memory. Depending on what he studied, this information may become very useful in 1990s world, or not usable at all.
The second iteration is becoming more interesting. One small item can be brought back. He can take a modern USB drive and wait for some 10 years until it would become readable, as @Dragongeek had suggested. Or, he can take something like [Mini CD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_single#Mini_CD) with him. Pro: it's readable everywhere right in 1990. Con: it contain only 210 MB of information.
210 MB is tiny by today's standards. However, if limiting the media to text only, this can pack a small library. Moreover, zip file archiver was already available in 1990, so the amount of information could be easily doubled. What our protagonist needs to do is to carefully select what to pick. I suggest picking scientific and engineering articles, patent documentation and any blueprints if he's able to get them. The design of Apple A14 processor, for example, is nice, but the details of how to make 5 nm fabrication process work would be nicer.
Thus, I further suggest that **our protagonist would spend his iterations burrowing into corporate secrets and engaging in technical espionage** (as legal as it's possible).
Anonymous dissemination of information in 1990 would be considerably more difficult than in 2000, but it's still possible. In 1990, the world (and USA, in particular) already had email and bulletin board systems. Those systems, however, were often disjointed and providing only limited outside access. Here I second @Dragongeek's suggestion of hacking. Our protagonist can hack university's email server and send the information to the particular scientist (or, at the time, a student), who years later would perform that groundbreaking research.
On second iteration, as more baggage can be carried, our protagonist can take with him modern USB storage as well as custom adapter (like ide-to-usb interface mentioned by @MarvinKitfox). And again - collect more nitty-gritty technology details which are not found in research papers and patent applications.
Rinse and repeat, until he carries the whole "2020 for the dummies" blueprint back to 1990.
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I know its an older question but its something I've been thinking about for a long time.
For starters you will buy the best storage capacity you can before oktober 2020 and store the data you want on it. Alongside it you buy a foldable data link that can connect to an 1990 PC of your choice, have one specifically made for the purpose if necessary. You could even skip this and order a microPC instead.
Key however is that you can access a series of text documents first and print them. Each document contains a date and adress so you know when to send them. These documents contain many many things:
* they create persona's and businesses that only exist on paper.
* you lend and spend money using these persona's to play the market early on before the butterlfy effect moves too far.
* as your money grows you also send out letters to hire people and give them tasks, like being the face for your businesses and let you lend money that would require showing a face. Similarly you can buy existing companies and give them tasks as a legitimate group for you to perform.
* hire people to win loteries, including the Powerball. It may take a few tries to find suitably trustworthy people who would make sure the money goes to you (a threat and a small payout of the money could help), but this will net you a great deal of money (some powerball wins went into the billions).
* now play the market hard, use every nook and cranny of the law, foreknowledge of people's likely choices and likely market changes to earn billions more.
* again, this is done all by paper mail early on. You'll likely create seperate folders, load these on a PC and give these to a group of hired hands who's only task it is to print the data, put it in envelopes with the right adresses and send it at the right time. That means that practically you could have thousands of letters being send every day without lifting a finger, controlling your empire through guesswork, learned lessons from previous lives and whatever supercomputer you could hire up until september 2020 to do predictions for you.
That is just the preperatory work. As with that money you now start to buy up technologies and companies that you will need and want.
The problem is that much of that technology will require increasing amounts of data. You wont be storing the complete detailed plan of construction and material properties of an F35 on one thumb drive. So what you do is set the researchers to create Minimal Reference Points (MRP's). These MRP's are the smallesr possible account required for the researchers to create a particular material or technology. So you can cram many technologies into one drive and have researchers invent them plus create all the data sheets and crap needed to work with it, as they invent it another group is already working on a technology that requires juuust that piece of tech which they just so happen to receive. Chief among these would naturally be low-cost and easy to create tech which boosted our capabilities but took years for us to discover.
Now this will help you create general technologies, but some lives you will focus on a particular technology. For example you may buy all airship tech and spend billions on creating and testing airships, just so you can create an MRP for it and build working prototypes in a fraction of the time.
A more important thing would be biotechnology. If you have the perfect CRISPR techniques (or superior to CRISPR) in detail either on your thumbdrive or in your mind, you could have someone create it very early in your life (they may not know what they did but still produce decent quality). This could let you improve both yourself and people around you, say the (future?) researchers working for you. With the right technique you could make yourself smarter, eliminate certain genetic disorders or simply improve your own life.
With this in place, you can create and fund a technological empire that can have technologies that wouldnt otherwise be economical to create. Think the aerospike thrusters for space ships, functional and efficient airship technology and other such things.
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[Question]
[
A quite common idea to provide "gravitation" in space stations is to make them rotate, so the centrifugal force gives an effective gravitation. A possible design is a ring-shaped space station.
Now of course it is easy to calculate how fast a space station has to rotate, as function of the radius, in order to provide a given g-value. Of course, the smaller the radius, the larger the needed angular velocity to provide the gravitation:
>
> $$\omega = \sqrt{\frac{g}{r}}$$
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However, a small, fast rotating a space station has two disadvantages:
* Due to the dependence of the centrifugal force of the radius, there's a difference in the gravitational strength between head and feet. For a human of height $h$, when the floor is on radius $r$ (assuming $r>h$, of course) you get
>
> $$\Delta g = \frac{g h}{r}$$
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This difference might give problems; but I doubt they will be the main problem. Also, it falls off quite quickly with $r$, so with any halfway reasonable size of the space station, I guess it should be no issue.
* Due to the rotation you get a Coriolis force. This should mess with the human sense of balance. Moreover, since it is proportional to $\omega$ (more exactly, for running perpendicular to the rotation axis, it's $2\omega v$), it only falls off with the square root of the radius, so I guess that is the determining factor to decide which radius is needed.
* Also an effect is that when moving, the direction of "gravitation" will change as you walk around the ring. This I guess will tend to cause you to stumble as soon as you walk, let alone run, if the radius is too low. I have no idea how well humans can adapt to this (or if that question has even been studied).
So my question is:
**What would be the minimal radius for a space station, if there should be no problematic effects for humans?**
Assume aiming for earth-like gravity ($g=10\,\rm m/s^2$), normal size humans (height up to not much more than 2 meters) and people may run (from 100 meter sprint times, one may assume a maximum speed of about 10 m/s). Also, we can assume there's only one floor (no "upstairs" with different radius).
Note that this is not really a question about physics (how to calculate the physical quantities is clear to me) but more a question about human physiology (how weak do we have to make the effects to not cause problems), thus the tag.
[Answer]
There is a very nice source written by [Theodore W. Hall](http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/SpinCalc.htm), where you can calculate parameters of a rotating habitat. Even more importantly, they give comfort areas for different parameters based on many scientific sources. The parameter ranges are:
**Radius**
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> Because centripetal acceleration – the nominal artificial gravity – is directly proportional to radius, inhabitants will experience a head-to-foot “gravity gradient”. To minimize the gradient, maximize the radius.
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Above 12 m is comfortable, 4 m - 12 m might work
**Angular Velocity**
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> The cross-coupling of normal head rotations with the habitat rotation can lead to dizziness and motion sickness. To minimize this cross-coupling, minimize the habitat’s angular velocity.
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Less than 2 rotations/minute is comfortable, 2 rpm - 6 rpm should work
**Tangential Velocity**
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> When people or objects move within a rotating habitat, they’re subjected to Coriolis accelerations that distort the apparent gravity. For relative motion in the plane of rotation, the ratio of Coriolis to centripetal acceleration is twice the ratio of the relative velocity to the habitat’s tangential velocity. To minimize this ratio, maximize the habitat’s tangential velocity.
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More than 10 m/s is comfortable, 6 m/s - 10 m/s should work
**Centripetal Acceleration**
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> The centripetal acceleration must have some minimum value to offer any practical advantage over weightlessness. One common criterion is to provide adequate floor traction. The minimum required to preserve health remains unknown. For reasons of cost as well as comfort, the maximum should generally not exceed 1 g.
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0.3 g - 1 g is comfortable, 0.1 g - 0.3 g might work
Based solely on the [calculator](http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/SpinCalc.htm), if you want centripetal acceleration 1 g, radius 220 m would be very comfortable and radius below 25 m would be already very uncomfortable. If you want acceleration 0.3 g, radius 70 m would be very comfortable and radius below 13 m would be very uncomfortable.
**Edit 1:** Recently, I found very interesting related link - TidalWave's [commentary about experiments with centrifuges](https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/5624/adapting-to-increased-gravity-on-alien-planets), to his answer at Space Stackexchange.
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It's highly uncertain.
The limiting factor appears to be Coriolis effects, which means the key parameter is rotation rate rather than radius. Studies have given tolerable values ranging from [0.1 RPM](http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/inhabiting_artificial_gravity.shtml) to [23 RPM](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2002ESASP.501..151H), and corresponding radiuses ranging from as high as 90km to as low as 4m.
[Answer]
I think the short answer is that the radius should be as large as is pragmatically possible, because there will always be unforseen reasons for making the centrifuge bigger. Also, there is no real reason to limit the cylinder to one level only. For a trip to another astronomical body, at least one level could be devoted to the new gravity, or something in-between if it's going to be lower gravity.
The Earth Gravity simulator would only need be used for exercise periods, which I assume would increase in frequency and duration during a return trip to Earth out of a sense of impatience if nothing else.
Routine operation of a space ship could be done either in a nonrotating portion of the ship or in the central core, the latter of which would be best served by the least possible speed of rotation.
As far as the ill effects of varying moment(um)s, habits will undoubtedly develope to deal with this problem. Again, the slower the speed, the easier it will be to do so.
The added mass of a larger cylinder should not be a great problem in a zero gravity-zero atmosphere other than the additional fuel required for acceleration, and since the larger diameter cylinder need not be of significant weight if it's used only for exercise, this problem could be minimized.
[Answer]
Coriolis forces and other effects aside, you will want your space station to have a level of simulated gravity similar to that of planets that the inhabitants might be from or be destined to visit. At least in some part of the station.
There would be no point having a station orbiting Mars that could not simulate at least 0.38g, the approximate surface gravity on Mars and Mercury, for example. It could be scaled to simulate higher gravity at the rim with the design including another major level at a radius that offers 0.38g.
In the Earth-Moon region, it would make more sense to keep it large enough to have comfortable full Earth gravity at the rim because of the need for people to acclimatize to full gravity as they return to Earth. Lunar gravity could easily be simulated on the same station at a smaller radius, or in a separately rotating section.
For the solar system as a whole, with two major planets having 0.38g on the surface, that seems like a reasonable minimum value to aim at. The only way I see that being too low is if there turns out to be a serious medical effect of it being that low. That may not matter if reproduction or long-term residence is not intended.
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[Question]
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Let's take a world where you can be resurrected, [D&D style](http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Raise_Dead), but maybe a little cheaper, no constitution-based ill effects, and easier to access. Perhaps any cleric worth their salt can bring you back to life if your body isn't too decomposed, too old, or totally obliterated for a reasonable fee.
**What kind of effect would making most deaths effectively meaningless have on humanity? What overall behavior patterns would people tend to stick to if this were the case?**
For example, I would imagine people would generally be more risk-prone. Want to attempt that dangerous, eight story high parkour stunt? Sure! Who cares if you fall off the roof and break your neck if you have a friend willing to carry your dead body to a cleric.
I'm looking for other behavior patterns that people would generally follow if **most** deaths were cheap and meaningless.
[Answer]
Removing the fear of (most) death has interesting implications.
* Violent crime would of course increase, as killing someone in order
to rob them becomes a far more morally acceptable method. Knowing
that the person you kill is just going to come back could also make
crimes of passion much more violent.
* Sadistic crimes could become more prevalent and harder to track down,
especially if the perpetrator has easy and discrete access to
resurrections for his victims.
* (Physical) risk-taking, as you mentioned, would definitely increase,
but I would expect the cheapness of death to extend to employment as
well. There would be much less impetus for OSHA-type regulations if
the employer just had to cover the cost of resurrecting you after
industrial accidents.
* Capital punishment would remain effective. Perhaps even more so if
part of the punishment was burning the body afterwards.
* Fewer or no graveyards, as most people will not die of unnatural
causes. Higher overall population and a much older population on
average for the same reason.
* War would be bloodier, with both sides trying to obliterate enemy
soldiers instead of just killing or wounding them (in order to
prevent an endless cycle). Expect incendiaries and acid-based weapons
to be prevalent.
* Expect religious opposition to resurrections, even if (or perhaps
especially because) other clerics are performing them. Religions that
believe in reincarnation, especially, would object to people being
denied (or saved from) their just reward in the next life.
[Answer]
The first thing that comes to mind is that if resurrection is easily available, it would become a commodity. People doing dangerous work could, for example, be compensated for possible deaths. The reduction of death to an inconvenience would also make risky jobs less compensated - there's just not that much at risk anymore.
Work with a high risk of death would also be performed more often - for example, the assassination business would change; more people would try to do it for the high pay for a while, until it peters out to the value of secrecy and making sure the target is completely obliterated rather than just dead.
Also, people could now be requested to do deadly work, with the promise of resurrection. You might be the best miner, for instance, which may otherwise make it less possible for people to send you in mine full of deadly gases to do work since you might be lost, but now, that can be reversed if your body is easy to retrieve.
Safety might remain an interest, since it would reduce the waste of effort to resurrect people and prevent clutter to the point of overloading the services. Trying to protect people from death would be closer to an everyday act of kindness, like giving them a ride or preventing a broken leg, rather than having the weight that it has if death is permanent. This can mean people risk less to prevent the deaths of others - it the end, it might be *more efficient* to let someone get killed and then resurrect them (in some cases) than risk dying yourself and possibly having more people to resurrect or being incapable of retrieving the body.
It could also become a form of torture - killing someone and resurrecting them repeatedly.
The legal penalty might be reduced with the perpetrator being fined rather than punished with a life sentence or death. Likewise, the penalty of death could become the equivalent of a fine.
Warfare would likely not change much - tactics wouldn't change unless resurrections could be performed easily on the battlefield. After you kill your enemy, you can scour the battlefield for corpses, resurrect those you want for interrogation and burn the rest. *edit- as Unsigned observes in the comments, weapons would probably shift towards obliterating enemies or making them useless as soldiers, since after a battle, the winner can just resurrect all their soldiers.*
[Answer]
There are some very good answers here already, but I'd mention something about the possible mental aspect.
Even if death is reversable, it may still be a very traumatic experience, especially in the case of a violent death, either intentional or accidental (e.g., industrial accident.) It still hurts.
It's possible that PTSD could manifest in resurrected "survivors." Assuming cumulative effect, this would set a limit on the number of times resurrection is possible before the subject goes insane, or is otherwise rendered mentally incapable of "normal" life.
While death's impermanence would render it less feared in some aspects, I think the general view of it would not be quite as *laissez faire* as the other answers suggest, due to the physical pain and possible mental aftereffects.
[Answer]
There was an online novel I read probably 8 years ago that explored this very theme, but I've forgotten the name and 30 minutes of googling has not led me to the answer, so I'll surmise the basic plot points that I can remember.
A benevolent AI (think a helpful **I AM**) -- originally designed as a missile defense system I believe -- decides it's ultimate goal is to prevent anyone from ever dying so it basically consumes the entire human consciousness into itself and never lets anyone permanently die.
Because death isn't permanent, an entire culture of death builds up where the chief entertainment among a large set of the population is creating crazy mazes/trapped obstacles courses that volunteers run through... dying in the most horrible and painful ways possible, only to wake up completely unharmed but with full memory of the experience. The best maze designers and best runners are *the* celebrities of the world, and fancy dinner parties revolve around the debut of new mazes.
The idea makes a lot of sense, given our species' penchant for violence as entertainment, particularly when there are no long term consequences to dangerous/deadly behavior.
[Answer]
I agree with everyone thus far, especially the psychological aspect. Two anime come to mind when I think of this, Sunday without God and Sword Art Online. SWG, basically people stop dying even if they're injured or are in total zombie mode, they can't die unless a particular type of person puts them to rest. In your case, it'd be the opposite but it might be interesting to look at. As for SAO, an virtual MMO suddenly traps all players into the game and if they die in the game, their headsets kill them in real life. So suddenly hunting for loot and such isn't so fun anymore. Depression kicks in, criminal groups rise, some are just trying to live day to day. Once again, these two series are the opposite of what you want, but I think the irony might be helpful as far as psychology goes.
Now for the population control and the planet's resources - can your world hold up to a growing population that still reproduces and yet never dies? What of food, animals, minerals and so on, I can't imagine there'd be enough of everything for everyone. And humans causing waste, pollution, even if they can revive - what of disease? Does this elixir of some sort make everyone the perfect human being or can it cure anything from asthma to cancer? If it's just a matter of reversing time for 10 minutes so you'd revive, then won't certain areas of the world be so overpopulated that disease would spread?
I probably have more questions than answers here, but these are the sorts of things I thought of when reviewing your question. Hope they're thought provoking! :-)
[Answer]
You can read about such society in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom> by Cory Doctorow.
* Marriage for a decade or two, moving in separate directions would be normal. No permanent friendships. Your old friend could betray you few centuries later.
* Interstellar flight simpler (just resurrect crew close to target)
* People bored with this century could "deadhead" sleeping few centuries to see if future is more fun
Also, one consequence not mentioned by previous answers (and Cory) was the strain on natural resources. With so many people competing for limited resources, life for most would be quite miserable.
Similar situation is investigated in [World of Methuselahs](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/3246/world-of-methuselahs)
One interesting consequence mentioned in Methuselahs is that because people set up ideas when they grow up and do not change later, society (and science) will be much more conservative.
[Answer]
You can make a comparison with the evolution of medicine. Today, some health problems are easily reversible but this doesn't mean there is a social incentive to abuse them. Actually, the focus has became even more the prevention. And since the process of death (mostly) is far from being a pleasant experience, probably the focus on preventing death will still be as strong as in our world.
The implications of accidental death however would receive a deep change, as others have already stated.
However, if you can make death not feel as something bad, it could be abused in many ways. For example, human cryogenics would be a reality, and this could be used in many ways to travel a human through harsh environments or to the future.
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For one thing, population explosion. After a few generations, unless births are heavily restricted, we won't be able to feed everyone.
If you make it a bit expensive, then the rich live and the poor die. In the short term, the poor may try to permakill the rich. In the long term, the rich will outnumber the poor. The poor will never go away since you still need to label some people as poor to restrict access to resurrection.
Lets look at legal matters.
* Copyrights become close to permanent.
* Murder charges become battery charges. Permakills likely have much
harsher sentencing.
* Inheritance gets strange since anyone who has money to pass on will
probably use to to be resurrected.
* Life insurance goes away except as a payment plan for resurrection.
* Mandatory retirement may just become a way to get people to leave one
job to start a new one. Otherwise, good luck ever getting a
promotion in a big company.
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[Question]
[
So the world has been destroyed. Pick your poison. We have probably 300 different scenarios lying around here somewhere.
**What's Left:**
* The world is a desolate wasteland, dry and crispy and barren
* Temperatures are significantly higher (Greenhouse gasses)
* Wildlife is all but wiped out (something always survives). I suppose the oceans are still somewhat populated with life.
* Humans live in a few isolated bubble enclaves. Current era technology survives but is not easy to replace.
* Humans collected and have stored DNA for basically all life forms on the planet (think Titan AE). Lets assume we can effectively create plants/animals/life from their DNA in this reality.
* The goal of the remnants of humanity is to restore the world to livability and ecological stability.
* The isolated habitations are in regular contact at the government level. Person to person global communication is no longer common place, either via phone or net.
**Scientifically speaking how does humanity go about restoring what it destroyed, and what kind of timeline are we looking at?**
[Answer]
I'll give a go here...
First thing would be for the surviving humanity to take full inventory of what they are working with here. The globe is a huge place and though some regions will be quite hostile, there should be some regions that are relatively 'nice' to be living. For example, arctic currents flow south from Alaska down the North Amercian coastline and should provide a cooling effect to that coast, making it most likely that a large area of semi usable land still exists in northern canada and into the Yukon/Alaska (this assumes the increased heat and additional fresh water doesn't alter oceanic currents). Getting to these area's, colonizing them, and getting humanity itself back onto it's feet will be a top priority. The Antarctic continent is likely another location that would be well suited land now...apparently under it's currently ice landmass is the largest lake in the world, providing fresh water supplies and the necessary resources to reestablish human population.
From there, it's a 2 part effort to bring temperatures back down.
1. Albedo. In short, we want to discover methods of which to reflect incoming sunlight back into space without being absorbed here on earth. Unfortunately the best method of doing this is Ice!...which in this scenario wouldn't exist. So we'd need one of two methods here
* Vegetation. Plantlife that is light in color (or white leaf all together) that is prolific and can be spread across large locations of the globe would theoretically work. I'm not sure what exists for this in present day, but genetically engineering a white leaf plant and covering large amounts of land could work
* Water / Clouds. This is a feed back mechanism that already exists...Dry crisp and Barren is not really a truth here...a rise in temperature ultimately see's more water transitioning from liquid to gas (which actually cools the globe as well...this is in part my comment on just global warming coming to these effects, the properties of water insulate the globe relatively well)...a warmed globe is ultimately a wetter globe. More clouds in the air = more clouds reflecting sunlight. Once again in the theory range, but anything humans can do to cover the globe in cloud (getting into weather modification here) will help.
2. Reduce insulation. I think your question is on the basis that CO2 is the primary greenhouse gas responsible for this warming effect. If this is the case:
* Plant life. Plants refine the co2 from the air and turn it into a variety of other compounds. Not the quickest solution
* Stop burning fossil fuels. Faster we quite adding to the CO2 total, the faster it can be brought under control
* CO2 Sequestering. CO2 'nets' can be used to capture CO2 from the atmosphere. This CO2 is then brought under high pressure which liquefies it. From here, it can be injected into Earth (oddly enough, into the wells where it likely came from in the first place). Look up carbon capture and co2 sequestration if you want more info on the process.
It's hard to get into timelines without defining what extent it has gotten to...but one assumption to challenge...the earth is 'supposed' to be anything. The Earth is in a constant state of flux, shifting from one shape to the next over the course of years. There is no 'natural' state for it to be in, outside of this constant change and trying to prevent change is unnatural as the change we are inflicting upon it. Even an attempt to get it to 'most positive for humans' comes at great benefit to some regions and quite costly to others...restoring the cradle of life to it's dawn of humanity state leaves England under ice.
Edit to add:
It is possible that our efforts in cooling the globe will overshoot as well...any method of cooling the globe that worked too well could just throw us the other direction and into an ice age. Climate is quite the balancing act.
[Answer]
Life is nothing if not amazingly good at rebuilding after major disasters, so to regain livability and ecological stability, all we probably need to do is let the world be. It will eventually regain equilibrium, though the equilibrium it reaches post extinction will likely be quite different from what there was before.
If we want to rebuild the *same* sort of ecosystems, we'll have a bit more of a challenge on our plate. Reintroducing animals, and breeding animals back from very small populations, is difficult. In addition, large animals such as tigers or bears generally require a healthy, mature ecosystem to support them. We'll have to regrow the forests first, then reintroduce our large herbivores, and finally start rebuilding carnivore stocks.
In addition, we'll have to get everything that springs up on its own out of the way. All of the current invasive species are likely to be some of the prime repopulators of the barren, crispy wastes. If we want to reintroduce broadleaf forests in the southern US, for example, we'll have to clear the forests of kudzu vine that have sprung up in their place. In many places, it may be best to build a new ecosystem, based on what is already growing, rather than try to reestablish what existed before the catastrophe.
Before we can do any of this, though, we'll have to stabilize the human population. What we'd probably want to do is set up whatever industry is needed for long term support of agriculture first, and move on from there. If the crispy wastes start sprouting grass, it may be a good idea to bring back some large ungulates, such as bison, to provide an additional food resource that we don't have to actively manage, with the same logic holding true for fruit trees.
The survivors will have a leg up on modern humans in terms of getting technology back online, though, because all of the processed resources are still there. Even bombed out and depopulated, a city is full of all of the aluminum, steel, and silicon that a fledgling culture would need to get back on its feet.
[Answer]
You say that the world is a desolate wasteland, dry and crispy and barren. Repairing this could happen naturally but it would take a long time, likely thousands of years.
It would take a very long time even with intervention from humans, your going to have to go through the process of growing grasses then shrubs, bushes, small trees and big trees.
It would be quite hard to replicate the current ecosystem, especially when some plants are dependent on others and must come first. And then finally after you have sufficient plants you could start introducing animals, but again it would have to be in a specific order and you would have to let some animals populate the area before introducing a animal that is higher up in the food chain or you would run the risk of running a species extinct.
But you have also mentioned that the temperature is significantly higher, which means we probably would not be able to get it back to the way it was before. We may have to plant plants that thrive in hotter environments.
It will be a very long process, and lots of hard work, or it just may happen by itself.
[Answer]
Before I start answering your question in earnest, I just want to elaborate on a key point of an earlier answer which is important to understanding the climate of your world:
PRECIPITATION EQUALS EVAPORATION
All of the precipitation that falls originated as water vapor that was evaporated from the surface of the Earth. It is always raining somewhere on the Earth, just as evaporation is always occurring over most of the Earth's surface. At any given time, precipitation covers only about 2% to 5% of the surface of the Earth, while evaporation is occurring over the remaining 95% to 98% of the Earth. Thus, as water vapor slowly evaporates over most of the Earth, an approximately equal amount gets "concentrated" into relatively small rain systems that turn some of the vapor into precipitation.
In your world, it is very hot and most of the land is arid or dry and deadish, which means that:
1. The air is able to hold a lot of humidity before precipitation will occur. When it does it will be violent, causing flooding and damage.
2. Desert arid areas are caused by a lack of precipitation. Because most of the land is arid, these precipitation events must be occuring very rarely or are concentrated in just a few places (the latter would be easier for humanity to work with).
You cannot just introduce life into an arid environment and hope it will catch on. You either have to cool down the whole damn world so that precipitation can be more evenly spread, or irrigate parts of it so that it gets the water it needs to develop. (This has been done in the Imperial valley, which has turned a desert region into a succesful farming region.)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Valley#Agriculture>
I suggest that your remaining human colonies concentrate on surviving on irrigation, while *very gradually* cooling the climate (Don't want another snowearth). Once precipitation is more evenly spread you can think about the order to introduce other forms of plant and animal life.
To cool down the earth, most people have focussed on removing C02, but I suggest you focus on adding oxygen to the atmosphere instead. (This may actually be a very critical concern, since a lot of the earth's oxygen producing plant life will have been destroyed). Luckily, 50% of the earth's oxygen is created by photoplankton. These suckers love sunlight and lots of nutrients. The nutrients are easier to get in coastal regions and cold waters - it is easier for nutrients to rise up from the ocean floor. Since the water is warmer now, humanity could give a helping hand by plankton farming (adding nutrients) or dredging the ocean floor.
<http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/more-oxygen-%E2%80%93-colder-climate/>
How long will this take? You don't want to rush it. I would aim for a very slow cool, at LEAST several hundred years.
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My idea - and that's simply because I'm trying to do it in my garden :) - would be to **use some simple permaculture techniques in order to create sustainable gardens**.
With access to fresh water and enough nutrients to start, people could plant trees, bushes and vegetables in such a way that a micro-ecosystem would emerge. Trees would shield the garden from too much wind and sun, remains of one year's crops would become compost for the next year's plants and human work would ensure that the garden would not die off.
But, at least at the beginning, gardens will not produce enough food for large communities. Ideally, people will spread with each family, or a group of families, trying to set up their own garden. It will be a *lot*, *lot* of work, and they will live in very harsh conditions, maybe for generations, but eventually their gardens will grow enough that they will be able to climb above subsistence agriculture and direct a part of their time and energy into recreating more complex forms of society, luxuries, technologies, etc.
And then there will be another global war...
You can also take a look at this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Source_Ecology>
[Answer]
The first step in your path to rebuilding the world [would have to be planting a crap load of trees.](http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/sequestration.htm) the reason being is that trees are a hell of a lot better at [Carbon sequestration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration) than other plants. While I will leave the exact species up to you, the type of tree used would preferably grow quickly and live for a long time. You can use the tree in [this ad](http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20355714,00.html) as a prime example of what you want. I don't actually know how long it would take for this strategy to pay off, but with the new forests growing I would say anywhere from 150 to 200 years (coincidentally this is roughly the amount of time it took us to screw Earth up).
The biggest problem might be replacing entire ecosystems and habitats and cleaning up land pollution. If we want a healthy world we will have to get rid of the [270,000 tons of garbage on our oceans.](http://www.newsweek.com/there-are-270000-tons-plastic-garbage-floating-atop-worlds-oceans-290886) Furthermore, since [the world has 2.6 trillion pounds of garbage](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/26-trillion-pounds-of-garbage-where-does-the-worlds-trash-go/258234/) that used to be generated annually, and much of that was not bio-degradable (e.g. Plastic) the remnants of humanity will have a heck of a time cleaning that up. And that is not even factoring in the amount of garbage our panicking, collapsing societies made directly before the great fall.
It will take many years to regrow some of the extinct animals. The average lifespan of a lion is 10-14 years. The average for an elephant is between 30 and 70 years. These animals and other large animals like them will be endangered for at least a hundred to two hundred years.
While I am not a mathematician I could probably safely say that to clean the atmosphere and build a basic regional ecosystem would take around 300 to 1000 years.
[Answer]
Note: for the purposes of this answer, I have assumed *no* tech remains. If you do have tech surviving, then many of these steps will be easier.
There seem to me to be a number of steps that you must go through to rebuild a planet.
# 1. Water
Water is the most basic human requirement and without it everyone dies very quickly. The first priority is to find a source of fresh water that people can drink. I do hope your apocalypse wasn't nuclear or this is going to be very hard.
# 2. Food
Food is the next requirement: while you can survive longer without food than you can without water, you're quickly going to need some to be able to keep rebuilding. Look for old stashes, if there are any: anything in a tin will have kept. As soon as possible you want to start getting some basic farming going. Fishing will also be a good option, especially if you're near the sea.
# 2.5: Tools
Tools are also fairly essential. To open tins and kill things to eat you're going to need some, even if it's just a sharp bit of rock. Start your search for tools quickly, preferably at the same time that someone else is out looking for food.
# 3. Shelter
Start building. You need somewhere to survive. If you're already in a cave you're in a fairly good way, but you might want to consider partially blocking entrances to keep warmth in. The more people in one shelter, the better, as it will be warmer inside. However, caves can't sustain you forever and you're going to need to start building other shelter soon, but that requires wood.
# 4. Start Growing
Trees, plants, food, start growing it. You'll need them all to survive, and many plants we think of as useless do actually have very useful functions in a survival situation: nettles can be used as string for bows and you can make tea from them (though that may be a while off yet). Trees will be essential for building better shelters in the future.
# 5. Start Exploring
Now that your camp is reasonably well set up and sustaining itself, get a team out every day, exploring the surrounding landscape. They should look for:
* Food sources
* Water sources
* Better shelters
* Raw materials
* Other people
You've got a good setup for your little group, so you can now try to make contact with other groups of survivors. There might be one 2 miles over the hill; your explorers should find them. Any lost souls you find, you can take in: you should have some surplus food and water, and it strengthens your group.
# 6. Start Building
This should now be several years down the line, where you have food, water and materials stored up. You can now start building: homes for people, storerooms so your cave and homes aren't so cramped. As you get new materials in, invest them in building to last - you want what you build to survive as long as possible so you don't have to expend materials repairing it.
# 7. Start Innovating
This is even more years down the line. You should have a permanent camp set up and teams going out every day to get food, water and materials. Set up another team or few at camp to start making things that might be useful for you:
* New tools
* New storage methods
* Methods of communication
Obviously we're not talking about radios and all that yet (unless you *happen* to have the materials and engineers - but they're still pointless unless someone else has one), but any way of getting your voices heard further and further away. Perhaps a primitive voice amplifier? Go up to the top of the nearest hill and shout. See if you get any responses.
# 8. Join Forces
Your group is now strong. You should be looking out for other groups and other lone survivors so you can join up with them. You want to get more and more people together, because then you can start rebuilding *civilization*.
---
I should also note that in most of these steps, you're going to need more and more advanced tools than the last. You might want to set up a team of engineers at base to make you new tools.
[Answer]
Okay, I'll bite; your world is crispy and (mostly) barren, but you can go outside and wander around as long as you brought a picnic. And you have the ability to rebuild life. Sounds super ideal for those struggling with terraforming Mars, for example.
**Step One: Soil**
You need soil to grow most things, and this is going to be a big struggle - I think people dreaming up terraforming Mars (for example) downplay its importance and difficulty. You'll find some, if you dig deep around and hydroponics, etc. will help at the beginning. Get your bugs and worms making soil from any organic matter and rocks that you can find.
**Step Two: Create Ecosystem(s)**
An ecosystem doesn't happen overnight, but I can give you one example where it worked quickly. In Abu Dhabi (where I work), a very desert climate, they were able to unintentionally establish (unstable) ecosystems just out of landscaping and forestry projects: the plants were fed oasis or aquifer water, and later desalination. Within 5 years, the palms and gaff trees, etc., were somewhat mature, bringing bugs, then birds, and later non-migratory birds and small predators.
Find a series of locations to do this more regionally: pine trees and associated flora & fauna in higher elevations, tropical ecosystems in rain shadows and tropics. Continue your pilot projects, but don't bring back the mosquito, please.
The things that thrive best will expand outward until they reach their biological limitations. *Document everything.*
**Step Three: Agriculture**
Presumably your small bubbles of people have the means to make their food just for them, and the conditions are ready for them to venture out. Take your soil-production facilities and start finding the best land for agriculture. Don't get too hasty on the livestock, but focus on your staple foods that grow fast and in abundance (and can make alcohol out of...): rice, wheat, and so on.
**Step Four: Infrastructure**
With agriculture and ecosystems, populations can start growing more stably. Time to build your bigger power plants (hopefully renewables this time), water collection & storage, wastewater treatment, recycling. You don't have wood, but you can make concrete-block housing and buildings; hire your urban planner right about during this step.
[Answer]
Since the answers upthread have lots of detail I will only elaborate on two points:
1. Gathering water can be done using large "fog catchers", such as is done in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Small amounts of moisture accumulated over a long period will serve to moderate microclimates and make planting more successful in at least designated areas.
2. Planting will have to be dine much differently. A company called Afforestt (<http://afforestt.com/index.html>) uses a high density planting and cultivation technique to generate dense and self sustaining forests in a short period of time (most dramatic is the claim their technique will do in a few decades what takes almost a millennium to occur in nature.)
While it is questionable if this claim would work in the environment you describe, even areas where the forest dies injects biomatter into the environment, and a simplified ecology of moss, lichen and fungus might still survive, creating a patch of soil for the next attempt.
The best way to do about this would be to create very small colonies of plants and animals, more like carefully tended gardens than forests, and allow them to gradually spread out around the edges. As time passes, more of these garden spots can be planted in a checkerboard pattern, infilling the empty squares as they become self sustaining and the micro (and eventually macro) climates moderate.
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I assumed climate change - global warming. Any other apocalypse would have different effect on Earth and different way to fix it.
Naturally, it will take some 10K-15K years to bind most of the CO2 from atmosphere to rocks. I will dig up link later.
After sea level increase of about 200 feet (70 meters) in about 500-700 years, most of humanity cities (which are most often close to sea - advantage for trading) would be devastated by sea water, together with big part of agricultural land. Increased temperature will shift livable zones (equatorial areas would be practically unlivable).
Increased acidity of water will topple ecological balance: many small creatures will not be able to build shell (it would dissolve - small organisms have bigger ratio of surface to volume) and **food pyramid in oceans would collapse. Algae and jellyfish would benefit.**
Introducing extinct species will not help if they cannot survive in more acidic water.
It took millions of years in carboniferous period to bind all that carbon from atmosphere to coal, oil and gas. Any **idea that we can save planet by just planting few trees is delusional:** you will need to bury them underground for millions of years to repeat the results.
Restoring delicately balanced ecosystem is hard. Part of the problem is that we do not understand all the relationships, and not all species are easy to preserve and breed to populate newly opened niches. Most are not.
Another cause of problems might be forgetting to introduce natural enemies of a species, like rabbits in Australia, or [asian carp in Missisippi](http://www.nps.gov/miss/naturescience/ascarpover.htm). Without population control, any species can dominate ecosystem. Every insect has parasitic wasp living off it. So you need to introduce them all.
Our attempt to fix just much simpler limited ecology in [Biosphere 2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2) failed miserably.
I would not bet that in 20K years we will have our current Earth back - it is unlikely.
One of the problems would be that even if we can create animals, we cannot recreate the communities they lived in, their "culture". Say elephants, or orcas, or bonobos. Those are smart animals, they rely on more than bare instincts.
Another one of those answers of mine where people downvote it because do not like facts mentioned. Yup, if we screw it is THIS bad. Unless you allow to apply magic and/or magical thinking.
Say aliens collected human DNA, PC and wikipedia. They created babies, get them potty trained. Why babies don't get on PC and read the wikipedia? What aliens missed?
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This brings to mind Sid Meyer's Civilization II game that has been running for more than ten years, and then posted as a save file, spawning a subreddit. Some people have picked up the challenge of ending it on a happy note.
<http://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/comments/1os2g4/4300_71_years_world_peace_part_1/> is a good example.
Really, how life rebuilds is entirely dependent on what happened. If it's nuclear warfare, think upwards (gravity'll draw radioactive particles down). If it's global astral strike, or solar conflagration, dig down (but not straight down).
So, likely resources:
* there will be a decided lack of wood. All trees will be vaporized, burnt, withered, rotted, or dissolved. The next best thing would be bones, of which there should be enough of to start carving into rock. If building upwards, the lack of wood is even more annoying: you have to climb down every time.
* Water: Humans can go three days without water. If needed for any reason, we can filter our own urine to drink.
* Food: Humans can go three weeks without food. If digging down, get used to eating moles.
* Air: *IF FOR ANY REASON WE SUDDENLY LACK AIR, WE DIE IN THREE SECONDS.*
In any case, a key to survival would be **mosses**.
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